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Not to long ago, I wrote about how wonderful it was that my son was such a wonderful eater, how he wasn’t picky at all.
How quickly things changed.
TJ had recently decided that he didn’t want to eat most of the foods we tried to serve him for dinner. As a matter of fact, he put up such a fuss on New Year’s Day – screaming and gagging himself whenever I brought the spoon near his mouth – that he made himself vomit all over himself and his high chair tray. It was completely disgusting, and I was rather angry with him. Once I got him out of the chair and stripped down to his diaper, he played happily in the living room while I cleaned up the mess, so I knew he wasn’t sick or anything.
He decided to throw a little tantrum again tonight. We’re not trying to force him to eat anything he doesn’t like. We’ve been making a conscious effort to offer him foods we know that he likes. But a spoonful of ravioli tonight started him screaming and gagging himself again.
My husband tried giving him the spoon. TJ stuck the spoon in his bowl, but all he did was move the pasta around in the bowl.
Then I had an idea…
I found TJ’s fork.
My mother-in-law had given him a toddler dining set that included a plastic bowl, plate, fork, and spoon. We put the fork up months ago, since he was still eating pureed jar food at the time. But I found it, placed the fork in his hand, helped him stab a ravioli…
…And the rest is history. He took a tiny nibble of pasta off the fork. Since it was too awkward for him, he pulled the pasta off the fork and put it in his mouth. But it was enough. He knew he could feed himself, and he ate most of the rest of the pasta without further incident.
The tantrums were TJ’s way of trying to tell us he didn’t want us to feed him anymore, that he wanted to do it himself. But without the words to express himself, we had no idea. I’m so grateful I was able to figure it out.
While it may not be the answer to your toddler’s mealtime tantrums, you might at least want to offer your little one a fork to rule out the possibility!
That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.
