Easy ways to make little one get used to eat by themselves

Succeed to eat by themselves is a big achievement to little one development. This ability surely doesn’t come quick. Need a lot of patience for Mom to train a little one.

Little one’s skill to eat by themselves has an impact on their other intelligence development. After little one smoothly eats on their own, they will be more confident to do things alone, like put on clothes or shoes, throw garbage, tidy up the toys and other things. In other words, this skill will make little one become independent.

There are a lot of stages that little one has to pass till they can eat on their own. Applied stimulation also varied. Usually every Mom has her own trick to train little one to eat on their own. Well, to make Mom easier, Morinaga already summarized about what stimulations that Mom can do to train little one. Here are below:

1. Start from finger food
   In the early stage, it can be started with introducing little one with finger food that they can grip on. For example, apple slices, papaya, steamed broccoli, potato, or chips. The purpose it’s to make little one get used to food in their hand and train a feeding movement with their own hands.

2. Give example with eating together
   Create a habit to eat together at home. When meal time comes, all family members will gather to eat together. Besides, make little one more discipline, this habit also motivates them to copy people's movement around them during meal time together.

   If it’s not possible, at least take little one to eat inside the room and sit nicely. This will make little one get used to eating nicely without walking around the house.

3. Give compliment
   In whatever the matter, compliment is really useful for little one’s confidence. This means a lot because they will think their ability makes Mom proud of them. After hearing a compliment, little one will be more interested to repeat that manner better.

4. Let little one eat messy
   The hard part in going through little one eating train is dirty house floors or a messy dining table because of little one food spill out. Mom has to be mentally prepared because this must happen and Mom has to go through this patiently.

   There is a trick that Mom can try, ask little one to clean their mess. This method sometimes worked making little one deterrent and starting to eat more neatly.

5. Prepare colorful cutlery
   After little one made it to grip on the finger food, now it’s time to introduce them to cutlery and how to use it. Show the comfortable way to handle the spoon. To make little one more interested, Mom can prepare the cutlery with little one’s favorite character or color. This method is effective enough to make little one learn how to eat alone.

6. Give variation of food
   Training to eat alone also can be a chance to introduce little one to various flavors and foods. In this time, Mom can know what they don’t like or what food is their favorite.

   In addition, providing lots of food variation also makes little one doesn’t get bored easily. No need to make a difficult menu, just simple variations like fried egg or boiled egg is enough to draw little one attention.

Even though it’s tiring, this period of time must be bypassed by Mom. Sometimes it worked, sometimes little one becomes cranky and doesn't want to eat. However, as they get older, moreover if they see other children who can eat on their own, little one becomes more motivated to learn how to eat with their own hands. Happy trying, Mom.