Is this standard for 18 months?

[ScarletLadyOfTheNight01]

I'm after a bit of advice regarding my 18 month old. I don't really have many friends with kids to compare, and I'm not too experienced with young children.

I'm struggling to get her to feed herself with cutlery. She's very good with finger foods and her co-ordination is very good. I've tried putting things on forks and spoons (baby ones obviously) and sometimes she'll eat off them but normally she just flings it everywhere. If i give her a spoon/fork and let her get on with it she just makes mess. I know it's normal to be messy obviously, but should she be feeding herself by now? I did mainly baby led weaning so she was weaned mainly on finger foods which may be why she seems more confident with those, I'm not sure.

Also, I have some questions about speech at this age. I know all babies are different but what sort of thing is normal at this age? She's picking up a lot of single words now and always tries to repeat what we say. She's obsessed with these flash cards I have. They're not supposed to be for children under 3, so is this normal? She sits there and I have to go through all of them with her millions of times a day!

Sorry, replied too soon. I don't mind going through the cards with her at all, just wanted to make that point. I just wasn't expecting this just yet.

All normal.

DD is 2 and has only recently 'got' cutlery. Even now she prefers fingers (which is fine)

The speech thing is good and toddlers often have obsessions - at least your DD is fanatical about something non-messy and fairly quiet!

I wouldn't worry about the cutlery. Just keeping trying occasionally and see if she's ready. I remember with DS it was literally like one day he decided, yes, I'm going to use this fork from now on, and that was it, no mess or drama. (We didn't do BLW though so I don't know if that makes a difference.)

My 18 month old can do cutlery and has done for a long time but cannot do words so well. Although he also has a favourite book we MUST go over every night so perhaps obsession is normal. He was also BLW-ed.

her eating sounds exactly like my dd who is also 18mo.. sometimes she seems able to use a spoon perfectly and other times it goes everywhere. I think it depends on her mood and whether shes concentrating I guess.

DH doesn't bother at all with cutlery and is all about letting her eat with fingers, and both hands often together if it's something she particularly enjoys.

A friend gave us a fork called 'Air fork one' and she loves using that - sure if you google you can see what I mean.

We still only have single words - oh except for an occasional 'bye bye my daddy' or 'me, my daddy' (a right daddies girl!) which I think is totally normal - my niece has just starting stringing more words together at 20/21 months.

Had to laugh at flisspaps, comments - sitting still and looking at flash cards sounds fantastic! I'm off out to buy some - I recall my nephew loving them too at this age.

All sounds within the normal range. I have a 17mo, she can do a spoon (messily) but not a fork. She has a lot of single words (maybe 50) and has once or twice joined two words together. The repetition is normal too. HTH.

At 22 months DS has only just got the hang of cutlery and prefers his hands when i'm not looking. Its perfectly normal.

He says about 10 words now so your DD is ahead of mine in that respect. I would have thought the flash cards are all about repetition and familiarity. DS is the same with certain books, over and over again the same ones. Its just fun for her.

I really wouldn't worry about cutlery just yet :) they go thru a very fussy stage at 18 months ish so right now if she's eating just leave her to it. Plenty of time for manners yet :)

my 18 month old daughter loves feeding herself, altho she uses baby cutlery, she does prefer her hands! She is the same with books, one in particular that we read over and over again everyday!

On another note, is anyone else having the same problem with climbing? She is obsessed with climbing on anything that stays still! I walked in the other day to find her sitting in the middle of the dining room table!!!! She doesnt like to be told 'no' either!

Thanks so much for all your replies. It's nice to know it's all normal stuff.

She has been quite fussy recently actually, I'm struggling to get her to eat things that aren't cheese based. I'm having fun being creative with cheese and trying to get veggies into it though. She won't touch fruit for some reason.

@Shakey - she does climb quite a bit. She likes to climb on the sofa and swing her leg over the arm to get down. She's also trying to walk down the stairs now which terrifies me (obviously I'm always there with both hands in a death grip, but we have steep stairs!). She's also taken to walking backwards randomly...DH thinks it's just her testing herself and her movement.

Haha yes climbing. I try to channel it with park visits, tumble time, soft play etc but I too have found my son triumphantly standing on the kitchen table having turned my back for about 3 seconds .

Oh thats a relief! I thought it was just her for a moment! Definitely going to start soft play groups as perhaps she can burn off some of this energy! She also seems to have mastered walking down the stairs frontwards but thankfully I am always in front of her!

With regards to the fruit thing, I found the pureed fruit pots are a huge hit with my little one - maybe an idea - she also absolutely loves cucumber sticks!!!!

She likes the taste, so will have it as purees and in things, but if I giev her bits of fruit she looks at like it isn't food. I'm not sure if it's the texture...she puts it half in her mouth and makes a rather hilarious face. She walked around with a strawberry from the garden for about an hour the other day...she kept licking it but wouldn't take a bite.