Baby Foodie

We’ve got a good eater in Ivan. In fact, if we eat or drink anything in front of him, he’ll stop what he is doing and look at us, mouth ajar, astonished that we’d dare to eat in front of him and not offer him anything. He grabs for Daddy’s beer or lunges at Mummy’s banana.
As a first-time mother, I’m flummoxed by the notion that your eight-month old baby is supposed to be able to eat with the family at the dinner hour. Ivan has been eating pureed foods and rice cereal since he was five months old. At seven months we started to give him small morsels of food like avocado, cheese, toasted oats, mashed potatoes, barley, banana bread and pasta. We continue to feed him by hand as he hasn’t yet grasped the concept of self-feeding. Instead he’ll grab the food, squishing it in his giant palms. Or try to shove his entire fist into mouth, failing to understand why he can’t taste the Cheerio inside his hand. To be fair, I haven’t set a plate of food on his high chair tray to be tossed all over the house. Maybe we need to prep the dining room as though we were going paint the walls, then let Ivan ave-atter. Of course I’m concerned that he could choke while eating on his own. He seems to go for a largest bite he can wrap his lips around when presented with a teething biscuit or a similar snack. This resulted in a hesitation to offer him anything other than tiny bits of soft food. I’ve been reading every chapter on feeding infants, in all the books I own, even specific cookbooks but I’m not comfortable with many of the methods, due to a fear of the risk of choking. More to report on the subject later.
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