Your baby will let you know when he wants to feed himself. He will try to grab the spoon away from you as you feed him or refuse to open up when you offer him food on a spoon. By letting him try to feed himself, you will communicate trust to your child.

These tips can help you make the transition from you spoon feeding your child, to your child feeding him or herself:

• Give your child a spoon to play with while you feed her. This will help her learn how to hold a spoon!
• Let him experiment with dipping the spoon into his food and trying to get it into his mouth. Be patient at this point, and be prepared for things to get messy. More food is likely to end up on the floor than in his mouth!
• Alternate bites from your spoon and his spoon. This allows your child the chance to continue to develop the hand-eye coordination he needs for spoon feeding, but makes the feeding more efficient and can reduce his frustration with learning a new skill.
• Fill his spoon, but let him do the feeding. This can help reduce waste from spills, but still gives your child the feeling of accomplishment that comes from feeding himself.
• Try spoon feeding at the beginning of the meal. Your child is more likely to be interested in spoon-feeding at the beginning of his meal when he is the most hungry. When he loses interest in spoon feeding, give him some finger foods to complete his meal.