8 mo just can't get the hang of finger food

[mumtojohn]

Wonder if any of you can help/are having similar problems...

My 8 mo is going great guns with his solids. Am doing puree based (i.e. not BLW) weaning and he is putting on weight well and on his line, doing 3 meals a day and eating pretty much everything (sardines, baked beans, my recipes even when they go slightly wrong, plus all the shop bought stuff like Ella's etc).

But he (or rather I) can't crack finger food. If I offer him a piece of banana or a rice cake he just opens his mouth for me to feed it to him and if I place something in front of him he just picks it up, tries to bang it against something else (if generally, an object or toy doesn't make a noise when banged against another object or toy he ain't interested) and then chucks it on the floor. So, whilst other babies in his company happily feed themselves, my little one just opens his mouth expectantly or goes without.

I have - on one or two rare occasions - seen him bring something to his lips and suck/take a bite so I know he can physically do it. He also seems to have fairly good hand/eye coordination generally (he claps, for example, and plays with quite sophisticated toys) so I wonder if he is just lazy. I was too scared of choking to try BLW and am happy with the puree way of life (and these days I give him lumps in his purees such as pasta stars and mashed up toast etc) but would really like him to do the finger food thing for snacking as well.

I have tried offering finger food when he is really hungry (just gets annoyed) and also when he is less hungry (he really doesn't bother with it then). I have also tried a variety of foods. My highchair doesn't have a tray and wonder if I got one with a tray would I find it easier (at the mo, I offer him the finger foods when he is playing on the floor or in his buggy).

Help! He seems to be the only baby unable to do this.
P.S. Part of me thinks 'so what?' and is tempted to give up and let him crack it in his own time but my HV was banging on about how important it was at my last visit. They have such a nice way about them don't they....

[dingdong3]

Don't worry about it. I have 9mo twins and one of them can't get the food into her mouth fast enough and the other does exactly what your little one does! Though she is more prone to gripping onto the food for hours, rather than throwing it...I regularly find rice cakes stuck to the inside of her clothes or still in her fist hours later!!
I would say the tray on the highchair may help as I persevere every day putting stuff on the high chair tray in the hope she will get the hang of it...at least you can walk away and let him get on with working out how to do this.
My first born was the same and the great thing about it was he was never a child that put non food stuff in his mouth...a blessing! However, the twin that eats her finger food also picks up EVERYTHING on the floor and eats it...you can't leave her for a minute!
I would say that as long as your LO can actually eat the food when you put it into his mouth, there is nothing wrong with him and he will get the hang of it eventually. GOOD LUCK! x

[mumtojohn]

Dingdong3, that is a great help, thanks. And snap - John is great in that he doesn't mouth everything in sight and I actually know that I could leave him (though I wouldn't!) on the floor with something like a coin, and whilst he would turn it over and over in his hands and bang in against something else, he probably wouldn't think to put it into his mouth. Every cloud eh.

[Rhian82]

My DS is ten months and has only just started managing finger foods in the last week. He's always eaten pretty well, but if he held anything would just wave it around, drop it, pull it to pieces? anything except put it in his mouth. Then last week he just started managing to do it with odd things, it was amazing to watch. He was at nursery yesterday and apparently ate so much finger food he didn't need/want puree at all!

So don't worry, he'll get it in his own good time!