Raising Children Network: the Australian parenting website
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Teaching your child to feed herself

By Raising Children Network
 
 

Your baby will probably be able to feed herself with her hands from around eight months of age, though it will take a while for her to fine-tune her pincer grasp – at first she’ll pick up food with the palm of her hand and squash it against her mouth.

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Finger foods and using a spoon

Finger foods such as pieces of soft fruit encourage your baby to feed herself. Feeding herself – even if she doesn’t do a great job of it – will build your baby’s confidence in herself. And she will get better!

Although most babies are fairly uncoordinated with a spoon until they’re about 18 months, it’s worth giving them one to practise with from a much earlier age. Usually they’ll let you know when they want to start, by constantly reaching for the spoon. You can feed your baby with one spoon while she experiments with the other.

Playing with food

Mess-making is all part of your baby’s first attempts to learn to feed herself.

If you get upset when your baby throws food on the floor, she might think she’s found an exciting new game. The more you react, the more interesting the game seems! A way around this is to simply say ‘no’ and then pick up the food later.  

To make mealtimes less stressful it can help if you:

  • put a plastic sheet or newspaper under the highchair
  • use a bib
  • cut food into strips or fingers so that it is easier to eat
  • let your baby eat with her hands.
Whenever food is thrown on the floor, resist getting upset. Simply say ‘no’ and then pick up the food later – otherwise it can seem like a very exciting game!

Using a cup

Babies can learn to drink from a cup from an early age. If you’re breastfeeding and want to occasionally organise for someone else to give your baby a feed (so that you can pop out to the supermarket or see a movie, for instance), then you can teach your baby to drink expressed milk with a cup and spoon if you prefer not to offer a bottle.

Once your baby has reached six months, you can introduce new liquids such as water. While you might use a bottle for water, a cup is better for other liquids. Bottles make it easier for your baby to drink too much milk (or other liquid), resulting in a tummy too full for food. Over the longer term, using bottles can also lead to tooth decay, as babies can fall asleep with milk pooling in their mouth, which is less likely with a cup.

 
  • Last reviewed16-05-2006