Thursday, March 11, 2010

Adventures in Self Feeding

Tonight Kayla rejected yet another new pureed vegetable.  I guess I can't blame her - asparagus is a bit strong.  When she gagged on the second bite, I decided to switch it up and pulled some broccoli out of the fridge.  I bit off the stems and gave her the "leafy" tops of the florets, which she grabbed by the handful.  I'd venture a guess that about a third of what I gave her made it into her mouth.  The rest collected on the high chair and on the floor.  Even so, she seemed happy as a little clam nomming away on bits of broccoli with a few puffs thrown in here and there.  She's getting better with getting the sippy cup into her mouth and sucking a little water out of it, and she doesn't seem to mind me still spoon feeding her fruits to her.  Meal times are so much fun now.  Messy, but fun. 

For the moms out there... how did you work moving from purees to real food with your little one?  And how in the world did you contain the mess?  I need to start looking for a splat mat... stat.  OK - that was awful.  But I really do need to figure out the best way to keep food off the wood floors.  Is it worth buying a real mat or should I just go to the dollar store and stock up on vinyl table cloths and/or shower curtain liners? 

2 comments:

Tyler's Story... said...

we just started serving whatever we were eating (once he had the general concept of food goes into the mouth). We tended toward easy finger foods since he's still not great with a fork/spoon. We don't have too much problem with the mess and we have carpet so I'm not much help there. My brother has a "splat mat" type of thing under their high chair but I don't know if they like it/use it much.

Phoenix said...

Get a dog, that'll solve your mess problem ;).

As for the moving to solids question- I would feed Benjamin the same thing we were eating. When I started him on our meals I'd put the foods through the food processor to chop it up slightly, gradually cut back on the processor time. I can't remember when we started doing that, maybe around 9-10 months??