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EAT => Eating For Toddlers => Topic started by: babyrose on November 25, 2011, 10:20:43 am

Title: how can i can encourage 18 month old to eat himself?
Post by: babyrose on November 25, 2011, 10:20:43 am

A is 18 months and we gave him his knife and fork around 12/13 months to encourage him to eat himself as he always used to take the cutlery off us bf this time. now at 18 months he will just sit and let people feed him, i do keep saying and encouraging him but nothing has changed.

any ideas?

Title: Re: how can i can encourage 18 month old to eat himself?
Post by: weaver on November 25, 2011, 13:14:12 pm

I find if I'm sitting there watching him, there's less likely to be cutlery action.  If I'm bustling doing other things, or even eating my own, he gets on with it. 

Title: Re: how can i can encourage 18 month old to eat himself?
Post by: kerry,(kaceys mum) on November 25, 2011, 14:36:33 pm

Yep I was the same,,,, I used to just say "mummys to busy doing X,,,,can you be a good helper and try feed yourself please". I also fould that my dd's found some things to hard to get onto a fork,,,like peas,,rice and so on so I would give them a spoon and a fork with their dinner so that they could choose witch one to pick from!x

Title: Re: how can i can encourage 18 month old to eat himself?
Post by: Lemonthyme on November 25, 2011, 20:39:22 pm

My son goes through phases, he sometimes doesn't want to feed himself, he sometimes wants me to feed him.  He's 18 months too.  Generally I find he gets fussy when I sit down with him if I'm not eating, so either I ignore him or I eat myself.

Title: Re: how can i can encourage 18 month old to eat himself?
Post by: weaver on November 26, 2011, 12:02:43 pm

Also, some things are just too hard for cutlery (like yesterday's spaghetti) so I just said to him 'you might want to use your hands'. And he did and gobbled it down! 

Title: Re: how can i can encourage 18 month old to eat himself?
Post by: babyrose on November 28, 2011, 09:29:43 am

Last night he was good with his dinner, veg,potatoes and Turkey no problems. We clapped and cheered when he got some in his mouth using the fork. Maybe liquidy stuff is too hard for just now.

Title: Re: how can i can encourage 18 month old to eat himself?
Post by: Lemonthyme on November 28, 2011, 11:17:38 am

My son has (in the past couple of days) now got into the habit of saying "Help" halfway through his meal which if I then don't feed him for a bit ends up with the spoon flying across the room so we're not there yet but he does feed himself some things.

Have you tried making the more liquidy stuff thicker so it sticks to a spoon whatever way it goes in?  Mashed potato is good for this.

Title: Re: how can i can encourage 18 month old to eat himself?
Post by: weaver on November 28, 2011, 12:58:58 pm

Definitely mash is the biggest hit here for spoon-practice.  Polenta is good too.  And petit filous (though I hang onto the pot for dear life).

Title: Re: how can i can encourage 18 month old to eat himself?
Post by: babyrose on November 28, 2011, 15:48:13 pm

know what you mean about the yogurt A likes to was his hair ::)