Teaching children to feed themselves

[Eulalia]

Help does anyone know where I can buy a long plastic apron type of thing that I can use while feeding my son? I did get one from my friend but it is too small, already starting to rip and poorly fitting round the neck with a velcrose fastening. He just rips these off. At present I have a long soft plastic bib with a pocket. However most of the food slides down, misses the pocket and drips onto his legs and the seat of the highchair. Also the bib itself rides up onto the tray and causes even more mess. I also have a Tommy Tippee but it is too small and hopelessly loose at the neck. I have tried a combination of the two aforementioned but the Tommy Tippee tends to get stuck on the highchair tray and besides it just gets in the way of the spoon and usually my son pushes it aside. Then there is the arms - he twists and turns so much that sleeves get covered in food hence the apron type bib with arms. I don't want to put all 3 bibs on at once! What I really want is one that is tight at the arms but has a tie fasting at the neck and long enough to go round down to the knees, and wipe down plastic. Have tried Mothercare but no joy.

Also I'd like some advice about feeding. My son is at this sort of in between stage with food. Been feeding himself about a month (he is now 20 months old) but sometimes prefers finger food, sometimes eating from a bowl, sometimes eats peas etc whole (other times likes to squash them between forefinger), funny about lumps but doesn't like pureed slush. A lot of the time it is smeared all over the place and thrown overboard. Well I am sure you all know what I mean. Also he wants what is on my plate but when I put it on his he doesn't want it (arggh!) Is this just a stage and should I just keep trying different methods or one thing at a time or what (I don't want him to get into bad habits). Fortunately if he is going to eat it then he does and he is generally not a fussy eater, liking different tastes. I think he wants to do it properly but is not quite dextrous enough yet. However when he plays with his food I find it hard not to lose my temper although fortunately he doesn't take it personally (yet!)

Thanks.

Hi Eulalia, when my first was little I found a bib like you mention, it came as a freebie with a mother/baby magazine, but didnt last long. My other suggestion is a small size painting overall, ELC do them, easy velcro fasten at the back of the neck, sleeves and will cover the knees etc.

The eating sounds very familiar, I think he's just experimenting, different foods, textures, cutlery, no cutlery etc. Most of ours is on the floor too. When we lunch together, my little one loves eating my food, although the same! He likes eating it off my big fork, but at other times is quite happy with his plastic spoon, It'll all eventually fall into place.

Thanks Ems - I suppose in the future looking back it'll only seem like a short period. Much the same can be said of many aspects of childcare - it seems like forever at the time!

Will have a look in the ELC for the bib. Thanks.

Eulalia, Baby Bjorn do both an excellent crap-catcher bib (which our son finds more comfortable than the Tommee Tippee ones) and a painting smock which we put on when he is eating something really messy. Ours is 21 months old and a complete troll with his food, I know exactly what you're going through. We find it immensely frustrating when he starts horsing about with good home-cooked stuff, although like yours, if he is hungry he eats whatever is put in front of him and is happy to try new stuff/eat a wide variety of things.
What we do when we feel really wound up is give him a kiss and go and make a cup of tea. Quite often he will tuck in as soon as we have left him to it.

Marina, Eulalia, my 19 month old son is also a complete troll with his food (lovely expression!)Nothing to add really, except to say I find it helps to banish all other food, drink and cultery within his sight, and to avoid any cooking smells, so he isn't distracted by this when I'm trying to get him to eat his food.

Marina, I totally agree with your last sentence, last night hubbie was having a nightmare trying to give little one his supper and wanted me to take over. I just suggested he left him to it - I could feel the tension at the table! And he did eat some when daddy left him to it. I now think sod the mess as long as he eats it.

Like some people have already mentioned, I leave my 14 month old to it - with finger foods and some sloppy stuff like rice pudding - before I feed him his meal. Hunger drives him to experiment with feeding himself. Toast with LOTS of jam or cheese spread also encourages him to feed him self. Although he tends to just lick the toppings of - at least he's getting the idea. I always leave him his bowl and spoon on the high chair tray after too - so he plays/learns with them.

I think that you have to start thinking about food from a child's perspective. Food is pretty much the only stuff that they are allowed to put in their mouth, so it is only natural that they are going to want to play with it, put it in, spit it out etc. Our little boy (18months)likes certain foods one week and doesn't the next. He uses a spoon and a fork very proficiently one day and then only uses his fingers the next. Some days he can't get the food in fast enough and others he just isn't interested at all. I just let him get on with it. He is bibbed up and placed where it really doesn't matter what he does with his food. I praise any good eating behaviour and ignore the rest. If he throws something on the floor, then it is removed and not given back.
Children do not self starve - it is unheard of. I really do think that if you let yourself get wound up by eating behaviour at this stage then you are setting up the stage for food battles in the future. Once these perceptive little beings know that they can get your full, undivided, concentrated attention by not eating something or playing with their food then that is exactly what they'll do!

My fourteen month old won't pick up food (eg toast) and cries until I feed him. I KNOW he can do it - I've seen him on rare occaisions. Of course, I give in and put it in his mouth, because I'd rather he ate something than cried...but by now he should be helping himself to everything...any advice? He's not bad with a spoon when I put it in his hand - can get it into his mouth. But I don't know how to get him to pick up finger food. Just leave him crying...?

My ds1 is 19+mo old and still wants mummy to feed him. He's perfectly capable of feeding himself, making great efforts stabbing food with his fork and with his spoon, but still gets whingey if I don't help him out considerably. Odd, because at 8mo all he wanted was to feed himself and point blank refused to eat anything off a spoon. I spotted a tip from someone on here, which was to begin the meal helping out, then once the initial hunger had been satisfied, let them take over. Its helped things along enormously.

I think it's a big help to make it fun for them. My son loves chopsticks and will spend ages trying to pick up one grain of rice with one chopstick (has to hold both of them, though). When I first gave him a fork, I made loud stabbing noises as I showed him how to stab his food with it. Now he imitates the stabbing noises whenever using his fork and thinks it's really funny. I haven't really come up with an equivalent for the spoon, so it's his least favorite implement.

SofiaAmes, have you come across the training chopsticks you can get? Just like normal ones except they are joined at one end, but with a flexible joint. So the children hold them in one hand and use their fingers and thumb to close them and pick up food. A bit like the kind of tongs you use for salad or turning sausages, but chopstick shaped. My kids love them and it makes rice and noodles much more fun!

funnily enough bee, we encountered some in a restaurant today, but although my stepkids liked them, my ds (only 18 mo.) was having none of them. He wanted the real thing!

So maybe I should just go straight to forks and dispense with the spoon....
Also, if I wait until the end of the meal to encourage him to pick up, he doesn't bother, because he's full.

Bun I have found the opposite works. I give DS his food and spoon and he either gives it a go or messes and then he will either revert to fingers (whatever the food is) or will allow me to feed him. Its like he has to get that initial desire to do it himself out of his system. Apart from at breakfast time when he is generally too hungry and will let me feed him straight away.

DD has always been good at feeding herself but at about 18 months she got very fustrated with the 'baby' spoon. I got her some Heinze Baby Basics cutlery, she loves it. They are made of metal and plastic and the handle, of course, is bright pink. She the metal fork is far easier for her to use than a small plastic spoon.