Why Responsive Feeding Works... and Why It’s So Hard

In the simplest of terms, Responsive Feeding is a concept created by Ellyn Satter, a registered dietician and family therapist who is internationally recognized for her work on eating and feeding. Responsive Feeding can be described as “The Parent Provides and The Child Decides.” It emphasizes quality of life and meaningful occupations, both key components to the occupational therapy framework.

In Responsive Feeding, the caregiver’s role is to:
·Offer the meal
·Decide on the menu
·Decide the when and where for the meal

The child’s role is to:
·Decide what to eat from what is served
·Decide how much to eat
·Decide when to stop eating

When children have difficulty eating, it isn’t easy to adopt a responsive feeding model, especially if you’ve been struggling for a while. It takes patience and requires development of sensory regulation skills and emotional support.

The Five Values of Responsive Feeding:

(from the white paper by Rowell, et al, 2021)

1. Autonomy - respect for the child’s agency and bodily boundaries, allowing them to be in control of their own actions. We allow the child to go at their own pace for food acceptance, which promotes intrinsic motivation.

2. Relationship - supportive, attuned connection between the caregiver and the child. The focus is on the social-emotional connection during the meal and not on the food being consumed.

3. Internal motivation - the child develops the desire to want to eat naturally, with no pressure, no bribing, and learns about the food naturally at their own pace.

4. Holistic approach - takes into consideration the family dynamics, the cultural norms, and the individual needs of the child.

5. Competence - builds resiliency and skills that last a lifetime.

Why is responsive feeding hard for parents to implement?

In looking closer at the relationship piece of responsive feeding, caregivers often struggle to give up control, resulting in power struggles at mealtimes. They often feel guilt and shame, along with feeling judged by other family members, other moms, and even their pediatricians for having a child who is struggling with eating or struggling to gain weight.

When a caregiver feels supported and not judged for their child’s eating, they can stop the power struggles.

The very BEST thing you can do to help your child start eating more is to stop pressuring them to eat.

Kids are naturally in touch with their hunger and fullness cues. Children learn about hunger and satiety through physical and emotional cues (e.g., tummy rumbling, fidgeting or crying).

When they don't get fed immediately after these cues, children stop trusting their cues.

If caregivers aren’t careful observers of their child’s hunger and satiety cues, they will often develop patterns of attempting to feed their children when they aren’t hungry and keep feeding them when they are full. The development of not trusting a child’s innate signals throws off the attentiveness to those signals, even for the child. This is also muddied by well-meaning adults and even medical professionals who mistakenly claim that “they’ll eat when they are hungry,” not realizing that the child has unlearned how to recognize their own hunger cues.

(I have a lot more to say about “they’ll eat when they are hungry,” so check out our blog post on this topic.)

Responsive feeding works because it takes away the stress and anxiety of controlling when and how much your child eats.

It's not about restricting portions or forcing your child to eat certain foods. Instead, it's about allowing them to self-regulate their hunger and fullness cues so they can take in what they need when they need it. It’s our responsibility as adults to learn to read our children’s cues and respect them.

How do we help you learn to read and respect your child’s feeding signals?

Our Feeding Packages were designed with you in mind. We combine 1:1 live coaching along with reviewing your videos of mealtimes. We watch and give specific feedback to teach you the actionable steps you can take to make mealtimes less stressful.

With our feeding packages, you can:

• Read your child’s cues better

• Reduce power struggles

• Set up mealtimes in your home for adventurous learning about food