[cgormer]

Hello everyone. I'm a 31 year old single father, and I have a 2-year old daughter (26 months, actually) who will not eat with utensils. Admittedly, it's pretty much our fault. We waited a bit too long to introduce her to using utensils on her own, and once we started, we would end up just feeding her like we usually did because she would take a long time to eat and we didn't want her food to get cold. I've been trying for about two weeks to get her to eat with a spoon, using yogurt and pudding. She seemed to get the hang of it at first, at least putting the spoon in her mouth. Scooping the yogurt was still a challenge. Recently, though, she's regressed, and now throws a fit whenever I put a bowl of something with a spoon in front of her. She eats finger foods by herself with no problem, although recently she's been taking a long time to finish, so we end up assisting her with that as well. I know that's probably not the smart thing to do, but I don't want to neglect her and have her go hungry.

She also doesn't really brush her teeth very well on her own. I've tried to show her the correct way to do it, but again she throws a fit. Typically what happens is I'll go over her teeth once, and then give her the brush and let her at it. She usually just chews on bristles, but she does move the brush around her mouth. Once I try to help her with the correct motion, she gets upset.

One quick note, she's way behind on her speech. She can say a few basic words, and can sing a few songs, but everything comes out mispronounced. Based on this, it's kind of difficult to communicate with her in regards to instructing her on eating with utensils, brushing teeth, etc. I am very concerned about autism, though her doctor and pretty much everyone else doesn't seem to think that's the case.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!