Overview of Responsive Feeding

Responsive Feeding

Responsive feeding emphasizes recognizing and responding to the hunger or fullness cues of an infant or young child and helps young children learn how to self-regulate their intake and is recommended as part of Health Canada’s Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations from Six to 24 Months - Canada.ca. Responsive feeding involves communication between the caregiver and the child (baby uses facial and vocal expressions, waits for response, caregiver reads and responds to the baby’s signals, which serves as a return signal for the baby to read) that encourage the child to develop preferences for healthy foods and beverages and to eat autonomously (Pérez-Escamilla 2021).

To help support parents to feed responsively, Health Canada’s Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations from Six to 24 Months - Canada.ca provides some examples of signs infants and young children may show for hunger and fullness.  

To avoid under- or overfeeding, parents and caregivers need to be sensitive to the hunger and satiety cues of infants and young children. Responsive feeding (PAHO, 2003; Engle & Pelto, 2011):

* Allows the child to guide feeding
* Balances helping with encouraging self-feeding, in a way that is appropriate for the child's level of development
* Involves eye contact and positive verbal encouragement, but not verbal or physical coercion
* Uses eating utensils that are age-appropriate, as well as culturally appropriate
* Responds to early hunger and satiety cues
* Minimizes distractions during meals and feedings
* Takes place in a comfortable and safe environment
* Is sensitive to the child, including changes in the child's physical and emotional state
* Offers different food combinations, tastes, and textures

Adapted from Health Canada's Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations from Six to 24 Months on Responsive Feeding.

Caregivers who practice responsive feeding:

• Are less likely to minimize or devaluate their children’s negative emotional expressive state or may use a problem-focused strategy to deal with children’s negative emotions by helping children to solve the problem that caused distress (Fernandes 2023)
• Can help their child achieve adequate weight gain and a lower incidence of overweight/obesity during the first two years of life (Bergamini 2022).