How to Transition to Feed Herself

She seems a little young to feed herself with spoon and bowl. My son started feeding himself between 13-14 months. Same with the little girl I babysat. Give it 3-4 more months.

Try giving her finger foods that she can self feed herself like cheerios or dissolvable Gerber snacks, then let her play with a spoon and bowl when she is done eating (so there is no mess, but she can start to practice). Eating utensil skills take time, so stick to finger foods for now and gradually start the practice. One day she will just start to do it!

I didn't read any of your other replies, but here's my take.

My son who is almost a year and a half, will attempt to feed himself with utensils... he's doing well with a fork, but darnit, everything falls off a spoon :) he sometimes fights us for the spoon but i keep telling him 'mommy does the spoon'. He also would not hold his bottle until after his first birthday... we started forcing him to hold it, by putting his hands on it, then positioning it up, and then take our hands away - it would drop, he would cry, and we'd say pick it up... you can do it, you're a big boy.

If I were more patient with the mess, and if I didn't have a 4 mo. old to also tend to, I would probably just let him have at it on his own at this age, but it's just easier to do it myself :)

It's good for your daughter to have exposure to utensils and practice practice practice. What I did was keep the bowl by me, scoop up his food and then hand him the fork. Or I will put a few bits of fork-able food on his high chair tray and let him practice with that.

She'll get the hang of it eventually... :)

p.s. I also keep the dustbuster under his high chair and have to use it like 5 times a day :) I always joke that the 5 foot radius around his chair is the cleanest part of my floor :)

Good luck!

I have a greandaughter with the same problem, but cannot remember how my children began feeding themselves, so i would be interested in this answer too

A one year old doesn't know how to use a spoon yet. Start her with finger food and let her feed herself with the finger food. Good options are little pieces of chicken nuggets, bananas cut up, toast, pasta bows etc.
For the cup, put it in front of her and then let her take it. Don't do it for her and see how she manages. After a little bit she will get the hang of it.
As for learning to use the spoon, that normally comes later in the second year. I would give her the spoon with maybe some thick yoghurt and just let her practice, knowing that none of it is really going to go in her mouth just yet. She will eventually get the hang of it. If you are using a spoon talk to her about what you are doing. Children love to mimic and so she will try but it will take time. And yes, it will be messy but what the hell.

I agree with other advise. Just wanted to add that my pediatrician says the sippy cups with straws are better for language development.

my son is 7 and did this and never stopped we fed him until he was 4 never realizing he has some hand dexterity issuess. even at 7 he is picking things up with his hands vs using silverware. I encourage to let her do it- and encourage finger foods- picking up cheerios with fingers vs the whole palm etc..

My son has been feeding himself since 10 months or so with finger foods eaten off the tray. It wasn't until 18 months that he started using utensils and stopped throwing the bowl/plate on the floor. Yes, putting the food on the tray is more of a mess than a bowl but it's a great way for kids to learn.

At 1 I let my son feed himself with finger foods. cut up banana, peaches, peas corn, chicken nuggets, I even let him go to town on his macaroni and cheese. I introduced the spoon one day while I was feeding him yogurt. Actually I left it too close to him and got up to answer the phone. It was a huge mess, where I had to strip him right in the high chair, and carry him directly to the bath tub. I took the high chair out side that afternoon during naptime and hosed it down to clean it, because my sponge would be of no help. He loved it though, and from that day on I let him play with his yogurt and a spoon every couple of days till he got the hang of it. I also got him some funky childrens silverware and bowls which is how he learned to use a fork. (it was a plastic spork, but it worked.) Hope this helps. It's not easy for those little one's to get the food on the spoon, and spoon into thier mouths without flipping everything on the floor. It takes a lot of practice and patience

My son was very similar. What worked for us was to give him a fork with food on it (that way the food stays on it). He liked that because he saw us doing it. As for a bottle, he was probably 14 months old before he showed any interest in holding it. What worked for us was to switch to a sippy cup and just leave it in front of him. We did not use a bottle at all after the switch, so if he wanted a drink he needed to hold it. He is 16 months now and I still don't give him a spoon because I am afraid of the mess, but he is great with a fork, sippy cup and finger foods.

Good luck

Try one of those bowls that suction cups to the high chair tray... It may save you the larger part of the mess! (No guarantees on the spoon tossing though :D)

I think it's One Step Ahead that makes utensils attached to a curly spring (like pens) that suction to the table so that they cannot truly throw them on the floor. I haven't tried it but it may help.

Hi N.! As others have said, it doesn't sound like your daughter is ready for the bowl and spoon. I put my son's food directly on the tray without any utensils. When he started reaching for the spoon (while feeding him yogurt, applesauce or cereal), I'd just give him a spoon to hold onto or would always put a spoon on the tray for him to hold even if he never used it. Now that he's more interested in trying to use the spoon, I put his food in a bowl or plate. We tried a bowl with a suction cup, but he was still able to pull the bowl off the tray. Good luck!

How does she do without the spoon? Maybe cut up some pieces of fruit or cheese and leave them on her try so the only thing she can fling to the floor are the chunks. She'll get it over time. A lot of her behavior might be in how you react. At this age, they like to see "what happens if I do this?"

Start by breaking or cutting up the food into smaller pieces and letting her feed herself with her fingers. If she's not interested in the bottle/spoon/bowl then don't press the issue. Leave the items out where she can see and examine them; she'll eventually want to use them.

You have already gotten some good advice and I would agree that you should give her some finger foods and skip the bowl and spoon. However, we had luck with kid's yogurt on a spoon...it is REALLY thick and would stick to the spoon no matter which way it was held.
Also, my son didn't want to hold his sippy cup either....so I bought him some of those sippy cups with straws....we would set it on the highchair tray and he would just use the straw. Eventually he got the hang of using a reg. cup too.
Good luck and stock up on paper towels....I found that the messes get bigger and his aim gets better has he gets older. HA.

does she throw the food down if you place it directly on the high chair tray and let her eat with her hands? i would try that first. the thing that worked for me was letting my kids sit on my lap while they ate, or while i ate, so they could interact with me doing what i wanted them to do (ie, use their spoon and feed themselves).

I agree with a lot that's already been said. My son is 15 months and he still just eats with his hands. It doesn't have to be just finger foods, though. I give him just about everything straight on the tray (even baby cereal, applesauce, whatever we are eating for dinner) and he does really well, even though it gets a little messy on the tray and his face. You can always just rub her down with a washcloth after she eats. I have a friend who takes her son's shirt off, so that he's easy to clean up after he eats - he's two and he uses utensils but it is still not the easiest for him (he gets frustrated when food falls off). Anyway, I would let her get used to using her hands and try utensils later on when her motor skills are better. With the cup - just be consistent and encourage her to hold it. With my son, it worked for a little while to hold him and give him a cup after a nap, but not hold the cup for him. Now he holds his own cup really well all the time. We started him on sippy cups with handles because they are so much easier to grab onto. Good luck!!

Hi N.,
I have a 13 month old son who loves to feed himself finger food. My MIL gave us something for Christmas that I thought would just not work, but amazingly it does! She bought a spoon that had holes in it (yep, HOLES), and would you believe that nothing falls off that spoon? I know ours was made by Sassy, so go to their website and look for it. I think it's called a self feeding spoon. My son uses it, but does not get the concept of putting it back in the bowl to get more. I don't use it at every meal, I bring it out for breakfast usually, and that is it for the day. He does throw it as well, so you need to keep and eye on him when he eats with it, but overall, he gets food to his mouth 98% of the time! Very rarely does it fall off, and they are kid friendly shaped too! Try it out!
Good luck
K.
P.S. Try this link
http://www.sassybaby.com/category?cattype=category&ca...

If is doesn't work, go to www.sassybaby.com
Let me know if you use it!

Start with finger foods and you keep feeding with the spoon. She needs to get her fine motor skills going and a spoon is a bit to complicated. Those Gerber gradutate puffs are great. Then I woudl say by 15 mo try the spoon again. Good Luck.

Hi, N.,

I wonder if you are starting too soon. Does she eat finger foods? Cheerios, cut-up grapes, bites of bread with something on it? My boys ate things like this long before mastering spoons. Also you might want to try again immediately after she dumps bowl and spoon, perhaps using another bowl and spoon even before you clean up. She'll think it is a game and dump again, but doing it several times reinforces the idea that this is what you want her to do and sooner or later she will get with it. She also will want, sooner or later, to imitate you by using her spoon, so you might make a big thing of showing her how Mommy eats with a spoon and she can do it too. Above all, remember that she is very young for this and maybe just not ready!

Good luck,
S. -- mom to 18 and 22 y.o, sons who eat all by themselves now! :-)