Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

In his earlier days:

– Vai would cry and complain, look away, swat my spoon, blow his food, poke and press the meals in his bowl and eat them off his hands, then wipe them all over his face, hair and of course, the baby chair!

– When at home, he’d wear only his diapers (and his bib) during mealtimes and I’d lift him off his babychair and give the food-covered-baby a thorough shower immediately afterwards

– He’d need to be doing something during his mealtime (eg. play with toys) if I wanted to get any food into his mouth, that is

– He’d want to feed himself (read: play with his food using his hands!), but since it made feeding him somewhat a little better when he did so, I just let him (and worry about his oily fingers later)

Note: Photos of how mealtimes were very messy are in the April 2007 archive, like this one.

Nowadays:

– Vai mostly eats 30% – 80% (depending on his mood) of his meal by himself

– He’d use a big spoon, and sometimes lift his food off the bowl with his hands too

. When at home, I’d usually be having my meals too next to him and occasionally help spoonfeed him

– Most of the time, Vai still needs to be doing something during his mealtime (eg. stack toys or watch his DVD), otherwise he’d want to get off his chair towards the end, before his meal is done

– There are times when he really wants to get off his seat though he’s only eaten 50% of his meal. And if I really can’t get him to eat anymore, I’d just shrug and let him go (It’s less ‘mealtime stress’ for me this way, and anyway I know he’d ask for food later on when he’s hungry)

– Mealtimes are still messy (ie. bits of food still goes here and there, especially below the chair!), and so spreading sheets of newspaper below his seat at home has been such a great help! Less mopping and sweeping for me!

…

Things have not been so smooth sailing when it comes to feeding this little guy. Right until today.

But I know I need to learn and appreciate how at least there’s been encouraging progress (read: rather than focus only on the ‘difficult’ part of the process and discourage myself endlessly).

And really, after seeing those rather shocking earlier-day-photos, how can I not be thankful for how things are going nowadays? Hehe.