Arghhhhh How do I get her to use a spoon?

[bobsi]

Dd is 20 months and a little underweight (however nothing to really worry about). She eats really well and has a good variety of all kinds of foods. I've given her a spoon since the day she could hold one and she can feed herself two or three mouthfuls of a meal using a spoon/fork. She is happy to feed herself with her fingers.

After spooning two or three mouthfuls, she just starts to play with her food or use her fingers and is happy to sit back and let me spoon feed her. I've tried leaving her to it but she just plays & makes a mess.

I know that maybe I should take her food away if she plays with it but I find this incredibly difficult to do as I don't want her to lose weight and I always end up feeding her.

Should I be worried that she's not really interested in feeding herself yet and continue the way we are going? Mealtimes drive me insane, although I try my best to hide these emotions from dd

Does this sound normal? What do other peoples dc do? I'd be interested in everyone's thoughts and experiences.

I tend to hand ds a spoon and let him play with it and occassionally put some in his mouth, while feeding the rest in as fast as possible. I don't think it matters how she eats, as long as something goes in. If you are worried about her eating, I'd just carry on feeding her.

I always found a fork easier for my children, it seems an easier action....thats unless your eating something sloppy like soup obviously...

Mine wanted to eat everything with hands until she was about 2 and then she wanted to copy us with a spoon. Dont worry, it will come.

Thanks for your replies and encouragement. I'll probably keep going as we are but I'm worried I'll still be feeding her when she's three or four. When is it normal to stop feeding them completely?

Do you think I'm expecting too much?

I think you might be, yes. It will come, but sometimes it takes a bit of time.

Dd couldn't manage a spoon until she was about two and a half, and even then wasn't very skilled at it until she was nearly 3. I was happy to spoon-feed her, but at her 21 month check up the HV was a bit twitchy about it and recommended that I give her a fork to try instead, and she managed that much better than the spoon.

Don't stress, she's still very little. Spoon-feeding her now doesn't mean that you'll still be spoon-feeding her forever, she'll get there.

Try a fork, also try really leaving her to it, as in leaving the room. When ds is being particularly playful with his food if I leave the room and sneak back a few minutes later he is often sitting there merrily munching away! He is 2 in august and uses a fork and his hands to varying degrees.
Does she see you eat often? Do you ever eat your lunch alongside of her eating hers, so she can mimic your self-feeding actions?
Don't stress, don't worry, go with the flow, the less anxiety in the air at mealtimes the better

My dd wouldn't feed herself with a spoon at 20 months. She would even eat yoghurts with her hands. She's 2.2 now and has only started using a spoon properly within the last couple of months. She still prefers to use her hands though. Agree with the suggestion about trying a fork. Dd sometimes has difficulty picking up her food with a spoon so then she tries the fork and it works.

dd1 is 3.5 and only recently started using a fork or spoon at every meal - till recently, she just found it much easier to use her fingers for some foods. And to let me feed her when she got tired or frustrated - which would be after a dozen mouthfulls at best. She loves her food, and would just get frustrated with cutlery when hands got her fed faster, I think.

I wasn't worried, tbh - IME she does things when she's ready, and its not a competition

Ironically, she's always been ahead in terms of fine motor skills, and using her hands - just not cutlery, it would seem

But as long as they get there in the end, who cares?

Mind you, she's been able and willing to use a spoon for ice cream for ages...