Now in the back of my head I've known for a while he's at the age where I should start letting him experiment with his spoon if I ever hope to raise a child who can do more than just eat with his fingers (a skill his future wife would greatly appreciate at dinner parties). But until tonight, I hadn't really let him try it on his own yet. While I would like to feign ignorance here that I just didn't know a 14-month-old could feed himself, in reality it's just that I had gotten lazy and found it easier (and less messy) to feed him the applesauce or whatever myself. I admit though that a mother-in-law showing up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with a plastic spoon is probably not the best way to bond with my future daughter-in-law.
Anyway, we were amazed at how well he did feeding himself with a utensil for a first try. I loaded up a few bites onto his spoon, handed it to him, and let him do the rest. We did this a good 10-15 times and he really enjoyed it. What surprised me even more was that after I just let him have the spoon to do whatever he wanted with it, he began picking up little bits of rice off of his tray and putting it on the spoon himself. He had watched me do it and then tried to imitate the action himself.
While he wasn't quite as successful with that endeavor, mainly because the food wouldn't stay put, I was more than thrilled he at least had pretty good control over the spoon itself. In the grand scheme of self-feeding, I'm sure there are plenty of toddlers who have mastered this skill earlier that Jack, but hey, it was still a little victory nonetheless. It also showed me how I shouldn't be lazy in my efforts to try new skills with him, because he might just be further along than I think he is. Now, about that walking......
1 comment:
I remember those days with Carlee. Hard to imagine Zachary is almost there. Anyways, there is a spoon that helps with self-feeding. You can probably get it at Target. It has little holes in it that actually helps the food stay on the spoon longer. It helped Carlee. Jack is doing great!! Carlee still likes to eat with her hands, so it is a long process.
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