Eating with a Spoon

Discipline for an 11 month old learning to use utensils? Um, my first thought here is... HUH? Who of us hasn't had the pleasures of scraping spagetti from the kitchen wall? :

But seriously, I just switched to finger foods at this stage. Gave DS opps to play with the utensils and waited. By 14 months, he could use a fork well but didn't always choose too. By 18 months the spoon came into play. No worries. I worried a lot at the time about ALL THIS KIND OF STUFF. And the one thing I know for sure is if I had the opportunity to go back and do it again knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have spent nearly the energy worrying about all those things that "happen in the child's own time." DS is 3 1/2 and I'm finally trusting this for real. What a relief! I can hardly see why enforcing "discipline" can teach a child to use utensils well, among many other things. What a strange viewpoint...

The comments by your MIL and pede are their opinion only and frankly, if they are offering more than comments (as in unwanted advice, etc. ) you have every right to stand up and remind them that it's not appropriate for them to be doing so without having been asked. That said, I'm a rather non-confrontational person myself. I prefer the route of just following my own instincts, and letting my own confidence in that prevail. What I've found is that family members trust me more than I realize, and sometimes just wanted to know the whys and wherefores of my decisions. Once I explained to them nicely, they usually said something like, "Hm. Never thought of it that way." DS is a great kid so they haven't once inch of room to argue.

So hang in there mom! You're doing just fine. Your DD is normal and healthy and dipping her feet in the pool of independence! Indeed, it gets trickier (and at times, more messy), but it's also beautiful!

Oh my, you must be joking, a pediatrician who thinks you should discipline an 11 month old to make her eat "properly." Okay, I know you aren't joking, but it's so unfortunate! It's like these doctors get through medical school without ever reading a book on child development.

My feeling is, as long as I can deal with the mess, he can play with the utensils and the food. When it feels like he's trying to get a rise out of me (something he's really only just started to do ) by which I mean to test a limit, then I set a limit. If he is trying to feed himself with the spoon and it's messy, that's why we have a drop cloth under the high chair. If he's intentionally using the spoon as a catapult to fling yogurt all over the dining room--we don't have to tolerate that, we can switch to another food or stop eating if he's not hungry anymore.

It is so much fun to watch them gain these skills at their own pace.

Okay, wait a second! Is the doctor telling you to feed the baby so that she will eat more food? Is it a weight-gain issue? I just realized that might be it. If so, I will tell you our secret. We let him pick up food to eat AND we fed him with a spoon at the same time. That way, he was entertained and distracted while we got the food into him. But, as soon as he began to gain skill and interest in self feeding, we stopped with the spoon feeding games.