Hello & welcome
To the single handiest tool you will ever find to help your child learn to eat healthily.
I know that you’re worried about your kid, and worried that you may be doing something wrong. You’re not.
<< It can be hard to tell if your child is overeating: aren't we all born knowing how much we're meant to eat?
We are, but there are a few things that can get in the way. And it's definitely not about diet and exercise when they haven't yet discovered junk foods or screen time and they're still learning to walk.>>
But if your child is eating more than they need to then there are things that you could do differently that will help.
Let me show you.
Mashblox sounds simple… and they are… simply game changing! – Emily Fletcher, 18 mo Mum
“Mashblox is a genius idea.” Corrine Sultana, 9mo Mum
Australian Non-Toxic Awards judges
What are they, exactly?
Mashblox self-feeding cubes are squishy, hollow silicone building blocks for serving mash or small pieces of foods. The design helps them slow down and control their pace of eating.
Because food needs to be accessed through a narrow slit,
Bub needs to work out how to access it, and apply the mindful effort for each piece or bite.
The silicone is also very tactile to naturally aid sensory integration.
They can chew out foods baked inside, or use pry out just what they need… Like the enrichment from a dog kong.
Mashblox have been used to coach hundreds of customers to understand, manage or overcome their child’s unique feeding challenges.
Mashblox:
- * Mashblox gamifies food, so it’s not just about eating
- * Foods baked inside are slower to eat
- * Pincer grip of little food pieces helps slow them down
e.g. peas and corn, blueberries, even French fries if you need to. - * Makes spoon-feeding unnecessary, and makes safe self-feeding practical
“Mashblox encourages mindful eating. It allowed food to become a game” - Cat, Mum of 1 year old Liam
As seen on:
"You can't just give one to the baby because every one wants one. Kids of all ages love them”
- Ruby, Mum to 9 month old Angelica, Eduardo 18 months, Trinity 3 years.
How to use Mashblox for your sensory feeder
(Or just for your chubby bub)
Remember that it’s not just about what they eat. At this age, it's mostly how much they learn to eat when they are learning to eat.
In academic circles they talk about “Nutritional Programming”, i.e. what children learn to eat. But satiety programming, How much they learn to eat, how fast, and why, is just as important, and far moreso for overweight and obesogenic habits.
A child taught to overeat, even through routine pressuring for “just one more spoonful” can and often does retain those habits for life, and sensory kids that don’t register interoceptive sensation properly are particularly at risk. #LetThemFeedThemselves.
The thesis on childhood obesity intervention is that by helping them to safely feed themselves, kids will learn to eat only as much as they need, rather than as much as we think they do. Nobody knows how much a child needs to eat better than they do.
Your child may also have one or more of these fussy eating styles.
| Infant overeating | |
| What drives it (usually) |
|
| How Mashblox help |
|
| How to use them |
|
| But DO NOT: |
|
Please note that I have no general recommendations to support physical challenges with eating.
“Cube risotto is better than bowl risotto” – J, 3.5
What are they made of?
- * Medical grade silicone: BPA free ✅
They are:
- * Dishwasher safe: Turn inside out to clean
- * Fridge and freezer safe
- * Microwave and oven safe 180°C
- * Safe to boil and sterilise
- * Choking hazard safe: International Safety Standard ISO 8124.1 certified, birth to 14 years.
- * Australian Made
How to fill them
Make sure you fill them to the corners for mash foods and pack in firmly to slow down eating, or only put in pieces of foods (e.g. steamed peas and corn, blueberries or nuts - as age appropriate) to practice pincer grip (or to contain mess). You can also freeze water or berries inside.
You may need to leave space for some recipes to rise when baking foods such as frittata, meatloaf or cauliflower cheese. For low registration sensory kids I recommend against using raising agents, since you want the product to be dense.
Remember to #LetThemFeedThemselves as much as they need, or don't need. Pressure never helps the situation.
What's this really about?
You may have also heard of Mashblox as the secret weapon for fussy eating, but my company mission statement is supporting parents and families to develop healthy mealtime practices;
This started with my ultimate purpose to prevent childhood obesity by helping infants learn how to eat healthily from when they’re first learning to eat. My vision is to establish #InfantSelfFeeding as best practice, worldwide.
Mindful eating starts at the beginning. Mindful eating starts naturally.
Mashblox has negotiated pro-bono University research partnership for the research made possible by my product, and I’ve since been offered PhD placement for it. Besides TEDx and international conferences such as the Women’s Economic Forum, I’ve presented my thesis to embassies around the world for their public health policy and to Australian local politics, to the Department of Health UK, and to the UN General Assembly.
I spent six years doing this without salary or family and while living in government housing. It wasn't comfortable. It wasn't a lot of fun.
This isn’t just my invention, career or research; it is my calling and reason for being, and I just developed the fussy eating research along the way to help more parents #LetThemFeedThemselves.
You may notice that I speak to different challenges elsewhere in this website, because I've learned that priorities on a child's weight are more likely to lean the other way until they have a problem. For all the trends in wellness and vaccination, prevention of non-communicable disease and distress doesn't appear to be a priority to most.
If this matters to you as much as it does to me, then welcome to my movement of #InfantSelfFeeding 🧡
Please pass this on to other caring, concerned and mindful parents 🙏
(Because it’s not just infants with sensory issues that are over-eating their way into childhood weight problems)
FAQs:
What age range are they for?
Mashblox have different benefits at different ages. They are safe for complementary feeding from 6 months and up, and fussy eating benefits peak at about 3.5. Children with more pronounced autism enjoy them at older ages also.
Will this delay my child's development?
Mashblox were first prototyped in 2016, and I’ve heard no reports of any child starting from 5 months to 3.5 years (or 8 for autistic kids) getting hooked on them in any obstructive way. The first prototype tester family had bubs aged 9 months, 18 months and 3. They all loved them graduated to cutlery when they were able to handle them appropriately. For most children, this is about 5 years.
The other question to ask yourself, is which is the greater risk – if they grow up to double digits with their current fat ratio, or eating the way they currently are – or if they develop an attachment to a serving implement? My Romper-Room-Doo-Bee and Bunnikens plates broke or got lost eventually… And I still kinda miss them now that I think of it… But I learned to eat without them.
Anything mash, mushy or bakeable. Cauliflower cheese, paella (press these down), tuna bake, mac & cheese, veggie frittata, even low raising agent veggie muffins.
Scrambled egg, dahl, avocado, rice, pasta bolognaise, casserole, pumpkin, banana, chia, weetbix, rice cereal are also popular.
Please don’t use them for junk foods except to get children used to the cubes, or to slow them down when they’re eating structured family meals.
Small pieces of food can also be used to practice pincer grip (e.g. steamed peas and corn, blueberries or nuts - as age appropriate) and you can also freeze water or berries in them.
They’ve been certified to quality standard ISO 8124 against choking hazards from birth up to 14 years, and I couldn’t bite through them when I tried with adult teeth. Please discard if they start to tear in the seams: this can start to happen if you’re not careful while turning them inside out for cleaning.
How did you think of these?
Mashblox were inspired by watching a toddler chomping into an apple, that he’d occasionally drop, bounce and roll in the dirt, chasing just as if it was a ball. This little boy caught my eye because he was so incredibly independent, and I watched as he repeated this again and again.
I thought there had to be a way to combine children’s instinct to play with their food, and to explore the world through their mouth, into a practical solution. Voila, Mashblox hollow silicone building blocks and feeding cubes were born.
The research and University relationships came after, when I explored the international childhood and infant obesity statistics, how they affected later life, and I realized that infant self-feeding was the only solution. The integration of my research and social aims with my business model is what most of my business awards recognize.
If you’re still reading, then the way I see it you have three options:
You can keep going as is,
You can start restricting foods or dieting them, and if they see anyone around them eating differently it will probably make the problem worse
Or you can let Mashblox help.
You’re also welcome to read about my experience with food, dysfunctional feeding that eventually led to my teenage obesity, and hence Why this is so important to me, the submission I made to the Senate Inquiry into Childhood Obesity, or how much the process of getting things this far has mostly really, really sucked.
“The ones crazy enough to believe they can change the world, are the ones that do” – Steve Jobs
Just buying one product won’t be enough to do that, but it will help greatly if you tell parents who care as much as you do about what Mashblox is doing. Obesity is our longest running pandemic, our broadest non-communicable disease burden, and something that we can start to change easily and unobtrusively for the next generation.
It is our responsibility to give our children the best chance we can offer them, in all things.
#Mashblox #MakeGoodFoodFun
#LetThemFeedThemselves