12.5 mth old only wants to feed herself!

[Trillian42]

A week or so ago, DD figured out how to feed herself [proud mum emoticon]! She managed a quarter-half of a weetabix herself. This involved a bit of luck though, with her happening to hold the spoon at the right angle and the weetabix being the right consistency. Since then we've had varying degrees of success with lots of cleaning & scrubbing for me.

The trouble is now all she wants to do is feed herself! She even holds the bowl. She was pretty bad with solids and is only improving in the last month or so, and now that she wants to feed herself, it means very little food is actually making it into her mouth. She gets frustrated as well after a while and gives up. She threw a tantrum today because I wouldn't give her a Petit Filous to hold herself, even though she adores them. But she was changed for bed and I couldn't face another change of clothes.

So how long does it take for them to learn properly? Should I be worried that her solids intake has dropped? Any suggestions for getting more food into her?

Try giving her stuff she doesn't need a spoon to eat - pasta shapes she can pick up in her fingers, chip shaped bits of veg, toast soldiers etc. Also try tipping out petit filou etc into a bigger bowl so it's less likely to tip over, then cover her in a couple of muslins/a painting tabard, and stick a piece of lino down on the floor and let her get on with it :)

Let her :-)
I know it is a terrible transition period! I ended up having her naked for meal times! Massive cloth udnerneath her chair and away she went. Ocasionally I'd pop in the odd morsel myself to add a bit extra into her mouth. It took around a month for her to get decidedly much better at it.

I should have mentioned that a couple of times I've tried your suggestion whydobirdssuddenlyappear and she's grabbed a spoon from somewhere else on the table and tried to use it to scoop up those bits of food too!

Great idea about the Petit Filous, thanks! DH reading over my shoulder is suggesting buying a waxed table cloth to put underneath as we don't have a spare bit of lino. It would make life easier. DD has also learned, obviously from watching me too often, how to wipe the floor with a sponge!

A month Bumbellina! Yikes! :o at the naked feeding - maybe when the weather heats up a bit that might be the way to go - but surely she'd need a bath after every meal?

I would leave DS in his sleepsuit til after breakfast, have mainly dry finger foods at lunch time, and bath straight after dinner.

lol, yes: frequent baths, mainly fingerfoods and loads and loads of babywipes
A month is really not that bad, although with a 6 month old I guess it seems quite long as she's only been there for 6 of those ....
Here: , it will be ok in the long rum run

My ds is the same at 14 months, although he will occasionally let me slip in a bit extra. Some suggestions:
give her 2 spoons, so her hands are full and she can't grab yours, or keep refilling the third spoon and swapping it with one of hers- more will go in that way;
Plum baby fromage frais are thicker and stay on the spoon better as well as not dripping out of the pot (no sugar either);
Cheap shower curtain that can be thrown in the washing machine on the floor, full arm towelling aprons in packs of 3 from mothercare;
Large packs of flannels from Ikea;
Sit back and let her get on with it!

I used to use newspaper on the floor, just throw it out after every meal.

I tried shower curtains on floor, don't wash properly in the machine and cheap tablecloths, just made loads of washing to do on top of all the clothes and flannels. Much easier just to wipe the floor quickly after meals.

Not sure why, but she let me feed her her breakfast this morning without fuss! Gave her the spoon when she'd finished and she put in another few mostly empty spoons herself.

Thank you all for your help :)

I leave Boy in his sleepsuit til after breakfast too, followed by a bath if it's weetabix to avoid concrete hair. He will only take a spoon himself so it gets flung everywhere.

Let her get on with it then :) BLW children feed themselves from 6mo or thereabouts no problem. She'll get the hang of it pretty quickly, as long as you don't expect her to be tidy or use cutlery, you'll be fine. DD likes to eat yoghurt by drinking it out of the pot, or scooping it out with her hands.

Try a sleeved bib as well (I recommend the Poundlands ones, they wash really well and don't fall apart/go mouldy like others that I've tried)

DS went through this. He learned how to load a spoon and then spoons were the thing, he wouldn't eat anything without a spoon for a couple of weeks, even toast. He got very cross if I tried to help, and livid if he saw me eating with cutlery and he didn't have a spoon. Then the novelty wore off and now he eats with a spoon for the first bit, then throws it on the floor and carries on with his hands, fistfuls of weetabix and everything.