Spoon!
We have a major parenting debate brewing in our house. It’s not spanking vs. timeout; we both agree that spanking is a barbaric form of punishment that teaches the child that hitting is okay, though to be fair to spanking she hasn’t really ticked us off yet. It’s not the dreaded whole milk vs. 2% debate; we both agree that whole milk is best right now, though that debate is surely coming since Ellie wants to ensure that Abbie receives all of the necessary fats and other nutrients found in whole milk for as long as possible, and I’m too cheap to keep paying the extra 25-cents per gallon for whole milk over 2%. Our brewing debate is over self-feeding.
Currently, Abbie feeds herself about half of her foods. I’ve forced her to feed herself milk for months now, first out of a bottle and now sippy cups, though I do have to help her finish her milk now by unscrewing the lid and helping her drink commando since no one seems capable of making a sippy cup that leaves less than a quarter of an ounce of liquid in the bottom. The first solid food we let her feed herself was Tasteeos at about 7-months-old, which is probably too young for such an endeavor, but boy did they keep her occupied. We enjoyed a couple months of peaceful dinners while she was strapped in and spending 30 minutes happily fumbling for tiny whole-grain donuts. Now she can devour a handful of Tasteeos in about two minutes, which gives me enough time to enjoy microwaving the next course in peace, provided the next course isn’t so big it requires extra time. We also give her small semi-firm vegetables to feed herself such as peas and green beans along with the occasional broccoli piece from my plate.* She eats these by taking a giant handful, stuffing as much as she can into her mouth, letting the rest fall onto her high chair seat, and waiting for me to scoop up vegetable droppings from her seat to refill her tray.
That’s about everything that I let her feed herself, just the fairly non-messy foods. I feed her plenty of messy foods like applesauce, spaghetti, and chili,** but I always use a utensil to scoop and deposit in her mouth for her. I do this partially to keep her clean because a baby trying to feed herself spaghetti is messier than a baseball player testifying before Congress about steroid use without perjuring himself. Mostly I do this because Abbie will not use utensils. Not that I expect spoon mastery at this age, that’s as ridiculous as expecting a highly paid professional football player to show up for preseason training camp. It would be nice if she would hold the spoon and maybe try to bring it to her mouth, but she won’t. She used to grab a fork from me if I offered it to her upright with the food pre-speared, but now she just leans forward and tries to put her mouth around the fork while I squirm in fear that she’ll just poke her eye instead. If she won’t show the initiative to talk, I don’t expect her to show the initiative to feed herself.
Ellie thinks she should show the initiative to feed herself. Last night she asked why I don’t just leave the spaghetti in front of her with a spoon and let her figure it out. I said because I don’t want her to scream since I thought she was much too prissy to touch something that messy with her fingers. Nature’s way of telling you a baby is ready to self-feed is by having the baby kick up a huge fuss and refusing to eat anything that comes directly from your hand. I humored her, though, and left the spaghetti on her tray. After a couple minutes of poking and prodding and seeing that she had no other option, she dug in to scoop giant handfuls of spaghetti onto her shirt and into her mouth. It mostly ended up onto her shirt, though. This saved me time since I could prepare my meal while she ate, instead of sitting down and spooning. Of course I lost all of this saved time and more when I cleaned her off.
It was a worthy experiment, but for now I’m just going to continue feeding her messy foods myself. I do accept Ellie’s point that Abbie should be learning to self-feed, so I’m going to encourage her to take the utensil after I’ve loaded it for her. I’m just going to have to keep her eyes safe while doing it.
* Yes, she likes broccoli. She asks, nay, demands some while I’m eating it.
** Of course I don’t feed the baby chili. It’s too warm to make chili during summer.
Currently, Abbie feeds herself about half of her foods. I’ve forced her to feed herself milk for months now, first out of a bottle and now sippy cups, though I do have to help her finish her milk now by unscrewing the lid and helping her drink commando since no one seems capable of making a sippy cup that leaves less than a quarter of an ounce of liquid in the bottom. The first solid food we let her feed herself was Tasteeos at about 7-months-old, which is probably too young for such an endeavor, but boy did they keep her occupied. We enjoyed a couple months of peaceful dinners while she was strapped in and spending 30 minutes happily fumbling for tiny whole-grain donuts. Now she can devour a handful of Tasteeos in about two minutes, which gives me enough time to enjoy microwaving the next course in peace, provided the next course isn’t so big it requires extra time. We also give her small semi-firm vegetables to feed herself such as peas and green beans along with the occasional broccoli piece from my plate.* She eats these by taking a giant handful, stuffing as much as she can into her mouth, letting the rest fall onto her high chair seat, and waiting for me to scoop up vegetable droppings from her seat to refill her tray.
That’s about everything that I let her feed herself, just the fairly non-messy foods. I feed her plenty of messy foods like applesauce, spaghetti, and chili,** but I always use a utensil to scoop and deposit in her mouth for her. I do this partially to keep her clean because a baby trying to feed herself spaghetti is messier than a baseball player testifying before Congress about steroid use without perjuring himself. Mostly I do this because Abbie will not use utensils. Not that I expect spoon mastery at this age, that’s as ridiculous as expecting a highly paid professional football player to show up for preseason training camp. It would be nice if she would hold the spoon and maybe try to bring it to her mouth, but she won’t. She used to grab a fork from me if I offered it to her upright with the food pre-speared, but now she just leans forward and tries to put her mouth around the fork while I squirm in fear that she’ll just poke her eye instead. If she won’t show the initiative to talk, I don’t expect her to show the initiative to feed herself.
Ellie thinks she should show the initiative to feed herself. Last night she asked why I don’t just leave the spaghetti in front of her with a spoon and let her figure it out. I said because I don’t want her to scream since I thought she was much too prissy to touch something that messy with her fingers. Nature’s way of telling you a baby is ready to self-feed is by having the baby kick up a huge fuss and refusing to eat anything that comes directly from your hand. I humored her, though, and left the spaghetti on her tray. After a couple minutes of poking and prodding and seeing that she had no other option, she dug in to scoop giant handfuls of spaghetti onto her shirt and into her mouth. It mostly ended up onto her shirt, though. This saved me time since I could prepare my meal while she ate, instead of sitting down and spooning. Of course I lost all of this saved time and more when I cleaned her off.
It was a worthy experiment, but for now I’m just going to continue feeding her messy foods myself. I do accept Ellie’s point that Abbie should be learning to self-feed, so I’m going to encourage her to take the utensil after I’ve loaded it for her. I’m just going to have to keep her eyes safe while doing it.
* Yes, she likes broccoli. She asks, nay, demands some while I’m eating it.
** Of course I don’t feed the baby chili. It’s too warm to make chili during summer.
posted by Matt at
9:23 PM
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