I know Bella knows how to win a battle with mom. I know Bella knows how to test my patience. I know Bella knows a lot more than she lets on.
Yesterday we were working on self feeding again. At this point she wasn’t even doing anything herself, she just had to go through the motions of having me help her get food on her spoon and help her get the spoon into her mouth. But she wanted nothing to do with it. We kept on trying, we kept on making a huge mess. And in the end, I gave up and just fed it to her myself. I couldn’t stand Bella dropping her face into her very messy bib and refusing to open up. Now of course as soon as I quit making her feed herself, she kept her head up and opened up her mouth for me.
So then I question, if she is acting stubborn and won’t work on it, do I just stop feeding her altogether and make her be hungry until she wants to participate. I feel like the more I give in to her, the harder it becomes to make her do it, because she knows she will win the battle of wills.
I also know I should be working on this skill once a day, and right now we are lucky to try once a week. Nothing will get accomplished at that rate, but it’s so hard to get into the mind set to work on it. And Jesse can attest to the huge mess it causes. He couldn’t stand it and kept getting mad over the mess. And that was with me helping, could you imagine if she was doing it all by herself.
I keep thinking to myself….if only I didn’t need any sleep.
Is there a food Bella loves? Something -really- good like ice cream? Feed her a regular meal so she isn't starving. Then offer her the treat but don't feed it to her. Help her work on feeding herself. Her will might subside a bit if she wants the food badly enough. If she's unwilling, try it again another time. Once she realizes you won't give in, she might work at it.
ReplyDeletep.s. I think everyone with a toddler struggles with battling wills every day :)