Self Feeding

Over a week ago, I decided to let Tara learn to feed herself. For a start, I thought I gave her bread spread with cheese. It went pretty well. She didn't throw the bread pieces. And it's a good start.

Knowing that she won't throw her food, I started on something different. I read from other mothers' experiences that self feeding is a very messy affair so I thought I will let her try something not too runny and easy to scoop. I let her feed herself fromage for kids.

She couldn't hold the spoon in the right way despite correcting her several times. This stubborn little toddler simply loved to hold the end of the spoon. This time, I put on a big bib for her, just in case she messed herself. It was surprisingly good, actually. Besides the gooey mess on her bib and a few blobs on the tray, the floor managed to escape any mess and was very clean. And she managed to finish the whole bowl, by herself! When I took the empty bowl to wash, I swear her screams can be heard from the next block.

Tonight, I didn't think of letting her self feed her porridge, cos it's runny and it's going to be very messy. But it's my wrong, I shouldn't have put the bowl on the tray in front of her, letting her think that it's self feeding time again. She refused to let me feed her. No choice, I told Bob to get prepared for battle. I lined the floor with newspaper, change the normal bowl to her suction bowl, "armoured" her with the long sleeve bib Angela bought for her, and pray.
As expected, she didn't managed to scoop any porridge and put into her mouth successfully The tray got a little messy too. After a while, I thought I should try feeding her, so I took another spoon and feed her while she entertain herself with the scooping.

It's quite successful I should say, as in she managed to finish most of the porridge, with my help though. But by the end of it all, I had porridge on the newspaper, her chair, the tray, all over the bib, her whole face and my hands. I don't mind though, even though the cleaning up was troublesome, at least the little girl ate a lot of her porridge.

Well, it's a nice start.