When did your LO start using a spoon?

melaniedel · October 2012

My friend said her DD started at 12 months! I was shocked. My DS is almost 14 months and just doesn't have the dexterity yet. He rather play with the spoon. How did you introduce? When did you? When did they catch on?

Mrs.Greg · October 2012

My girls are just getting the hang of poking food with a fork and putting in their mouth. In fact, only one is doing it well. The other one chases the food around on her tray with her fork most of the time.

melissa0726 · October 2012

I have started giving DD (13 months) a small dish of yogurt and a spoon. The yogurt sticks to the spoon, so she can practice dipping the spoon in the yogurt and then aiming it into her mouth, without worrying about keeping the food on the spoon. It's going really well! But there's no way she'd be able to spoon rice or peas into her mouth just yet, she isn't coordinated enough to to balance the food on the spoon without it spilling off.

CarlaAndJames · October 2012

We did BLW so she has been playing with a spoon since she was about 6 months old. She is getting pretty good with it in the last few months, as long as the food is thick enough to stick to it. She's working on the fork too, but it can take her a loooong time to get a piece stabbed on it!

jlsimon56 · October 2012

CarlaAndJames:
We did BLW so she has been playing with a spoon since she was about 6 months old. She is getting pretty good with it in the last few months, as long as the food is thick enough to stick to it. She's working on the fork too, but it can take her a loooong time to get a piece stabbed on it!

Same here. We don't spoon-feed her so anything that needs a spoon (applesauce, yogurt, etc.), she feeds herself. She's gotten quite good at it over just the last week or so.

We actually give her a fork b/c it scoops less up and makes less of a mess.

wfdfire607 · October 2012

We started about 8 months off and on. He still doesn't have it down packed, but he gets most of the food in now as opposed to before when he'd just sling it.

BeachM · October 2012

We started giving Finn silverware before he was a year old. He prefers adult size over child size, but the PBK stuff is large enough to trick him sometimes. I don't remember when he started using it correctly, but this was not on my list of things to worry about.

Give LO a spoon and fork. They'll figure it out. Keep in mind that children do not eat like mini adults until more like age 4.

dairygirl19 · October 2012

Does my 15 old month get a spoon? Yes.

Does she use it? Yes.

Does she use it effectively/correctly? About one 20 times.

I don't believe your friend TBH. There's a huge difference in giving your kid a spoon in which they bang around and them actually using the spoon.

Basically, I wouldn't worry about it.

Elocin · October 2012

We've been giving her a spoon & fork for several months now. She's better with the fork than the spoon. I'm not worried about how she's using them, just that she's getting used to it.

just kita · October 2012

melissa0726:
I have started giving DD (13 months) a small dish of yogurt and a spoon. The yogurt sticks to the spoon, so she can practice dipping the spoon in the yogurt and then aiming it into her mouth, without worrying about keeping the food on the spoon. It's going really well! But there's no way she'd be able to spoon rice or peas into her mouth just yet, she isn't coordinated enough to to balance the food on the spoon without it spilling off.

Our LO does the same. We have been giving him a spoon for yogurt or oatmeal since he was 12 months, he is 15 months now. He sometimes turns the spoon upsidedown but it still works with these foods.

melaniedel · October 2012

Thanks for all of the tips!

misskris927 · October 2012

We started giving DD a spoon before she was a year old, but she wasn't very good at it. I'd say at around 15 months or so was when she really got the hang out of it. Now, at 19 months she's pretty good with it and can somewhat use a fork too (she forget she needs to "stab" the food when she has a fork and tries to use it like a spoon). All kids are different though.

blu-eyedwife · October 2012

LalaMama81:

We've been giving her a spoon since the beginning, 6 months, - but we still mostly load it for her. She caught on pretty quickly. She was feeding herself accurately w/ it by 7 months. Sometimes she can scoop it up herself, but mostly we do & hand it to her.

She is interested in practicing w/ the fork now, too.

I would say this is us almost exactly.

twirlyjack73 · October 2012

Looks like they all start at different times. I read somewhere though that the dexerity to use it properly (where they stop looking like the Tin Man) comes between 15-18 months. My guy started early & uses it really well now but I think at times he still looks like the Tin Man (wizard of oz). It's all relative but ask your pedi if you're concerned. OH & a great tip from my MIL was that he should hold a spoon & try to feed himself while you hold another & do most of the feeding. To this day way often have to use 2 spoons in order to get the meal in before he gets full from eating kinda slowly (compared to us) with a spoon.

BabyBoyNYC · October 2012

try a spoon with oatmeal! it sticks to it like glue. DS knows the word bite so I just had to teach him "scoooooop and biiiite"

and I would hold his hand while I scooped up the oatmeal and then he would take over from there. He's just starting to kind of be able to scoop it and bring it to his mouth at 16 months but we still have a ways to go!

juliane2004 · October 2012

DS can now (at 22 months) use a spoon correctly.

Maybe it was because it was faster to feed him myself, or less messy, but I didn't really give him a spoon to practice eating with until about 2-3 months ago, when I thought he would actually try to eat instead of play with it.

NewFamily09 · October 2012

Both my kids started using a spoon around 15 months, so your DS will probably pick it up soon. I just kept giving them a spoon to play around with. I took it away if they started using it to make a huge mess. It just took a lot of practice. Even when he first gets it, expect about 1/3 of the food to still end up on his bib.

Amitchell0626 · October 2012

6 months. We did baby led weaning so she's used it for yogurt right from the start. She mostly still eats with her hands though.

septmom11 · October 2012

If i load the baby fork and hand it to her she knows to guide it to ehr mouth and eat it. Otherwise she just bangs and plays with them and picks up her food with her hands to eat. I need to start working on it a bit more. I am gonig to start the yogurt in a bowl with a spoon. I still spoon feed her yogurt and applesauce

genekelly · October 2012

We gave him a fork and spoon sometime around 12 mo. He's really good at stabbing things with the fork and getting them to his mouth now and uses it at almost every meal although he does still use his fingers too. Just last week he was putting things onto his spoon and keeping the food on it and getting it into his mouth. He seemed to figure out that he had to keep the spoon level and not turn it over. DH and I were so impressed! I'm not sure he can do it all the time but he's getting there.

Jen&Len · October 2012

12 months for DD and 2.5 years for DS (he started earlier, but 2.5 was when he was able to use it well). They pretty much started using spoons almost at the same time!

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