Overview of Responsive Feeding
1 min read • By: Gerber Medical Hub
Quick summary
Learn about responsive feeding, including how to help parents understand their child’s hunger & fullness cues.
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 the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans (USDA 2020). 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, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020-2025 provide some examples (Table 1) of signs a child may show for hunger and fullness from birth to 5 months and from 6-23 months (USDA 2020).
Table 1: Signs a Young Child is Hungry or Full, Important Cues for Responsive Feeding.
Birth Through Age 5 Months
A child may be hungry if he or she:
- Puts hands to mouth.
- Turns head toward breast or bottle.
- Puckers, smacks or licks lips.
- Has clenched hands.
A child may be full if he or she:
- Closes mouth.
- Turns head away from breast or bottle.
- Relaxes hands.
Age 6 Through 23 Months
A child may be hungry if he or she:
- Reaches for or points to food.
- Opens his or her mouth when offered a spoon or food.
- Gets excited when he or she sees food.
- Uses hand motions or makes sounds to let you know he or she is still hungry.
A child may be full if he or she:
- Pushes food away.
- Closes his or her mouth when food is offered.
- Turns his or her head away from food.
- Uses hand motions or makes sounds to let you know he or she is still full
Why is responsive feeding the key approach across the different methods of complementary 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).
References
- Bergamini M, et al. Complementary Feeding Caregivers' Practices and Growth, Risk of Overweight/Obesity, and Other Non-Communicable Diseases: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. 2022 Jun 26;14(13):2646.
- Fernandes C, et al. Complementary Feeding Methods: Associations with Feeding and Emotional Responsiveness. Children (Basel). 2023 Feb 26;10(3):464.
