LO will be 12mo next week and his strong rejection of self-feeding is worrying me.
We started with a combination of BLW and spoon feeding when he was around 6-7 months. He was initially ok with feeding himself and was perfectly able to bring food to the mouth when he was younger. On good days he even tried to use the spoon and we always encouraged him. But then he became less and less willing to self-feed and now he rejects it completely like it's torture.
We put pieces of food in front of him at every meal. He'll either drop every piece on the floor or ignore them. If we try to put some food (or spoon) in his hand he'll fuss. If we try to guide his hand to the mouth he'll throw a tantrum. If we don't feed him, he'll cry or try to move his head towards the food but will never never use his hands to bring food to the mouth. He sometimes even grabs our hands (when we hold a spoon), or puts our hand on the spoon, but would never touch the spoon himself.
I sometimes give him larger pieces of bread so that he'll have to grab the half that's left out of his mouth. He would grab it and immediately throw it away. We also tried to put pieces of food in his play area for some change of environment. He does mouth toys sometimes but not very often. When he notices it's food, he either drops it on the floor or cries (because he wants to eat and wants to be fed). It's like he has some kind of psychological barrier that prevents him from bringing food to the mouth. We also tried eating together with him and he's been going to daycare for 3 months now, where apparently all other children will self feed. But nothing helps.
The strong aversion makes me think it might be sensory processing issues. I wonder if anyone has experienced anything similar?
For information, he's delayed in gross motor skills. He doesn't crawl or pull to stand and we're working with a physiotherapist. He sits well and spins around when sitting. He's generally a happy boy and never stops babbling. He eats everything and eats A LOT (as long as he's fed).