Self-feeding with a spoon. Or rather......

[chipmonksRoastingOnAnOpenFire]

feeding the highchair, the floor, the bib etc. Not sure how much is actually getting inside ds3. I always felt that I started too late with teaching ds1 and ds2 to use a spoon. Ds3 is now 10 months corrected and has been eating toast/rice-cakes for some time but doesn't "get" that the spoon is a tool for eating. He digs his hands into the food and grabs a handful, tries to stuff some into his mouth, drops most of it. He puts the spoon into his mouth all right but doesn't realist that you have to dip it into the food first! I, in the meantime, am sitting alongside him with another spoon, helping. Should I just give up, or persist?

I wouldn't worry about him self feeding with a spoon just yet. My ds is now 17 months and can hold a spoon and put it in his mouth to eat but we still need to load it for him. I really don't expect him to get it for a while yet. He is fine using just his hands (and has been for 10 months so far!). If you actually try & break down all the tiny little adjustments you have to make in order to pick up a spoon, load it with food and then get that food into your mouth you start realising that it is a very complex thing to do - not something I shall worry about at all - i just give ds the opportunity to try on his own then help him a little. I wouldn't expect a 2 year old to be able to use a knife fork & spoon expertly so anything done younger is a bonus!

My dd was nearly 2 before she started feeding herself - she really struggled with a spoon so at her 21 month check the HV suggested I give her a fork instead, and she found that far easier. At 10m I really wouldn't be worried about him not being able to use a spoon - sounds like he's doing fine as he is.

DD hated me helping to feed her, so I just spread a towel under the highchair, gave her a spoon, and let her get on with it (again from about 10 months)... most went in with hands, but just from eating with us, and seeing us use cutlery, she eventually got the hang of it. No teaching though, just watching us and getting on with it herself.

Thank God for sensible MNers!

10 months would be amazingly young to be be using a spoon efficiently - really and truly. The hand eye co-ordination just isn't there, and the fine motor skills haven't developed yet (in most babies - I bet there will be some hugely advanced kids somewhere, but I have never met any who can use a spoon properly until well over a year and actually nearer 2).

Not worth active teaching, in my view - just let him have fun and have finger foods, and watch you.

DS is very efficient with a spoon (17m) and has been for sometime -I think its because he really loves his food and soon sussed out that if he did it himself he didn't have to wait for one of us to do it!! He used to get impatient if I got distracted in between mouthfuls!

I found fromage frais was a good practice food for dipping spoon in himself and getting it to his mouth (quite thick so it sticks to the spoon).

Don't worry it will come in time!

dd2 is nearly 1
she gets that you use a spoon to feed yourself with but she can't manage it yet - hilarious watching her try to load up from bowl and end up with nothing.
it's a skill that will come please don't worry!

DS is 20 months, he started using a spoon around 10 months, he's just finally got it nicely now, although still prefers to use fingers a lot too!

Practice makes perfect!

Oh, and another thing, I have one of those bowls that are supposed to suction on to the high chair tray. I fix it on, check its secure, and then ds3 just lifts it up with no effort and lobs it on the floor! Do these things work for anyone?

LOL at those bowls -tried them with DD but they were so cr*p I've not bothered using them with DS.

I remember DD trying to lift the bowl -it held its suction for just long enough for her to use all her strength and...hey presto.....dinner spattered around the entire room

I find that with those suction plates its worse than an ordinary one. With a simple bowl ds can pick it up but it is slower and more contralled and (usually) I have time to get it before anything disastrous happens. With the suction ones he pulls and pulls and suddenly they detach resulting in him flinging the food over his shoulder and onto the wall.

Glad its not just me then!

mine is 14 mths old and she can just about to feed herself with the spoon, but most of the time she have it on a different angle and everything falls off the spoon.... before the spoon came along she was using her fingers

so sounds normal anyway

Question - does anyone know where (if anywhere) you can get angled cutlery i.e. spoons that the handle and stem are just short of 90 degrees to the "scope" which would surely be easier for a child to feed them selves with

mean "scoop".

Hey CM! dont know but surely its possible to URi Geller it?

OK, let's all concentrate then..............

B*llocks, just bought a suction bowl.......

we got a set of them 90 degree angle spoons for baba from mothercare (As you get 1 straight fork, 2 beakers, 2 straight spoons, one angle spoon, 1 angle fork) but dd is better holding the straight spoon than the angle