What age for self spoon feeding?

[naughtymonkey]

We've just been on holiday with friends and their 13 mo twins. I have 15 mo DS.

The twins were happily feeding themselves breakfast cereal in the mornings, whereas I'm still spooning it in to DS. Now feeling like an inadequate mother that I haven't got DS to master self feeding yet!

We've done a mixture of BLW and spoon feeding. He's happy to feed himself a meal with his hands, but I still spoon in porridge, yoghurt, "wet" meals etc. He does take the spoon and plays about with it, and has started to try to dip it in the bowl. I think also I can't bear the idea of the mess if I let him just go to town on a bowl of porridge.

So, I guess I'm asking at what age could you DC feed themselves with a spoon? And what should I be doing next?

DS starts nursery soon so I have that at the back of my mind too. I don't want him to be "behind" the other toddlers (I know that's my PFB generic worry) and want to make sure he can eat enough when he's there etc.

Give them the spoon with food in so they start putting it in their mouth 😉 they'll quickly get the gist of it

I got some baby cuttlery from Munchkin. I say this because they were very good!!! They look super wide! But with thinner spoons DD1 used to turn the spoon around in her mouth. With the wide cutlery she did better

DS never allowed us to spoon feed him, so he was using cutlery from about 10/11 months. We use Doddl cutlery.

You can encourage his fine motor skills outside of mealtimes through using cutlery & cutting type toys with play doh and tuff trays.

The mess is part of the learning. If you worry about it then do will your DS and it will make mealtimes more stressful as he grows.
Get a bowl that sticks to the table and let him try!

When I first gave my youngest baby porridge at 6 months he grabbed the spoon and wanted to put it in his mouth himself. So I would load the spoon and the give him it. He got the

Huge amounts of mess or course 🤣

I think you sound stressed about the mess tbh. You just have to get in and bear it but at his age I do think you should let him loose on the porridge.

My twins have been self feeding with spoons and fork confidently from around 18 months

I know I get a bit stressed about the mess, but don't get me wrong - it is a messy affair! 😂 He goes to town on a roast dinner with his hands, loves to squidge his sandwich between his fingers. I do know it's part and parcel of weaning, but I guess I want to minimise the worst of it if I can.

I do tend to have two spoons so he can have one while I spoon in the next mouthful, then he grabs that so we swap.

I have tried giving him loaded spoons. Sometimes it goes in, sometimes it's flung at the walls!

I gave him some porridge in a suction bowl this morning. He mainly dived in with his hands.

I guess it's just a case of persevering with the suction bowl, loaded spoons etc, and try not to get to stressed about waste/mess?

I'll check out some of the cutlery recommendations.

I just wondered if he was about on course for his age etc too.

Thanks for all your comments so far 🙂