Spoon Fun?

A.,
9 months is the perfect age to begin to prepare your baby to feed herself.get your baby a low flat plastic bowl and dole out small amounts of baby fruits,applesauce anything else she truely enjoys.I found putting a plastic dropcloth or shower curtain under her high chair helps out alot with cleanup.always encourage her to use her spoon,avoid giving her "finger foods" all the time.she will master using utensils quickly.keep a camera handy there are precious moments to be had while learning .enjoy

1 mom found this helpful

Hi A.,

We actually started our son eating with a fork. We found that the spoon was just too difficult because you have to hold it upright. He loves to stab his food and got very good at it very quickly. We started with the plastic baby forks but quickly moved up to a metal fork as it is easier to stab food with a metal fork than a plastic one.

J.

1 mom found this helpful

i have a set of spoons that have little holes in them that help the food "stick" to the spoon.

I started giving my daughter a spoon around 8 months. I just set it by her food and let her decide if she wanted to use it or not. By one year, she was a spoon master. Then we added forks to the mix, and now she's using them both perfectly.

Whipped yogurt, pudding, ice cream, and cereal were some of our early successes. Applesauce did not go so well since it slides off the spoon so easily.

A.,

My children never ate traditional baby food. We fed them mashed right from our plates and started them with a fork. I always wondered why people started with the most difficult of the eating utensils... a fork will hold food no matter which way they turn it. A spoon requires that it be held a certain way from plate to mouth so it doesn't loose everything along the way.

I started mine with a toddler fork right around 8-9 months when we started introducing solid foods to them. Prior to that they were all exclusively fed breast milk. As soon as it looked like they could get the hang of keeping the fork in the proper position, we introduced the spoon. This usually happened relatively fast. My little ones very rarely dropped anything off their spoons at that point, including soup.

Best of luck!

Blessings

Actually, we didn't start with cereal. In my opinion it is just a belly filler that only causes gas and discomfort. The nutrition in cereal is minimal.

We let our son just hold the spoon and mouth it to start so he could get used to the idea. Then gave him things like mashed peas, mashed sweet potato, mashed avocado and other items that could be easily smooshed and that would stick to a spoon. They are healthier than cereal and also introduce color, texture and flavor.

I started letting my son hold the spoon himself as soon as he would reach for it when I would bring it to his mouth with food on it. In my experience, I have found spoons easier to start with, as my boys found it easier to scoop their food,instead of stabbing it with a fork. Once the spoon is mastered, the fork is a piece of cake! I started letting my youngest feed himself a banana I mashed up, and applesauce (give her sticky foods like that, that she loves, instead of cereal, which not many babies willingly will feed themselves. Hope that helps!

-B.

I started around 9 to 10 months of age and gave all my girls spoons with cereal, mash potatoes, rice soup ect... All my girls by 16 months could use all there utensils. Show you little one a couple times and just let her have fun with it. You also if she likes PB put alittle on the spoon and let her practice eating off of it. My youngest and oldest really liked that! Best wishes to you! You sound like you are having fun and loving mother hood :)