Feeding themselves

[GerMom7]

Hope this is the right place to post this. I feel like I have messed up with weaning my now nearly 17 mo ds. He's a very fussy eater and it's really stressing me out.

I'm trying to let him feed himself and don't care how messy it gets but he will only take one or two spoons/forks then loses all interest and throws everything on the floor, or I have to intervene and spoon feed to get anything into him.

I have read all the stuff about how you should leave them to it, they'll eat when they're hungry etc but this would mean he had a couple of flakes of salmon and a cube of cheese a day pretty much.

We don't eat together enough but I'm working on that in the hope it might help - but it doesn't change the fact that he loses interest after one or two mouthfuls.

I've tried finger foods and he can sometimes be better but I can't give him everything that way can I?

Please can anyone let me know what they do with regard to letting them feed themselves at this age and also about drinks. Should he be drinking out of an open cup now all the time? He's still using a cow cup for milk and one of the basic Tommee Tippee ones for water.

Any tips gratefully received.

There is no one right way to do it, honestly, half of the advice you hear is fashion and not gospel.

I couldn't handle seeing all that food wasted so would probably spoonfeed him myself. And it's true he won't starve himself, but he might end up hungry at an inconvenient moment or binging on milk when you want him to take in more variety. So good to encourage some habit of regular mealtimes.

If you did want to keep having him feed himself, I would keep to very small amounts in his bowl for now on! And I used no-spill drinking cups until they were four, myself (can't see that that caused any ill effects, either).