Refusing to be spoon fed

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure what’s going on here, but in the last few days Ben has started to refuse to be fed from a spoon. I can’t get but a few bites of anything into him, and it’s driving me nuts! He just cut his first tooth on Sunday, so that could be it, but I thought that the fussy eating, etc. would be before the tooth broke through and not after.

He will eat whatever I put on his tray for him, as long as he can pick it up and eat it himself, but as soon as he sees the spoon, that mouth clamps shut like a vice!

Is this a stage, teething, what??? Could it be (oh, God, please no) reflux??????? It doesn’t seem to be, and he’s nursing ok, so I’m confused by what’s going on here.

[Anonymous]

Hi there Naomi.

In my experience teeth usually come in pairs. So if one pops out the next one is soon to follow (usually within days or a week or two). So, he could still be teething.

Also, sometimes they just refuse the spoon in order to assert themselves. I used to give Myles a spoon of his own and/or some toys to distract him and that would help.

Actually it’s great that he’s eating what you put on his tray. Maybe he’ll make the transition to table food (and off of purees) early. That wouldn’t be so bad as long as he’s eating healthy foods.

[Anonymous]

Alana was a bit adverse to the spoon when she was cutting her first two teeth and soon after. We had no such problems with the next four. Hopefully it will just be a transitory thing.

[Anonymous]

Both of my girls went through this stage. It had nothing to do with teething in their case. It was like they just realized that they could feed themselves and they were too stubborn to let me do it for them. With Kaelyn, it never really ended, we just kept finger foods/table foods until she was eating enough that it didn’t matter. Alex is a little more willing to let you feed her, but she’d still rather feed herself most of the time. She seems to view the spoon as an annoyance.

[Anonymous]

I was going to say the same thing as everyone else…most likely another tooth. Sarah always gets her teeth in pairs about a week apart so hopefully that’s all it is. Keep trying!

[hellbennt]

tooth

and or wanting to do it himself!

Ari is the wanting to do it himself kind of guy & it drove me nuts until 10 or 11months where I just gave him table foods and he did fine

well I gave him table foods starting at 6 & 7 months bcse he refused the spoon but he didn’t have the hand-eye coordination to get enough food into his mouth and well let’s just say it was frustrating all the way around!

but anyway at about 10 months he could get more into his mouth & also I use my own fingers to pop pieces in there, too, and he will let me near him with a spoon if he has one of his own at the same time- messy messy

[Anonymous]

shane does the same thing.. no spoon whatsoever anymore! in his case, its him wanting to do it himself.. if i put the food infront of him, he’ll dig in.. but wont go near a spoon.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone! Today was much better. I do think it was still teething pain. He was better overall today, and didn’t mind the spoon as much. I did let him have his own and still had to do some distracting with toys, but I felt like he ate much better. I think he’s a bit like Alex, and is just annoyed with me using the spoon.

I also think it’s his independence too, he really loves to feed himself, and does well doing this, so I just need to get my “lazy, loves to just be able to open jars and feed him” self in gear and find a good variety of finger/table foods for him to have.

[Anonymous]

I also vote teething and developmental i.e. wanting to do it himself. My older one was Miss Independent when it came to feeding and it did get messy, but we had no choice but to let her go to town. As long as she was eating we tried to pretend that we didn’t care about the fact that she was destroying our kitchen!

[Author]

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