[blparent] finger food suggestions for an almost toddler

Tue Feb 24 20:51:00 UTC 2009

I was just joking last night that I ought to get in the bath tub with Sarah 
and the food, and just let her go to town.  I hadn't thought of stripping 
her down to a diaper, though, that might save on the laundry.

Jo Elizabeth

"Don't throw away the old bucket until you know whether the new one holds 
water."--Swedish proverb
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pickrell, Rebecca M (IT)" <REBECCA.PICKRELL at ngc.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 12:46 PM
Subject: Re: [blparent] finger food suggestions for an almost toddler

> 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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