Helping the Self Feeding Baby...

naked baby when eating equals less laundry!

Children love to do thing themselves- it makes them feel like big kids when they learn new skills and the look of accomplishment on their face is priceless.

Babies are the same way and if your baby has older siblings these learning milestones seem to come way faster than they did with your first child.

When it comes to feeding, Jilly is little miss independent. She no longer wants me to feed her with a fork most of the time and definitely will not eat fruit if I try to feed it to her. This put a damper on her fruit intake because most of the fruits she eats are very slippery when cut up and she was having trouble picking the pieces up with her little fingers. I was kind of getting sick of ripping off little pieces fruit and putting them into her mouth- she's got teeth and she likes to bite my fingers.

My solution? I sprinkle crumpled up Cheerio dust on top of whatever fruit she is eating- the dust coats the fruit and gives her a good enough grip that she can shovel the food in her mouth like the fat little blubber bum she is (I love fat little blubber bum babies).

Now she can feel like a big girl and I don't get my fingers bitten off by sharp little teeth.

Give Me Food!



photo credit


We have moved onto a new milestone with Jilly Billy... real food. Not that baby stuff that's pureed and gross (she completely skipped over that step) but the kind of stuff that real humans eat.

This was a little scary for me as my other two children loved baby food. They gulped up cereal, fruits and veggies and were actually apprehensive about transitioning to real food- my son to the point I was worried he would be drinking his food from a straw for the rest of his life.

Jilly Billy is a girl ahead of her months- at six months I started feeding her baby food. I fed her every day for two months and every day of those two months she looked at me like I was trying to poison her. I started to worry- I thought she was going to starve without baby food. Then I realized that she was a fat little chubster and that in all actuality despite what baby food makers tell us, babies don't *need* baby food right when they are six months old. I calmed down and decided to go with the flow and let Jilly Billy guide me in when she was ready for food.

One day I gave her little chunks of banana and she loved it. Then I gave her avocado (man, avocados are expensive) and she loved that too. At eight months old I realized that she wanted real food, not pureed to oblivion food. And who could balme her? She has been watching all of us eat yummy food since she was born so she wanted to be like us and eat the same things.

So now at almost nine months old Jilly is eating whatever we eat. She was on a watermelon and strawberry kick for a bit but now she is really into veggies- zucchini, broccoli and cooked tomatoes. She also loves Cheerios (I break them into quarters), puffed wheat cereal and whole wheat bread. I tried yogurt but she hates it- she must think it's baby food. I have even *gasp* have given her a little peanut butter on wheat bread and scrambled eggs (I totally forget what part of the egg they say to hold off on). We have no family history of food allergies (except the infant allergic to milk thing) so I'm not worried at all about adverse food reactions though I do not recommend this route for everyone.

It really is nice at dinner time when we all sit down as a family and instead of Jilly playing in her play pen while we eat she gets to join us. You can tell she really enjoys it and her older brother and sister think it's cool that she can pick up food and eat it by herself. Soon she'll be using a spoon and throwing food all over the floor, walls and ceiling.

One more milestone down and many more to come!