SOmetimes babies want to mimic the action you are doing. It may be messy, but have you tried giving her a little cereal on a bowl where she can "play" with it and see if she starts eating her cereal that way? (I personally didn't do this - don't think I could have put u pwiththe mess, however a friend tried it and it worked. She was also able to fairly quickly get her daughter to understand it was eating time and not play time.)