[blparent] finger food suggestions for an almost toddler

Tue Feb 24 22:52:52 UTC 2009

Who knows, I might have miss heard about the cheese, but the "experts"
change stuff so much, I just do what I and my wife feel is right and best
for our kids, and it has worked so far.

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 2:52 PM
To: NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blparent] finger food suggestions for an almost toddler

I hadn't heard that about cheese.  I don't like the stuff myself, but Sarah
loves all kinds of cheese--Swiss, cheddar, Mozzarela.  I could try deli
meats as well, though I thought I had heard they had to be heated till they
were steaming.  I can't remember why now.  Thanks for the ideas.

Jo Elizabeth

"Don't throw away the old bucket until you know whether the new one holds
water."--Swedish proverb
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Baldwin" <mbaldwin at gpcom.net>
To: "'NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List'" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 12:51 PM
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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