Tips to teach children to eat themselves gradually & bull; hello healthy

Learning to eat on your own is an important development for you. For adults, eating alone is easy, but children need to learn to eat well. Teaching children to eat by themselves may not be easy. However, feeding your child continuously until he grows up is not good either. This will only hinder its development.

Why is it important to teach children to eat alone?

Eating is a basic need for children to meet their nutritional needs to support their development and growth. The skills of children to eat themselves are very important stages of child development.

Eating activities involve many abilities that must be mastered by children. There are many steps that a child must go through in order to get food to his mouth. First, the child must look at the food, take the food by hand, then bring it to the mouth, adjust to the position of the mouth, open the mouth, chew until swallow the food.

After the child can eat by hand, the child then develops his ability to eat with a spoon and fork. Your child may often drop his food into a mess. However, learning to hold a spoon is one way to develop fine motor skills in children.

Apart from developing many children's abilities, eating alone also involves a lot of feelings and sensory abilities. Also, develop children's abilities to be independent, which is necessary for the next child's life.

Stages of teaching children to eat by themselves

When you start introducing your child to solid foods, your child may begin to show a desire to eat alone. When you spoon feed him, he may want to hold the spoon too. When your child sees food, the child may want to take it and put it in their mouth. This is a great start, you just need to support it a little more.

1. Give the child food that can be held by hand (finger food)

In the first stage, you can start by giving the child food that he can handle. This can train how children grasp food then bring the food to the mouth and eat it. Food that can be used as finger food is food that is easily handled by children and has a soft texture. For example, such as apples that have been cut, cut papaya into small pieces, steamed broccoli, steamed carrots, boiled potatoes, and so on.

You can start this stage when your child turns 8 months old. Or, some children may be able to start sooner, around 6 months of age when they are introduced to solid foods, are able to pick up objects around them, are able to sit up on their own, and are able to chew and remove food. Remember, development can vary between children.

2. Introducing the child to the spoon as a tool for eating

After the child is able to eat alone with finger food , You can invite the child to eat using a spoon. The stages of introducing a child to a spoon to eat can start around 13-15 months of age. This may vary from child to child.

Although children eat with a spoon themselves, they will definitely make them dirty by dropping food, but letting children eat with a spoon at an earlier age can encourage them to learn to develop their own eating skills. You may get irritated when your child always drops his food when eating alone with a spoon, but this is part of a child's development.

At 18 months of age, your child may be more adept at using a spoon to feed himself. And, by the age of 2 or 3, your child may be able to use a spoon to eat without falling over. You may just need to help cut the child's food into small pieces so that the child can easily pick it up.