Our whole family drinks water, often warm, out of big mugs through the day.  A few months ago, probably aged about 5 months, my little granddaughter Connie started to grab the mug of whoever was holding her and pull the mug towards her mouth.  She wanted to join in this activity whatever it was of putting a mug towards your mouth!  Sometimes, if the mug was quite full she would take a small slurp, but one thing she really loved to do and still does, it to place her hands into your mug and splosh her fingers and hands around in it.

This gave me the notion recently having seen how caked in food her hands become with baby led weaning and how much resistance she puts up to having her hands and face wiped that she might enjoy a baby ‘finger bowl’ to wash her own hands in. Her sleeves were already rolled up to avoid lunch.  I gripped both sides of the soup bowl with both hands quite firmly once I had placed it on her highchair tray.  Connie looked quite delighted; she plunged both hands in and started to splosh gently in the water.  She also gripped the side of the bowl quite firmly at one point and tried to move it, so I was glad I was holding tight.  The finger bowl was pretty effective at cleaning up and made the final flannel wipe and dry very fast with little time for Connie to get fed up with it!

Once her hands are freshened up, face cleaning can follow and Connie seems to get less peeved about the whole process if she is lifted out on to a lap and then has her face wiped by Lisa whilst being held and cuddled by mum’s non-wiping arm.  This works well as a cleaning up strategy if the bowl is held firmly, although Connie does sometimes splash a bit vigorously, especially at her poor Dad for some reason!