genuine cry for help- almost a Phobos about baby making a mess when holding food

[thequietone]

please help me. DS2 eats chunky food now (1yo this week). He also has baby rice cakes, toast fingers, bread sticks, blueberries to eat while I prepare meals. I just cannot get him on to the next stage of eating large pieces. It all gets thrown on the floor. I honestly cannot recall what ds1 was like but he went to nusery where they were used to the mess. I am almost phobic about food scrunched in fingers and thrown but appreciate it is time to introduce more grown up eating habits.

Please can anyone help?

Phobos???? Phobia.

DS2 is slightly older and at a similar stage. I can only say that your LO sounds like he is doing fine - holding breadsticks, fingers of toast, thin sticks of carrot/banana etc. DS2 has similar things, and also eats loads of sloppy type meals, e.g. chicken curry and rice, chopped up penne with mince bolognese sauce with bits of veg and grated cheese in, and so on. With regard to "large pieces" of food, I think it depends on the texture of the food. DS1 almost choked on a large slice of cake which he tried to shove down his throat in its entirety. Since then, I tend to give stuff like cake out in smaller pieces, but ripe pear (for example) I would give in big pieces. It depends on the food and the baby I guess.

He's having some success feeding himself with a spoon, and redecorating in the process. I really believe you just have to accept that it is going to be messy whilst your LO learns to eat. It is a complete faff cleaning up 3 time a day, but is probably essential.

Sorry if I'm waffling, just hope this might help you as a point of comparison.

thanks so much for writing. DS2 when given food just squidges it and throws on the floor. If I chose the blw route at the moment then not one morsel would reach his mouth. He just wants to drop it.