As a millenial mom, I am very much used to seeing other moms posting about the milestones their little ones have achieved. To be honest, my facebook newsfeed consists of all things motherhood - from maternity support groups, to breastfeeding mommas, to babywearing and so much more. It's a normal thing for me to see other moms bragging posting about how awesome their kids are. I too have my own share of kid-bragging. But then I saw a couple of posts about their toddlers already eating on their own. There were some who were younger than my daughter.
Then I started noticing my kid's eating habits. First things first, she's two years old. And she's a picky eater. I will have to prepare a different meal for her whenever she doesn't like the food. There was a point where she only ate potato fries, mojos, and camote fries for a week. She wouldn't eat if we give her other food. I was advised before that we shouldn't force-feed a toddler. So for my fear of her getting hungry, I gave in to what she wanted.
Then the next concern I had was that she doesn't like touching her food. Which I thought was just normal because she's still a baby after all. I tried to teach her how to eat on her own. But the thing is she doesn't want to get her hands dirty. The salt and the oil from fries bothers her a lot. I gave up the pursuit of making her touch her food for months. She also don't like the feel of crumbs falling down her lap when she eats, she asks me - right away - to remove them for her.
I know for a fact that a toddler eating on her own is really messy. Maybe she also knows that and she doesn't like it so she wants me or her father to feed her instead. I was starting to worry that she is missing out on the experience of eating by herself.
So one more time, I gave it a try. I taught her to hold her fries. I made her get over the greasy feeling. Slowly, in her own time, she was able to overcome the feeling of getting her hands dirty. She finally was able to learn to completely eat fries on her own when I had a task on my online job that needed to be finished asap. I couldn't feed her that night because my boss needed the file right away. When I finished the job, she had also finished her bowl of fries.
I was really contented with that one big step from her. But then another milestone was unlocked! Last Monday, she kept on saying "Aya. Eat. Spoon." I know she's hungry already so I prepared our food. She insisted on holding her spoon. So, I thought why not? I'll just use another spoon to feed her while she's holding her own spoon. While we were eating, she just suddenly scooped food from her plate using her spoon then tried to eat. Of course everything fell to her lap because she doesn't know yet. So we guided her. After three or four tries with our guidance, she was able to eat on her own!
There's the milestone I was looking for! I realized I can't really rush her into doing things. I also realized she's not early or late when it comes to learning things, she has her own timing. She reminded me to stop comparing her to others just like we should also stop comparing ourselves to everybody else.