We’ve got to hand it to her

Dinnertime has always been a fun, pleasant time together as a family once Baby B started solids, as she’s been receptive to every new food we’ve tried. We’ve actually been very fortunate with just how eager she’s been during the whole process. So it was a bit confusing and frustrating on Sunday night when Baby B would throw a fit every time we’d try to spoon-feed her apples and chicken or her side of carrots, a meal she’s previously loved. Then we noticed that she would be just fine feeding herself crackers and Goldfish. Hrmm. At first we thought maybe there was a soft food vs. crunchy food thing going on, but that just didn’t seem to be it. So we let her try to feed herself with her spoon and sure enough, she was back to her happy eating self. We’d feed her again and she’d bawl. We’d let her put the spoon to her mouth herself, and she beamed from ear to ear.

For some reason, this milestone caught me a little off-guard. I really didn’t expect she’d show signs of being ready to feed herself with a spoon until after she was a year old, but sure enough tonight’s dinner went quite the same as last night’s: She’d fuss if we tried to feed her, but as soon as she had the spoon in her hand to feed herself, her eyes would just light up and the spoon would go right into her mouth. Most of the time she’d get most of the food in her mouth on her own, but sometimes we’d still hold our hand on the spoon to at least guide it a little, and that seemed to help keep the mess down somewhat. I guess I’ll be looking for some toddler spoons this weekend.