Eating with fingers

[hollyandchloesmom]

dd (now one) is feeding herself but with her fingers.  She will occasionally take it from me with the spoon but wants to scoop it up herself with her fingers whether it is fingerfood or not.  Want shall I do just persist and get her to take it from the spoon?

[15milner]

As my mother said - fingers were invented before spoons.

DS didn't start to use the spoon until 15 months or so and it was hit and miss.  If I remember rightly though at this age we might have had a spoon each?  One for him to wave about and one for me to shovel food in - every so often when I had time and with less messy food, i'd help him and load up his spoon and help him put it inhis mouth.  It's quite a feat of co-ordination to load up, move the spoon to the mouth without dropping anything, put the spoon in and out all by themselves.

It will come. 

alex

[Wilfie's Mummy]

My DS is 15 months old now and eats lots of things with his fingers even mashed potatos and pasta and sauce and other very messy things. He went through a stage of not letting us feed him with a spoon and he can't use one himself so everything went in in handfuls. It is very messy and I know some people who disapprove of mess at meal times but I think its fine as long as he has a good meal it doesn't bother me how it goes in. He is starting to want to hold the spoon a bit and for some reason has started to let us feed him with a spoon again. I would let her get on with it with her fingers and maybe put the spoon down with the food so that she can play with it during meal times and she'll maybe start to copy the rest of the family by putting it to her mouth.

Hannah x

[Lana]

It took a long time for Ewan to use a spoon or a fork on a regular basis.  Fingers are so much faster .  I just kepr offering the utensil and eventually he did it on his own.

[hollyandchloesmom]

thanks, I have been giving her 2 spoons and I for me but she just likes her fingers!

[Hunter & Sithia's mom]

At a year, Hunter would feed himself fromthe plate, and I would suppliment with a spoon.  This didn't last long though, he got to a point where he wanted to do it all by himself.  Now he's self fed, we offer a small spoon-like fork or spoon with meals so that he can attempt to use it.  He's actually getting really good at it now, as long as he isn't tired or in too much of a hurry.  Spaghetti is still really interesting, as are mashed potatoes, but hey, he's fed and happy.  That's all that matters, right?

[Marisa's Mom]

DS didn't start to use the spoon until 15 months or so and it was hit and miss.  If I remember rightly though at this age we might have had a spoon each?  One for him to wave about and one for me to shovel food in - every so often when I had time and with less messy food, i'd help him and load up his spoon and help him put it inhis mouth.  It's quite a feat of co-ordination to load up, move the spoon to the mouth without dropping anything, put the spoon in and out all by themselves.

Do you mean he started using the spoon relatively proficiently at 15 months? Just wondering what the ballpark age is for when they can do it themselves.

DD is 13 months right now. I start by feeding her with the spoon. If she gets fussy and doesn't want to be spoon fed, I try to hand her the spoon (I'm also holding it with her to help support & guide) so she can try feeding herself. I try to let her work the spoon herself on less messy stuff, but sometimes I let her do it with messy foods just so she'll get food into her mouth, lol. She gets such a kick out of doing it herself ... she holds her hand up & waves the spoon around after taking a bite while making "happy" sounds.   She can't quite load the spoon herself yet, so I do that for her.

I've tried handing her a spoon to hold while I feed her with another spoon. The problem with my DD is that she'll stick the spoon in her hand into her mouth (she just loves shoving things into her mouth & grawing on stuff... can't wait for that phase to end!) so it makes it hard for me to feed her with my spoon. Sigh...

It'll be nice when she will be able to feed herself with utensils. That means I can take a few moments to put a few bites into MY mouth too, lol. Right now I spend so much time shovelling food into her mouth (she needs her food coming continuously & fast) that I never get much to eat when we're trying to have a meal together.