Bad habits

I'm usually a pretty easy going person, but this really irks me. My son formed this terrible habit of checking everything a million times that is being fed to him. Whatever it is (babyfood, tablefood, yogurt...etc) is coming right out of his mouth and smooshed and then back in. In and out, in and out. Then smoosh it on the tray of his high chair and last, but not least he ends up touching his hair, so that gets sticky with all the food he "played" with.
This habit started when he was 8 months or so. I thought eventually it'll pass, but I guess it won't. It is just so annoying! His neck, his clothes his everything drenched in food after every feeding.
He eats the food. He likes the food. He does not spit the food back. He just wants to explore it. Looks at it and then it goes back again.
Any suggestion how to break this? So maybe, maybe we can skip to wash his hair every day?

 

It will pass. Remember, right now they learn about everything through texture/taste and food is a big part of learning. Jacob does a similar thing. He picks up all foods and smooshes it before he eats. It is like he has to take it apart and study it before he can eat it. Jacob also thinks, food should not be eaten until you wear it on your head. You could start telling your son "food stays in our mouth or on our plate" and eventually he will get it. However, probably until he is two, he will be doing this type of thing.

 

I agree with PP, it will pass. Mine started doing that around 8 months, but it stopped around 13 months or so. This is an important way for them to learn, so just hang in!

 

Thank you. I figured it'll pass but I thought 5 months was long enought to... Again, thank you.

 

The more annoying the habit, the longer they take to let go.

 

And the corollary to this rule: The more it annoys *you* the longer it will take for them to get over it!! :lol:

Sometimes when my guys do stuff like this that drives me crazy, I just have to walk away for a minute (clean up some dishes, put something in another room), or they will sense my frustration and escalate.

Good luck and I hope he gets over it soon!

 

My girls used to be realy realy bad about this as well. It has stopped for the most part......thank goodness. I started stripping them down before meals (or at least taking shirts off). I noticed that helped me not care as much becuase it one less thing I had to clean. I also sat there with them while they ate for a few days and everytime it looked like they were gonna do it I would say "no ma'am", "uh uh uh uh", or "we don't take our food out of our mouths". It seemed to help some, but they pretty much had to stop it on their own.

 

How about letting him feed himself more? At least then the food would not need to be spat out of his mouth, he could explore it on the way in. Might cut down on a bit of the mess at least.

I'd also either strip him off or get one of those cover-all bibs with sleeves.

 

Thank you again everybody. He feeds himself, sometimes even with a spoon, but it's all the same. I guess he is still in the exploring stage.

 

I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, but Nate decided to rub his scrambled eggs into his hair this morning; I guess he wanted to explore the feeling of food on his head. <_<