What age did your baby learn to feed themselves with a spoon?

[TheLastSpoon]

Just the title. Mine is 16 months and maybe poorly loads their spoon once or twice a day and feeds themselves. When I google the average age this os mastered usually articles just pop up saying when to introduce a spoon.

When was your baby independently loading their spoon or fork and feeding themselves?

We give our baby a spoon or fork when appropriately and just let her play with it. Sometimes she gestures that she wants us to load it for her and we are happy to oblige. Is that enough for them to practice or do we need to be more involved with teaching her this skill? Lately she’s been really trying but getting very frustrated and screams. Honestly I can’t blame her. It looks like a difficult skill for someone her age to master.

I sometimes playfully show her how I load my spoon and make funny chomping noises when I eat and she tries to imitate. 😂

My baby will be 16 months at Christmas and she can eat from a pre loaded spoon and has occasionally done it herself.

I asked if she uses a spoon at Nursery and they said shes too young so just keep practicing with her and modelling the behaviour and she will soon pick it up.

Approximately 18-20 months. He's not two yet and it's still a bit hit and miss. A lot is dependent on how much he likes the food!

That sounds about right! Then we will just keep practicing and let her explore. Nice to know the nursery agrees. ☺️

Aw so she may pick up on it in a few months. She’s been figuring out a lot of skills very suddenly like how to stack blocks and how to put shapes into the right shaped container so I’m not terribly worried about it. I was just curious about what the timeline would look like! 😄 I imagine if it all goes well she should have it down by 2.

My eldest was a spoon refuser. I have no idea what age he would have been capable as he flat out wouldn't. So much mess!

About 12 months if it was something they really wanted and couldn’t otherwise eat i.e. give them a yoghurt pot and spoon and they would manage fine. Youngest is 20 months and given cutlery at every meal but 50:50 whether or not it is used when the meal could be eaten with hands! With my eldest it wasn’t 100% until about 2 and a half and they understood if you told them to use their fork and not hands!

DS is 22 months, nearly 23 months, and can use a fork fully by himself and can mostly use a spoon by himself too. For things like yoghurt he's got it down, but if it's something a bit trickier like rice, he can mostly load and eat without much spilling but not always.

He also gestures for me to load his spoon or fork for him but I think he sees it as a social thing at meal times / something to get my attention, rather than he can't do it himself.

I did exactly what you have said you're doing to teach him to use a fork and spoon. Model it and make it fun... It's funny when they imitate the chomping noises isn't it 😂 on occasion I would also guide his hand whilst he held the spoon or fork, when he would gesture to me to do it for him, so he got used to the feel of the action, if that makes sense 😊

About 12/13 months. We did BLW and he refused to ever be spoon fed but learnt very quickly. Couldn't walk till 18 months though so clearly was too busy impressing with his table manners to learn other skills.

DD only got proficient at loading the spoon at about 20 months. Before thay she would hold the spoon and we would guide her hand to scoop food up, then she'd eat from the spoon herself. She's now just turned two and uses a spoon and fork independently with confidence (and only a moderate amount of mess) ;)

DD was 16 months when she could successfully load her spoon and bring it to her mouth. A bit hit and miss with the fork still (now 17 months) as she sometime scoops instead of stabs but still ultimately prefers eating with her hands