Finally Nibbling

I've been having to cut all of Alisa's food into bite-size pieces until just recently. She's finally learned how to nibble or take little bits of large pieces of food, like bread, muffins, and bananas. Until recently, she'd always just try to shove the whole thing in her mouth and then she'd gag and get upset because she had too much food in her mouth. She didn't understand how to take little bites. I thought maybe I was hindering her learning by always breaking her food into little pieces, so I tried to give her larger things from time to time because her friends knew how to take little bites, but it kept ending in near disaster. She has always been a fast solid-food eater so she just wasn't ready to slow down and nibble back then.

We still have to watch her closely and sometimes remind her to take little bites when we give her the bigger pieces, but at least she's making progress. I'm excited about the time I will save by not having to tear the bread into tiny pieces or cut the bananas into pieces. Also, the cleanup won't be as bad with the banana because she doesn't get as messy when holding a big piece of it, as opposed to picking up little pieces that then get mushed in her hands as they go to her mouth.

Here she is nibbling on a banana during breakfast today: