how i get my girl to accept solid and finger food, and drink fro

i always hang around at qqbb and learn a lot of useful tips on baby care. now i would like to share my experinece how i get my girl to accept solid food and finger food.

i started giving her baby food from the 6th mounth. the first few weeks was disaster. she basically spitted out anything i placed into her mouth. for this, i asked for helps from jms here. many kindly asked me to be patient.

i kept on offering her different food, from rice cereal to peas, to oatmeal and barley, and others. she shown some improvements but not too much interests.

until one day, i had my lunch in front of her, she was actually watching me eating. she actually tried to grab food from my plate. i offered her some rice. she was very happy and actually used her hands to placed them into her mouth and chew and swallowed!!

from there on, she knows food is tasty and she can't wait to eat with her fingers.

she eats well nowadays. she opens her mouth when spoonful of food is beng offered. she could use her finger to feed herself rice, cheerio and tofu.

my experience is:

- don't force feed. that is the worst technique and it always fail on my baby.

- make feeding time short. max 30m for meal and 20m for snack. baby couldn't sit at the same place for too long.

- i agree with wonderkid and do not mix the food; meaning, i have few bowls of food next to me during meal time. i think baby should taste the original taste of the food, even that is the hardest accept vege taste. hoep by doing this, my baby will be more open to accept new food.

- my baby always want spoon while eating. she doesn't really spoonfed herself yet, but she still insists on it. so, i just let her be. she actually eat much better when i give her spoon used by adult. she sees me using that spoon every meal, she couldn't wait to use it and eat like me.

- if she doesn't show too much interests on food for breakfast, she will leave haghchair with half full (or sometimes quarter full) stomach. she then will eat all the food during lunch.

- i always give few days for my baby to accept new food. she took 3 days to accept tofu and avacado.

- i always offer her least favourite food in the beginning of meal,finger food is only offered in the second half of meal time. that way, she will eat most of the meal.

- i dislike mess but i don't show it out on my face. of course i don't encourage her for it, but i don't show my frustration. this is to avoid baby associates any negative feelings with meal time.

- i introduce cup (not sippy cup) to her from very early. at the end of every meal, i will give her a cup of water and let her drink. it took her a while to hold her cup well, then i offered her sippy cup, she then has no problem to drink from it. she still has problem to drink from normal cup, she always wet herself because she likes to blow bubbles to the water.

- when i introduce new finger food, i place the food onto her tray, and start eating in front of her. i show her this is a ver yummy food and i am having fun eating them. she will grab them and start eating too. of course this wouldn't happen immediately, but this is how i get her to accept finger food.

- whenever i give her the food in the spoon, i will tell her the name of the food. when she is chewing (soft of), i will say "em, carrot is yummy!!". now, she will make this "em!" sound when she eats her favourate food.

- lastly, my secret weapon : be patient. i guess this is the ultimate secret weapon on child care. jiuma once said" baby has her entire life of eating solid food, don't rush her when she is not ready yet."