4 May 2011: So, there comes a time where all parents will start feeding their child semi-solid/pureed food. And when that time came, some parents might become a bit adventurous and let their child spoon feed themselves.
On my part, I was getting lazy spoon-feeding him, so I wanted him to feed himself. But alas, the mess it came with was even more work than spoon-feeding him!
While I enjoyed showing him how to feed himself using the spoon, I actually laugh and cheered him on when he does it right. However, the aftermath was seriously… unsightly, and a little of a motivational killer. Haha. It gets both him and me frustrated, cos I’ll have to leave him in the playpen while I clean up the mess, and he doesn’t understand why mommy won’t play with him after eating.
So we tried it out for a couple more days before I gave up trying to teach him how to scoop food from the bowl and feed himself. This, I shall wait till I am able to communicate with him with real words that we can both understand. (This will be done simultaneously with potty training – another story, for much later entry.)
Instead of letting him scoop the food on his own, I decided to scoop the food for him, place the spoon in his hands, and teach him how to put the spoon with the food into his mouth. We did this only when I had ‘sticky’ food prepared for his lunch. This way, together with me holding onto his hands gently, means less mess for me to clear! Haha.
Now, Blake can hold his own spoon, with food on it, and put it into his mouth. He still messes up once in a while, but because he loves eating and food so much, he will try his best to be careful, and get everything on the spoon into his mouth! Hehe. He hasn’t learned how to scoop his food yet, so when he fails to scoop up the food, he ends up using his hands instead. It’s alright! One step at a time!
