Sleep may not always go smoothly for our spirited 10 mo but Eat is good. These tips have helped us at the table:
- if she misses her hunger window, she gets crotchety (don't we all!) and won't eat so if I am slow in preparing I will pop a few bites of bread, cheese, cracker into her mouth before getting her into the chair. I have to make sure it is all ready before I put her in the chair or she gets frustrated very quickly!
- she is into everything out of the highchair so I have to be careful to make sure mealtime doesn't mean being trapped/bored. If she starts fidgeting I let her play with tupperware, vitamin bottle, a whole avocado, an orange in paper, a little cup of her own. A distraction like this can help a lot with the spoonfeeding. She also likes to 'do it herself' eg she only wants a banana if she can hold it herself with skin peeled down (really!). If I try and help her too much we can have a mini tantrum on our hands.
- too many finger foods on her tray at once seems to be too much for her to cope with. And when she was first practising the pincer movement, everything had to be in tiny bits (think peas!).
- she will often take a break for yogurt/fruit/biscuit and then get a second wind for the 'main course' and gobble that up - I don't think we have to end on a sweet note. Sometimes she won't eat another bite till she's had a sip of water. Then she'll happily tuck in again.
- she eats better when she is not the only one eating; she watches and copies us and usually wants to eat the same thing. This way she got a taste for Granny Smith apples, plain yogurt without fruit/sugar, garlicky spaghetti, things I wouldn't have offered her and she prob would have refused if I hadn't been eating it at the time. A few times she acted like she was so full, sick of the sight of food but once I gave up and started eating her leftovers, she suddenly regained her appetite and finished the lot!
- if all else fails, just leave it and offer again next mealtime/another day. Getting stressed about it always makes it worse. Often she will seem to hate something and then the following week, it's her favourite! Or she won't eat if she needs a bm.
Wow this got long - did I miss anything? Anyway HTH somebody!
