Self-feeding

At what age could your toddler successfully self-feed?

Jacob seems to have lost interest in trying to self-feed with a fork or spoon. He'd rather use his hands. If we give him his fork or spoon (which we do at every meal so he's got utensils like Mummy and Daddy) he just plays with it most of the time, and may have a go every once in a while at stabbing or scooping something up and we give lots of praise when he does this and gets it in his mouth!

Should he be better at self-feeding at this stage? He's approaching 22 months. He is letting us shovel some in whilst he feeds himself with his hands sometimes (but not always) and happily lets us give him yoghurt or custard etc without him even having a go with his spoon.......

I wonder if he likes having us as little slaves LOL.

Any thoughts/suggestions? I know that we're not going to have other milestones like toilet training and moving into a big bed underway by the time the new addition to the family arrives and we're totally fine with that, but I thought self-feeding probably would be and just quietly, I was really hoping it would LOL! ;)

Isn't feeding with his hands selffeeding?? Why does he have to use a spoon or fork?
Most of the time we let Jenna just feed herself now, she will often feed herself with a spoon too - but usually we have to fill it up for her, but its hard to get back!!
My mum is really, really fussy about table manners, but even she thought it was OK for jenna to go the hands option (obviously not with sloppy stuff ;) ) - I was quite surprised.

What would happen if you put goodies in the yoghurt for him to try and fish out? Like say diced peaches or something like that? And I'd maybe just try putting food on the spoon and handing it to him to put in his mouth.

Hopefully Jenna wont drop out of her good habits when she gets a bit older! Of course - I'd love her to lose the "tip the plate all over the floor" trick or the "drop the food on the floor for the cat" one. Grrrr.

melinda

lani has been attempting to self feed from around 8mths - she just won't let me put a spoon near her mouth (stubborn little thing pmsl) anyway i always give her a spoon and fork with her dinner but most of the time she uses her fingers cause well i guess it is easier, i can't honestly remember when my ds and dd#1 used fork and spoon all the time but it definately wasn't before the age of 2. lani is pretty good at using a spoon when it comes to yoghurt and ice cream but fingers are mostly the go.

i wouldn't stress about it just let jacob watch you and encourage him to try the spoon or fork.

my ds is 6yrs old and has only now mastered the art of using a knife, so i guess it does take time and patience.

good luck

I learned from experience with our first child that it's best to allow them to have a go as soon as possible. We resisted letting him self feed, with the result that he took a very long time to learn. With #2 we're trying to let her have a go as often as possible, despite the inevitable mess.

Aidyn is very on again off again with his self feeding (using a spoon or fork) too.
He can feed himself fine with a spoon/fork, but if its anything runny or very messy (like weetbix) I tend to spoonfeed it to him... more just because when I'm rushing in the morning the last thing I have time to do is clean up the huge mess it makes!
Sometimes he only wants to feed himself and wont let us help him at all, but other times he's not interested in feeding himself and we have to hold the spoon for him.
If he's eating food that is easily held without a spoon or fork, then he is fine to feed it to himself with his hands.

Lindsay quite happily let us feed him until he was nearly 18 months and then he went straight to using his spoon/fork, but the girls wanted to self feed at around 10-11 months but they would just use their fingers and Paige still does some of the time. They were both about 18 months before they started regularly using a fork and spoon properly. It does make a mess with the sloppier foods, but I'm happy for Paige to use her fingers still so long as she eats.

So do you think it's alright that he's still doing this at his age? As I said, we encourage him as much as we can but we don't want it to become an 'issue' otherwise I'm sure he will just refuse IYKWIM??

Just wondered if it's ok for him to be doing it......as messy as it is LOL! ;)

Yeah, of course it is OK - so long as you are happy to clean up the mess they can make sometimes LOL. I think it is still part of them learning how to eat and then using a spoon and fork is just a progression of that as they get better at holding them and the co-ordination to put it in their mouth. Sort of like crawling to walking - they will still crawl because it is faster for them to do so until they master walking.

Gab has decided that she likes to feed herself dinner and there's no way in the world she will let us feed her. She crrracks it. So, we have 2 spoons on the go and we put the food on for her. If I leave the bowl for her to do it herself, she plays with the food and barely eats anything. I'd rather get some tucker into her (because she will eat it all).
She has had a go at getting the food on her spoon herself but it's been with relatively non-sloppy food, iykwim? And it's also been when I'm in the mood to clean up a hek of a lot of mess.... doesn't happen often, LOL.

I reckon Jacob will be ok. You're on the right track. He'll probably just start doing it properly one day. They're notorious for that!! LOL Little skamps!

hey there melinda how have you been long time no chat ... :o) T has just out of the blue started (trying to) feeding himself with a spoon over the last month . i had been really worried and trying to encourage it alot and eventually just walked away out of frustration when i turned around he was doing it !!! best of luck hun im sure he will be fine , but i do hope for your sake he picks it up soon

p.s. they have cute aeroplane spoons in chickenfeed ( they came with an uglu bowl)T is verry impressed to have one

I think it's fine to let him use his hands at his age...at least he is showing interest in his food and in feeding himself which are the fundamentals you really want to encourage :)

Emily can use a fork but she will usually alternate between the fork and her hands for most of her meal, which is fine because she does get it all down eventually. She used to let us help her eat but in the last few weeks she point blank will not allow anyone to feed her so when we sit down to eat DH and I just let her go and try not to look LOL.

We stopped using those utensils designed for babies - the forks are blunted to the point of being useless and she used to just get frustrated she couldn't pick up her food and throw the fork on the floor. She has much more success with her "big girl fork" (our forks) - at least she has half a chance of picking something up so she will persevere with that. Perhaps you could try.