Table manners, cutlery, mess: when did you blw dc get it?

[Napdamnyou]

Ds is 9.5 mo so obviously early days. Has started eating with gusto off tray but mess is epic, eats in nappy on ikea chair, with splashmat - we've got used to mess and he gets sluiced in sink and changed after meals and chair, mat chucked in shower...

If offered food on bowl or plate he bites plate and flings it. I tend to eat finger food with him though sometimes use fork (for pasta etc) but when/how can I start teaching him to eat from bowl with fingers and then with cutlery? How did you do it?

[Paschaelina]

Boy is just over a year and still at the plate-flinging stage. He is considerably neater eating than when he first started though. I would say ninety percent of his meal goes in or around his mouth now. Cutlery-wise, he will use a spoon with help. On his own it goes the same way as the plate.

[Napdamnyou]

Thanks! He will eat a loaded spoon if I offer porridge etc from MY bowl although he then sucks both ends and plays percussion on high chair tray...I can't take him out to eat anywhere because he's so messy and when I see friends neatly shovelling slop into their infants mouths I start to doubt myself...

[Paschaelina]

Oh god I have been known to let him loose in Beefeater with tomatoey pasta and a long sleeved plastic bib . The waitresses were killing themselves laughing, so was he. He was remarkably tidy actually, although very orange around his chops and fingers. Very little on the floor, and he had stopped actually flinging food by then.

I must admit I tend to have a lunchbox containing a sandwich or wrap and a banana for those occasions where we're eating, and just give him a bit of whatever we're having. Its a bit easier to discreetly pick it up off the floor or scoop it out of the bib.

[Napdamnyou]

Ha, that must have been funny! I don't live in uk and everyone does pouches and slop here. On the plus side it's hot so eating outside and stripping off (baby) is possible... Just need to ride out judgey looks.

Will he eventually copy us with cutlery and bowls then?

[Iggly]

Well. DS is almost 2... He uses cutlery when he feels like it but not so much flinging unless he's grouchy!

[EBDteacher]

We've got a bowl that attaches to a special suction pad and therefore cannot be flung.

When eating out we've found that if we only give him one mouthful's worth at a time much less gets flung- some still, but a manageable amount. Otherwise he takes a taste of every handfuland flings the rest.

He's just starting to independently use a baby fork at 13.5months although he prefers to feed me with it rather than himself!

[Petisa]

Dd1 is 3.5 years and is v messy and doesn't use cutlery! I suppose I haven't made an issue of it either and she eats healthy amounts of EVERYTHING.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

My DS didn't string a sentence until well after age 2, never got the hang crawling and was a bugger to potty-train, but he mastered 'the spoon' remarkably early in his life. His first Christmas, age 8mo, he tackled a roughly chopped turkey dinner very expertly. Probably not what you want to hear.

[notevenamousie]

DD was always a bit tidier when out because there was so much to look at - hang in there - she was still lobbing the bowl on the floor at times at 2 and spoon control was messy but somewhere during that year she turned into a child that ate brilliantly, and still I put the range of things she eats and the way she knows when she is full (even with ice cream etc) down to sticking with the blw.

[bigkidsdidit]

'shovelling slop'? What a lovely turn of phrase.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Should have said... we didn't do BLW (didn't see that part of the title). Didn't do BL road-crossing, BL reading or BL fastening buttons either. If you want them to use cutlery, I think it's a skill you have to show them like any other :)

[AngelDog]

Not properly yet and he's 21 months.

From about 15 months we got him to pass us food he didn't want to eat rather than flinging it on the floor. We tried before that but it didn't work. Once he got the idea he started giving us things he didn't want.

After a brief spell of playing with cutlery at 12 months, he only really got interested in it at about 18 months. He occasionally likes to stab things with the fork and will eat off a loaded spoon, but he doesn't actually feed himself with cutlery yet.

I think it all depends on when they want to start doing it.

[Daisy1986]

I blw DD and shes just turned 2 sometimes she uses cutlery sometimes she doesn't. BUT she is a very good eater and will eat anything put infront of her that is more important to be then how she eats it. I think I read somewhere that proper, consistent cutlery use and table manners dont really start till around 4 but I may be wrong.

Flinging the food on the floor I think is an inevitable part of learning to eat. Wait till they realize theres a picture in the bottom of the porridge bowl and tip the contents out so they can see it lol.

[MoJangles]

Breakthough at teatime today when DS (just off 11 mo) wanted to guide his own spoon to mouth (Mummy hanging discretely onto the end), and also ate pasta out of his bowl with his fingers. We've had food taken out of bowl and chucked on floor, and bowl chucked on floor, but not the bowl-mouth transfer of small food like this before. (Big chunks of finger food off tray has been easier, but recently even that's been rejected unless he can take it off my or a communal plate first) I put this down to regularly offering him blueberries (fave thing ever) in a little pot which he has to pick them out of - may have helped the penny drop. A small victory but a good one!

[An0therName]

my DC - one BLW one not started using cutlerey around 16 -18months - they could feed themselve a yoghurt and used a fork a bit - my older one was consitantly doing it 2ish
my 19 mo - BLW is just about save to give a bowl and plate too - although we still get chucking if we are not quick enough to take it away when he is finished
9 months is about the peak messey stage with BLW - its just later with spoon fed children

[LifeOfKate]

DS, nearly 22 months, uses cutlery at virtually every meal and will shout for it if we haven't given it to him fast enough. That's a fork and/or spoon anyway, I'm not sure when we'd introduce a knife!
He will also eat fairly reliably off a plate, it only gets thrown on the floor now if he has finished and is bored.
There's no way I would have attempted a plate at 9 months though, think we started using one at a little past a year. Cutlery came a little later, at maybe 14 months or so.
He will use them when ready, all you have to do is use them yourself and once they reach the stage where they want to copy everything you do, they'll be keen to use them :)

[Napdamnyou]

Thanks v much, some great tips and reassurance!

[gabid]

DS was proud when he first managed with knife and ford (aged?? 2ish?) but then used his fingers again - now DS is 6 1/2 and we are still working on it, reminding him every day!!??

[MushroomMagee]

DD is 2.2 and she is very neat and tidy. I can't really remember when that started, but I can dress her, give her rice krispies and only have a few milk drops to wipe off at the end.
She generally always uses her cutlery but then she is a little bit obsessive about not getting messy. She was struggling with her peas the other day and I suggested she use her fingers, she said "NO I cant use my FINGERS! Then my hands will be all disgusting!"

I do remember all the mess! It was hell! But honestly, it does get better and its worth it in the end. She is so good with her food, I can't think of anything she doesn't like! If its a new food, she likes us all to eat it together, but will happily eat whatever it is.