Sensory Feeding Mat

🌱 Food Ease Sensory Feeding Mat – an easy way to help your picky eater :) 

Mealtimes can feel full of pressure when a child is a picky eater. The Food Ease Sensory Food Mat is here to shift that energy: from desperately saying “you have to eat this”, "please just take a bite", "I promise you'll love it!" to “let’s explore together, no pressure”. This is what ultimately helps picky eaters become food explorers and competent eaters! :)

It’s a fun, gentle tool that helps children engage with food in a sensory-safe way at their own pace. It's a phenomenal resource for feeding professionals, teachers and families alike. Especially for parents, it gives a concrete framework to talk about foods in a way that encourages progress without requiring a lot of effort which parents LOVE!

🎯 How it supports picky eaters:

• Encourages children to look at, touch, smell and eventually taste new foods - each step a win, even without a bite
• Builds confidence: when they feel safe and curious, they’re more open to trying. The mat helps scaffold that exploration
• Aligns with your feeding therapy goals and the caregiver’s role: it puts choice back with the child, supports gradual exposures, and nurtures positive associations with food
• Compliments food-chaining and other strategies: the sensory layer gives a fresh way to approach foods that feel “too scary” otherwise
• Builds familiarity for all kids with new foods but especially for those with strong sensory preferences, by knowing exactly how a food will sound, feel, smell and taste they are more prepared to try in future

✋ How to use:

• Use with either familiar or new foods (really hesitant eaters may have more success doing this with familiar foods first, then eventually new foods. Follow your eater's lead)
• Go through the 5 senses describing the food. Sometimes you might find a description that's not on the board fits best and that's perfect too! It's a jumping off point
• Offer for your food explorer to take the lead on one of the senses, if they decline accept the first "no" and say: "that's okay! I'll explore and let you know what I notice"
  • Sight is often one kids will happily do as there's no touching. Another one they're often happy to try even when very aversive is sound. As the adult you can say "I'll take a bite, you let me know if you hear a big sound or a little sound"
• The goal is to inspire engagement and curiosity about food as opposed to refusal and avoidance. This requires it to be used in a pressure free way, and lots of modelling from the adult first. However, I've been surprised lots of times by even my most aversive eaters who are really keen to explore!
• Relate it to their interests and age. For older food explorers I tell them we're being scientists and we need to find the properties of different foods. We also compare and contrast different foods together as part of our "investigation". For younger food explorers I might bring in a soft toy and say "our friend wants us to tell them what they can expect from this food! Let's figure it out together and let them know"

👩⚕️ Who it’s for:

• Families at home: a simple printable resource you can use in between therapy sessions, turning snack or mealtime into something curious and calm
• Therapists (SLPs, OTs, feeding specialists): an easy-to-use, session-ready visual tool that supports sensory exploration with clients
• Educators or group-settings: ideal for creating low-stakes, playful food-exploration moments that are inclusive and fun

🌟 Why you’ll love it:

• It honours the child's pace and celebrates every step of interaction with food - regardless of the number of bites
• It’s built around respectful feeding practices (like the Division of Responsibility) and sensory-safe exposure. Adults job is to share information, and offer pressure-free invites to explore, child's job is to engage as much or as little as they feel safe to do so
• It feels calm, not chaotic, transforming mealtime tension into playful, curiosity-based moments
• It’s flexible: stand-alone as a home tool, or paired with other Food Ease resources for a comprehensive feeding-therapy path

Empower children to explore first, accept later, and feel good in the process!

🖨️ Print once, laminate if you’d like, and use it again and again!

Let’s make food discovery calm, curious and connected ❤︎