When Alex came home from Taiwan he had just started eating solid food and only then when someone else put it in his mouth. He preferred to keep his hands clean and wasn't interested in touching anything that was put on the highchair tray. We worked hard those first few months to encourage self-feeding and finally, after three months, he would gingerly grasp a cheerio between the tips of his thumb and forefinger and put it in his mouth. For a long time he pinched his food rather than grasping it. Gradually we worked our way up to bits of bread, bits of cheese, bits of dried fruit. But anything moist had to be spooned into his mouth by someone else. Hold a spoon? Fageddaboutit.
Over time he's become more comfortable with texture and moisture and willingly feeds himself strawberries, grapes, and banana, among other things. And lately he's even been interested in holding the spoon and stabbing it into the empty yogurt container when we're finished feeding it to him. But mostly he is happy to sit in his chair, and let us spoon breakfast, lunch and dinner into him. And to be honest, I have been happy to avoid the disaster area that is toddler self-feeding. Yes, it is a challenge to simultaneously feed myself and keep the food flowing into him at the pace he demands (and he is demanding, there should be no more than 10 seconds of empty mouth between bites). But we can get through a meal without even needing a bib when we're doing the spooning.
Today, however, we seemed to have turned a corner. He sat down to dinner and grabbed the spoon out of my hand. So tonight, Alex fed himself. As you can see he eventually tired of the spoon and went straight to the hand-to-mouth technique. No matter that there was little solid to hold onto.
In addition to the progress with self-feeding, his vocabulary is expanding by leaps and bounds. He's caught on to imitating sounds and will try to repeat many of the words we say. This morning 'sah-ine' followed my 'sunshine'. Not too shabby. He's added 'apple' to his 'juice', so we hear 'ap juice' now, and he regularly says 'hi dada'.
He's definitely no longer the baby we brought home and is every day more and more a little boy.
2 comments:
Well wouldja look at that?? Looks like Alex loves the sweet potato (good guess?) and finally decided that his spooned hand was way faster than Moms! Great progress! Great to see pics & to hear from you. XO
I am so happy to read the progress of Alex, will share it with Spring Peach at St. Lucy. thank you for sharing the update and the photos. Mei Chun
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