Refusing to eat from a spoon!

[louloubelle]

My 10 month old daughter has recently started to refuse to eat from a spoon, and will only eat food if mopped up on bread, or put in by my fingers. She normally has a very good appetite. She has 4 teeth, so I wonder if this is a stage of teething? I have tried giving her a spoon to play with whilst I attempt to feed her, which she is happy to play with, but constantly turns her head away if i try to feed her with another. She is eating some finger food, so is she just asserting her independence? Any suggestions welcome!

Your post could be about DS (11.5 months)! Not sure what he is like when he is at nursery (although eats most things there) but at home he can cope with being spoonfed yoghurt, but with anything else there is little chance!

I am trying the him feeding himself line of defence - mainly normal finger foods, but also putting what I would try and feed him onto toast etc. Today, I am trying him feeding himself with a bowl full of food and it has been going surprisingly well (although his face is now orange with bits of food)

I think it is an independence thing

Ah.....mine did that. He still eats very little from a spoon or a fork and he's nearly 3..... would perservere with it louloubelle or your DD might end up like him! What I do with DS2 (14m) is to give him finger food to play with and shove the spoon food in when he's not looking. Good luck

My dd only wanted finger food from 11 months, then used a fork at about 14 months, and since 18 months can feed herself with both a spoon or a fork. I had to rack my brains for finger food soft enough to eat (meat balls, fish fingers, fingers of vegetables). It's infuriating but self-feeding is a good sign that she's developing well. And I found that girls were often ahead of boys in this too, although all babies are different and sometimes can get lazy later on when they get bored of their new skill.