So why won't she feed herself when she's hungry?

[WriggleJiggle]

dd 7months, absolutely LOVES food, but is driving me mad with her eating habits. She refuses to pick up the food herself. She clearly wants to eat and does the baby bird impressions really well, but unless I put the food into her mouth she whinges and then screams.

A month ago when we first started weaning she could manage it. How come she's gone backwards and how do I deal with it?

weird. does she put other things into her mouth?
coudl it be the textures? (i remember dd wouldn't pick up a banana for the first two months, unless i did a fiddly thing with the skin). is she eating different food to a month ago? she was doing brilliantly, wasn't she? that was one impressive ear of corn.

what about chucking the highchair for the moment and try her sitting on your lap eating your dinner, to see if she tries to swipe anything? the baby bird thing does sound rather cute i must say, but you probably didn't need to hear that.

ds, never used to feed himself, He hated the feel of food on his hands he would regularly hold his hands out for a wetwipe if there was even a tiny mark on them. He was fine once he could use a fork, and was the only child at playgroup who ate his cake with a fork. {grin]
He's a stapping nearly nine year old know who is reguarly covered in mud and hates having a bath !

Oh she is such a good little muncher, and she just loves eating. Its definately not a problem with touching food 'cos she had a lovely time 'painting' with her food the other day. She has never really put toys in her mouth like some babies do, but she constantly has her fingers / hand in her mouth, in fact, unless I keep her sleeves rolled up they become soggy yucky things.

wrigglejiggle perhaps its just a phase then, maybe she'll just start doing it one day.

I'm not sure if this is a specific babyled weaning questions and, if it is, I am not sure exactly how that works - wish I'd known more about it when DS was weaning. Is the idea that they feed themselves?

With that in mind (and the fact that my DS is almost 14 months), my two pennethworth may be completely irrelevant but here it is anyway

Ds goes through phases like this. Sometimes he is quite adamant that he must feed himself with no help whatsoever but the following day will insist that I feed him. He'll point to what he wants to eat - it'll be a spoon of this and a chunk of that etc so he still dictates, to a certain extent, what he consumes. It seems rather strange but I tend to feel that as long as he's eating something it doesn't matter too much how it gets into his mouth! HTH

Have decided just to let her get on with it. For the next 48 hours I'm going to keep offering food, but leave it up to her to do the feeding. She is still b/f on demand so she's not going to starve. I think she may just be pretending to be helpless because she gets her food quicker that way. She is a greedy little guzzler. Is there any reason why I shouldn't do this?

no reason so far as i can make out. that's what i would have suggested tbh but i wasn't sure how brave you were feeling...

Apparently babies often go through a phase of pretending to be unable to do a task they've done countless times before, so as to get your attention/assistance. Quite cute, not to mention cunning...

she is only 7 months so just breast milk should be fine. but why don't you want to help her with her food?

god I would feed her myself if she were mine

she has years to learn to be independent

but I am soppy old thing who still gets her older kids dressed in the morning sometimes

some (very small) success. She had a nibble of a biscuit.
Pesme - its not that I don't want to help her with her food, if I needed to I'd feed her grain of rice by grain of rice. I think its more because I find it so fustrating watching her sitting there and whinge until I do it for her when I know she is more than capable. I think I am also a little worried that if I always do it for her I may still be in this situation when she's 2.

Read posts several times more and think I've worked out what's bothering me. Hope this makes sense.
She views objects I hold as either toys or food. She views objects she holds as toys only.
Why?

no idea, really. what happens if you sit there eating the same thing (and making all sorts of humiliating oooh-aah this is delicious noise) while ostentatiously pulling a bit off your portion and sticking it on her hghchair table?
also i've no idea if this is relevant but dd likes nothing more than actually grabbing her father's wrist and eating his sandwich right out from under his nose. does she get to see you eat often?

Thanks A, tried giving my fod to her but doesn't seem to make a difference. I think she gets her enthusiasm for food from me, I eat non stop so she's certainly seen enough of it going on.

Ah well, will try and find more important things in life to worry about rather than dd's eating habits.

Been searching archives and now think I will just go with the flow and stop worrying. In 6 months time when the floor is covered with food I'll probably be desperate again for the days when she used to let me feed her.