Hello everyone! Let me try to respond to all the great comments/questions:
Arial - Do you mean you were not sure whether to limit his time in the chair because he is so little in size/weight and you are scared he will not get enough? If so just keep in mind that the length of time he sits there does not necessarily equal more intake, and if it creates a battle over food could lead to less intake overall. And yes, I would advise to let him finger feed as much as he wants at the beginning of the meal, and then offer a spoon feed near the end of the meal. Give him a spoon too, and let him make the attempts while you are also offering a spoon. As far as finger foods, really the sky is the limit. Offer him anything that is relatively soft. A good rule of thumb for his age is that is you can "squish" the food between your thumb and forefinger so that they are touching skin to skin (i.e. banana) or close to touching (i.e. toast) the food is probably soft enough and your child will probably be able to manage it. My LO is 8 months and he eat cubed bananas, pears, cooked apple pieces, toast with melted cheese, bread, peas, small pieces of cheese, soft vegetables, cottage cheese, sweet potatoes, yams, even small pieces of chicken breast and other meats. Basically foods that are somewhat soft. At his age he can eat alot of foods that you eat for dinner, just broken into small pieces. Stacy's post is great in stating that you have to offer and re-offer new foods many times before a LO will accept it. Often up to 15 times or so, so just keep offering and let him explore!
Maria - This is a tough cycle that many parents find themselves in. They give their LO some foods during a meal. Their LO refuses them, so the parent either a) begins to "short-order cook" in a desperate attempt to get the LO to eat something or b) waits in agony to hear their LO in the middle of the night/early mroning wanting a bottle or food!!! You have to be careful with this, as you can accidentally encourage your LO to either hold out for their "favorite foods" during a mealtime or hold out for a bottle in the middle of the night. During meals I give my LO a variety of foods (usually 3 or 4 from different food groups) and then let him eat. If he refuses or eats very little of the foods presented, I do not "short-order cook" or make him something else. While there is no harm in offering a favorite food as a substitution for the meal you present once in a while, consistently doing this often results in a "picky eater" who wants the same food for breakfas, lunch, and dinner and a "exhausted mom" who is preparing 3 idfferent meals for 3 different children! Yikes! Now the true key to this is to really establish a consistent feeding routine and meal/snack times. You want to set up your feeding routine so that feeds are spaced out enough that you LO is sufficiently hunger at the beginning of a meal and ready to eat (as oppsed to snacking throughout the day). You LO's system will adapt to this and she will start to get hungry at these times. If you run into a situation where your LO is then wanting to eat in the middle of the night or early in the morning because she didn't eat enough during the day, you may need to spend some time teaching her to be hungry/eat at mealtimes instead of at night. You can think of it in terms of if you had a baby who no longer needed to eat an night, but was doing so out of habit or because she didn't drink enough during the day. You could address in a number of ways such as diluting the bottle, offering less every few days, or depending on your parenting style not responding to the waking with a feed.
Oh, and yes I am an SLP
Binxyboo - There are many SLPs who believe that Stage 3 foods are not really a natural developmental progression when children are learning to eat. There are others who do believe in including lumpy pureed in the progression and treatment. My take on this is basically that it depends on the child. I have worked with many children with ASD. Most children with ASD do have trouble with stage 3 foods. Some get "stuck" on stage 2 pureed and are unable to advance past this stage. Some move quickly from stage 2 to crunchy foods and then begin refusing all pureeds and any other textures. Most children with ASD also are vary limited in variety of foods accepted. When I treat a child with ASD who is having food issues I look at what they do accept. For example, if all they accept is 3 different pureed foods I will first work on expanding their variety of pureed foods that they accept (i.e. till they will accept 15 pureed foods) and then work on advancing textures. If I think the lumpy pureed foods will be too difficulty for them I will go right to the chewables. Conversely, if all they accept is 3 different crunchy foods then I will start there to expand variety (i.e. getting them to the point of accepting 15 different crunchy foods) and then slowly have them move to foods that are softer and not as crunchy. The thing to keep in mind with children with ASD is that they often do not follow the normal progression (i.e. pureed, thick pureed, soft solids, hard solids) due to their sensory issues, so your order of presentation may jump around based on what they are showing you. Not sure if I really answered your question but hope that helped. Are you an SLP too?
