Posted by
Havefaith
16 yrs ago
Dear All,
My daughter is almost 16 months old and we are trying to get her to feed herself. If I fill the spoon and hand it to her, she will grab the spoon and feed herself. However, she is still having problems scooping the food up from the bowl and about half way through a meal she becomes disinterested in feeding herself.
I have put some of the food in a bowl in front of her with her spoon and I will feed her from another bowl with another spoon. Please let me know how you got your child started in feeding herself/himself. Any suggestions?
Many thanks.
HF
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- MOST IMPORTANT: Stop helping. If she's hungry she'll eat. Kids don't starve themselves. Of course, she's still small, so the occasional help is ok. You can also do every other spoon for a while.
- Accept the mess. She will get neat(er) later. If you don't let her eat messily she'll lose interest. Fine motor skills take years to develop.
- Make sure she is properly hungry. In other words minimize food between meals.
- Don't give her a bigger snack if she didn't eat properly from her "real" meal.
- If she's not done within a certain time, remove the food.
- Be patient. It takes time.
BTW it is high time you introduced a real glass instead of a sippy cup if you haven't already.
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Z
16 yrs ago
With both of mine we started with finger foods to get them interested. Cheese is a really big hit, for example. Then we went to the fork -- it just seems easier to stab something with a fork and get it to your mouth than it does with the spoon.
That being said, my daughter [3y7m] will sometimes ask the ayi to feed her if she is very tired [we have a new ayi, and it seems to be a bonding ritual between them, so I haven't put my foot down], and we still help my 21m son get things onto his spoon pretty regularly.
One of my friends had a suggestion for those times that it is hard to control yourself and keep yourself from over-helping your kids: make sure that your hands are full -- it is easier not to feed your kid if you are feeding yourself.
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my daughter is 20 months and just recently became interested in using her utensils. before that it was all hands.
-let her use her hands while giving her utensils to hold and try to use.
-let her get messy and eat however way she wants
-lots of praise for using her utensils to eat whether it gets in her mouth or not
-give fork and spoon together so she can choose what she wants to use
-start to feed her when she seems not interested in eating anymore. (i've found that my daugther does get tired after a while and she wants me to feed her and i only do it cause my daughter is such a fussy eater. if your daughter isn't fussy, then just let her be and don't even feed her)
-give her foods that are easy to hand and will stick to her spoon or fork. macaroni and soup noodles are not good options for learning utensils....they just slip and fall off.
good luck.
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Axptguy38, Z and Michelley,
Thank you for all your valuable suggestions. I will give it a go and see how she gets on.
HF
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