Feeding questions

Our boys are almost a year old, and I have a few feeding questions:

1. When did you start teaching your LO's to use utensils? I have given them each a spoon a few times at meals - they mostly just chew on them. Michael did try to stick it in the bowl once or twice and let me hold his hand and scoop up some cereal, but Gabriel just wanted to chew on his. I'm wondering when they will be ready for forks? (baby forks of course)

2. They are starting to really like smashing their food, hitting the high chair tray to make it jump, etc. Do you all tell them "no" when they do this, or just ignore it? They play more than they eat sometimes - we have been telling them "no" and miming eating, which they sometimes will then do. Should we keep trying to correct them, or just ignore and let them play and eat what they want??

3. Should I be worried that they are pooping out whole peas, kernels of corn, etc.? Both of them have pooped out some off or on, but today, they pooped out a bunch - does that mean they aren't ready for those things??

TIA!

 

1. We started giving our guys forks right around when they turned 1. Forks are *much* easier to learn to use than spoons! Mostly they just played with them, but I would help them fork a few bits of food and encourage them to put it in their mouths to get them used to the idea. Now they are really good at forks, but prefer to use their fingers. Spoons are tough to learn, especially with food that doesn't stick to them. It wasn't until my guys were closer to 2 that they could use spoons to eat something like broth-based soup or cereal/milk and actually get any food in their mouths!

2. When my guys were 1 I would let them play with their food quite a bit. Right now your boys are getting used to the idea of solids and experimenting with textures and tastes. Let them enjoy everything about their food! When my boys got closer to 2 I started to teach them manners, and now discourage any "farting around" that makes a mess or is disruptive to the meal.

3. As far as whole kernels of corn....have you looked at your own poop after eating corn on the cob? :laughing: Seriously, even adults can't digest the stuff, and it comes out looking a lot like it did when it went in. This is totally normal. opcorn:

 

We introduced utensils at 12 months and they are just now getting the hang of them (a little!), but they sill play around with them a lot. They will refuse to eat sometimes if I don't give them a spoon or fork though! They eat yogurt and oatmeal with a spoon and it normally goes: spoonful, handful, spoonful, handful, etc. As for the whole peas/corn in their poop, its totally normal. Right after DH came home from his deployment, he freaked out and called me into the room while changing C's pants because their was a whole green bean in her poop.

 

Thanks, ladies. I think I will pick up some baby utensils next time I go out, and I guess I just won't worry about playing with the food and the pooing! Lol.

 

We started with utensils a little later because ours would just throw them on the floor. About 15 months they started acting interested so we would let them try a little with our help. Now they are at a stage where if it takes a spoon they insist on doing it themselves, so we try to stick with finger foods unless its the last meal of the day because it definitely requires baths after they feed themselves!

At that age if they were playing with the food I would let them but if they were throwing it on the floor I would take the tray away for a minute. If they continued to throw it on the floor then they were done for the meal.

Toddler poop is really gross. Get used to seeing all sorts of nasty stuff as their diet expands!

 

1. I just put out the baby utensils at each meal and also modeled how to use them. The kids eventually picked up on it but they figured out forks before they did spoons.
2. Kids at a year, I think, figure out gravity and what annoys Mommy-hence the food being thrown on the floor-what I started to do is give them three chances at the third time, meal time was over.
3. I agree with slugrad, toddler poop is gross and it is normal to see corn, etc. in there.

 

[quote name='Nate and Jack's Mom' date='16 December 2010 - 12:29 PM' timestamp='1292531370' post='1736784']
1. We started giving our guys forks right around when they turned 1. Forks are *much* easier to learn to use than spoons! Mostly they just played with them, but I would help them fork a few bits of food and encourage them to put it in their mouths to get them used to the idea. Now they are really good at forks, but prefer to use their fingers. Spoons are tough to learn, especially with food that doesn't stick to them. It wasn't until my guys were closer to 2 that they could use spoons to eat something like broth-based soup or cereal/milk and actually get any food in their mouths!
[/quote]

It's funny, but we've found the opposite. Our boys are getting pretty good at their spoons finally (they're 19 months now-- it suddenly started to click for them around 16 months). But they're still pretty baffled by forks. When they do successfully use a fork, it's usually because they've used the fork like a spoon. I think one thing that makes it hard is that anything they could stab with a fork, they could just as easily (or, rather much more easily) pick up with their fingers. Whereas, for spoon foods (like yogurt, oatmeal, etc.) they prefer to use the spoon, because they've developed an aversion for "mess" on their fingers. (An aversion that they definitely did not have at 12-15 months, by the way!)

On the food/plate throwing front, we do still sometimes have problems with this, but it improved dramatically when we switched them from highchairs with trays to high chairs or booster seats pulled up to the table. Somehow they knew that they had to behave more appropriately or something. Who knows!