[yorkietalkjilly]

Your baby is so young he's dealing with his first fears in life and how you handle him now will help him learn how to deal with fear. Any time he acts fearful, don't say "it's okay", pick him up and soothe him with petting, stroking, etc., since it is said that reinforces their fear and they sense that your soothing them, saying that it's okay, etc., is agreeing with their fear and rewarding it, reinforcing it. Just act matter of factly when your little one gets a scare and take him outside or to another room, immediately him from the scene of the fright and instantly distract him with fun playtime and running away from him, getting him to chase you, things like that until he's older and his brain more developed and he's not so fearful of things.

Try desensitizing him to the food bowl by slowly working up to his re-learning to trust it.

My little Jilly was afraid of her bowl for the longest time but we finally worked it out & she would eat out of it. I started by putting her food on paper towels far away from the empty bowl, then closer & closer until she would eat her food off the paper towel right next to it her bowl. Finally, I put one end of the paper towel with a piece of food on it in the bowl & she ignored it, meal after meal - day after day - week after week. Finally, after taking that piece out of the bowl so often uneaten, one day it was gone when I started to get it out. She'd grown accustomed to a piece of food in there & gone in for it. Before long, no more single piece in there, there were 2, then 3, then lots more & she ate them all. She worked up to being desensitized to the food being in that bowl & it not hurting or scaring her & finally, it wasn't an issue most of the time & she ate her meals from it.

Then she would relapse & we would have food on paper towels for a night or two - but then she would go back to eating out of the bowl as if she'd forgotten she was scared of it. Might try something like that - it's a lot of trouble but it could help yours.