When did your toddler start using a spoon WELL?

[Sarah1]

Hey everybody! I'm LOVING the toddler lounge! I feel right at home since Audrey has most definitely achieved full toddler status :).

I'm wondering about spoons & forks. Audrey can feed herself using a spoon (although VERY messy and not that well), but she really only uses the spoon for "mushy" foods like yogurt and applesauce (she doesn't really eat cereal--the one food she doesn't like). But that's basically it--the rest of her food I cut up into small pieces, and she uses her hands. She clearly prefers to eat with her fingers, and I like it because it frees me to clean the kitchen while she's nibbling away.

Should she be using utensils more now? When should I introduce a fork? I have no clue about this stuff. There's a little part of me that worries my daughter will grow into a barbarian who eats only with her hands and it'll be all my fault since I didn't make her use utensils more :)

[trumansmom]

It varies from child to child. Truman is about a year older than Audrey, but is just in the past couple of months really using a spoon well. He still doesn't do so great with a fork. However, we have friends with a daughter his age, and she mastered utensils around her first birthday.

Jeanne
Mom to Truman 11/29/01 and EDD 4/23/04!

[christic]

Hmmm...I'm having a hard time remembering when exactly we tried utensils, but I do remember that we had better luck with forks at first. I was hesitant to even admit it to people because it seemed a bit irresponsible to hand a baby a kind of sharp object, but she learned to use it fairly quickly, with no pokes in the eye! I thought about getting her a blunter fork made specifically for toddlers, but they don't really work if they're not somewhat sharp so we started with our salad forks. Eventually grandma got her some Hello Kitty forks though. Getting good with the spoon came later, but now at almost two my daughter can do both pretty well although she'll still use her hands sometimes too.

[egoldber]

I would only call Sarah "proficient" in the last few months. But I agree with the previous poster about skipping toddler forks and going straight to a small regular (like a salad fork size) fork. Sarah took the fork immediately after I did this. Those blunt toddler forks are worthless and just frustrate them!

Sarah does really well with the curved Sassy spoon, but she still needs to eat stuff out of a bowl with tall sides to do it well.

But she also prefers to use her fingers sometimes too, although she is really fussy about getting her fingers dirty now.

[lisams]

The other day I let DD use one of our forks, and I was amazed at how well she took to it (she's almost 16 months). I showed her how to "stab" the food, and then kind of helped her aim. Of course she is no where near great at it, but it's getting a little better every few days. With the spoon, she does okay with things like yogurt and pudding but she's very messy ;) The only reason I introduced the fork was because she was fussing and kept pointing to mine so I figured what the heck and was totally shocked!

I love the toddler boards too!!!! So glad to see friends from the baby board coming over!!

Lisa

[brubeck]

I'm thinking that it was around 2-ish that Amy got really good at using the spoon. Andrew is 14 months now and he can use the spoon, but only for 'sticky' foods like mashed potatoes. He still has a bit of trouble scooping too, but if you leave him at it long enough he can finish most of a bowl.

The fork is definitely easier for most kids because it is a more natural, less difficult movement than scooping and holding level with a spoon. If you show her how to stab with a fork then I'm betting she might just take off with it because this is fun. When I showed Amy how to use a fork she wanted to use it for everything. So much so that one day we were at a restaurant and I gave her Cheerios to eat while she was coloring and I caught her eating them off the pointy end of the crayon! I'm SO glad crayons are non-toxic! :)

I also agree with using the flatware from your normal everyday set. Amy has been using the small forks and spoons from our everyday set since before age 2.

Good luck!

[wearing pjs]

right now, at 2 and 3 mos, our son seems to have mastered the spoon/fork issue. that said, he can be messy still (soup is hilarious) and he sometimes digs in with his hands. strangely, he won't let go of the utensil when he uses his fingers, just holds it while lifting up noodles with his hands.

i think it was around 18 mos. that i noticed that he 'got' how the spoon should be used.




expecting second boy in june.....and nothing fits but good ol' pjs.....

[AngelaS]

Gabrielle is just days from 22 months and I'd say she's pretty darn good with utensils. :D About a month ago she was eating minestrone soup (with only a tiny bit of liquid) and doing very well and I was impressed. LOL

[Hallie_D]

ELijah is 21 months and just starting to get pretty good with a spoon. We bought him a toddler spoon and fork set, and I have to agree that the fork is more frustrating than anything. Lately we've been giving him salad forks when we are willing to really watch him (that is, not eat ourselves while he is eating). He likes to "joke" and pretend to feed his forehead and we don't like to see him putting the salad fork anywhere near his eyes. The toddler spoon is now getting a little annoying because it is flatter and more square than a regular spoon, making it very easy for him to scoop up food, but very hard to get the food into his mouth without it going everywhere. This is especially funny to watch when he is eating couscous, which he loves. He scoops up an enormous mound, lifts it to his mouth, and then can't open his mouth wide enough to get everything in. Guess where the couscous goes? :-)