?s about doc visit, x-posted - Page 2

[Carma]

Originally Posted by Emmeline II

Wow. I would ignore her too. I have never heard of a positive corralation between spoon feeding and speech development, and there are many benefits to self feeding.

For the heck of it, I did a google search and I actually found this advice:
benefits of spoonfeeding

Carma

[BUNGALOW10]

my son, 8 1/2 months, played with food at 6 mo, but didn't eat until two weeks ago.... needless to say, he is fine and healthy

[BakerALM]

Originally Posted by readytobedone

i just don't think it's good to go into the process with a clear "goal" of when your baby is going to be getting solids. your baby will tell you when it's solids time

TOTALLY agree!!! Trust your baby, they will tell you. Just let them pick off your plate and don't spoon feed or puree anything. Give them real food not those "baby snacks" or special baby food. My DD basically was BM only for easily over a year. She would try food but never eat any sort of quantity unless it was fruit which is basically like candy to her.

Food was more for entertainment than anything else until after she was a year. She just never really wanted to eat much just lick her hands and play with it. It was nice to be able to pop her down in her chair for 5 mins and put some kind of interesting food in front of her and just watch her explore. she never was one who you could put down so "food time" was a great break for me.

Oh another benefit of not spoon feeding and allowing her to self feed is that she never got in the habit of me having to feed her every meal. It is great for me since she has always been independent at the dinner table. I just cut her food up if it needs it and she take care of the rest. No need to feed her I can just enjoy my meal

[evlu]

Originally Posted by Carma

Our Ped said we should start before 6 months, so that he would still want to be spoonfed because spoonfeeding is good for speech development (we are not expecting problems). And after 6 months most babies want to self-feed. I ignored her, but that was the first that I heard this argument.

As a speech pathologist, I can tell you that I've never heard this before, either! This argument doesn't even really make sense, as spoon feeding is NOT a developmental stage and lots of cultures (most?) don't use spoons at all... their young learn to speak just fine!

I waited until my son was 7 months old to start solids (when I thought we'd have to restrain him at the dinner table to keep him away from our plates unless I gave him some food!) We pretty much skipped the pureed babyfood stage, just fork-mashed table food the first few times, then he was self-feeding soft solids. His speech development has always been completely normal.

[christiab]

How the heck does shoveling food in a kids mouth with a spoon prevent overfeeding and obesity??? That make no logical sense at all. How about letting a kid self-feed and regulate his own input? SHEESH!!

[tuffykenwell]

Originally Posted by christiab

How the heck does shoveling food in a kids mouth with a spoon prevent overfeeding and obesity??? That make no logical sense at all. How about letting a kid self-feed and regulate his own input? SHEESH!!

I think it is because they are comparing spoon feeding to putting cereal in a bottle and I agree that it is a darn sight better than that BUT better than spoon feeding is allowing baby to set the pace (a la baby led weaning). Of course Isla is 15 months old now and she spoon feeds herself...she won't touch anything when we are holding the spoon (and that includes really yummy things you think she would jump at like icecream...she likes to control her food and won't settle for anything less).

Steph

[avivaelona]

I started my son on solids at 6 months (because he was interested and wanted to try foods) and he had texture aversion issues anyway. I don't think this has anything to do with when you start the solids. He didn't consume enough solids for nutrition purposes until he was well over a year old. He never would eat gruel or purees.

He did grab a brownie off my plate when he was 8 months old and shoved the whole thing in his mouth at once, thus letting us test about 5 new possible food sensitivities at one time. Apparently he knew the good stuff when he saw it and just saw no point in eating anything that didn't taste BETTER than breast milk. Texture aversions, and lack of teeth be darned, he had no trouble getting that brownie (with chopped nuts) down at all.

Oh and he didn't let us spoon feed him anything until he was about 2.5 and decided he wanted to be fed suddenly. It doesn't seem to have influenced his speech.

My advice would be to introduce solids slowly, whenever the baby is interested, avoiding foods that tend to cause sensitivities til later and avoid carrying brownies on plates while holding your DC.