Spoon feeding

[discodave88]

So I have. 9.5 months old boy. He can eat by himself but meal times I find I often spoon feed him as it's easier, less messy and I don't see how he will be able to feed himself the likes of curry or mashed food etc. He can easily eat fruit and veg and other hand held foods so I know he can do it but now I'm worried that I'm putting him behind because I'm spoon feeding as well. If we have sausage and mash he will do it himself but some things are just too hard for him to pick up. Can people let me know their thoughts on what to do. Do I just put it all on the high chair and just let him go for it?

Your son won't be behind anything. Spoon is fine for some food, fingers are fine for others and can I suggest a baby fork which doesn't seem to exist on MN.

Use the spoon/fork for the food you would eat with cutlery and let him use the fingers for those you.
You can stab a piece of veggie/meat with a fork and leave it on the side of his plate or hand it to him so he can use it himself.
By using cutlery, you can offer a very wide variety of food, soups, risottos, fish, ...

It is not easy to eat a slice of mango or avocado with your hands. You struggle to pick it up and it is easily squeezed in the baby's hand. Cut small pieces and use the baby fork. Everyone is happy and a lot less waste.

I am French and we don't let the kids make a massive mess. Of course, some food will fall on the floor, on baby's clothes, in their hair, .... but from the very beginning, we teach how to eat in addition to what to eat. When we moved to Australia , I was shocked by the mess some babies were allowed to make in cafes and the poor staff who had to clean after them.

No adults eats spaghetti or a stew with their hands, so which teach that to a baby and then un-teach that to teach them to use cutlery.

Thanks for the ideas @LeGrandBleu they are really useful tips. We do have a baby fork but I've never used it yet

Yes the ideas of him eating yogurt with his hands just makes me feel bad for him because he can't get it in his mouth properly and puts it everywhere so I've been spoon feeding foods like that.

I think a mix of both is fine. I did similar to you and spoon fed the foods that are hard to eat with their hands. I always gave him a spoon too for him to try himself. He still does a mix of using utensils and his hands now at 2 and a half.

Follow your instinct and common sense. There is this war here on MN between spoon and finger, which is ridiculous because we eat with a variety of means. Who would eat yoghurt with their fingers, so spoon is fine, and he will learn to use spoon on his own.
Give the fork a trial, so simple

I also have a 9.5 month old.

I do a mix. In the evenings, just before bath, I let her go for it. Because it's just before bath.

I sometimes spoon feed her. (And she loves spoon feeding herself - and me)

Then I get some finger foods, some are cleaner than others, such as broccoli.

I think a mix is the best because eating with the fingers is the traditional baby led weaning way and allegedly helps them learn to control how much they eat. I prefer feeding with a spoon as I can control exactly how much she eats that is I can say with great confidence she has eaten x amount. And then I also like her holding the spoon as this is the likely way she will be eating and it's what she sees us do so is able to copy.

Be flexible with yourself.

There's nothing wrong with a but if both. DS pretty much only eats with his hands but that's because he doesn't let us spoon feed him, he just wrestles it from us. He doesn't manage to feed himself with it yet but he plays with it anyway.

I have three kids and allowed all of them to both feed themselves and to be fed by me. I cannot understand how BLW is so often seen by some parents as the only way to feed kids that will not stunt their development like spoon and purée feeding apparently does. I have yet to meet an adult unable to eat properly due to being spoon fed.
DD1 was messy and gagged when feeding herself so spoon feeding was done more until she was better able to do it herself. DD2 was grabbing solid food from starting weaning at 6months and fantastic at chewing and swallowing so spoon feeding was less often. DS didn't do so well with solid foods initially but could direct a spoon full of lumpy food to his mouth expertly and cleanly from the start of weaning. He didn't like us doing it. Mess was not bad at all.

All kids are different and as long as you're offering a wide variety of foods then you're doing nothing wrong. All my kids love their food and aren't particularly fussy.

I spoon feed my 10 month old. She will pick up toast or pancakes etc by herself but definitely needs to be spoon fed most of the things I make. I honestly don’t think it will hold her back. I was raised the same way and it’s been fine. I don’t understand why there seems to be a lot of pressure for babies to feed themselves and eat exactly the same as adults from a very young age. Also, I’m fine with some mess but not when there is food everywhere and the baby would practically need to be bathed after a meal. I would just do what you think is best and what you’re able to do.

Thanks to everyone taking the time to respond. I just feel the pressure from other mums and especially my health visitor. He's coping really well feeding himself but I also spoon feed so I'm glad for the reassuring advice. Makes me feel less pressure

The science isn't exactly in favour of BLW (unless the study is paid by the author of course) . You might be interested in this piece I copied from the book "first bite"

"" “There are also concerns as to whether all babies are developmentally ready for grabbing chunks of food at six months. Professor Charlotte Wright, a pediatrician from Glasgow, found that, of a sample of six hundred families, only 40 percent of babies were in fact ready to self-feed at six months. By eight months, 90 percent were ready to reach out spontaneously for food. This indicated to Wright that it was “unrealistic” to expect children to rely exclusively on self-feeding when they started on their first tastes of solids. Another problem with BLW is that, as we saw in Chapter 1, when a “child waits until six months to start solids, they miss out on much of the crucial flavor window between four and seven months, when they would have been more receptive to acquiring new tastes.”

“BLW cannot be the one true way to feed a child, because nothing ever is. ”

Excerpt From: Bee Wilson. “First Bite: How We Learn to Eat.” Apple Books.

You are doing fine, there is not one rule for all. It is not a race, nobody is behind or at the front. Stop comparing. You and your son are unique. Focus on the pleasure of food and discovering new taste, not on how it reaches the mouth.
Some veggies, like a whole asparagus, or a broccolini, you can give in his hand, but peas, seriously, going everywhere but in the mouth?
If anyone comments, @discodave88say " yeah, I am doing the French way"

If you open this website on google chrome, it will translate the content from French . Some great menu ideas here www.cuisinez-pour-bebe.fr/menu/octobre-5-12-mois/

My DS is 10 months and he was spoon fed up until very recently purée because he had zero interest in using his hands! He still isn’t that bothered by touching his food with his hands but will happily let me spoon feed him / take the loaded spoon and feed himself with it.

Just do what works for you. At the end of the day he isn’t going to be incapable of using cutlery when he’s 30, so just do whatever is easiest for you and baby :)!

My nearly 5 year old was weaned on purées, spoon fed by me a lot of the time as it was quicker and I couldn’t be doing with the mess. Unsurprisingly he’s now perfectly able to eat with a knife and fork, eats a wide variety of food and isn’t obese.

Sounds like you’re doing a great job. Ultimately so long as the child gets fed, they will figure it out. You don’t have teenagers still requiring their mums to feed them their Cheerios every morning.

Absolutely, somehow there is this legend that if kids don’t have finger food their hand dexterity will be impaired and this is a main argument to push junk such as baby crisps or melts puff

I wanted to do a mix of spoon and finger foods but DS wouldn’t let me put the spoon in his mouth. Got round it by loading up the spoon for him (thick stuff like yoghurt, porridge, stews tended to stay on it) and handing it to him. So he learned to use cutlery really early on too. We weaned at 5 months because he grabbed some banana from his cousin’s plate and ate it himself. He’s always been very greedy and capable of feeding himself. All babies are different.