From Squish to Spoon: What messy play can teach us about texture, food confidence, and learning to eat
The Nourish Approach grew from years spent preparing food, watching what happened when it reached children and wondering what those everyday moments might be telling us.
From my kitchen bench, overlooking a dining room of young toddlers and preschoolers, I began to notice that sometimes what looked like refusal might be something much more specific.
A child turns away from porridge but happily eats toast. Another manages plain pasta but pauses when the sauce is stirred through. A child eats bread with confidence but is unsure about cooked green vegetables. Another loves apple slices, crackers, rice cakes, or safely prepared crunchy vegetables, but becomes cautious around yoghurt, soup, mash, mince, avocado, banana, or anything soft and wet.
At first glance, it can be easy to file these moments under picky eating. I have certainly done that. But the longer I watched, the less satisfied I became with that explanation. Often, the child was not simply rejecting the food. I began to wonder whether something else was sitting underneath the refusal — an unarticulated thought, not yet available as words.
What is this going to feel like? Will it stay where I put it? Will it be smooth or lumpy? Will it move too quickly? Will it surprise me?
Some children are not yet speaking. Others have plenty of words, but not yet the words for what their body is trying to work out. “Yuck” might not mean “I hate this food.” It might mean, “That was colder than I expected,” or “the lump surprised me,” or “I don’t like the way this sticks to my fingers.”
I am not writing this as a feeding therapist or clinician. I am writing as someone who has spent many years in and around early learning kitchens, watching the relationship between children, food, adults, tables, rooms, routines, movement, language, and trust.
The kitchen gives you a particular kind of view. You see what is prepared with care, and then you see what happens when that food enters the life of the room. You notice which meals arrive calmly and which ones ask more of children. You notice the foods children recognise before they taste them. You notice how closely cautious eaters watch their friends. You notice how a child might ignore a food for weeks and then, one day, touch it, smell it, stir it, serve it, or take a tiny taste without any fanfare at all.
That noticing became part of a much bigger research, observation and reflection cycle for me. I was already deeply interested in food exploration and taste education, particularly the idea that children can meet food through sight, smell, sound, touch, language, memory and relationship before they are expected to eat it. That made sense from the kitchen. It explained some of what I could see happening at the table.
But the real breakthrough for me came from a slightly different direction. Our centre was engaged in Moving Smart training, and I remember studying one of their developmental movement milestone infographics. I was looking at rolling, crawling, sitting, standing, walking, balancing and climbing, and suddenly the dining room started to make more sense.
Eating is not just about the mouth. A child has to sit. They have to support their body. They have to feel where they are in space. They have to balance, reach, hold, scoop, bring food to the mouth, chew, move food around, swallow, breathe, and stay regulated enough to do all of this in a busy room. To throw some terminology into the pot, I had wandered into the world of postural control, balance, proprioception, vestibular processing, tactile sensitivity and oral-motor development. Or in plainer kitchen-bench language: the body has to feel organised enough before the mouth can confidently do its job.
This was the piece I had been missing. Very young babies begin with reflexes that help them feed and stay safe: rooting, sucking, swallowing, tongue thrust and gagging all have their place. Over time, those reflex-driven patterns gradually give way to more voluntary control. Babies lift and turn their heads, bring their hands to the middle, reach, roll, mouth objects, sit and balance. The mouth is not developing in isolation; it is developing alongside the whole moving body.
By the time a child is eating a wider range of textures, there is a lot going on. Head and trunk control matter. A stable sitting position matters. Reaching and grasping matter. Tongue and jaw movement matter. Being able to bring food to the mouth, move it around, chew it, manage it and stay settled enough to keep going all matters. I don’t say this to make mealtimes sound complicated. Most children develop these capacities in the ordinary course of living, moving, playing and eating. But it did help me understand why some children seemed to find certain textures such hard work.
Down this winding path, I began reading more about developmental movement, sensory processing, feeding development, texture acceptance and picky eating support. A little more digging, and of course, the connection was an actual thing. Not in a neat, “do this and this will happen” kind of way. More in the way early childhood usually works: many systems developing together, each influencing the other.
At the time, we had a couple of children who were not comfortable with squishy foods. In discussion with the team, we realised these same children were also uncomfortable with squishy play. At first, that distinction mattered to me. I was not looking at messy eating. I was looking at messy play: wet sand, gloop, clay, finger paint, mud, and the kinds of textures that cling, smear, spread, drip and change shape.
That was not a diagnosis. It was not a controlled study. It was not scientifically recorded. But it was a pattern worth respecting. So we worked together, not by pushing more food, turning lunch into a therapy session, or deciding these children needed to get over it, but by providing more supportive messy play opportunities. There were more tools, more time, more permission to watch, more chances to touch with a spoon before touching with a hand, more cloths nearby, more water for washing, and more invitations that did not require the child to perform.
Slowly, we began to see some movement. Not a miracle. Not a neat before-and-after story. But small changes: a child staying closer to wet play, touching a texture they had previously avoided, becoming less distressed by soft food, or showing a little more willingness around squishy textures at the table.
I want to be careful with this. This was anecdotal. It was practice-based observation, not formal research. We did not record baseline data, control for other variables, or prove cause and effect. But practice does not only move forward through formal studies. Sometimes it begins with careful noticing. A pattern appears, a question forms, we follow the question, and then we ask whether the research can help us understand what we have seen.
In this case, it did. The research did not prove my kitchen observations. It gave me better language for what I was noticing. It helped me understand that food refusal may sometimes be a sensory-motor communication, not simply a behavioural choice. It also helped me see why movement, texture, messy play, food preparation and respectful feeding all belong in the same conversation.
Why squish can ask more of a child
Adults often describe food through nutrition: protein, iron, fibre, vegetables, wholegrains, balance. Children meet food much more immediately. They meet colour, smell, shape, sound, temperature, pressure, texture, movement, memory and relationship.
This matters because when we misunderstand what the child may be responding to, we often choose the wrong response. We coax, explain, encourage, hide the vegetables, stir everything together and hope the child will not notice. But children notice. If texture is the question, pressure is rarely the answer.
Not all children prefer crunchy foods, and not all children dislike soft foods. Texture preference is shaped by age, development, oral-motor skill, sensory profile, familiarity, culture and experience. But for some children, crunchy or crisp foods can feel easier because they give clearer information. A cracker snaps, toast breaks, and a crisp piece of apple makes a sound. The mouth can find the edges, and the food has a clearer beginning and end.
Soft, wet, sticky or mixed foods can be harder to read. They spread, cling, smear and change shape. They may hide lumps, mix quickly with saliva, and arrive differently on every spoonful. A child refusing mash may not be rejecting potato; they may be unsure about food that changes shape, spreads across the tongue, or hides little surprises. A child rejecting yoghurt with fruit pieces may not be rejecting yoghurt or fruit; they may be wary of a mixed texture, smooth one moment and lumpy the next. A child choosing bread over cooked green vegetables may not simply be avoiding vegetables. Bread is familiar, visually consistent and usually predictable in the mouth. Cooked greens can be wet, fibrous, stringy, squeaky, bitter, soft, or full of tiny changes from bite to bite.
This does not mean we only give children predictable food. It means we recognise that unpredictable food may ask more of the child.
Where messy play fits
From the kitchen side of the room, the connection I kept coming back to was not complicated. Offering plenty of messy, gloopy, sloppy, sticky play opportunities may be doing more than we think.
A child who is unsure about wet sand, clay, mud, thick paint, bubbles, finger paint, or anything that clings and changes shape is often working something out with their whole body. They are learning what happens when a texture sticks, how it feels when something drips or slides, and that they can pause, use a tool, wipe their hands, wash, watch, or come back another time. These are small bodily reassurances, but they can matter when a child later meets a soft or wet texture at the table.
Porridge can be gloopy. Mash can cling. Soup can hide a soft lump. Yoghurt can feel smooth and cold one moment, then surprising the next. Banana can smear. Avocado can feel slippery. Mince in sauce can be soft, wet, warm and uneven. These textures do not announce themselves as clearly as toast, crackers, or a crisp piece of apple. They move around more, change shape more, and are harder to predict.
When a child has had safe, repeated, playful chances to meet similar sensations outside of eating, that may be useful. Not because anyone is trying to turn messy play into a feeding strategy, and not because the goal is to engineer a taste later. More simply, the body has met something a little like this before.
The bridge is not play with food so children will eat food. The bridge is texture. This is also why tools matter. A spoon, stick, brush, scoop, cloth, apron, water bowl, or washing station can keep a child close enough to stay curious without asking too much too quickly. The child who will not put a hand into the clay may stir it for ten minutes with a stick. The child who avoids finger paint may touch it with one fingertip and then wash straight away. The child who watches wet sand for a week may one day lean in and pat it down.
That is acclimatisation. It is a child learning that texture can be met, managed, stepped away from, and returned to.
Food preparation has its own place
Food preparation is connected to this, but it is not the same as messy play. This distinction feels important, especially in Aotearoa, where kai carries care, labour, land, whakapapa, memory and respect. Food does not need to become a sensory-bin material to support children’s learning. It can be handled with purpose.
A potato can be scrubbed because it is going back to the kitchen. Corn can be shucked because it will be cooked. Herbs can be washed and smelled because they will become part of lunch. Lettuce can be torn for the platter. Dough can be kneaded when it will be baked. Seeds can be planted and watched over time. These are not tricks, and they are not waste. They are real jobs with real food.
Those jobs still offer texture. Dirty potatoes are rough, then wet, then clean. Corn husks are papery and fibrous, and the silk catches on fingers. Herbs bruise and release smell. Lettuce can be crisp at the rib and soft at the edge. Dough changes under the hand. These ordinary preparation moments let children meet food through touch, smell, movement, effort and contribution before the food arrives at the table.
Then later, they may get the opportunity to try it, or not. That part still belongs to the child.
For me, this is where the kitchen and learning environment can work beautifully together. Messy play can help children get used to soft, wet, sticky, changing sensations. Food preparation can help children meet the real textures of ingredients with care and purpose. Mealtimes can then offer those foods calmly, visibly and without pressure. No one part has to do the whole job. The clay tray does not need to make a child eat mash. The potato washing does not need to make a child eat potatoes. The meal does not need to become a test of whether the learning worked. Across time, these small experiences may make soft, squishy, wet, lumpy foods feel a little less strange, and for some children a little less strange is a very useful place to begin.
This is also where language matters. In my shared food language work, “Don’t be rude to the food” and “Be kind to the food” are not throwaway phrases. They remind us that children can say no thank you without insulting food, and that food is treated with care rather than being squashed, smeared, thrown or wasted. Food exploration should deepen respect, not loosen it.
Some provocations I remember
Some of the most useful provocations I created were not complicated. They were simply ways of letting food become visible and meaningful before it arrived on a plate.
One began with bread. I gathered illustrations of different bread items alongside a botanical illustration of a wheat stem. Beside them I placed a small tray with flour, wheat seeds and sprouting wheat seeds, which over time grew into tall green wheatgrass. The children returned to it again and again, noticing the flour, seeds, shoots and eventually the tall green grass. Because the materials were presented with intention and care, this was not about treating food as disposable play. It was about helping bread become more than something sliced and served; it had a plant story, a process, and a texture long before it became lunch.
Another provocation grew from Christmas spices. I placed small amounts of gingerbread ingredients and spices into the wells of a mini muffin tray, with a mixing bowl and spoon nearby. I added a storybook about making gingerbread and a photo of the gingerbread house we had designed and made together. Children could smell, scoop, compare and remember. The food was not just a biscuit. It was spice, story, building, celebration and memory.
Some invitations were even simpler. I sent dirty potatoes to the toddler room with a tub of water and an empty tub for the washed potatoes. The work was real. The children could feel the rough skin, watch the dirt loosen, notice the water change, and return the potatoes to the kitchen as part of the meal story. I also sent corn cobs to the preschool room to be shucked. The children peeled back the husks, found the silk, uncovered the kernels and saw that corn did not begin as a tidy yellow spoonful on a plate.
These moments mattered because they helped food become less abstract. The children were not being asked to eat first and understand later. They were being given time with texture, process, smell, effort and story. Later, when the food appeared at the table, they might choose to try it, or they might not. Either way, the food was a little more known.
Repeated exposure does not have to begin with a bite
Repeated exposure is one of the strongest ideas in feeding research, but in practice it is often misunderstood. Adults hear repeated exposure and turn it into repeated pressure to taste. That is where things can go wrong. For a child who is sensitive to texture, tasting may be too big a first step.
Exposure can begin much earlier. It can be looking, smelling, touching with a tool, washing an ingredient, watching another child serve themselves, hearing food described calmly, or seeing the same food return without drama. Children are not only learning food at the table. They are building their knowledge bank across the kitchen, the garden, the play space, the dining room, the language adults use, and the way food is offered over time.
One of the simplest shifts is moving from judgement words to descriptive words. Instead of asking whether something is yummy, or reacting quickly when a child says yuck, we can offer words that help children understand what their body is noticing: smooth, crunchy, warm, cold, sticky, slippery, sour, juicy, dry, lumpy, soft, sharp, mild. The goal is not to talk children into eating. The goal is to give them language for their own experience. A child who can say, “I don’t like wet on my fingers,” or “the lumps surprised me,” is giving us much better information than a child who can only say “yuck.”
Where this leaves me
After following this thread through practice, movement, sensory play, feeding research and back again to the dining room, I come back to something fairly simple. Messy play is not the answer to picky eating, and I would not want it used as a way to sneak children towards eating. That would miss the point.
What it may offer is a gentler way for children to become familiar with the kinds of sensations that can make soft foods hard work. Wet sand, clay, thick paint, bubbles, mud, gloop and other sticky or slippery materials give children repeated chances to meet textures that drip, cling, spread, smear, change shape and wash away again. For a child who finds porridge, mash, yoghurt, banana, avocado, soup or sauce difficult, that kind of play may be quietly useful because the body has already met something a little like it somewhere safer.
Food preparation can sit alongside this, but it has its own place. Washing potatoes, shucking corn, tearing lettuce, smelling herbs, kneading dough that will be baked, or noticing how wheat grows before it becomes bread are real encounters with the texture, smell, movement and story of food. They are not throwaway activities. They help children meet ingredients with care and purpose before those ingredients appear at the table.
That is where the connection feels strongest to me. Messy play helps children acclimatise to soft, wet, sticky and changing sensations. Food preparation helps children meet real ingredients respectfully before they are offered as food. Later, when the meal arrives, the child may be ready to taste it, or they may not. The opportunity matters, but the decision still belongs with the child.
This keeps the adult role in the right place. We can notice patterns, provide good food, keep the table calm, offer useful language, protect the rhythm of the meal, and make sure there are many ways for children to come close to texture without being pushed. We can notice the child who avoids wet play and also struggles with soft food. We can wonder whether the plate is readable, whether the texture is surprising, whether the room is too busy, or whether the child has had enough time with similar sensations elsewhere. What we do not need to do is turn every refusal into a problem to solve.
There are limits, of course. Messy play is not feeding therapy, and neither is food preparation. If a child is regularly gagging, coughing or choking, vomiting around food, becoming very distressed at meals, dropping foods from an already narrow range, struggling with growth, or showing strong aversion around touch near the mouth and face, then the kindest response is careful noticing, respectful conversation with family, and support from the right health professional.
For the everyday uncertainties, though, this gives me a useful place to stand. A child does not have to eat something to be learning about it. They may be learning through watching, smelling, touching with a spoon, washing an ingredient, listening to another child describe a crunch, or simply staying near a texture that once felt too much. This is the same thread I was reaching for in Food for Thought: children need time, language and repeated experience to make unfamiliar tastes, textures and smells feel safe enough to understand.
So perhaps the question is not, “How do we get this child to eat it?” but, “How many respectful ways have we given this child to become familiar with what this food asks of them?” Sometimes that learning happens at the table. Sometimes it begins much earlier, with clay under the fingernails, bubbles on the wrist, a potato scrubbing brush in hand, or a spoon moving slowly through gloop. And sometimes, long before the spoon, there needs to be squish.
Free download
Want a practical way to bring this into your team conversations?
Download the free mini deck: From Squish to Spoon — Supporting Food Texture Confidence Through Play.
This card-style guide includes simple prompts for educators, cooks, and leaders, including:
how to notice texture sensitivity without labelling a child
why soft, wet, and mixed textures can feel harder for some children
what to try before asking for a taste
language swaps for pressure-free mealtimes
food-adjacent play ideas
texture bridges from dry to wet, tool to hand, play to plate
when to seek extra support
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References and research notes
This article began with practice-based observation: watching children in early learning dining rooms, noticing how food arrived from the kitchen, how children responded to texture, and how adult language shaped the emotional tone of mealtimes. My earlier Food for Thought article explored similar themes: children making unfamiliar tastes, textures and smells familiar, and the importance of moving beyond “yummy” and “yucky” into richer descriptive language.
The Nourish Approach also informs this reflection, particularly the ideas that eating is a developmental capacity, nourishment is adult-held, pressure narrows trust, language protects dignity, and texture builds skill over time.
Practice-based foundations
Food for Thought. My earlier Childspace article explored children making unfamiliar tastes, textures and smells familiar, and the importance of moving beyond “yummy” and “yucky” into richer descriptive language. Space Issue 56 reference
The Nourish Approach. This reflection is also informed by the ideas that nourishment is adult-held, pressure narrows trust, language protects dignity, the plate can be designed for autonomy, and texture builds skill over time. The Nourish Approach
Sensory food education and taste education
SAPERE sensory education. Included because it supports the idea that children learn about food through all five senses, not taste alone. Its method encourages children to smell, touch, taste, observe, describe and compare foods, moving beyond simple like/dislike language. SAPERE method
Movement, posture and feeding development
Moving Smart. Included because its training sparked the movement connection in my own practice reflection. It frames movement and play as central to early learning and development. Moving Smart
The Royal Children’s Hospital. Useful for understanding how feeding development is connected with physical, sensory and oral-motor development. Its material describes early reflexes, their gradual integration, and the role of head control, trunk control, supported sitting, hand-to-mouth movement and oral-motor skills in feeding readiness and texture progression. Physical, sensory and oral-motor development
The Royal Children’s Hospital feeding difficulties material. Helpful for clarifying how delays in motor development, head and trunk control, reaching, sitting unsupported and postural stability may contribute to difficulties progressing through feeding stages. Feeding difficulties: physical, sensory and oral-motor development
ASHA paediatric feeding and swallowing guidance. Useful because it describes feeding as a broad process involving sensory, motor, swallowing, nutritional and social factors. It also names oral sensory challenges such as limited tolerance for textures and viscosities, gagging, refusal, poor bolus control and difficulty managing food in the mouth. ASHA practice portal
Children and Family Health Devon. Helpful for connecting proprioception, vestibular processing, posture, tactile sensitivity and mealtimes. Its guidance notes that sensory-based eating challenges may relate to sitting, balance, jaw control, cutlery use, tactile responses, and difficulty with messy or wet textures. Strategies for sensory based eating difficulties
Messy play, tactile play and food acceptance
Cambridge University Hospitals messy play guidance. Useful because it frames messy play as a non-threatening way for children with feeding difficulties to become more comfortable with smells and textures. It also emphasises letting children set the pace, using tools where needed, and not forcing touch. Messy play guidance
Coulthard and Thakker (2015). Found that preschool children who enjoyed tactile messy play more tended to have lower food neophobia. This is an association, not proof that messy play causes better eating, but it supports the idea that tactile comfort and food openness may be connected. PubMed record
Coulthard and Sealy (2017). Found that preschool children who took part in sensory play with real fruits and vegetables tried more fruits and vegetables afterwards than children in non-food sensory play or visual exposure groups. The authors noted that longer-term studies are needed. PubMed record
Nekitsing and colleagues (2019). A cluster-randomised trial exploring storybooks and sensory play with an unfamiliar vegetable, useful for the idea that playful, repeated, sensory engagement can increase willingness around unfamiliar foods when the learning experience and food are connected. PubMed record
Texture sensitivity and oral texture perception
Chow and colleagues (2024). A review of children’s oral texture perception and preferences. Included because it gives language for why some children may reject certain textures, including the roles of oral processing skills, repeated exposure, food neophobia, picky eating and tactile over-responsivity. PubMed record
Effects of Texture on Vegetable Acceptance During Infancy and Toddlerhood. Included because it reminds us not to assume smooth purées are always easier. In this study, older toddlers rejected smooth potato purée more often than lumpy, diced or larger pieces. PMC full text
Young Children’s Exposure to and Ability to Eat Different Food Textures. Included because it names real-world texture challenges, including sticky, slippery, leafy, hard, tough and mixed textures, and notes that foods such as green vegetables may need careful age-appropriate preparation. PMC full text
Repeated exposure and pressure-free feeding
Nutrition Evidence Systematic Review on repeated exposure. Included because it supports patience and rhythm. Repeated taste exposure can increase acceptance of some vegetables and fruits; for children aged 2 to 6, repeated non-taste exposure can increase willingness to try the target fruit or vegetable, though the evidence is more specific than the complexity of everyday early learning meals. NESR review
Galloway, Fiorito, Francis and Birch (2006). Included because it shows why pressure is a poor tool. In that study, preschool children ate more and made fewer negative comments when they were not pressured to eat. PubMed record
Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility. Included as a practical feeding framework: adults take responsibility for what, when and where food is offered; children are trusted with whether and how much they eat. Division of Responsibility
Safety and early learning guidance
New Zealand Ministry of Education HS116. Included to keep the texture conversation grounded in safety. Children must be seated and supervised while eating, and foods that pose a high choking risk need to be avoided or modified according to Ministry of Health best practice. HS116 Supervision while eating
HealthEd — Behind the Hype. Included because it reinforces practical guidance: children need wide food exposure, age-appropriate textures, supervision while eating, and food matched to chewing ability. Behind the Hype
