5MO Spirited - "I do it" attitude coming out already with the spoon!

[becj86]

HELP!!

I've read what I can on this and have extra spoons so he gets a spoon to 'feed himself' with but he's caught on, so now its got to have food on it. Now I have a couple of spoons on rotation, load it with food, hand it to him and hope some gets in the mouth and swallowed, get the next spoon, load it, hand it to him in exchange for the now-empty one, and so on...

Mess I can deal with but how do I know how much is actually getting into him?

If I don't do the extra spoons thing, he sticks both his hands in his mouth or grabs the bowl of the spoon and smears the food everywhere and will not eat anything. This is a kid who's been on solids for 1.5 weeks!!!

I don't know what I'm really asking. I guess any BTDT would help and ideas for how to keep food time interesting please?

[RachelC]

At 5 months old solids are just experimental and a fun activity. Beast or bottle is way more important, so after some spoon rotations of some foods, move on to the next activity 

[Buntybear]

I htink he is doing great if he already gets how to spoon feed at 5 months! Maybe try some very soft finger foods for him to play with? As Rachel says it is about experimenting at this age.

[becj86]

Thanks I was going to jump on this morning as I was thinking about it last night - its only tasting and learning at this point, not really worrying too much about how much (if any) makes it through the system. Sometimes my irrational side makes it out of its box

He's quite fascinated with eating - he's very active but any time I start eating, he'll stop whatever he's doing and just stare at me for my whole meal, then go back to playing when I finish...

[Buntybear]

Haha that is too funny, like a little food stalker! Bodes well for weaning then

[becj86]

LOL! My friend calls me her dinner stalker... maybe we can be food stalkers together

He's finally figured out the sippy cup Nobody in our house uses a cup with a handle so he's been a bit mystified by them. I took them off and he knew exactly what to do!

I gues part of my worries about how much he was getting is because I was anaemic while he was laying down his iron stores (I didn't know at the time) and he got really lethargic for a few days so we started him on iron fortified cereal. He's much better now, thank goodness, so we'll get onto a few more veges and things other than cereal...

[skatty]

Have you looked into Baby Lead Weaning? It is great for independant, spirited babes 

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=92560.0

[*Kara*]

He's finally figured out the sippy cup

You have a smart little cookie!  Most bubs don't really get the hang of a sippy until 10 months or so... mine just got it figured out a couple weeks ago at 10 1/2 months

[becj86]

Thanks Skatty, have looked into baby-led weaning and incorporated a few ideas from it as we've gone along, suspect we're moving that way more than I had thought - not easy for someone as perfectionist and pedantic as myself, but I'm nurturing a little person, not playing with a toy.