While I am not a certified feeding therapist…or any type of therapist for that matter… I am a Mama of 5. Out of my 5 children only 1 did not have any real issues with food, and he was the one with food allergies as a baby… go figures.

So while I lack professional credibility I do have a lot of real life credibility.

My youngest is a bit neuro spicy and food can be a challenge.  When he was small he would eat just about anything.  Now not so much.  The dinner table was starting to feel more like a battle ground and I became deeply concerned over his nutritional intake.

I worked with actual professionals to figure out how to bridge the gap when needed.

I then started experimenting on my own to find ways to make food feel more accessible to him. Bonus it also works on my older kids who are not as limited but could have aome more exposure to food.

Food videos. For my neurodivergent child I found calm videos worked the best. My older kids love a good Chopped style video but I found for my littest they were overstimulating.

What started as trying to find a soothing video during into the bridge to trying some more food.

This is the video that made me realize the power food videos could have. 

This video is from Sivens Kitchen. A simple orange cake video. Roof of one of the videos we watch when wet need to go into calm down mode.

Tonight something incredible happened.  My child walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and pulled out the orange.  He then said to me wash and scrub your peel you’ll be using it. This was one of the things from the instructions to prepare the orange for the cake. I washed the orange and sliced it. I was then asked to slice it differently, to match the cut orange from the video.

So I did.

Did my child eat the orange right away. No.  It sat on my counter for a little bit. He kept looking at it and walking away.

Then the magic happened. He picked up a piece, smelled it, licked it then tasted it. He then tried to juice a few pieces ( he helped his siblings make juice over the summer and remembers doing that). He then sat with the orange and ate at least half offering me some to eat too…and you bet I happily accepted even the half juiced pieces to eat with him.

As I mentioned I am not a feeding therapist but I believe this worked for a reason. He was exposed to this food is a calm way. He saw the video while snuggling with his Mom. He associated the orange with comfort. Because he has repeatedly seen this video it was familiar.  It created a bridge for him to actually try it.

This has worked with other foods as well with varying success.  He has watched baking videos and asked to help bake. Sometimes trying the food…sometimes not.  But he wanted to participate.  To a neuro typical person this may not seem lile that big of a deal. However for someone who is neurodivergent cooking and baking comes with a lot of different sensory experiences and rules. Strong smells or textures.  Rules about what to touch what not to touch.  Waiting for food to be prepared. 

Exposure is incredibly important for safely expanding what someone will eat, especially a neurodivergent child (or adult for that matter) .

Never look at food exposure as a waste. It is important to keep exposing them..it is not a waste ot is an investment into a broader range of food accepted.