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I am to my wits end. Every meal my 17mth old will chew her food, leave it in her mouth then spit it out. It's driving me nuts. It takes so long to have a meal (nearly an hour for a sandwich!) What tips do you have to get her to eat her food. I'm going CrAzY!
Have you tried a picnic - she might eat better in a strange place.
The other thing is to just not care - be her "company" for the first little while, and then start reading your book or doing something so that you are there but she is not getting your full attention - she may be simply thinking "as long as I have this sandwich Mum will be here looking at me".
It's normal, but maddening behaviour. Give her half an hour then that's it, clean up and then on to something else. Then offer afternoon tea for 15 minutes etc. Make sure the food is small bite sized pieces, otherwise it can be daunting for them.
My DD did exactly the same- must be an age thing.
In the end I gave her her own fork (plastic ofcourse) and she would try to fed herself and everynow and then I would give her abit off my fork. Seems to work at the moment.
GL xx
Yep we had that here too....very frustrating.
My best bit of advice is don't stress about it. The more attention it gets (good or bad) the longer it's likely to persist. I would just clean it up and not say anything.
Interestingly my little guy is a very tactile kid. Different textures either make him happy or freak him out. At that age they're still exploring and discovering too.
YAY just wanted to share that she ate all her dinner tonight without spitting any out. I am so happy!!!
I would suggest going back to basics and giving her finger food. So she can feed herself at her leisure. We had the same thing with DD and this is what we did and it worked.
ETA: And YAY that it seems to be resolved.
Yep, same with my DS. He seems to like the novelty of being able to feed himself be it with a spoon/fork or finger food so he doesn't spit. If he is truly hungry he will swallow his food and he loves to experience the textures. Today it was smooshing banana between his fingers and squishing blue berries under his thumb, yet he ate like a whole Punnett of strawberries. I just go with the flow. He's got enough meat on him to allow him to not eat as much as I would like but I NEVER give him something 'junky' later because I'm worried he hasn't eaten enough.
I'm sure it's just a phase, and yay for your DD eating her dinner tonight :happydance: