When you talk to people who have been down the self-feeding route with their child, they all exclaim with some glee: ‘the mess…!’ Until you’re there yourself however, you can only imagine what it’s really like and you laugh to yourself about all the lovely pictures you’re going to take; you never think about the clearing-up after.
On day 4 of our self-feeding journey, we had a first go at breakfast. What on earth do you give to a 6 months old baby for breakfast? The same you would give a purée-fed baby: yoghurt. So I bought some wholemilk live yoghurt (not that easy to find in the midst of all the sweetened fruit/custard/low-fat types) and put a bit in one of those baby bowls. Ha! Never again. The bowl never stayed on the table very long and when it did, Little Girl would grab it – from the wrong side of course – so that the contents would slowly drip onto her lap. Thankfully I’d also pre-emptively bought some bread sticks so I dipped one in the yoghurt and left it for her to grab. This tactic thankfully worked wonders. I also put a little pool of yoghurt straight onto her high-chair tray so she could play with it and hopefully occasionally lick her fingers. I think she may even have swallowed some but I can’t be sure.
One can only wonder what her chair will look like when we start her on porridge.
So I must ask, How do you give soft foods to your baby?
afrogatlarge.wordpress.com 
Love the mess! Put a bin liner under the chair, it helps a!
We roast veggies like potato wedges, carrots, courgettes, parsnips… baby piglet adores them!
I bought a shower curtain yesterday. SO glad…
Ah, yogurt :). Am so with you on how hard it is to find just plain yogurt – all the stuff aimed at kids is super sweet, even the organic “healthy” stuff (thank god for greek yogurt!). We experimented loads with things for breakfast like setting porridge in the fridge so it could be cut into fingers. Dipping fruit sticks in yogurt. Preloading spoons with yogurt/porridge. Scrambled eggs. Drop scones with banana/berries/cheese. And preloading spoons was what won out eventually. We’d load up some spoons (just regular tea spoons) and leave them on the table and my son would manage to eat some (while smearing lots all over himself and his chair!). Figured he was still self-feeding but just getting a bit of help from the tools us adults take for granted!
Porridge fingers! I don’t know what else to say. Porridge fingers! :-O
She looked like she enjoyed it
We are right in the messy stage with my second at the moment! I do a pre-loaded spoon or two for soft food too, some of it seems to go in. I make things like Weetabix and mashed up veggies quite thick so they can be scooped up with fingers. I do also hover with a spoon and try and get some in sometimes too but it doesn’t usually work (I am a bit of a puree person but both my babies decided that they weren’t!) I’ve tried giving her the bowl but it just ends up on the floor. I recommend those long sleeved bibs with elasticated wrists, an old cloth on the floor and easy to clean highchair!
Hi Jennifer!
I have now tried the pre-loaded spoon and it works much much better (that is, when she picks the right end).
I was having a nightmare with the thin plastic bibs because they are clearly too big for her and get in the way, I must find a long-sleeved one! I actually bought a couple of Tommee Tippee flexi-plastic bibs and they are brilliant, especially the catching area for all the bits she doesn’t swallow, which is most of it at the moment!
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment.