finger foods - not really working!

[DualTracy]

Hi all,

I haven't seen this covered anywhere, so maybe it's just us!

My nine-month-old loves all and any food, and has yet to reject anything - we're very, very lucky!  However, finger food seems to be an issue.  My son isn't teething yet (my husband and I were both late teethers, and he's following the trend) and only sometimes puts toys etc in his mouth.  We started giving him finger food a couple of weeks ago.  His pincer grip has been excellent for months now (large motor skills are about average, but his manual dexterity is ridiculously amazing), and he loves playing with the things we give him - but he hasn't once tried to get anything to his mouth.  However, if I reach over and take it out of his hand, he immediately opens up for me to pop it in his mouth.

I've stopped doing this so that he learns to do it himself, but nothing happens.  I eat half of the stuff on his tray, and he watches and smiles but isn't interested.  I should add that he also makes no move to hold his own bottle or to grab the spoon when I feed him - in every other way he's very much his own man, but in feeding he likes us to do it for him, it seems!

Does anyone have any ideas?  I can't guide his hand to his mouth - as soon as I try he snatches his hand away.  This also extends to his sippy cup, which he happily picks up and bangs on the tray, but only drinks from when I pick it up (his mouth opens immediately when I take it from him).

Thanks for any ideas!
DualTracy

[DualTracy]

Hello old friend!!

Yes to both.  He LOVES eating together - he just looks from me to his dad and back and smiles and smiles.  And he likes having his own spoon to play with - he just doesn't feel that he should be, you know, using it!

We thought that the banana pieces were a bit tricky for holding onto - they tended to squirt out of his fist - so we've also tried squished blueberry halves, cheese cubes, and little steamed broccoli florets.  Loves them all as interesting toys, doesn't make any sort of move to his mouth with any of them.

Edited to add: Today I gave him some cheese cubes.  He played with them as usual, but only ate them if I fed them to him.  I then cunningly tried to hand them to him by putting my hand, with the cheese, close-ish to his face - he grabbed my hand and guided the cheese to his mouth!  Clever, but not really what I was going for...he seems to think that food must come from my hand or my husband's, but hasn't twigged that his own little fingers could do the same thing.