Children feeding themselves

[Moxiechick]

Just wondering when they should start really.
My dd is 11 months and feeds herself sandwiches and other bits of finger food but anything else and she is spoonfed by me. Reason for concern is that a friend recently had her dd's one year check and the hv said she should be spoon feeding herself by now.
Is this correct? Should I be teaching dd to feed herself with a spoon? When did your doc feed them self with a spoon? Had a go with a yoghurt today... Lots of mess!

I think both of mine were older than a year. I think they started by playing with spoons, cups, pots etc and pretending to eat, When I saw they could get the spoon from the pot to their mouths, I let them have a go for real. I think that by the time they got to 15 months ish they were able to do it without too much mess.

Jeez, DS2 is 20mo and still not completely able to use a spoon! He's been insisting on one for the last couple of weeks, so I give him one, and he does his best with it but in reality most of it ends up down his bib as he uses it like a lollipop! Even though he has a spoon for his dinner, he still mostly eats it with his fingers.
I do still spoonfeed him yoghurt, mostly because I CBA with washing it all out of his hair, which is what will happen - he gets it on his fingers, then wipes it through his hair - gah! But he has a spoon as well and we manage.

DS1 wasn't much better at the same age, iirc - but he's perfectly able to use his cutlery now!

I don't think it really matters at what age they do this to a large extent - it's when they want to and are ready to learn. DS2 had no interest in taking the spoon off me until about a month ago - and now he's not very interested in me feeding him, until he gets frustrated at never getting it into his mouth himself, then he'll let me.

It'll work itself out. :)

My ds grabbed the spoon at 7 months and was feeding himself very competently with it by 8 months. (At 3.5yrs though, he seems to prefer not to bother with cutlery and needs constant reminders!). It was pretty messy at first but it was summer so we often ate outside!

I hope my post doesn't sound bragging - he had really good fine motor skills from an early age but didn't walk or talk til 18 months. They all develop differently!

DD got the hang of it at around 18 months. She probably could aim a spoon into her mouth at 12 months, but certainly not without a great deal of mess and she wasn't able to scoop.

When mine were first in highchair from 6months ish, they would have a spoon and have a go. Obv you have a spoon too, but its something I'd expect them to begin to be learning from 6 months ish.

We started giving our twins cutlery from 14 months. They are 21 months now and still make a lot of mess!

Thanks for everyone's experiences. I guess it's like everything else with babies, they'll do it when they're ready! Thought I'd try yoghurt as it sticks to the spoon and she can't scoop yet but she also uses the spoon like a lollipop!

You could give her bread sticks, or toast cut in 'soldiers' and show her how to dip it in humus, yogurt, mashed avocado, etc instead of a spoon to help her get the idea of that hand movement with a tool.

I've found it useful to start by loading the spoon and letting them help guide it to their mouths, then load and let them do it themselves, then later leave them to it. Dd is 14m and doing pretty well but still needs some help loading more tricky things like peas.

They're all different, DS1 was using cutlery competently by 1 but didn't crawl til 14 months or walk til 19 months, I guess his priority lay in food!

7mo DS2 loves feeding himself, I load the spoon and he gets most (well, some) of it in his mouth! The rest goes in eyebrows, ears, up nose, on the ceiling, the floor, etc.

My 3 DDs were all feeding themselves by 12 months (spoon and fork) but that's because we've always eaten together and I like my food hot