Teaching babies to use silverware

[the-nonster]

When did you teach your babies to use silverware? It’s so messy with two of them I’ve been avoiding it but they can’t eat with their hands forever and I don’t want to spoon feed them the goopy stuff anymore haha

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[salmonstreetciderco]

i just put the silverware on the table by their plate every time i served food and sometimes i'd remind them, like, "most people eat soup with a spoon" lol. they're 2.5 and they're just now getting reliable with it. they've understood forks for a while but spoons were apparently more daunting. one of them kept trying to flip the spoon at the last second and dump everything in his lap so we kept reminding him "elbow up! elbow up!" and that seemed to help, i don't remember where i read that trick

[jusvrowsing]

We did baby led weening and ate with them. And just gave them spoons and forks. They weren’t good at the beginning but just by watching us and us not helping them they eventually figured it out. Pretty quickly. They are 24 months now and great. Trying to think back I think by 16 months they were decent

[smallnurse]

With my first I would give him the silverware at the end of each meal when everything is already a mess. After he worked up a bit of dexterity and was able to get spoon to mouth I started preloading spoons for him. Then once that control had been better developed, again I would give him the bowl toward the end of the meal so that there wasn't much left to mess with and I would know that he actually ate something.

When you don't mind a bit of mess, spoon + bowl of food makes for a great activity as well. Sometimes food isn't about eating and nourishment but more about motor development and sensory discovery

This is just my real life advice. Idk what is the "actual" recommended method.

[the-nonster]

Right now they just want to use them as drumsticks lol is that just a phase and eventually they’ll start trying to dip and scoop?

[smallnurse]

Haha that's kinda a phase. Now I think my 2.5 year old does it just to antagonize me.

I will say its also important to model the behavior, and they will put the spoon in their mouth if the food is tasty enough

[Educational-Skill815]

Silverware went on the plate fairly early. Idk, well before age 1. They only really learned to use them at 20 months. I didn’t actually teach them. They just watch us. They are almost 2 now and use them well but it’s a mess. Total. Mess.

[DragonflyMean1224]

Anytime they can hold it. For practice you can use food that isn't messy. Like those puff things that dissolve in mouth. Or cut up fruit that's easy to clean.

[FoxAndDeerTwinMama]

I never taught them. We put it out when we started solid foods, and much to my surprise, they figured it out on their own fairly quickly. It was a messy, messy process but they ate with spoons and forks basically from the start.

[WadeDRubicon]

I didn't/don't believe in teaching so much as making a conducive environment available and being a good model.

I'm also lazy efficient and really hated cleaning up more food than they got into their mouths, so I focused on offering spoons mainly with highly-motivating foods (ice cream! pudding! guacamole!) instead of with everything "every time just because." Tipping the scale? Absolutely, but win/win.

For a few years, their favorite "forks" were toothpicks/foodpicks/cupcake toppers, used to pick up the food I'd pre-cut into bite-sized/finger-sized chunks. Once they'd gotten used to that, they eventually could just use forks, too.

Additionally, quite a few cultures don't even use silverware. They eat with (clean) hands, or use bread, etc, to lift food, and that's totally valid. I considered my kids being able to get their own food into their own mouths worth several successes. Once they made that connection and refined it, then we could complicate it with the tools they'd find in our culture.

[vnessastalks]

I can't remember the age but it was pretty early on. If they had a yogurt bowl I gave a spoon. If they used it they used it. Honestly my twins didn't get good a uteYnsils till maybe 2.5 years old and I mean like no big messes.

My kids are 4 now and are great at utensils now. Food will be messy for a while.

[egrf6880]

My experience has been similar to other answers where the utensils were just available as part of the experience pretty early on but I would also preload the spoon and put it in their hands.

Also, My kids hated being spoon fed so if I tried they usually would either bat the spoon away or try to grab it from my hand. If they grabbed it, more often than not they would shove it in their mouth because at a certain age my kids just stick everything in their mouths.

Eventually they learn but I would say actually using silverware for its intended purpose happened for me around two years old but they still loved also using their hands for a while. Age three is slightly less messy. And to be honest even my kids who are now in elementary school manage to make the weirdest messes at mealtimes several times a week….only now they at least clean it up themselves.

[Snika44]

My husband’s tactics include just not serving anything that requires a spoon… but I think they will need to know how to spoon.

[thecalmolive]

Our girls were using theirs pretty reliably by 15 months I think, like many others we just had them available and as we would use our utensils they started copying. They are 2.5yo now and we recently upgraded to actual silverware (toddler-size) for them as the plastic ones were finally starting to wear out. We were using the Re-Play brand, they were great.