How does a baby know to open her mouth for a spoonful of food? They see the spoon coming.
In Lyra’s case, at 4 months, she couldn’t see the spoon coming. This made feeding her more difficult. We tried different sound cues to get her to open up. One that was more successful was tapping the spoon on the bowl just before bringing it to her mouth. It didn’t consistently work though and eventually gave up on the sound cue. Maybe not the best decision on our part as parents. We decided to wait a bit longer for solid foods. Now Lyra can see the spoon coming and opens her mouth. She sometimes tries to grab the spoon. A lot of babies do this, but in Lyra’s case I think it also has to do with her visual ability, specifically her depth perception. She isn’t sure how far away the spoon is and wants to guide it to her mouth using her hand.
The strabismus surgery she is having in a couple of weeks could improve her depth perception. We’ll see if it helps with feeding.
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