Eating Issues - 18 months old & not eating finger foods yet

[Anonymous]

Our toddler is 18 months old and has always refused finger foods... no cheerios, goldfish... or anything that doesn't come out of a jar. I know you can't force this but now she wants to feed herself but spooning mush into her own mouth is too hard. What can we do to entice her to eat finger foods? Any food suggestions?

No grapes, blueberries, strawberries... nothing like that either so far.

Should I just keep offering? Other kids eat around her but not her.

[Anonymous]

i had a really hard time with this with my son....still do and he's three. i did find that doing it gradually helped. i fed him cottage cheese. mashed sweet potatoes with ground up veggies in it. pieces of tofu. that kind of thing. really soft fish in potatoes. i think he started to eat bananas at a little over 18 months but he still won't eat strawberries or blueberries or other fruit. i remember my pediatrician telling me there was nothing physically wrong if he was willing to chew cookies, which he was.

[Anonymous]

What about showing him how to use a baby fork to spear and eat soft cheese, fruit, etc? DS is having more luck doing this than using a spoon (although we have found that adding baby oatmeal to yogurt, applesause etc. to thicken the texture sticks to a spoon nicely).

[Anonymous]

We had this issues too- our DC had reflux (very bad- high medicines GI probe etc.) and so food wasn't a super event.. eventually DC got curious- but very slowly- I also thought we';d be using baby food forever.. i think a lot has to do with dc's bad reflux and not seeing us eat that much (we'd have dinner after dc slept) and being then the only child- not seeing other children eat.. we even bought a dvd showing kids eat.. it helped a teeny bit.. (as you can see- we were desperate too)..

[bakezzz]

Anonymous wrote:We had this issues too- our DC had reflux (very bad- high medicines GI probe etc.) and so food wasn't a super event.. eventually DC got curious- but very slowly- I also thought we';d be using baby food forever.. i think a lot has to do with dc's bad reflux and not seeing us eat that much (we'd have dinner after dc slept) and being then the only child- not seeing other children eat.. we even bought a dvd showing kids eat.. it helped a teeny bit.. (as you can see- we were desperate too)..

OP here. I want to thank all three of you. The reflux is something our daughter had too. It seems finally under control... I wonder if that's affecting how she sees food.