Messy food play with infants

What is messy food play?

Messy food play is a way of supporting children to explore different smells or tastes through play.

The focus is on exploring food in a positive way, offering your child some control around food and having opportunities to explore food without pressure. It is important to follow your child’s cues. If they show that they are not enjoying this or have lost interest, stop. The focus is on having fun.

Who can benefit from messy food play?

Messy food play can benefit:

• Babies or children who are tube fed and ready to start introducing food into their diet
• Babies or children who have had lots of negative experience around their face and mouth, this might include children with a history of being sick or lots of medical interventions
• Children who have a restricted diet and will only eat certain textures or a small range of foods

Some children can benefit from messy play opportunities before introducing messy food play. You can find information on how to understand your child’s sensory needs on our sensory service website.

How to do messy food play

Choose a time separate from mealtimes and make sure your child is in supportive seating, such as highchair with a tray.

• Put some puree on a tray for them to explore
• Model exploring the puree together
• Put hard plastic toys in the puree to explore, such as teethers
• Follow your child’s lead during play
• Explore the food together and participate in play. We need to model the play to the child before expecting the child to copy.
• If your child is happy with this, offer a swipe of puree with your finger on your child’s lips.

Do not put anything in their mouth. It is important for them to feel in control.

Finish on a positive note. If your child starts to lose interest, then stop.

Some children can find it easier to start with drier textures before moving onto wetter textures.

Top tips

• Keep it positive
• Keep this separate from mealtimes
• The focus is upon exploring foods rather than your child eating or tasting the food
• Follow your child’s lead

If your child has a feeding plan it is important to make sure the food they are offered is safe for them to manage. Make sure that food is offered in line with the speech and language therapy team’s guidance on textures.

Remember the hierarchy towards acceptance of new foods:

1. Look, first we need to be okay to look or be in the same room as that food
2. Smell, then we need to be okay about the smell of that food
3. Touch
4. Taste
5. Eating a new food

It can take time at each stage and foods may need to be introduced multiple times at each level before moving onto the next stage or food.