7 month old feeding himself

[samarrange]

DGS was exclusively breast-fed until 5½ months. At that point his Mum and Dad decided to introduce him to a few "proper" foods. Bit of squished banana on a spoon, bit of wazzed beetroot, bit of mashed potato. All very normal.

But within about 2 weeks of them starting to do that, DGS was picking up the spoon and starting to feed himself. Not necessarily especially well, it can get a bit messy, but basically, he knows to dip the spoon in the food and then put it in his mouth. It's been a month since he started doing it and he now gets the food in most of the time. At 7 months.

I really don't mean this as a brag — DGS is a happy little baby, but he seems pretty much average on every other development measure I can think of. It's just this one thing. (He's still getting 90% of his calories from breast milk!)

I don't remember our DC doing anything like this until they were at least 1 year old. Maybe older. Plus they were not great eaters, so it was all the "just one more" and "here comes the aeroplane" stuff. Is my memory very bad, or is DGS unusual?

Seems pretty standard. My DC2 refused the spoon altogether and wanted to feed themselves with finger foods and occasionally a spoon.

Is your DGS getting any finger foods? They’re pretty important for encouraging mouth development.

Is your DGS getting any finger foods?

Not last time I looked. They live some way from us, so next visit isn't for a few weeks.

I'd say within the usual range, provided baby has been allowed to try, so plenty could at 7 months, and plenty couldn't.

Totally normal.

Many babies do it from 6mo or even earlier if they are weaned earlier.

The only point of this post is because you want people to say he’s special, OP.

Dd2 fed herself from about that age and refused entirely to be fed by anyone else. She didn’t waste her time with a spoon though.