[blparent] finger food suggestions for an almost toddler

Tue Feb 24 20:29:28 UTC 2009

You could also get a plastic sheet to put under the chair so you could 
either wipe it down with a wet cloth or take it out and shake it clean.
Barbara

If wisdom's ways you wisely seek, five things observe with care:  of whom 
you speak, to whom you speak, and how and when and where.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Michael Baldwin" <mbaldwin at gpcom.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 1:51 PM
To: "'NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List'" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blparent] finger food suggestions for an almost toddler

> Jo Elizabeth,
> Sounds very familiar.  My daughter that is now 33 months, after she 
> learned
> she could feed herself, wanted nothing to do with being fed.  She was 
> going
> to do it herself, and that was all there was to it.  This started when she
> was about 9-10 months old, and to this day she is a very independent 
> little
> girl.  But, we came up with different things she could feed herself, like
> cheese, ham, different kinds of fruits, bananas, grapes, boiled vegetables
> of about any kind, like corn, peas, karat, green beans.
> I guess it comes down to what you want her to eat, what your comfortable
> with her eating, and what kind of mess you want to have to clean up.  An 
> old
> rug under the high chair can help from getting some of the mess on the
> carpet, or other flooring.
>
> I am sure some will disagree with my suggestions, cause like cheese, I 
> read
> your not suppose to give until they are a year old or so, but it worked 
> for
> us, and my daughter is alive and happy and healthy.  Just make sure to cut
> the food in to small bits for her, and like ham, we cut off the skin, 
> cause
> that was harder to chew.
>
> Good luck,
> Michael
>
>
>
> Michael Baldwin
> Got print, need Braille?
> http://www.ReadWithDots.com
>
> -----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 1:27 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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