Best Way to Encourage Your Child to Self-Feed

Self-feeding is messy, and it often takes a child a long time to eat even a small meal, but you should encourage it anyway. Don’t panic if your child prefers fingers to spoons; they’re faster, and the feeling of food is as important to a child as its color and flavor. The finer points of etiquette can be picked up later. Just make things as easy as possible for your child (and yourself).

• Put a rubber-suction soap holder on the highchair tray to keep the plate or bowl from slipping and to free your baby’s hands for eating. Or use a plate that comes with suction holders on the bottom. Or use a weighted plastic pet bowl. It’s heavy (hard to toss or turn over) and unbreakable!

• Pile your baby’s food directly on the highchair tray to avoid the thrown plate.
• Give your baby a spoon in each hand, and use one yourself. Your baby will imitate you. Demitasse or small sugar spoons and hors d’oeuvre forks (not sharp ones!) are easier for babies to handle. For a real beginner, consider a wooden tongue depressor as a food scoop.
• Give a child who insists on eating from a big plate a plastic one with a raised rim. Many have divided sections.
• Mashed potatoes are a good first food for self-servers, since they adhere to utensils.
• Rinse large-curd cottage cheese in a colander with running water. The remaining large pieces make a perfect finger food.
• Give a child an empty flat-bottom ice-cream cone to eat. It dis­solves slowly and doesn’t produce a lot of crumbs.

• Mix dry cereal with yogurt, cottage cheese, or applesauce (instead of milk) for a child who hasn’t mastered a spoon yet. Or make hot cereal very pasty so it stays on the spoon.
• Spread pureed meats on whole wheat bread, and cut into fin­ger food servings.
• Minimize spills by giving your child a straw for sipping cooled soup, and save the spoon and fork for fruits and veggies.
• Allow extra time for a self-feeder.
• Feed a self-feeder right before bath time.