A trip down crockery lane

A few months ago we started giving Baby Bean her food in a bowl, suction-glued to her tray, and it seemed to work really well. She had all her food in front of her to choose from and she ate her way through whatever of it she wanted with minimal interference from us. It went so well we invested in loads of the bowls for the Tommee Tippee magic mat (having found the Tesco suction bowl failed to stick).

Bean aged 9months having devoured spaghetti bolognese

Then Baby Bean discovered said magic mat.......and thought it more interesting than the food!
At first it was quite funny - once all the food was gone we'd remove the bowl and she'd happily tug at the release flap. But soon she discovered the mat could be peeled off the tray and from that moment on meals were only in the bowl for a matter of minutes before either I tipped it out onto her tray and quickly removed everything, or she flung it out as the bowl AND mat got waved around!

So we abandoned crockery! Until recently.

Bean has just learnt to sort, so now I give her dried fruits and snacks in a tub and she gleefully sticks her hand in to pull them out. The art of doing that is perhaps even more important than the fact she goes on to eat the food! But at least when she gets bored of it and flings the tub the contents just bounce and roll (rather than splatter and stain)!

Main meals are still, generally, served in small amounts onto her tray (from her bowl :-) ). But now I give her the bowl once there's just a little bit left, and her little face lights up at the chance to hold the bowl and scoop things out. Yesterday I gave her her whole dessert (blueberries and yoghurt) in her bowl and the first thing she did was tip it up to let it all slither out onto her tray, just like I have normally done! Then she realised she got to keep the bowl and started putting it all back in.

She ate the lot. And we had one pleased-with-herself little girl.