for those whose twins don't use utensils yet

At what age do most people feel they are eating enough with their fingers to stop offering baby food/yogurt? Dd is very picky and will eat with her hands but usually not alot of food and not many different things. Ds only eats wagon wheels, ritz crackers and mini pancakes with his hands. He will accept more food from you (not alot but depending on his mood and what the food is) where as dd will not allow you to try to feed her anything. I usually end up with a couple of jars of baby food at each meal being offered because I feel like if I just let the survive on what they feed themselves, they will starve. I know ds needs some work and I cannot let him go without offering the baby food. But when can I just let dd only eat what she feeds herself? Some meals she does not eat anything or very little.

Also for those still on the liquid vitamins, how do you give that to your babies? Directly in their mouth? Mix in their food? I have been mixing it in the food but if dd won't take the spoon from us, it is a big struggle to get her to even eat the little bit with the vitamins.

 

We continued to feed the kids things like yogurt and applesauce until they were able to do it themselves. While I always tried to offer a variety of finger foods, I still fed them items that I felt they needed in order to have a balanced diet. Sometimes it was just for one meal a day, sometimes it was more often. Mine started feeding with forks around 15 mos, but were not very proficient at it for awhile.

 

mine seem to eat a lot w/ their hands and freak out when i'm going to feed them something w/ a spoon....don't know why. they will usually calm down when they realize, oh, it's yogurt, we like that. most things i will give them to eat off their tray, macaroni & cheese, even some messier things like a casserole type thing. they don't want me to feed it to them.

it is hard for me to imagine when they will start using utensils. i sometimes, let them hold the spoon while i do too and put it in their mouth. they aren't so interested in doing it yet though.

as for the vitamins...i put it in the first sippy cup of milk of the day. their vitamins don't have fluride in them, that is separate.

 

Both of my girls who are 5 like to use their hands still instead of a spoon or fork it's just quicker and easier depending on the food. My son who is 15mths old holds the fork or spoon in one hand and eats with the other. Every now and then he will actually try to use it but prefers the hand since it's quicker. I still feed him his oatmeal in the morning, and chef boyrdee for lunch and sometimes his cottage cheese and yogurt depending if I don't mind cleaning up his mess (as long as we aren't goind anywhere then he will feed that to himself). We have been off of babyfood since about 13mths and even then it was only at lunch time (ran out of ideas to give him since he is a little picky for lunch) or when we were out someplace and he got hungry before we could get someplace for food. He is a good eater though and eats almost anything you put in front of him. If would say if you feel they aren't getting enough then keep feeding it to them or just try for a week with no baby food and see if there eating habits change.
For the liquid vitamins I just put it straight into his mouth (we have a prescription kind for him) and did the same with my girls when they were on the liquid and they got the poly vitamin from the store.

 

We still fed them yogurt, applesauce, rice, chili, and anything they couldn't feed themselves until they were ready for utensils. We stopped baby food around 9 months though, they never really were into it. They liked finger food much better.

Start giving them a spoon and fork to try. At first, they aren't going to get it and they'll make a mess, but that's how they learn. I thickened up their yogurt and applesauce with baby oatmeal (still do). One of my DD's is really good with her spoon now, the other one can be unless she's really hungry then she loses her patience and digs in with her fingers.

 

Ditto what others said. I fed them stuff like yogurt, applesauce, soup until they could do it themselves. Around 13-14 months I would put the food on the spoon and then hand them the spoon. This gradually shifted to them having their own spoons and feeding themselves. For a while, I would have a spoon too and sneak in feeding them, as they weren't that great at actually getting it on the spoon and into their mouths. I think they were totally proficient with a spoon by 18 months. I really had to step back and let them figure out spoons. If I tried to correct how they were holding it, they freaked out. We were done with baby food by 12 months.

I never used the liquid vitamins. I don't know, maybe mix it in with yogurt or something?

 

Forgot to answer the vitamin part, we just give it to them straight from the dropper after dinner. We don't mix it with anything. My children are quite strange in that they enjoy taking meds.