Why Is My Baby Spitting Food Out?
It's completely normal and common to see your baby take a bite of food only to have it spit back out. This can be frustrating for parents, raising concerns about whether your baby is eating enough or if they might have trouble swallowing. However, for most babies and toddlers, spitting food out is not only common, but also an essential part of the learning process. In fact, it rarely means that your baby doesn’t like the food.
Understanding the Spitting Process: More Than Just Chewing and Swallowing
Learning how to eat is a complex process that involves a range of skills. Babies need to identify the food, visually engage with it, and develop hand-eye coordination to get it into their mouths. Once in the mouth, there are even more skills to master—such as chewing and swallowing—which require both oral motor skills and sensory awareness.
Mature chewing involves moving the tongue to properly chew and break down food, guiding it to the center of the tongue, and swallowing. This requires significant practice and motor development, which is why babies sometimes spit out food to inspect it or move it around in their mouth. They are still learning how to chew and swallow effectively.
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