Messmaker

Mealtime has become an increasingly messy event in our house. Lydia likes to feed herself, but her spoon and fork skills are mediocre at best. As a result, she ends up going for strategies like this:



We talked to the pediatrician about ways to redirect this behavior, and she advised us to just let Lydia go at it, though she agreed that after Lydia, for example, smears all of her milk on the counter, we should not refill her cup, and the same goes for her food after it is all on the floor. The mess is not pleasant, but I feel like it's part of Lydia's learning process in becoming an independent eater. For now, we will have to be okay with mealtime looking like this: