self-feeding

when did your babies start feeding themselves more? we are JUST moving onto more solid-ish type food. the only finger food they are really getting are the gerber puffs and some shredded cheese and teething biscuits. oh and some egg yolk (they still aren't so sure about that!) i am starting to mash rather than puree their bananas to get them to mash mroe in their mouths and get used to chewing. also letting the other homemade food be a little thicker.
anyway, i plan on adding more fingerfoods as able, but just was wondering if i am on target with what others are diong? should they be feeding themselves more yet?
we usually feed them cereal and veggie at lunch and yogurt with fruit at dinner. just started breakfast today and did cereal, a little fruit and some egg yolk. we control the spoon though. is this right?? i don't want to delay any fine skills/develpment!
thanks!

 

It was a while after one year until mine did a lot of self feeding. It was much easier for me to do it, and less of a mess

 

Mine are almost exclusively feeding themselves. I started by always offering some finger foods and now that's how they prefer to eat. They usually let me give them 10-20 spoonfuls and they will usually let me place some of the finger food in their mouth, but for the most part they want to do it themselves and I'm always amazed at how much they can eat now and how little has been getting on the floor lately.

 

I was told by lots of folks that we were early on this but I'll give you our timeline anyway. I think it's important to pay attention to their needs because babies have ideas of their own about when they're ready for things and it will go more smoothly if you let them set the pace.

Mine started refusing spoonfeeding at 9 months preferring to feed themselves. I'd have to help them guide the spoon and they'd get frustrated wanting me to stop helping even though they did not have the coordination to do it entirely on their own. Talk about a mess! So, I started cooking chunks of veggies for them and cutting up their fruit into small chunks and by 10 months, they were entirely self-feeding. I don't recall that being anywhere near as messy as the mush was. We went through a time where I simply didn't give them anything that had to be spoon fed because they would eat better on their own.

 

The girls began self feeding at about 6 mos. They developed their pincer grasps pretty well and pick up everything we put on their tray..
They love to eat anything they could feed themselves! They dislike us spoon feeding them.. that started at about 9 mos. so now, we give
them lots of finger foods and I try to sneak in some spoon feeding so they can have some baby food and other food that is too messy to
feed themselves. I am beginning to try and teach them to use the spoon, they seem pretty interested, but it takes time and patience which I
and they don't always have!

So, you are doing a great job.. keep giving them finger foods and depending on their interest in spoon feeding.. keep it up, if not, try again later..

 

I let my guys finger feed as much as they wanted, but I still spoon feed them the really messy stuff. (Applesauce, cottage cheese, etc.)

 

My guys finger food part of each meal. Jacob is successful and Noah is still working on it. Then I spoon feed them a Stage 3 food or a table food that has been pureed down to a coarse consistency to make sure they are eating enough.