Tongue thrusting is a symptom, not a problem. If you do not hunt down the cause of this problem, it will get worse. Digestive tract harm is serious. You must prevent it from happening.
The digestive tract begins in the mouth and ends at the anus. Anything odd around this area is due to food or medicine put into the mouth.
Infants have a natural reaction to digestive tract distress: They thrust out their tongues.
You absolutely must isolate this food, ingredient, or medication in order to STOP using it.
Signs of distress around the mouth include tongue thrusting, turning away from a spoonful of food, odd movement of the mouth, a distressed look on the face, dislike of a certain food, and logical behaviors.
I know tons of people have “tricks” to get babies and children to eat poor quality food. But we do not want our children to eat poor quality food. Let’s use these natural reactions to help guide us away from this food.
We must encourage children to build their awareness of foods they eat, so they associate the way they feel when they eat with the food. Many adults have grown up ignoring their body’s reaction to foods because their parents were fooled by all the instructions to coax a baby to eat (poor quality commercial food).
If you grew up like this, you can start trying various foods individually to reorient your taste buds, brain, and body. It is natural to have a reaction to the smell or initial taste of a food that does not suit your body, but it has been a long time since you were a baby! Be kind to your adult body. Give it as much love as you would to your child. What feeds your body and makes you feel healthy?
Many adults need to gently reorient their own gut microbiomes by introducing natural probiotic foods (these contain prebiotics, too) as they take away foods that feed yeast overgrowth (in both sexes) and other problems of a lifetime. I’ll post more on this later.
Babies and children love to eat! When they do not want to eat something, this is our first clue that something is wrong with the food.
Of course, babies raised on commercial formula (as opposed to homemade formula) will have an unhealthy microbiome with yeast overgrowth, so they will crave sugars. In this case, we shift their diets to include natural probiotic foods and nutrient-dense foods until a healthy biome takes root.
Beware of foods marketed for children such as “toddler milk,” protein supplements, powdered greens (high in heavy metals and additives), various cereals, raisins (grapes are heavily sprayed), peanut and nut butters (the crops are usually heavily sprayed and moldy), crackers, and Luncheable-type foods.
Happy eating!