Give them space to explore: meet the Dine & Discover™ Weaning Placemat

For babies, eating starts long before food reaches their mouth.

They look at it.

Reach for it.

Touch it. Squash it. Smear it. Pick it up. Drop it. Smell it. Taste it.

Sometimes they even eat it.

And all of that exploration has a purpose.

Weaning brings together an extraordinary amount of sensory information and physical learning at once. Your baby is discovering what food looks like, feels like, smells like and tastes like while simultaneously working out how to move their body around it.

So when we developed Dine & Discover™, we started with a simple question:

What happens if we give all that learning a little more space?

Babies learn about food with all their senses

Adults tend to think of food primarily in terms of taste.

Babies haven’t learnt to separate it so neatly.

A strawberry is red, shiny, cool, wet, fragrant, squishy, and sweet.

Yoghurt behaves completely differently from toast.

Avocado feels different again.

Every food brings another collection of sensory information.

That familiarity matters during weaning. Before babies can confidently eat a huge variety of foods, they first need opportunities to experience them.

And experiencing food doesn’t have to begin with swallowing it.

Seeing, touching, smelling and eventually tasting are all part of discovering what food is.

Why give babies a larger space for food?

Weaning works best when babies have variety — not only in the foods they meet, but in how they get to interact with them.

The generous surface of the Dine & Discover™ Placemat gives you room to spread foods out rather than confining everything to a small dish.

Your baby can scan the choices in front of them, decide what catches their attention and reach towards it.

Food can move.

Hands can travel.

They can go back to something they explored five minutes earlier.

And because the food is spread across a wider area, reaching for it creates plenty of opportunities for purposeful movement across the eating surface.

That freedom is exactly the point.

Exploration is learning, not a distraction from it

We know what it can look like from the other side of the highchair.

Squished banana.

Yoghurt across the mat.

Something carefully inspected for three minutes before being dropped onto the floor.

But weaning is not only about the volume eaten.

Babies are learning what food is and what they can do with it.

Touching different textures builds familiarity.

Picking up different shapes challenges the hands in different ways.

Reaching, grasping, releasing and trying again gives them repeated opportunities to refine their movements.

And making choices gives them something else that matters enormously during weaning: autonomy.

They are not simply receiving a meal.

They are participating in it.

Keep them locked into learning

One of our big aims across Learning Curve™ is to create an environment in which babies want to stay involved.

Because engagement drives practice.

And practice drives progress.

Give a baby an achievable challenge, a little freedom and a reason to try again, and suddenly a normal mealtime becomes packed with developmental opportunity.

Dine & Discover™ was developed with input from leading paediatric dietitian Lucy Upton as part of that bigger Learning Curve™ philosophy.

Not to turn every lunch into a lesson.

Babies are rather good at taking care of that themselves.

Our job is simply to give them the environment in which to do it.

Clever boundaries without restricting discovery

Of course, unlimited exploration sounds wonderful until lunch starts heading towards the carpet.

So we wanted to balance freedom for baby with a little practical help for whoever is cleaning up afterwards.

The dropped front edge sits over the edge of the table or highchair surface, helping the placemat stay securely positioned.

Non-slip silicone adds further grip on suitable smooth surfaces.

And at the back, clever poppers transform the flat mat into a raised-edge eating area, creating a useful boundary that helps contain some of the inevitable spreading, rolling and spilling.

Earlier on, that raised back can provide a more contained discovery space.

As your child's skills develop, simply release the poppers and use Dine & Discover™ flat alongside their plate, bowl, cutlery and cup.

Freedom where they need it.

Boundaries where they help.

Weaning doesn't only happen at home

Babies don't stop learning because lunch is being served at Grandma's house or in a café.

So Dine & Discover™ has been designed to roll up and go.

Pack it for eating out, visiting friends and family or wherever the day's next meal happens.

It gives your child a generous, familiar surface on which to explore — and gives you another way to keep those valuable opportunities for independent eating going when you're away from home.

Because wherever babies eat, there is something to discover.

Dine. Discover. Repeat.

Frequently asked questions

Why do babies need to touch and play with food during weaning?

Touching and handling food allows babies to gather sensory information about its texture, shape and consistency while practising reaching, grasping and other self-feeding movements. Food exploration is a normal part of learning to eat.

Can you put food directly onto a silicone weaning placemat?

Yes. Dine & Discover™ is designed to provide a generous food exploration surface and can be used on its own for finger foods or alongside a baby plate, bowl, cup and cutlery.

Is a weaning placemat useful for baby-led weaning?

It can be particularly useful for baby-led weaning because it provides a wide area in which babies can reach for, pick up and explore different foods independently.

What are the poppers on the Dine & Discover™ Placemat for?

The poppers allow the back of the placemat to form a raised edge, creating a more contained exploration area. They can later be opened so the placemat lies flat and provides maximum usable space.

Can I take the Dine & Discover™ Placemat to restaurants?

Yes. It is designed to roll up for transport, making it useful for cafés, restaurants, holidays, visits to family and other meals away from home.

Shop the Dine & Discover™ Silicone Baby Weaning Placemat

Explore Learning Curve™ tableware designed around how babies actually learn to eat