Advice for getting LO to put food in his own mouth

mplesset23

The subject line basically says it all. 

Our LO has been eating solids since he was 4 1/2 months old.  He eats baby food and small pieces of some of the food we eat.  He's great with large things like Mum Mum rice crackers, but if we give him something small like a piece of chicken, banana or avocado he melts down.  He will scream and cry if we even take his hands and try to show him where his mouth is.  He refuses to eat unless we put the food close enough for him to just grab with his teeth. 

I know I created a bad habit of giving him the food in the first place as opposed to him putting it in his own mouth. 

Anyone else dealing with this?  Suggestions?  I mean I'm not freaking out too much, I've yet to meet an adult who can't feed himself.  I'm just curious if there's something that worked with your LO's.

TIA!

Kimosabie

We had this issue for a while.  Instead of just putting it in his mouth, i started holding things in my hand and he would start taking it out of my hand and put it into his mouth, then i just started placing pieces on the tray and he eventually began to pick them up and eat them himself.

emmabug727

Kimosabie:

Instead of just putting it in his mouth, i started holding things in my hand and he would start taking it out of my hand and put it into his mouth, then i just started placing pieces on the tray and he eventually began to pick them up and eat them himself.

This worked for us too.

AMcLaws

Kimosabie:

We had this issue for a while.  Instead of just putting it in his mouth, i started holding things in my hand and he would start taking it out of my hand and put it into his mouth, then i just started placing pieces on the tray and he eventually began to pick them up and eat them himself.

This. DD has been quite slow eating solids. She's LOVING puffs right now. And I'll place them on my hand in front of her, and she'll take it and put it in her mouth. We're working up to other solids