Blw, dropping good and cutlery

[cinemalovers]

Ds is 11 mo. He will only eat finger food. We have been relaxed about letting him choose how much and what to eat, keeping meal times fun and relaxed etc. but now I have two questions:

How on earth do we introduce cutlery? He hates the spoon. If I give him a loaded spoon it all goes in the gl

Gah, phone

... Goes on the floor.

Secondly, he plays with his food and drops a lot of it. How do I teach him not to without making things stressful?

With the cutlery, I just started giving him cutlery with every meal but didn't push it. We just ate alongside DS so he could see us using it Initially it was dropped, but around 18 months, he started using his spoon to eat yogurt and cereal and eventually he used his fork. It's still quite hit and miss though; he often uses his fingers still as it's quicker!

Dropping food is very common at this age. They like to find out what happens if they do - does it bounce etc, what reaction does it get? I found that telling him off just seemed to encourage him, so we just ignored it and returned the food to his tray now and again (wipe clean mat under the chair). The phase passed in time.