86. The #1 Mistake Parents Make When Tracking Feeding Progress
My new app - Food Hopper - goes on presale next week! Get early access to presale by joining the email or text waitlist!
Text: Send the word HOP to (303) 219-3393 or visit www.foodhopper.co/text
Email: Visit www.foodhopper.co to join the email waitlist
If you’ve been trying to expand your child’s diet and it feels like nothing is changing, this episode is for you. We’ll unpack why progress with food can feel invisible, what real food wins look like, and how to start noticing and celebrating every step — even when your child doesn’t eat the new food yet.
You’ll learn why tracking exposures can transform your perspective, and how progress builds quietly, one small interaction at a time.
If you're looking for more support in expanding your child's diet, join us inside the Nourishing Autism Collective at www.nourishingautism.co !
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TRANSCRIPT
Hi, I'm Brittyn, a Registered Dietitian and autism sibling. I have a passion for helping parents of neurodivergent kids navigate nutrition and wellness for their child, one small step at a time. Here we'll explore practical nutrition tips, learn from top autism experts, break down the newest research, and share inspirational stories that will empower you to utilize nutrition to help your child feel their best and thrive.
Listen in while picking kids up from school, sitting in a therapy waiting room, taking a quick walk or wherever you find yourself, looking for some inspiration and a friend to guide you along this journey. This is Nourishing Autism.
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Nourishing Autism Podcast. I am Brittyn Coleman, the Autism Dietitian, and we have got an episode ahead of us. I'm excited to chat to you, help you understand the number one feeding mistake that you may be making.
If you're not feeling like you're making any kind of progress with your child's diet and expanding their diet and getting more nutrition into their diet. I hope to help you have a mindset shift at the end of this episode so that you can understand the biggest mistake that I would guess most people are making.
Now, before we hop into that, I did wanna share that my new app, Food Hopper, that I've been talking to all so much about, if you follow me on social media, you will have seen me talking about this app because I am just so psyched. To finally be able to share it with you. And while the app is going to be available for download in January, we are doing a presale for Black Friday so that you can log in a mega discounted rate .
The presale is going to go live on Monday the 24th, this coming Monday to the wait list, and it's going to go live to the public next Friday, which is Black Friday. We already have about a thousand people on the wait list.
You can either opt in to text or email and we will notify you whenever it goes live. We are going to be offering 50% off of the annual price to Food Hopper, as well as a limited number of lifetime memberships.
First come first serve, we expect those to sell out. So if you want to be the first to be notified whenever the presale goes live and get early access on Monday, you can go to food hopper.co and sign up for the wait list there. Or you can text hop HOP to (303) 219-3393
And you can opt into text messages and we will text you as soon as the presale opens .
If you're not familiar with Food Hopper, basically what it is, is an app to help you track, log and expand your child's food list. Not only can you track exposures of new foods and how they interacted with that new food, but you can also track the foods that they're currently eating.
The foods that they are learning to like the foods they used to like The foods you want them to like. You can also learn new food ideas based on your child's current favorites and based on their sensory profile. So we have an algorithm that will help recommend foods based on your child's sensory needs and the foods they love, so that you can introduce foods that are going to be more likely to be successful.
Having success with introducing new foods is multifactorial, so we wanna make sure that you have all of the different moving pieces, the right foods that are going to be more likely to be successful for your child, and that you're introducing those particular foods in the right way.
Now let's hop into the episode now. One thing that most people are doing is measuring feeding success incorrectly. So if you've been working really hard to introduce new foods and you just feel like nothing's working, you are totally not alone because most of the conventional picky eating approaches are not going to be tailored to kids with sensory sensitivities.
Or who are neurodivergent. And so when we start following these very like traditional picky eating approaches, we start measuring success in the wrong way. And when we measure our success by those metrics, we lose sight of it all. It is not the correct way to be measuring progress. And when we start measuring progress.
In the right way. For kids who are selective eaters, who are neurodivergent on the Autism spectrum, have ARFID. When we start measuring success the right way, you are gonna realize that you are making so much more progress than you realize. You're just not viewing it through the correct lens.
Now, what most people are doing is measuring, feeding success by if their child. Eats the food or not, or even tries. It takes a bite. We are measuring success by this very black and white metric of like, did they eat it? Yes, we are successful. Did they not eat it? No, we were not successful. And the problem with that is that there are so many steps leading up to eating a food that enable us to actually unlock the ability.
To eat that food, oftentimes from a sensory perspective to have success. And if we miss all of those different steps, there are about 30 of them. If we are missing those steps, then we are not going to have the groundwork to help set us up to the point where we can chew. And swallow a food successfully.
Eating is going to be the final step in a long process of trust building and sensory exposure to get us to that point.
I think a lot of times people feel like they're just starting back at square one every single time they introduce a food because they're just trying to get their kid to eat something. They don't eat it, and then they stop trying and then a couple weeks later they try to introduce it again and no success.
So it just feels like you're restarting your progress all of the time, which can feel so exhausting. And a lot of people are, of course you're gonna give up because when you feel like you're not making progress, it's like, what's the point? Right.
I want you to shift your mindset and realize that progress is anything that brings your child closer to comfort with food, not just chewing and swallowing. It's the small moments that really add up. And there's a lot of different stages that I want to talk you through. So you may know I run a membership.
Site for parents of children on the Autism spectrum that are looking to expand their diet, improve their child's gut health, and optimize their nutrition and supplements called the Nourishing Autism Collective. And one of the resources that we have inside is called the Sensory Ladder for Selective Eating.
And basically what this ladder does is help guide you and understand how kids with sensory sensitivities gradually build comfort and confidence with foods. So it starts from the very bottom. I want you to imagine a ladder and working all your way up to the top. So at the very bottom, we just have learning, learning about a food.
At the very, very top we have eating. So all of the steps that happen in between. Tolerating a food in front of you, not even touching it, just tolerating it in your space, interacting with the food. That doesn't even mean touching it. It means that you could be using a utensil or something else to interact with the food, smelling the food, touching the food, tasting the food, and then finally eating.
Now you can take each of those big stages and break it down into even smaller stages. So. The way that I like to imagine this is like we have our at a distance involvement, which involves learning and tolerating a food. We have our more involved stage, which is interacting with a food, smelling a food, and touching a food.
And then you have your most involved stage where you are tasting a food and you're eating a food. And within each of those three stages. At a distance, more involved and most involved. You have like a spectrum of different ways that you can interact with that food to help you feel more comfortable and confident because the name of the game in diet expansion and Autism is feeling comfort and trust with the food.
And that doesn't start with eating the food typically. This may mean hearing about a food in a song or in a show, or seeing it in a video. Oftentimes, there can be interest in a food just because one of their favorite cartoon characters tries it or eats it or talks about it. Now, back in like 2016 or 2017, Pokemon Go was released and my brother and I would play Pokemon Go all the time together. A, it was so much fun, but B, it gave us a great chance to connect. If you're not familiar with my brother, his name is Barrett, he's 30 and he's on the Autism spectrum, and so sometimes finding a.
Common topic that we both love is difficult. Uh, we both grew up loving Pokemon. I had all the cards and all of the things. I had a Pokedex, like I loved it and so did he. And so this was a fun thing that we could connect on because it felt nostalgic for us both, and it got us outside and got him moving.
Now, if you've never played Pokemon Go, you can feed Pokemon in different foods. To help them be easier to catch. And one of those things was a raspberry and Barrett has never been interested in raspberries because of the like sensory experience of raspberries. But because he was feeding all these Pokemon raspberries, we started talking about them a lot and he was like, you know what?
I actually wanna try them again. So we went and bought some raspberries and he tried them and ended up really liking them. And it was because they felt familiar and introduced in a way that felt very non-threatening and. From a sensory perspective, they weren't even around him.
It started with an idea and that idea became comfortable, and as that became comfortable, then we were able to have it in person and gradually work him up to eating the food. Now, for him, it happened pretty quickly, but for kids who have severe sensory sensitivities or ARFID. That process can take a long time.
And having a food at a distance can be really helpful to lay that like groundwork to help the food feel less threatening. So again, seeing on TV on a screen can be a really great way to introduce the idea. There are actually YouTube videos that you can look up of people cutting fruits and vegetables.
That it's like the A SMR that can be really actually kind of cool to watch. And they even have people who are cutting, you know, those wooden like fruits and vegetables, um, that you can buy your toddler. They have those too. And sometimes just introducing that idea can be a good idea before you move into actually cutting the.
Actual fruit and vegetables. From there, it would gradually advance to having the food in the room, having the food on the table, and anytime that you notice that your child is starting to feel uncomfortable or dysregulated, that tells us that we need to back off. But measuring those little. Pieces of success.
Again, if we can't have the food in the room, why are we measuring success by trying to get them to eat the food? That just makes no sense. And by that benchmark, you are never having success. So when we start measuring success by these small sensory wins.
That's where you're going to start to make the progress to where we are working, all the way up to eating the food. Now as we start to get into the more involved stage where they're interacting and smelling and touching.
This is where maybe they pretend to eat the food during play or they assist in the preparation and set up a food and using utensils. To stir something, or maybe it doesn't have to be like a spoon. It could also be like a salad spinner where they're clicking the button and spinning the food to dry it off, which does feel fun for a lot of kids.
We can always buy like kid friendly food prep materials as well, like different knives and um, allow them to be a part of the food prep in whatever feels comfortable to them. This can be assisting with grocery shopping, touching the food. You can be talking about these foods at the grocery store and pointing them out.
Maybe we add them to the cart, maybe we don't. Then this progresses eventually to touching the food with their fingers, their hand playing with the food, like squishing it or poking it, or making food art to eventually like touching the food to their chin or nose. Now I know that this can be very clinical, like very feeding therapy oriented.
If you're like, okay, now touch the food to your chin, touch the food to your mouth, like that is not what we're talking about here, and that's what your feeding therapist may be doing because a lot of what I do is of course integrated from feeding therapy, but we are taking this back and we are making this fun and like the real life use of this.
So, for example, my son. You still have pasta and then all of a sudden he was like, Nope, no more pasta for me. So we went quite a while without having any pasta in this diet and you know that I was bringing it back in rotation, but it was just not something that he was interested in trying. Now. When I pulled back from the expectation of eating the food, like that's where he was pulling back to, okay, where are we now?
So I assessed where he was with pasta. Is he okay with it on his plate? Yes. Is he okay with him like moving it around with his fork on his plate?
Yes. Smelling it. No problem. So touching is that next step where he's like more involved with the food. So one thing that we did was build a tower. He's very into building towers. So we built a stack of pasta and I did this on my plate and he did it on his, never did I ask him to try a bite of it. We were only talking about, uh, building.
A tower. Well, while we were building our tower, I decided to get the silly idea that I was gonna put it on my nose and see if I could balance it. And I showed him, you know, look at this. I have this very funny idea. And I put it on my nose and I balanced it and it fell off. And we laughed and I tried it again.
It fell off and we laughed. And um, my son is three by the way. Then he was like, I wanna try it. So we put it on his nose and we were laughing at how much it was falling off. And that was the way that I got him to engage. That felt a little bit closer than just touching it with his fingers. We were being silly, putting it on our noses with no pressure to try.
Now did he try the food? No, but I was so excited that we had made it so far up this sensory ladder so that the next time I went to introduce it, we get to start there. We get to be like, oh my gosh. Remember last time whenever we put it on our noses? And that was so silly. The next time I put it on my nose and I tried to like, catch it in my mouth.
And of course, I don't know if you've ever done that, but it is pretty difficult actually. Um, but we were having a silly time of putting it on our noses and trying to catch it in our mouth. And one time I actually did catch it in my mouth and I showed him and then I chewed it and I swallowed it. And so when eventually he ended up licking it in the process and I was like, yes, small wins along the way.
Well, eventually he actually just on his own, put it in his mouth and chewed it and swallowed it and said, Hmm, pasta. And of course I was so excited that he ate and swallowed the pasta and he ended up eating a few more bites and we were able to eventually work that food back into his diet.
But. If I wouldn't have realized those small little wins along the way, and I just would've been frustrated the fact that he just wasn't eating it whenever I was asking him to take a bite, I would have missed that entire experience. Not only did I have a positive connection with my son, and that was silly, but.
He also eventually got up to eating on his own in a way that felt safe for him. Now, I'm not saying if you go and ask your child to put a piece of pasta on their nose, that all of a sudden he's gonna start eating like pasta by the handfuls. But I want you to remember that those small little things go really far and you can come up with those things on the spot to help you get a little bit further and further along in a way that feels.
Safe to your child. Now again, I wanna share whenever you start to notice any signs of dysregulation or things that. or signs that things are going south, I want you to pull back because that is not the experience that we want your child to have with food. We wanna make sure that we are putting as many items in the positive folder as possible.
When things start going negatively, we need to pull back and stop. Um, we also need to respect your child's sensory needs, of course. So. Right now if you're putting a food on your child's plate and it is immediately going on the floor and it's not funny, like they are throwing it on the floor because they're like, get that out of here.
That's a sign that we're starting too far in the process and we need to pull it back and work our way back up on those steps to eating. And so if you're needing assistance with that, I would definitely of course recommend checking out the sensory ladder inside of the Nourishing Autism Collective if you're already a member, and, uh, you can find that inside of our toolkit.
You're also welcome to join us if you are looking for support with that. Uh, I also am really excited. I've integrated this into Food Hopper and so when you are logging a new food exposure inside of the app, you will see that it asks you, how did your child experience this? And you choose at a distance more involved.
Most involved. And underneath each of those, you select how they interacted with it. And when you log that, then you also log, how did it go? And just by a smiley scale, it went great, fantastic. It did not go well. Or it went somewhere in the middle and you can log how it went. And when you log these foods it.
Them in different color gradients so that , you can see your progress at a glance of like how many times you've introduced a food. It will show you the little dots and like if you've introduced it five times, it'll show you five little dots. And depending on if you were added distance, more involved and most involved, you'll be able to see that color gradient and so you can see the growth over time and be able to measure how it's going so that you can track your progress and gradually expand how your child is interacting with that food in a way that feels safe to them. Again, I just can't wait to get this app into your hands. I know that this is gonna help hundreds, if not thousands of families learn how to expand their child's diet and log food exposures so that you can keep track of this, because it's also really hard to keep track of all of the different food exposures that your child has had over time so that you can continue adding to that and building it.
In laying that groundwork so that you have successful food exposures that are helping your child move toward more nutrients to help them feel great and thrive, and you're starting with the right foods. So again, if you're not already on the wait list, be sure to hop on the wait list for Food Hopper, and you can do that either through foodhopper.co or by texting the word Hop to (303) 219-3393, and you will be the first to be notified whenever the presale opens for Food Hopper. Again, we will have 50% off of annual memberships as well as a limited number of extremely discounted lifetime memberships that we will never offer again.
And if you want to also be getting the inside scoop on Food Hopper as I'm developing it and also see a little bit more about what the app looks like and get a little tutorial, you can go to my Instagram Autism Dietitian and join the broadcast channel there on my page.
I have it on my phone right now. It's. Not available for download. Um, but on Friday morning I will be doing an Instagram live to walk you through all of the features and, uh, for you all to see inside of the app. Thank you so much again for joining in this week of the Nourishing Autism Podcast. Next week is Thanksgiving, and I will have a little mini episode for you, just giving you a little bit of a pep talk, because I think we all need a little pep talk when we're going into Thanksgiving in the first place.
But also having a child who is a selective eater and going into Thanksgiving in an unfamiliar routine with people. May not spend all of their time with, and maybe people who have good intentions when they're sharing some picky eating tips with you.
So, join me next week on the Nourishing Autism Podcast for a quick little pep talk and you can also be accessing the presale for Food Hopper around that time as well. Thanks so much everybody, and I will chat with you next week.
Transcribed by Descript
About Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD
Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD, is a distinguished Registered Dietitian and Autism Nutrition Expert, known for her innovative, sensory-friendly feeding approach to nutrition for children on the autism spectrum. As the founder of the Nourishing Autism Collective, and as an autism sibling herself, Brittyn brings both professional expertise and personal understanding to her work. She empowers families with her expert guidance, helping children receive essential nutrients for optimal health and development. Her strategies are tailored to the unique dietary needs and sensory preferences of each child.
Brittyn's influence extends beyond her membership site through her active social media presence and her popular podcast, 'Nourishing Autism'. Her educational content on Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms has established her as a leading voice in autism nutrition, providing valuable resources, practical advice, and a supportive community for parents and professionals.
