[blparent] finger food suggestions for an almost toddler

[Pickrell, Rebecca M (IT)]

Hi there. 
Melanie was *exactly* like this, right down to the bottle and cup. 
What I did was strip her down to her diaper, and just let her have it. 
Then, I bathed her and put her in the playpen while I cleaned up the
high-chair. 
I even baught a wooden high chair, because it was easier to wipe. 
I joked that I would feed her in the bathtub but never resorted to it,
though I seriously thought of getting in the empty tub with her and a
bowl of food. 
The upshot is that now, a year later, Mellie is a neat freak. She's also
good at the spoon and fork. 
You can also give her more finger foods, hot dogs, cheese, deli meat,
steamed veggies, fruit (you can get it precut in little tubs) stuff like
that. 
I also did this and left the messy foods for my husband to feed, who
also had the same experience as yours. 

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of Jo Elizabeth Pinto
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 2:27 PM
To: NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: [blparent] finger food suggestions for an almost toddler

Hi, all.  Sarah and I just got finished with the lunch from hell.  Or at
least that's the way I perceive it--she seems pretty satisfied with the
world now that it's over--she's babbling happily and playing with the
pots and pans in my kitchen cupboards like nothing happened, like her
clothes and mine, and our hair, and the high chair aren't covered with
Gerber spaghetti and meat sauce, like we weren't both near tears five
minutes ago.  I feel like I got hit by a train and dragged for a little
while.  A slight exaggeration maybe, but only a slight one.

Sarah and I have been having battles lately over the spoon, most of
which I lose.  It isn't that she doesn't want food, she's fortunately
not a picky eater.  She'll try anything.  The deal is, she wants to feed
herself.  Fair enough, that's the end goal, right?  But the spoon is too
cumbersome for her, so she resorts to her hands.  That's fine, as long
as she's eating diced banana or sweet potato or bits of meat or
hard-boiled egg yolk, or whole round peas, or Cheerios.  But those foods
alone hardly make up a balanced diet.  She needs other things that are
too soft and runny to pick up, like yogurt and such, and she absolutely
won't allow me to feed her with a spoon.  If I can manage to hold down
her two wildly waving fists with one hand, she flops her head madly from
side to side so I can't get the dreaded spoon anywhere near her mouth
with the other, and she ends up with food behind her ears, across her
eyebrows, down her neck--you get the picture.  And you can imagine the
screeching sound track that goes with it.  I'm finding it hard to be
calm and patient.  This time, after many tries, I gave up on the spoon
altogether because I don't want the high chair to become a power
struggle or a source of traumatic memories, and I sure don't want to
cross the line into force feeding.  I had that done to me as a child and
still suffer the effects.  I thickened the Gerber spaghetti and meat
sauce with cereal so it would hold together and just let her shovel it
into her mouth with both hands from the high chair tray, and then
cleaned up the big mess afterward.  Gerald can feed Sarah with a spoon,
but she certainly isn't willing, it's just that he can see the flailing
hands and the dodging mouth and sneak bites in on her.  But he isn't
here most of the time, and I have a responsibility to figure this out.

Anyway, besides the catharsis of writing this all out when I feel I have
to tell most people most of the time that things are utterly perfect,
otherwise I'm afraid they'll be doubting me as a parent and, in the case
of my family, wondering if they should intervene--I guess my question is
how do I resolve this stalemate?  I know I should give Sarah more finger
foods, and I'll be looking for every new idea I can get on that front.
But till she can feed herself with a spoon, how can I help her and the
mealtime skirmishes that nobody really wins?  It's so odd because she
has no wish to hold her own bottle or learn to drink from a cup, but she
wants to feed herself no matter what.

Thanks,
Jo Elizabeth

"Don't throw away the old bucket until you know whether the new one
holds water."--Swedish proverb
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