Menu Close

Self Feeding – Utensils-Plates & Bowls

Wait, what? Do they exist??

There are two kind of ways kids react when you get plates or bowls with suction,
1st kind – kid tries to remove plate and stops removing after observing that the plate is struck.
2nd kind – summons all the energy from the universe and does not stop until the plate is removed from the table !!!
I am yet to meet the first kind and all the kids I have met so far does not stop until the plate or bowl is removed – these kids are so determined 🙂

Hence I completely stopped using plates or bowls with suction early on and started using the normal plates. When you use suction plate, baby gets distracted and tends to focus more on removing them than on the food in the plates. It is a like game or challenge to the babies – however young they are. You want all of your babies focus on the food and not on the fancy plates or bowls. Hence try to get simple plates or use one that you have always been using – like salad plate since that is right size for baby.

Babies love to throw items

Babies throw items and enjoy listening to the sound and enjoy the experience of dropping items. This is normal part of development especially around 6 months of age, which is when the weaning starts (or when the baby is ready). Hence for the first few days or months don’t worry too much if babies throws the plates or bowls.

They learn pretty soon that foods comes from the plate and stop throwing utensils. Until they are full, of-course, and then items flies out faster than a cheetah. If you follow Montessori, they recommend to use normal utensils like glass or ceramic, meaning even breakable items since they say that kids learn that items break and start treating them well. I was not confident on giving glass items, hence I used non-breakable items for weaning my baby.

Hence in the initial days, put only few bites on their plate or bowl and let them them explore and enjoy. If the plate or bowl falls down, continue to offer food in their high-chair plate or give it to their hands. Or bring back the clean plate and add two more bites. This will avoid food wastage and you won’t be stressed about self-feeding due to food wastage. We also had a splat mat on the floor to catch the food wastage.

Yummy, I am done and bam!!

After certain age, babies stop throwing items for fun. It takes a few months though – may be between 8 to 12 months depending on babies development. After that, however, they still throw, especially if they are done with their meal, or do not like their food etc. Do you know why? It is because they are done with the item and they do not know what to do with it and hence dispose of it. IT IS THAT SIMPLE!!!! It is not because they wan’t to offend you or the food or the plates.. Seriously, if you remember this, meal times are much more smoother.

Trust me, we will forget why babies do certain things in the heat of the moment, however remember to take a deep breath and it helps to calm down and see things from their point of view.

You can stop throwing! Yes you can!!

However, it does not always have to be like that. You can teach the baby how to communicate when they are done and what to do with it.

Every time our baby drops plates or food happens, we say to baby things like:

  • Ball is for throwing, plate is not for throwing
  • If you are done, please give the plate to us
  • If you don’t like, give the food to us (when baby throws food)
  • I also tried to tell baby to put the rejected food on another utensil or corner of plate, but this was too much instruction for small baby and the table did not have much space for multiple utensils, so did not pursue this method.

We also taught simple meal time signs to baby like ‘all done’, ‘more’ etc. Hence once our baby signs ‘all done’ (or gives the plate to us), we RESPECT babies decision and take the plate away. If we don’t baby continues to communicate ‘all done’, gets frustrated or confused if we don’t listen and throws the plate, because once again – baby does not know what else to do!!!.

Reserve ‘no’ for emergencies

Hence watch babies signs or communications and remove the plate or food, once the baby is done. Continue to educate the baby and use simple language. Your baby is not a college graduate to understand your complicated logic of merits and demerits of food throwing. Hence avoid lecturing baby about food wastage and poverty and use simple sentences. Avoid using ‘no’ especially alarmed or shocked ‘no’ when babies throw food. Babies will do the action often to get your emotional and expressive ‘no’ response since it is sometimes sounds funny to them.

Two or three word sentences are very effective when teaching baby. e.g. give it to me, do not throw, all done? want more? etc. Reserve lectures for their college days 🙂

It is not magic!

One thing to remember though, this post can be read in 5 or 10 mins, but all the above points takes time in real life. It sometimes takes few days to few months for baby to stop throwing food, for baby to adapt to eating from plate, for baby to master pincer-grasp and start enjoying food. Hence please do not expect miracles to happen on day 1 of trying some of the tips. There are also regressions. For e.g. my baby stopped throwing items completely and after a week, resumed throwing the food with renewed zeal 🙂 For that one week, I actually missed the mess and the art the little picasso was creating!!

Consistency is the key and patience is of-course another. In the mean-time, enjoy the artwork the little human is creating and laugh with them. Look at their painting in wonder, the way they do and get ready to be entertained by their wonderful expressions and creativity.