At 21 months of age my daughter has begun eating her meals at her own toddler table. Maria Montessori calls this the weaning table and actually advocates introducing it much earlier than 2 years of age, say around 4-8 months old. The table is Montessori’s replacement for the highchair. Her take on the whole table idea is that it allows the child the opportunity to make his or her own decision regarding eating.
Independence of thought/choice is big in Montessori’s world and while I don’t know near enough about the details to discuss it in detail, I do have a post here and here on the Montessori method as it pertains to eating. I am, however, very interested in the big picture philosophy behind her method. My husband and I often fold (or one could say cherry pick) the Montessori method into our parenting style.
As for feeding time, we chose to use a highchair until we were comfortable offering Sophie the option of getting out of her chair on her own. This timing also coincided with food throwing. Really, our decision has been based on whether or not she’s getting enough to eat to sustain her growing body. However, the food throwing was a very large factor as well. I believe it is the international (and inherent) sign for “I’m all done eating this so called food.” I mean, enough with the food throwing already!
So we’ve introduced the toddler table. Sophie can sit at will and get up at will.
Disaster, you might think…but surprisingly, no. The new found independence (and no doubt trust) she feels has emboldened her to remain at her table until she is finished eating. And she actually eats! A lot.
Now, I will qualify this by saying that sitting is a loose term for what she does at the table. There is a fair amount of standing with one leg dangling over the seat, the one butt cheek on and one butt cheek off of the seat form of sitting, and my favorite the my toe is touching the chair so I’m still sitting form of sitting. Ahh, that lesson will have to come in time. Maybe when we introduce table manners.
The table, though, has successfully stopped the food throwing. When she’s done, she simply gets up. What a concept! Now, we’ve dealt with food throwing in the past and have some fairly effective methods for dealing with it while at the grown up table, but so far the toddler table is the best solution we’ve found. Granted, a semblance of toddler maturity is needed (is there such a thing?) to fully pull it off. I’m a big fan of the toddler table…in fact, I find myself sitting at it with Sophie, which makes for fun table time conversations in a language I have yet to master. I’d recommend it highly.
photo credit: ian.schofield
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