Tuesday, September 13, 2011
I Might Be Interested in a Subscription to the New York Times
So, now the baby book has us questioning our feeding technique. Currently, my wife or I will hold the bowl of baby food in one hand and feed Violet with the other. She handles neither the bowl nor the spoon. This keeps the mess confined to her face. Upon skimming through the baby book a few nights ago, the heading "Don't resort to hostile takeover" under the Eating Habits section startled me. I saw it and thought to myself, "They can't mean..." But they did. The book advised against taking the spoon away from the baby, lest it result in a baby who is "delayed in learning how to feed himself and...is also slow to develop polite table manners and good eating habits." I read it twice to be sure I understood what it was saying. Violet should have control of the spoon? It didn't seem right, but elsewhere in the section, it addressed the potential mess involved with this course of action by advising me to simply spread newspapers around the base of the high chair to catch all the food that Violet finds superfluous. I read that and thought, "But we don't get the newspaper." So how about it, did (or do) any of you hand the keys to mealtime over to your nine month old?
296 days old
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Macie was uninterested in using a spoon or fork until she was almost two. She was very content to let us feed her anything that needed to go in a spoon. She really never grabbed for the spoon, and if we offered it to her, she'd just look at us. Even now, she's not GREAT with feeding herself, but she gets it done.
ReplyDeleteHowever, she LOVED feeding herself small solids -- those cooked peas were early favorites, but fruits cut very small were also good. So, even though she's a bit behind in utensils, she had really good manual dexterity pretty early on. I'm not worried. I've seen very few adults who can't use forks and spoons. And I figure it won't be long before we start her on chopsticks. She loves Chinese noodles. :)
I meant to say those organic puffs and cooked peas. Have you tried the Happy Baby organic puffs with her? I think they're vegan, and they are very easy to handle because they're a bit sticky.
ReplyDeletewe dont give them any utensils, but put food on a tray and let them pick it up themselves. depending on how good of an eater they are, you can put the whole meal on there or just a little at a time. Natalie has only two bottom teeth @ 13 months but she can eat any sort of pasta, fruit, soft chicken, peas, corn. she likes all that stuff though. if violet is a picky eater, its more tricky
ReplyDeleteAmy - thank you for the info. We have the puffs, we're just a little nervous about giving them to her just yet. The specifications are a little vague on when she's ready. We've already had two choking incidents so we're gun shy, but I know it will happen soon.
ReplyDeleteChris - I don't think we're there yet, but we are starting to supplement with small solids like peas. Thankfully, Violet is willing to eat anything we give her. We're enjoying it while it lasts. Thanks for the input!
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