The need to assist a baby eating may continue up until fifteen to eighteen months old. Before then they will try to grab the spoon from you, or help themselves to their own food. Rather than fight over the spoon, keep the plate out of reach and feed them yourself for the main part of the meal and then let them have it to finish off. They need to develop quite a bit of hand to mouth coordination before they will successfully get anything into their mouth so it is important they eat something before it all gets wasted in their practise attempts! I always used a heavy stoneware pie dish for the first few years. It is too heavy to be upturned and has high, square-cornered sides to prevent spillage as they chase food around with their hands and spoon. Porridge is a good starter for self feeding as its natural glugginess helps it to stick to the spoon. Try not to get uptight about the mess and never restrict their learning because you don't want them to get dirty. Being covered in sticky food and dirt is just part of childhood and with practise a baby will soon learn how to keep most of his food either on his plate or in his mouth. This is where the foam box was so good. Just tip out all the mess, a quick wipe and replace it when it's beyond cleaning. Never dress him in good clean clothes before a meal and use big bibs and a teatowel on the lap. Once my children matured out of boxes (at about twenty months) they would sit on a vinyl mat that was easily cleaned off after the meal.
   Once a baby has a full set of teeth (around the age of 2) they can be offered all the food prepared in the same way as the rest of the family, with the exception of hard nuts or other potentially choking types of foods.

Final Weaning
   Many people think of weaning rather simplisti-cally as the time when the baby comes to the end of breastfeeding (or of bottle-fed formula). But, as explained earlier, I think of it as a much longer change-over period of gradually moving from milk to solid foods, which may start as early as 6 months and continue until as late as 24 months (or even longer). And, more than just the end of liquid nutrition from the breast or bottle, in the broadest sense, final weaning is a deeply psychological transition for both the baby and the mother. It is a time when their relationship needs to mature from one of primarily emotional inter-dependence to one of greater independence. For all of these reasons, weaning can sometimes be a confronting and traumatic time for the mother and the child.

   Weaning from the breast needs to be man-aged as a process in which both the nutritional and emotional needs of the child are increasingly met by solid foods and things like extra nurturing in other ways, like quality time for cuddles, stories, and play.
   Throughout the time of weaning, a child also needs time and space to develop their own independence and emotional security away from the apron strings so to speak. If the substitutes are managed well, then the need for the breast will just drop away easily. But we see in many cases today, weaning frequently occurring at a time when the mother might be returning to work away from the home, and in such instances the child has to suffer the double deprivation of losing two great loves concurrently.
   From the mother's perspective, when wean-ing, breastfeeds should gradually be reduced over many months so that she not suffer engorged breasts from a sudden drop from full supply to nothing. In this way, the little milk you will be making by that time will easily be absorbed by the body. Even if weaning goes in fits and starts, if you have been feeding for say up to 15 months, your ability to make milk will not immediately reduce at some linear rate. Even after fully weaning, a form of lactose can still be produced by the breast for up to 3 years. This liquid has the charming name of "Witch's Milk" which may be due to the fact that it tastes rather bitter and is yellowy in colour, or may be named from old superstitions that only witches could lactate beyond the normal breastfeeding period.
   I would never recommend weaning in stages such as from breast to bottle, and then later on from bottle to solids alone. Many mothers do this to substitute the comfort of a pre-sleep breast for the comfort of a bottle that can be taken to bed. This can have several nasty side effects. Firstly, anything other than mother's milk which is drunk just prior to drifting into sleep can leave a residue detrimental to the newly emerging teeth. Secondly, a bottle is a lot more mobile than a mother's breast, so a habit can be set up whereby the bottle may still be desired long after the weaning should have finished. Whereas the breast may have gone, the child has not properly let go of its emotional need for sucking and, whether it be at bedtime or any other time, the bottle has simply become a dummy with a continuous fountain of liquid food on desire. A teddy, a doll or a bedtime story would be a far better emotional substitute than a liquid-based one. From what I have observed, children of any age become very possessive of