[3males and me]

Just wondering when your little one started using spoons/forks by themselves. DS can put the spoon in his mouth by himself but can't scoop anything out of a bowl and he still has no idea about a fork. He is 15months so I thought he should be able to use them a bit better by now or am I hoping for too much?

[tamjk]

DS1 was about 18 months when he got the hang of it, DD is 23 months and still hasn't got the idea.

It varies from child to child. I wouldn't worry about it.

[madmax1]

Mine is 15mths also and pretty much the same. I havent given him the fork since he nearly poked his eye out and it was only one of those plastic baby ones.

The spoon he is just about getting the hang of getting stuff on it and getting it into the mouth. Often it comes back out with the food still on it.

Just keep giving it to bubs, showing how to use it and encouragement. I am hoping by 18mths he gets the hang of it himself. Not sure what age they are supposed to do it though.

[Justaduck]

DD has been using the spoon to feed herself easy stuff like yoghurt for about a month without our help until the very end. If we put her dinner or a spoon or fork she will feed herself from there. She can't get more solid food onto the fork herself though. She just turned one

Just keep giving him lots of opportunities with it

[~~HappyMummy~~]

My 18mo boy is a cracker with the spoon - can feed himself a whole bowl of weetbix for example. He's ok with a fork - gets the concept but can't quite stab anything yet.

They're all different :-)

[laridae]

At 14m my DD was competently using a spoon to eat foods such as porridge without mess. But she'd had lots of opportunity to practice.

[Leeloomina]

DS started using a fork for his soft fruits just before he turned one. He got the hang of it very quickly, partly because we gave him a child size stainless steel one with sharp prongs, and also because the fruits are pretty easy to pierce and he loves his fruits to bits. Have you tried using the baby forks yourself? It's quite tricky to get anything on it! Even the stainless steel ones with rounded prongs. We did watch him like a hawk in the beginning though, in case he stabbed himself in the eyes or mouth.

We eat a lot of rice here so he started using spoon around 15 mo and I think it took about 3 months before he stopped making a big mess. He is 2 and we still get bits of rice here and there but at least it's not half the bowl anymore.

[her mum]

DD could use a spoon reasonably well from about 12 months. The fork suddenly 'clicked' for her around 19 months and she's great at stabbing things!
At 22 months she's just started to become interested in using a knife, though I can't really say she cuts much with it!
She has been trying chopsticks since around 12 months, but apart from a few lucky things that stay on, these are mostly used for stabbing.

[Tesseract]

Spoon at 13 months and fork at about 18 months. She was holding a spoon at mealtimes from 11 months and a fork from about 13 months once we realised she could use the spoon. She was also BLW'd so quite intent on feeding herself.

Agree that you need to give them a decent fork - the plastic ones with rounded edges ain't gonna stab anything!

Also suggest a metal teaspoon for spoon use, coupled with foods that stick to the spoon. Baby spoons seem to be really shallow. The day spoons clicked for DD was the day I gave her a metal teaspoon to eat risotto with - the risotto stuck to the spoon really well.

She still uses her hands when that is more efficient. She's nearly 2. I'm not worried.

[ABabyPlease]

Gee, I must be a bit slack. My DS at 17 months can use a spoon when I put the food on it first. I wouldn't give him a whole plate of food as he would throw it around - and cereal would be a disaster. Should I just bite the bullet and deal with the mess for a few months or can it wait until later?

He likes the fork to eat of and also to comb his hair and stab his head - so we don't use that anymore...