14 month old just wants to use fingers to eat

[sunflower60]

At what age should babies be able to start using cutlery please? My 14 month old just wants to feed herself all the time but can't yet use cutlery and wants to always use her fingers. That's fine with nibbly bits but it's tricky when it comes to messy dinners etc. She refuses to let DH or I feed her though. Not sure if I should be pushing her to use cutlery or letting her just get on with it and braving the mess. Thanks

She's very young to be cuttlery feeding. Some might be but I wouldn't worry if she isn't. Mine learned to do it at around 12MO but then lost interest and now even at 3.5 it's a job to persuade her lol. I would just keep making it available and as much eating WITH her as possible so she can mirror it as it's fundamentally a social act. Don't worry no way should she have it mastered at 14MO x

My 4 year old still prefers fingers! My thinking is it's better they eat a range of foods than get too caught up on how.

Thanks both, that's really reassuring. I'll just try and keep showing her how we do it and giving her the option and hope she goes for the less messy option soon enough