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fire_engine 
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 Topic: Self feeding
Posted: 28 July 2010 at 1:05pm |
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At what point do you step in and (physically) feed your child? Dan's always been a lazy feeder and will feed himself and then get bored so we step in.
I know there's an argument that he won't bother to feed himself b/c he knows we'll do it, but TBH, if it's the difference between him sleeping through the night and waking 3+ times from hunger, I'd much prefer to feed him. I tend to get him self-feeding his breakfast (it stays on the table and is all he has till he eats it) and most of lunch, but dinner is the struggle. We try bribery and games which sometimes work but sometimes he's also just too tired.
When is it normal for a child to fully feed themself meals? What did you do to encourage this?
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kebakat
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Posted: 28 July 2010 at 1:11pm |
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No answer for ya but we are like that with Daniel. He feeds himself lunch and dinner but breakfast we have to help with or he fart asses around for sooooo long because hes so happy to just be up and about.
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Mum2ET
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Posted: 28 July 2010 at 1:31pm |
Ella feeds herself breakfast no problems. For lunch she sometimes needs a bit help- mainly because she gets bored and just wants to go and play.
For dinner we used to have to feed her quite a bit, as she just couldn't be bothered and DH got in the habit of helping her so she came to expect that. A use a couple of tricks to get her to feed herself and encourage her to eat a bit more (when I know she is actually hungry)- sometimes we can turns feeding her (e.g. she does one spoonful and then I do another and so on); and lately we have turned dinner into a bit of game to see who can finish their mouthful the fastest and she gets to choose what the next mouthful is. This has been a great succes the last week and has really encouraged her to eat her veges and try some different food (you have to let her win through as she gets a bit upset if you bet her).
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Bizzy
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Posted: 28 July 2010 at 2:04pm |
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eden (28 mths) feeds herself and is really quite good at her cutlery, better than the boys sometimes! i cant imagine feeding her. I think she has been doing it for ages now too and both the boys would have been essentially doing it themselves at 2 as well.
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flakesitchyfeet
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Posted: 28 July 2010 at 2:44pm |
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DD does, but only because I gave up on feeding her at about the time she gave up on puree. (9months). We gave her her cutlery to play with, she finger fed until she took interest in using it like Mummy & Daddy. She's an eater though, and she still has a last bottle at the end of the day though which would probably top her up a bit. Who knows what she'll get like as she gets older!
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Shezamumof3
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Posted: 28 July 2010 at 5:55pm |
We never feed Caden, he feeds himself, even if I try to spoon stuff in he just wont have a bar of it, he uses his spoon and fork himself.
Oh he will let us spoon food in if he KNOWS its something like choc yoghurt 
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BeLoved
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Posted: 28 July 2010 at 7:32pm |
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DD 20 months feeds herself, she only lets me feed her when its off my plate. But sometimes if she is mucking around then I step in, but then if she is full she won't let me. Our problem is using our hands to eat yoghurt because it takes her too long with the spoon and I think she just likes the feeling of it.
Could bring dinner forward so he is not tired. DD has her dinner at 5pm because eating with us would just be too late, if she is not having what we are having (because its not ready) then its what we had the night before or something else, I just sit with her at her little table, because she makes me!
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whitewave
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Posted: 28 July 2010 at 8:03pm |
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I've been thinking the same question myself, and I'm sooo glad I'm not the only one!
Campbell is capable of using his plastic fork or spoon, but often gets bored and throws food around. I'm normally happy to feed him, but just recently he's been refusing my efforts. Breakfast and tea are difficult unless its finger food and its food he loves!
I've also found he's worse when he's tired, so maybe it is worth bringing tea time forward?
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fire_engine
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Posted: 28 July 2010 at 8:39pm |
It's more a case of CBA than tired I think. We tend to have it later cos he eats better if DH is around and he doesn't get home till 6.30 or so.
Tonight was good - he self fed half of it. We had races to eat and he had to find the pineapple then the pig (pork) then the pepper etc ....
Life would be easier if we ate fingery type food but we have lots of curries, mince things and stews - not so great for little fingers 
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Nikki
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Posted: 28 July 2010 at 9:34pm |
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Jake self fed from not long after his first b'day (and alot of meals before then too cos I did lots of finger food) but we've always battled with him and dinners (picky eater after getting really sick just over 1) but he still has lots of finger food. He does muck around for AGES though. After Mrogan started on solids (about 7 months ago) he started wanting "help" some times -- I actually think my mum started it as she was trying to hurry him up (he mucks around alot!) so she "helped" him, then dh started doing it too, to hurry him up. So now we still help every now and then with dinner, but only if its something new or something he doesn't like or if hes taking FAR too long. I think daycare started helping him around the same time too, cos he refused their lunches for a while too (they're "dinner" type food).
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palomino
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Posted: 28 July 2010 at 10:29pm |
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We dont feed DS (that sounds bad lol) but we did the whole BLW thing, and so he picked up using a spoon pretty early on. Its great, he has to have his little fork and loves poking peas on and eating them. He does get distracted when tired so have to have his tea around 5.30
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mummyofprinces
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Posted: 29 July 2010 at 8:19am |
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Jake wont use cutlery but will self feed finger food... atm I feed him his weetbix and he feeds himself a piece of toast at brekkie and then he feeds himself lunch and it depends on the food for dinner... He wont eat what we eat in its whole form and i am not waging that battle at dinner time so we are trying to get him to do it at lunch... not successful.
I am so not happy about having to puree/mash food at this stage but the kid has to eat right!
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gmunster
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Posted: 29 July 2010 at 1:52pm |
We have no issue with breakfast and lunch but tea time is similar to you. Gets bored half way through - will use a fork till then, then gives up and goes to fingers and usually stops. 9 times out of 10 I step in and try and pack some more into her but she HATES being fed and usually complains.For me though, it too is the difference between a good nights sleep and waking. So I always try and cram a bit more in.
I figure that there will be some point where she will do it herself all the time as there are not many adults around who don't!
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FionaO
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Posted: 29 July 2010 at 7:23pm |
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We're the same, we are getting better but thats only recently, I know he can do it as daycare he plows through his meals no help, but with us it takes a while, I allow more time for meals and try not to rush him, he often says all done and gets up to clean his hands, but if I offer more he'll let me feed him, I figure like gmunster he will get there eventually.
More often than not now he gives it a go to begin with then we help out.
I think its like a lot of things every kid varies but they get there in the end.
I have found if I make a HUGE fuss when he does do it it helps.
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FreeSpirit
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Posted: 31 July 2010 at 9:32am |
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Fliss - one thing that helped E to be more enthusiastic about feeding herslef was getting her a metal knife and fork set so she is just like the grown ups. If I had to help, I would take the cool grown up utensils away and use plastic ones (I explained to her that mummy can't use the grown up fork to help her because we only use metal in our own mouths).
Also, not stressing about the nightwaking - she's never been a great sleeper, but it only took 2 nights for her to figure out she would be hungry if she didn't eat her dinner.
Switch up what you are feeding - often we give toddler's finger food for lunch and they eat fine, then food you need utensils for at dinnertime and they're not as keen - have you tried fingerfood at dinner?
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freckle
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Posted: 31 July 2010 at 10:37am |
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Holly has feed herself for ages but some nights she mucks around and would seriously take hours if we didn't help a bit... so sometimes we sit with her and shovel spoonfuls in to get through dinner...
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fire_engine
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Posted: 31 July 2010 at 8:59pm |
LOL, we had a month of him nightwaking cos he was hungry (have I mentioned he's stubborn ) and I really don't want to go there again!
I did finger food tonight - tomatoes, cucumber, cheese, hashbrowns and bacon then finished with a smoothie (which he couldn't finish!) so FX that works.
One reason I do "normal" food at night (and wait for DH) is that we've been wanting to do family meal times and we also find he's (a bit) better if he eats with us. For those who mix it up and do more fingery based food at night (which does make sense), do you eat together or do your kids eat earlier?
I know this will have sorted itself out before he's 18 but I guess I just needed a bit of reassurance that he isn't totally abnormal and a few ideas of how we get him doing more himself.
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gmunster
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Posted: 01 August 2010 at 9:31pm |
Well we had a total fail at feeding oneself at ALL mealtimes today - so I am definitely not qualified to offer any more suggestions !!!!
Hope you get it sorted shortly!
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whitewave
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Posted: 02 August 2010 at 10:12pm |
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Flissty, we are trying to integrate our mealtimes now, occasionally I'll feed Campbell earlier but am trying to get it sorted out so we all eat at the same time. I'm still trying to figure out meals that work for all of us! Campbell's favourite meal is a spaghetti bolognese type meal but the pasta is rissoni instead of spaghetti - he'll normally let me feed him for that one. Otherwise its a bit of trial and error - he'll eat things like fish and chips really easy, but a meal full of vegetables he'll usually play around and throw all the veges off the side of the highchair! But - I did a slowcooker casserole last week, that he slowly made his way through, he just used his fingers to pick up the chunks of meat and veges and he actually ate them!
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Self feeding
