Finger Feeding

Finger Feeding

Last week, Jackie was not finger feeding. She was about to turn 10 months so I wanted her to at least try. She would pick up a piece of food and clutch it in her fists. I was not allowed to help her move her arm close to her mouth, or open her hand. She is very strong and did not like the physical prompting. If her hand was empty and not hoarding food, I could move her arm and hand anywhere I wanted. She was just territorial over letting me help her when food was in her fist.

She already knew how to pick up the Cheerio, and she already had the precision and ability to pick it up in her littler fingers. She just wasn’t getting practice putting her hand to her mouth and she wasn’t letting me help her. Hello, Finger Feeding intervention!

One Day 1, I gave her Cheerios and she continued to clutch it in her hand. She did not understand the concept of putting her hand to her mouth. If I showed her a piece a food, she would open her mouth for me to feed her, but once it was in her hand she got lost. So, I decided to backtrack. I began feeding her again. I picked up the cheerio, she opened her mouth and I put it in her mouth for her. Why would I do that? How could she ever learn if she is relying on me to feed her? Well, I will tell you. The trick was to teach her to put her hand to her mouth. I wanted her to get the muscle memory so she would have the practice with the motions. Day One, after seeing she made no progress of putting hand to mouth, I started feeding her. I put the item in her mouth, and then put her hand to her lips. I repeated this. I put the item in mouth, while I put her hand to lips. I did this so she would pair getting yummy food in her mouth with putting her hand to her lips. Day Two, I did the same thing. In the middle of her feeding, I started putting the food halfway in her mouth and prompting her hand to put the food in her mouth the rest of the way. She was getting so much practice putting her hand to her mouth! Day 3 I mixed it up: I gave her some food by mouth and let her practice the motions. Then, I would give her one Cheerio for her to pick up on her own. She picked it up and...put her hand to her mouth! Sometimes the food would be on the very outside of her grip, so it was easy for the food to drop from her hands and into her mouth. However, she didn’t know how to loosen her grip, so the food went into her fist and up to her mouth, but she wasn’t loosening her grip to eat it. This was very frustrating for her. Sometimes when she lifted her hand and tried to eat it, I would put one in her mouth at the same time so she was getting rewarded for picking it up and bring it to her mouth. I also went back to feeding her halfway and letting her push the food in her mouth the rest of the way, to keep her frustration low and to let her keep getting practice with the motions of self-feeding. On Day Four, I gave her Wagon Wheels to bring to daycare (very large hand- held food that dissolves in mouth, so she could see what she was bringing to her mouth). She was very successful at eating the larger food. The larger food gave her practice bringing her food to her mouth and she could see it in her hand. Eating was much more successful that way. When she got home on Day 4, I gave her a wagon wheel while I prepared her dinner. After spoon feeding her, I gave her tiny cheerios to practice finger feeding small foods and she did it!!! She picked it up, put it to her mouth, opened her hand to see where it was in her little fist, and put the food in her mouth!!! She is now a pro at finger feeding. She sometimes gets frustrated if she drops one, but I am next to her to put another one on her plate to distract her from her mistake. One more step to making my little one independent. And it took only Four days!