[blparent] finger food suggestions for an almost toddler

Wed Feb 25 19:26:40 UTC 2009

I couldn't do it in my lap, but we seemed to get through it.  Now we have 
other issues.  Like pushing the crumbs right onto the floor or carrying wet 
dripping things to the trash can. Aaaah! V
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "trishs" <slosser at metrocast.net>
To: "NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 6:36 PM
Subject: Re: [blparent] finger food suggestions for an almost toddler


> Hi, Jo Elizabeth.  I've read some other posts, and all are good
> suggestions.   Hear's my take on this.
> I see a fiercely independent child, which is not a bad thing.
> You'll have to adjust your preparation habits, some, until she
> can learn to feed herself.  All I can add is that you serve what
> finger foods your family is used to, but keep the spoon available
> to Sarah.  Give her very small, maybe two bites worth of a
> "messy" food.  She'll figure out how to use it in her own time.
> When it was me doing the feeding, I always held my babies on my
> lap.  Wet-whipes, and a towel on the side.
> I could never figure out how blind moms fed their children in a
> high-chair.  It was just easier for me to hold them.  Meal time
> was always stressful for me, I guess I wasn't really good at it.
> If a stranger happened along and said "What a beautiful baby!"
> I'd say "Thanks.  Wanna-feed-er."  Just kidding!  I can relate to
> your stress.  But, recently, a wise person said, "This too shall
> pass."
>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Jo Elizabeth Pinto" <jopinto at pcdesk.net
>>To: "NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List" <blparent at nfbnet.org
>>Date sent: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:26:36 -0700
>>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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