Can we talk again about the fork and spoon thing?

ABColeslaw · December 2011

My kid cannot get the fork to stab anything or his hand in the right position to actually get the food in his mouth and not his lap. I talked to his OT that told me not to worry, Asher's Fine Motor skills are quite advanced.

But it seems like a lot of the LO's on here who are even younger than Asher are using them with success. What brand or type of fork and spoon are you using? I even have difficulty spearing things with his fork.

Ideas...suggestions?

MNgirl326 · December 2011

I acutally gave him a real fork not a kid fork. The kid fork was so dull he could never get it to stab so the food stayed on.

He still isn't very good at it and uses the fork as more of a second scoop, but he is getting better.

PolishWonder · December 2011

I'm not sure of the brand off the top of my head, but LO uses a metal fork that's toddler-sized. She does okay, but she's no master by any means. Even with a spoon, she barely gets much on or in her mouth. I think just the practice is important.

Dreamsicle23 · December 2011

We had good luck with things that are soft but don't totally fall apart, like waffles or a cut up fried egg. I used the gerber 18+ ones (metal, but not sharp). The plastic ones are useless.

BLONDRAVYN124 · December 2011

DS actually learned using just a generic plastic fork, rather than the toddler utensils, & does Great with them or "real" forks. We started introducing before he was 1 & by 13mos he was a pro @ using the fork himself. Now its the spoon he has a little more trouble with using.

Haven1 · December 2011

DS1 is great with a spoon and fork. DS2 can use them, but he inhales his food and is often too impatient. We've always used toddler sized metal utensils. When they were starting, I'd guild their hand to show them how to stab it. And I agree that softer food is the easiest. They do best with pancakes.

JulySpark05 · December 2011

We just use a real fork and spoon and they seem to work great for her!

MaxandRuby · December 2011

We have a couple of sets of toddler metal (the eating part is metal, handle is plastic) silverware. One set has Winnie the Pooh or something on it and is blue and the other set is red with a Cars theme. I find that the tines on those forks are a lot closer to the kind we have on our own silverware. Other brands have thicker tines on them so they don't stab and pick up things as well.

I also picked up recently at BRU an OXO toddler spoon. It is more of a glorified baby spoon. It has a metal size baby spoon type "head" but that is covered with a colored rubber type thing that makes it just a bit bigger then a baby spoon plus it is easy to really scoop things off the side of a bowl and it is more spoonable/dipped then a toddler spoon which seems kind of flat. DS2's feeding therapist liked it and felt it would work well for DS2 with the silverware training we are doing. The OXO toddler spoon also has a longer handle so more area for the child to hold.

ANJ410 · December 2011

My son did not use utensils until he was over 2 years old, and even then, he would get frustrated at how much longer it took to eat with them and wind up using his hands half way through his meal. All of his little (boy) friends of the same age did not use utensils until close to 2 or after either, so I think that is really about an average age.

My DD started using utensils on a regular basis around 14 months old and got really good with them quickly. I don't know if that is because she's a girl (I personally find it to be true that girls do things earlier than boys) or because she watched her brother and just picked up the concept faster than he did.

The one difference between my two LO's is that I used to give DS Take n Toss ustensils to use when he was this age and I think because they were made completely from plastic, the food used to slide off the spoon and the prongs on the forks were not sharp enough. I switched him to Nuk utensils about a year ago and that is what DD uses. The bowl of the spoon is very wide and the prongs of the fork are metal and scoop and stab the food a lot better than the Take n Toss ones did.

MirandaLea29 · December 2011

My daughter uses a regular salad fork to spear her food. I found that all the baby sized forks were too dull to actually get any food on them, so I tried her out on the salad forks and they work wonderfully. She's still hit or miss at stabbing food, but she prefers to do it herself and I figure practice makes perfect!

She uses a Playtex spoon with a rubber handle and is still working on how to hold it to not dump out all the food on her lap, but she occasionally succeeds.

WildcatPrincess · December 2011

DD is great with a spoon, but I don't think I've ever seen her get something to her mouth successfully with a fork. The pedi at her 18 month appoint said it was totally normal so I just keep showing her and let her play. We also use just a regular fork, she doesn't like the baby ones we have.