Another milestone for !

[Guest guest]

Just a little good news to share! (2 1/2) has begun to feed

himself! It is not something I have been working on or that any

therapist has been working on (we took over 2 months off therapy).

But a few months ago, he began grabbing the spoon and fighting me for

control of it. I want every precious bite of his " loaded " food (with

supplements) to go in his mouth, so I wasn't too willing to surrender

the spoon. But I had to give him a spoon, which he would use to stir

and dabble, while I used another spoon to try and get his food in his

mouth as quickly as possible before he could dip and dump too much on

the highchair tray. This worked pretty well for a couple months.

From time to time, I would do hand over hand with him for a couple

bites, but he usually wasn't interested in that, he just wanted to

mess around.

Then about a week ago, he suddenly decided to feed himself! Of

course he's a bit awkward at it and may have nothing on the spoon or

too much. He tends to hold it sideways and only gets half of the

spoon in his mouth. He doesn't form complete closure with his lips,

so sometimes doesn't get the food off the spoon. But he is doing it,

and he is in control! And he gets mad at me if I try to help him.

One cute thing he does is that he will use his left hand to hold the

spoon for 2 or 3 bites, then he will place the spoon back in his dish

and turn the dish around and pick up the spoon with his right hand

for 2 or 3 bites! It is as though he can't make up his mind which

hand he prefers!

It is encouraging that, although he has always resisted nearly

everything his therapists have tried to get him to do, he is

perfectly capable of teaching himself how to do things that he really

wants to do!! There is hope for this kid!