Intervention group

Control group

Intervention program : Advice and tips on the why and how introducing textured food during complementary feeding are grouped in a booklet and provided to participants. Monthly counselling via phone call by a dietician (at 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 14 months) and two baskets containing food preparation utensils and commercial textured foods provided at 8 and 12 months.

Usual care : reflects the standard information provided within French national guidelines (PNNS). Two phone calls at 9 and 13 months. If questions are raised by parents, dieticians will restrict their responses based on the food guides of the PNNS. Two gift boxes containing presents for the child of same financial value as those provided to intervention group, provided at 8 and 12 months.

Food texture introduction assessed using a questionnaire developed to characterize the pattern of food texture exposure in French children aged 4-36 months (Demonteil et al., 2018). This questionnaire is composed of 188 items representing 61 foods commonly used in France in different texture combinations (puree, pieces, raw, cooked, etc.). Each food-texture combination present in the questionnaire is classified into one of three texture levels: 'purees' (soft and rough; T1 texture level), 'small/soft pieces' (T2 texture level) and 'hard/big pieces and double texture' (T3 texture level) . The number of introduced items is evaluated for each texture level (T1, T2 and T3), and a global child exposure score (TexExp) is calculated from the sum of all introduced items.

Food texture acceptance is assessed during lab experiments. At each age, children participate in two experimental sessions in which they are offered several foods varying in texture. For each age, for a given child, the two sessions are planned during the same week. During one session, four different foods are offered to the child. Three trials of each food is run, trial offering is stopped after three consecutive refusals is emitted by the child. Experimenter evaluate whether the child swallow the trial. Acceptance is determined for each food as % of trial swallowed. Global acceptance outcome is calculated as the sum of frequency observed for each food.

Parents evaluate the infant's liking of the food on a linear scale for each food trial.

At the end of intervention, acceptance for 2 commercial baby food products is assessed by parents in home-setting. The parent records the weight of food eaten (g) and children 's liking of this food on a 9 point scale.

At the end of intervention, parents report if they search for information on texture introduction during the study. The type of foods offered (home-made or commercial foods), sharing meal with family and their motivation when buying food is assessed using dedicated questionnaires.

A post-intervention interviews, organized after the end of the study allow to debrief with participants on their study participation.