Does anyone have helpful tips for helping my 2 year old eat independently?
Submitted by Erica Spurgeon on Thu, 01/05/2012 - 12:48am
My daughter, Freya (Age 2, LCA), is an amazing little lady. She has very few delays. My big concern right now is helping her use a spoon to feed herself. She loves to eat and does a great job with foods she can eat by hand. I try to assist her by letting her sit and feel her plate/bowl, guide her with a spoon with her hand in mine, and scooping food into her mouth. It just doesn't seem to help much. I may be trying to do this too early with her. I just want to make sure she is ready for preschool, where she is required to feed herself. Am I getting ahead of myself or are there better techniques?
I don't Think you are ahead of yourself. I to am working on this with my 2 year old daughter. She however is a terrible eater and is in food therapy 2/3 times a week. Looking forward to hearing some responses to this question myself.
I wrote some notes about this after learning new strategies from Lilli Nielsen. A child may be more willing to copy sounds (spoon scraping dish, etc.) than she would be willing to use a spoon after being guided hand-over-hand. Also, some children find that a fork is easier to use than a spoon. So try a small fork with food easy to "fork." I'll try to cut and paste my notes here.
How To Show A Child How to Use a Spoon (Without Guiding The Child’s Hand)
By Andrea Story, as inspired by Dr. Lilli Nielsen and the families I’ve learned from
Regarding utensil use, tool use, shoveling, building and fingerplays there are other ways to show a child than to move their hands through the motions. Sounds are still available to the blind child - as well as touch. Here are some steps to show a blind child how to use a spoon.
1. Before learning to use a spoon the child should have lots of experience and practice finger feeding. The child should have experience using her hands before she is expected to use a tool like a spoon - so give her finger foods. Overcooked pasta and vegetables are conducive to eating with fingers. Of course the child should not be eating unattended. For a child without sight it can be helpful to use a highchair tray to keep the food within certain boundaries. Place the food where the hands often rest so the child will find the food by herself as much as possible. Use high contrast with the child that has some vision (such as light colored pasta on a dark colored bowl).
2. As you introduce solid foods, give the child her own spoon while you feed her with a second spoon. There should be no pressure or demands on the child at this stage for her to hold the spoon in a certain way. Simply make the spoon into the child’s palm. The child may hold onto the spoon for a little while, bang it on the tray, mouth it, drop it, etc. Offer the spoon to the child two or three times with each meal. Dip the bowl of the spoon into the food so the child gets a taste of the food if she does happen to mouth that part of the spoon. Thickened foods that will stick to the spoon (even when the spoon is upside down or handle first) will help in this stage. One parent found that adding a little liquid to thickened foods helped the spoon to “sink” a little bit so that scooping was easier. Choices to consider include; mashed potatoes, pizza put through a mill, applesauce, and pudding, and softened ice cream come to mind.
3. When you fill the spoon make a single scraping sound and bring the spoon right up to the child's mouth. Hold it there so the child can smell and get ready for it.
4. When you have given the child the bite of food do not scrape off any extra food off the child's lips and mouth area. (keep in mind that the child is paying attention to your actions and will imitate them later).
5. Replace the spoon to the bowl making another auditory clue with a single "clink" of spoon on bowl. Again just one clink and try not to scrape around the bowl after every bite - the child is listening!
6. Begin to be a bit slow with the spoon. Pause there longer at the child’s mouth and bumble a bit. Have a conversation with someone else or pretend to get very interested and/or busy with in something else. Who knew parenting would require acting talent? Soon the child gets impatient and grabs the spoon. “Ah ha! I can do this better,” the child thinks, as she grabs for the spoon. This is a big step for the parent and the child. The parent must give the child a reason to take over if she has not already discovered a reason to try it herself. It is very rewarding to see a child begin to problem solve and discover for herself.
7. Calmly let the child have your spoon and pick up the second spoon and get it ready for the next bite. Now you and the child will exchange spoons for a while. You may give her the first spoonful but then you are only filling the spoon and waiting, the child has taken over the steps of holding the spoon and bringing it to her mouth.
8. Gradually the child takes over more and more of the steps. Thickened foods with a little bit of liquid again help with the scooping process. The child may use the spoon in one hand and their free hand as a scooper for the food. This is normal for all children. Learning to scoop can also be practiced with various toys and various settings such as the bathtub and sand box. Eating and learning to eat is a messy process but sighted children are not any cleaner at it either. Eating with a spoon is learned through many opportunities and little steps- just like the sighted child.
NOTE: Later with using a fork, look for objects that make good sounds when they
are pierced. That green florist material (oasis?) makes a great sound and
feel when it is stuck with a fork (even a dull child's fork). This can
provide a wonderful practice game for using a fork.
The book “Coping with a Picky Eater,” by William G. Wilkoff, M.D. is a good resource for parents and teachers, particularly chapter 3, A Few Ounces of Prevention (pages 32-34).
Hi Erica,
You are the best person to determine whether your daughter is at an ability level where she can move forward to self feeding. The pre-school requirement for self-feeding is a bit of a spanner in the works of allowing her to progress at her own rate but perhaps that can be accommodated by the finger-feeding skills she already has, e.g. could she eat a small sandwich, perhaps chopped into squares? Would you be able to provide a packed lunch for her?
Her appetite is the best possible motivation overall in her learning to feed herself but it's easy for mealtimes to become a battle of wills and that serves no one well; I tried to keep two main goals in mind:
a) make sure she eats enough
b) keep it light-hearted
My daughter was highly sensitive to smell- this remains a major factor in whether she will eat a food- but physically finding the food (and eventually being able to do this unobtrusively) was always her biggest obstacle. By chance I found a manufacturer of plates/bowls, spoons and forks. Their features are too numerous to mention here but I have not found any other items which match them for either function or quality. The plates are triangular (sort of) and the angle points can be felt by the child and they help load the spoon/fork. The 'straight sides' do this too, to a slightly lesser extent and it's difficult to lose the food from the utensil once it's loaded due to very cunning design!
Please give this some thought- it was the answer for our child who had made a unilateral decision to spend the rest of her life being spoon fed!
http://www.salmonluke.com/products/detailed-information-bowl.html
(The guy in charge of this company was very approachable and exceptionally keen to help so don't hesitate to contact them).
Thank you so much for this wonderful response, Andrea. I will be trying this technique as soon as dinner is ready!
marymcd,
Those bowls and utensils look great! We will definitely give them a try. Thank you so much for sharing.