At the beginning of complementary feeding, many families start with porridge and purees, but you can also offer the baby solid foods appropriate to their age. In any case, sooner or later children end up chewing food.
And one of the reasons why it is not advisable to extend infant food based on porridge is that chewing is important for good language development.
This is so because by chewing we start up multiple movements involved in articulating the sounds of language. And, although we are not aware of it, by talking we put into operation many muscles.
The tongue, the lips, the veil of the palate ... move in multiple ways to be able to emit the different sounds of the language, and they do it in a fast and coordinated way, forming multiple combinations.
If a child "practices" oral movements when chewing, those muscles acquire mobility, strength, coordination ... which will have a positive impact on the articulation of words.
There may be some physical or psychological problem so that the phonetic joint does not evolve normally, but the usual thing is that the process is gradual and complete, acquired naturally, with the necessary stimuli. Among them, chewing.
The precision and strength with which we speak also depend somewhat on the "practice" and the skill with which, since childhood, children begin to say their first syllables, their first words. As we say, chewing helps make this complex process possible.
It also helps to multiply the buccal movements the passage of the bottle to the cup, so that this change (there are babies who do not get to use the bottle) also should not be left too far ahead (also because the teats carry some problems if they are used for a long time weather).
When they grow up, we can help them with vocalization exercises to improve their pronunciation, it is something that even adults can do for that purpose (lengthen vowels, practice with tongue twisters, talk with a pencil between the teeth, read aloud ...).
But long before that, the mouth has to be prepared and chewing is an ally of good language development. Therefore, if your child has not left the porridge, it may be a good time to start exploring solids ...
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In Babies and more | Breastfeeding and language, Decalogue of tips to start complementary feeding, How to feed a baby using “Baby-led Weaning”
