As a modern busy parent, I’m all about making life easier and less stressful. Pouches are a time saver and they’re great for 10-20% of the time when you’re trying to juggle 20 things at once plus get your little person fed.
Here are a few reasons why I believe pouches need to take a back seat.
EATING FOOD WITH A SPOON
- Allows your baby to experience real foods with real flavours and textures.
- Helps your babe learn to eat and chew.
- Learning to self-feed contributes directly to motor skills and to the development of hand-mouth and hand-eye coordination.
- Encourages development of oral muscles required for speech and vital early verbal skills.
- Allows your baby to learn important lifetime eating habits such as taking breaks between bites and understanding their body cues when full.
- Encourages quality & fun time between you and your baby at mealtimes
- Your babe is learning to celebrate and enjoy food by experiencing a variety of flavours, aromas, textures, and colour.
- Reduced risk of choking.
- Helps your babe become a healthy and adventurous eater for life.
SUCKING FOOD FROM A POUCH
- Prevents the presence of soft chunks to encourage chewing as well as jaw muscle development.
- Can have a detrimental effect on speech development and teeth formation.
- Pouches remove the ability for children to have fun with food, children develop fine motor skills when they pick up their food and play with it.
- Most food pouches offer a mix of different fruits and vegetables, so your little person doesn't learn what the individual foods taste like on their own.
- As the food can’t be seen, this makes it difficult for your babe to understand portion control, which can lead to overeating.
- Reduces the important interaction between you and your babe at mealtimes.
- Increased risk of tooth decay due to constant exposure of sugar on the teeth.
- Most pouches are bad for the environment. The packaging ends up in landfill.