Letting LO play with food?

[kellyc1987]

We recently got DS (3.5 months) a high chair since he loves sitting up and thought it would be nice for him to sit at the table with us for family meals, anyway last night whilst we were eating I gave him a piece of roasted sweet potato to play with, I obviously kept a close eye on him and would not have let him eat it, he just mushed it around in his hands anyway... My question is do you think it's ok to do this or do you think it will make him not associate food with eating and just for playing? I know BLW is the same kind of thing and its too early for that but just wondering what people's views were?

 

[MindUtopia]

Personally, I wouldn't bother. I don't think there's any harm to them doing it probably (if you can watch closely and you may not always be able to), and my daughter definitely picked up food off my plate while sitting on my lap before 6 months (she didn't eat it, but she'd pick it up and touch it, more because I just didn't have a free hand to take it away from her). But if you want to do BLW, wait til 6 months to start. It's fine for them to associate food with play (after all that's basically what you do in BLW), but what you don't want them to associate it with is you panicking and pulling it out of their mouths if they try to eat it. You really don't want a 3.5 month old trying to eat finger foods as it just isn't safe and he's going to put it in his mouth eventually and you'll have to jump up and fish it out and take it away from him. I think that just starts a really confusing relationship with mealtime if he thinks he's not allowed to eat food put on his tray now, but then at 6 months magically, he is. Also, you'll have years to be cleaning up mushed up food out of every possible crevice and getting the stains out of clothes. I'd enjoy it now while it's a bit easier and give him some toys either sitting in his high chair or on a mat on the floor while you eat and save food for when you actually plan to start weaning.

 

[kellyc1987]

Personally, I wouldn't bother. I don't think there's any harm to them doing it probably (if you can watch closely and you may not always be able to), and my daughter definitely picked up food off my plate while sitting on my lap before 6 months (she didn't eat it, but she'd pick it up and touch it, more because I just didn't have a free hand to take it away from her). But if you want to do BLW, wait til 6 months to start. It's fine for them to associate food with play (after all that's basically what you do in BLW), but what you don't want them to associate it with is you panicking and pulling it out of their mouths if they try to eat it. You really don't want a 3.5 month old trying to eat finger foods as it just isn't safe and he's going to put it in his mouth eventually and you'll have to jump up and fish it out and take it away from him. I think that just starts a really confusing relationship with mealtime if he thinks he's not allowed to eat food put on his tray now, but then at 6 months magically, he is. Also, you'll have years to be cleaning up mushed up food out of every possible crevice and getting the stains out of clothes. I'd enjoy it now while it's a bit easier and give him some toys either sitting in his high chair or on a mat on the floor while you eat and save food for when you actually plan to start weaning.

Thanks, thats really great advice and makes perfect sense

I definitely want to do BLW at 6 months and wouldn't let him eat now so yeah you're right that would just confuse him