Parenting, SOPHIE3ABY

Teaching Sophie to feed herself

Well, this is one of the most requested blog post. I’ve received many comments saying I’ve trained Sophie well. So here I am today, let’s discuss how to train our kiddo to feed themselves.

Firstly you need to understand Fine Motor Skill. Fine motor skills are important and essential for performing everyday tasks. It is the coordination of small muscles, in movements, usually involving synchronising hands and fingers with the eyes, such as when using pencils, clothing fastening, eating with spoon and etc.

Not going into details with Fine motor skill here. The next big question would be –

How to build it?

You may start to practice your baby fine motor skill when they start to crawl. You can also start with activities that are good for hands and eyes coordination. There are many simple activities you can do at home, as simple as playing toys!

image1Getting the right size of spoon is extremely important as well. There are many fancy and cute spoons out there in the market that makes your wallet bleed. (In fact, I can’t control myself when it comes to cute spoons too haha) We always have the impression to start with small spoon, thinking it will be easy for baby to scoop their food. As a matter of fact, bigger spoon lets them scoop up their food much easier compared to small spoon!

image6For me personally, I always start to practice my baby when they can sit. I started with letting Sophie to sit in a high baby chair, paired with a plastic bowl and round spoon. This is the time to let them practice their holding skill. You may put in some baby biscuit and encourage them to scoop up the pieces.

Why choose the round spoon for the first time?

image2Round shape spoon allows your baby get the food easily. If you baby can scoop one spoon of food/biscuit by herself, she will feel excited and accomplished, boosting her self-confidence. If you get her the wrong spoon and she fails to scoop up her food, eventually she will give up and just eat with her hands. In learning fine motor skills, building self confidence for baby is very crucial. Remember to praise her when she scoops up the food too. Praising can increase her confidence, pushing her to go beyond her limits. If your baby fails to do so, do not lose patience, you can assist by guiding their hands, repeat if needed.

I always start with food that is easy for baby to scoop, for example semi-solid food. Slowly when your baby gets better in her fine motor skill, you can start adding in some fruits, macaroni, meat, noodle or rice. Noodle among all, is the hardest one for them to scoop up. Therefore always remember to cut the food into smaller pieces, I like to cut them shorter (like noodles), cube size, love shapes and etc.

image4When your baby is confident with round spoon already, mommies can begin to challenge them by giving them different spoon size. You know, babies get bored easily and always love to try new thing. This way you will make their meal time enjoyable too!

If there are remaining biscuit pieces on the table, do not toss it away immediately. Instead, you can encourage baby to use pincer grip to pick up the biscuit.

What is pincer grip?

image5Pincer grip is our three fingers, thumb, pointer and tall man. Basically, it is the ability to hold objects by using thumb and any other finger (usually pointer or tall man) in a controlled manner. So I always encourage baby to pick up their leftovers, just to see their pincer grip. Yes, it will be a mess after the meal, but hey its ok! Just let them try! I don’t scold my baby if things get messy. All parents shouldn’t actually. You should give them a comfortable environment and best opportunity to let them try to explore!

Alternatively, you may put a plastic floor mat below their chair before meal. Once baby is done exploring you can clean up easily after 🙂

Lastly, if wallet allows, you can get those cute bowls with characters that they like, (Peppa Pig for Sophie). That encourages them to finish the food and it definitely makes it easier for mommies to guide them to eat.

image3P/s: When giving snack to baby, or meal time, please always make it a habit to let them sit in the high chair. This helps send a message to your baby, you can only get food when you’re sitting in the high chair. Start this habit from young, slowly and surely baby will get the message and they will behave well when eating out 🙂

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