Of all the things my child does, ( ok apart from praying ) there are few things that thrill my heart than watching her eat. Against the grain of most Chinese parents who feed their kids till they're 3 years old, i was a big proponent of self-feeding from the start. So to the horror of my mother-in-law and to the oooos and ahhhs of everyone in Singapore, i always would put toddler size bits on her plate while i fed her her "real meal". It went from cheerios at first, to peas and fruit, avocado, tofu right out of the box, to pasta and now i just make a plate for her and put it in front of her and she decides what she eats.
It's definitely been a big struggle of letting go of control. You're talking to a mom that made her child's first foods from scratch and froze them in ice-cube trays. My child ate brussels sprouts and spinach at 6 months. i would chart out her menu in microsoft word and picked from all the major food groups each day. She ate only brown rice and tofu with veggies.
At about 9 months, natalie stopped letting me feed her, all except yo-baby, so the stress of meal time tripled as i watched her pick at her food with no option to spoon it into her mouth. then there was the "i don't want to sit in my high chair " phase, the "i don't want to wear my bib" phase and that was when i resorted to using the Baby Bjorn's as a portable bowl and letting her walk around and eat out of it.
So while other moms fed their kids demurely fancy things like porridge and soup, natalie ate only what she could hold and i fought with stains that won't go away, a high-chair covered inch-to-inch with food and the constant fear of her not eating enough.
But this morning, my child sat in her highchair, let me put the bib on her and ate a whole bowl of cereal with milk with a spoon. it must have been a 15 min breakfast and she persevered till each little cheerio was gone and even asked for seconds. i could have cried.
For lunch, she sat and spooned herself a whole bowl of coldslaw and ate the corn ( after being offered it for 6 months ) i scraped off the cob. She even tried to do it herself. Half of it i think she is eating because she is feeding herself.
The other day, she sat in Fresh Choice and ate a whole bowl of macaroni and cheese with a fork the length of her arm, while my mother in law complained that i didn't have child-sized cutlery with me at all times.
She is eating, she is feeding herself, she uses grown up cutlery and wipes her mouth with a napkin. All those battles of tipped over food bowls and food stained clothes and over.
It was worth it, losing the autonomy to give natalie hers.
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