Feeding Times, Happy Times

Photo by Lucy Wolski on Unsplash

Feeding a baby! Does it give you jitters? Yes?? Congrats you are a ‘M-O-M’.

Feeding your child, has and will always be, the toughest task in any mother’s to-do list. Whether it is the first six months of motherhood when it is only milk or afterwards when it is everything. Sometimes, nothing seems to work from a mommy’s arsenal, and she is left fretting and fuming seeing the state of affairs.

The One Thing Every Kid Has In Common -
The thing is babies are born with inherent ingeniousness to avoid things they want to! Alas, food being the topper of the list.
Spitting, turning their mouth right to left or simply yelling at the top of their voice are some of their defense mechanism strategies. You bet, they are born experts in it!

What Rescued Me - 
Learning to feed my son, a head strong and hyperactive baby, had never been a cakewalk.
I must confess that I too, was tempted to resort to putting on the television or other electronic devices. But I knew it was never a long-term solution. I had to improvise something to get things going.
When my son was merely six months, I started cooing and singing to him while getting him to eat.
Mind you, I maybe on the bottom most league of people who should not even try to sing.
However, necessity is the mother of creation and talent. I realized that no voice can be more captivating or soothing for a baby than that of a mother no matter how unmusical it maybe.

And…Did It Work?
It worked wonders!
My baby is the only one till date who has ever listened in rapt attention to my singing. This encouragement made me come up with new songs in both Hindi and English during his mealtimes. He had his favourites too. I guessed them through the pace of his munching as well as how big and lit up his eyes became!
As they say, every age has its own set of challenges. As my son has grown older, the struggle now is to make him eat by himself. Now the cooing has been replaced by interactive games like verbal Name-Place-Animal-Thing, Guess the Thing etc.
Long story short, the crux of the feeding/eating activity by babies/toddlers is to engage them joyfully so that eating is an extended play time for them.
The advantages of such interactive sessions are not limited to feeding alone. The child learns to speak at an earlier age, becomes more expressive as well as bonds well.
For me, there is an additional bonus. Days when I am too tired for his bedtime stories, he pitches in and tells them instead. He is just five. As they rightly say, “As you sow, so do you reap.” I am reaping my stories now!

Give it a shot!
So, are you ready to coo to your baby bird as they peck the food merrily? It surely will be a treat to your eyes!
My first song and son’s favourite was “Lakdi ki Kaathi”, which one will be yours?
And yes, I did some animated moves along too! Just imagine a galloping horse, singing with a bowl of Cerelac!

Try out your style and do share your experience in the comments section!

Neha Gupta is a software engineer who is now a stay at home mom. She feels motherhood is a second chance to relive our childhood. She loves nature, books and writing.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mom Store.