When Doodle started solids, I started keeping fruits and vegetables cut up and ready to eat in the freezer. I made squash risotto and threw some into the freezer for Doodle to have another time and it reminded me why I chose to skip spoon-feeding altogether.
Prepping a food for Doodle looks something like this:
Peel, chunk, bag, freeze.
When it’s time to eat it, throw it in a measuring cup with water and microwave (or boil on the stove) until soft. Serve directly on the highchair tray.
With Sugarplum and Honeybun I went the traditional route of spoon feeding the first few months of solids. Honeybun was easy, her food prep looked like this:
Buy. Open. Feed.
But being in Ireland with Sugarplum, the selection of jarred food wasn’t as great plus I had more time to prepare food at home (which I didn’t have with Honeybun while working 4 jobs). I painstakingly homemade nearly all of Sugaprlum’s food. Prepping her food looked something like this:
Peel, chunk, cook, puree in the blender, spoon into ice cube trays, freeze, remove from ice cube trays (so I could use them for the next food). Then there was all the clean-up of the extra supplies.
When it was time to feed her I then had to microwave a few cubes, stir, heat, stir, heat, stir. Get it all melted but don’t get it too hot! Then sit with the bowl and spoon and painstakingly feed her and her crazy lizard tongue.
While going straight to finger foods has been great and made life a lot easier and happier for the whole family, there are some negatives to the process.
I have to be on top of food prep and have fresh stuff around constantly. No hoarding jars or picking up a jar when out running around.- It’s messy in a different way. While it’s not usually all over Doodle’s face at the end of the meal, it is often all over the floor, the highchair and sometimes me!
- He doesn’t get the spoon. The few times I have tried to spoon feed him (only when I want him clean but want him to eat something not pick-up-able like yogurt) have been a disaster, he just doesn’t really get it!
- He’s only mildly interested in using utensils. Sometimes he’ll act like he wants a fork and will try to use it but not very often. The few times I’ve given him something to spoon himself he’ll dip once or twice and then go at it fist first. But only time will tell if it’s really a problem!
