...to think my toddler is IMPOSSIBLE!!! [lighthearted]

[PeapodBurgundy]

DS (22 months) has always been hit and miss if he wants to use cutlery. Fine by me, I'm just glad he eats actual food buries head in the sand and avoids the prospect of the swiftly approaching fussy eating phase. Only now he's decided that he can't bare anything messy on his hands, also fine, but for the fact that HE STILL IGNORES HIS CUTLERY!!!!! Just WTF Pea!?!? Lunch went swiftly from tasty-veggie-pasta-bake-that-I-REALLY-want-to-enjoy-during-a-brief-respite-from-morning-noon-and-night-sickness, to lets-use-half-a-pack-of-baby-wipes-cleaning-pasta-sauce-from-his-hand-after-every-mouthful-while-his-fork-sits-there-unused.

Anyone else's toddler (or otherwise) a tiny arsehole??

All toddlers are tiny assholes!

My toddler is a Massive arsehole!

I only clean up at the end of the meal!

Oh, God you've reminded me.... Poor DS1 was totally rubbish with cutlery, watching him try to eat dinner was heartbreaking (the look of baffled disappointment on his face as the spoon he'd carefully filled with porridge reached his mouth all but empty) - he also hated (and still hates) getting his hands dirty.. so.. we fed him the messy stuff.. for quite a long while, because it seemed the lesser of two evils. He's fine now, although still does have to concentrate very hard!

DS2 by contrast, I'm not sure I ever fed - he seemed to naturally realise that the spoon was an extension of his arm, and smoothly put it in his mouth with very little mess.

Of course he makes up for that now when eating anything with ketchup of chocolate spread and I have to wrestle him to the bathroom for a good flannelling.

They are all assholes. DD is a couple of months older than your DS. She indicates that she doesn't want her food, or has finished her food, by tipping it onto the floor. Then she looks at you and says,

"Brish brush, mummy/daddy."

Cheeky little sod!!!

My dd2 would scream for her dinner from 4pm but would then also constantly turn off the oven so that dinner kept getting later. Open plan everything so couldn’t bar her from the room. At that point I moved to batch freezing and microwaving!

He CAN use the cutlery perfectly well, he just DOESN'T use the cutlery. If I waited until the 'end' of the meal to clean him up, he'd only have eaten the one mouthful. I'd rather faff about than him be hungry.

(Actually he's not been well and he's lost a LOT of weight so I'm being more acommodating than I otherwise would be as he needs to get some weight back on).

Mine rips off his bib without warning with a triumphant cry of 'ninished!' before wiping whatever food is coating his hands all over his clothes.

The bib stays fairly clean though

2.5 year old still does this. Generally good with cutlery, but when yogurt comes out she uses hands!??

That's how dd is with painting. All fun until the tiniest speck of paint gets near her hand. Then game over.

Try a flannel instead of wet wipes