Ok, this may seem silly, but I am stressing out about letting my son start trying to feed himself out of a bowl or off of a plate using a kid fork and spoon. I know there will be big messes. He'll put his hands in the food and rub it in his hair, and the bowl will end up tossed on the floor a few times. He is a champ at eating finger foods, but it's time we moved on to the next level. I guess I'm looking for tips on what foods are good "practice" foods, what level of expectations I should have, etc. Should I superglue a bowl to his highchair tray? Ha! Any tips advice would be appreciated!!! :)
They do make bowls that suction cup to the trays..lol. That would be a good place to start...also try hand over hand feeding him at first and see how that goes.
We use a fork made by Gerber. It is silver on the fork end and then bright color and wider on the handle end. He does pretty good with it and now won't eat without it. We teach him how to stab the food onto his fork and it is working great. We have used the suction bottom plates and bowls and they are OK but by the end of the meal he has usually gotten them loose.
I bought some "teaching" spoons at walmart. I can't think of the name of them, and I threw away the package. They have a good handle for little hands and the "spoon" part is flat, with grooves that the food sticks in. It's better for spplesauce and yogurt, but my son uses it for everything! He gets the concept of how to use a spoon, but can't get the food to stay on it all the way to his mouth, and this new spoon I got really helps with that! You can probably get them just about anywhere.
I have the same challenge. I make sure I eat every meal with him (daddy works, so usually it's me eating with him most of the time). I let him have the utensils, and give him small amounts. I'm still in search of a good bowl, etc. for him to use. He's also in the tossing, smearing stage. I do let him use a real fork cause he REALLY likes it and he's very coordinated - he's actually able to use it pretty well when he wants to. Spoon isn't very interesting to him, he uses the baby spoons more, as they're easier to hold. I figure it's best to let them experiment with the utensils, not force the issue, give them opportunities to use utensils, and make sure there's plenty of finger food, etc. so they're eating. I also read that baby wrists don't turn a certain way till their a little older, so they can't really put the food in their mouth with a spoon/fork very well anyway.
I like the super glue idea - perhaps double sided tape would work well and be easier to remove if you wanted to (Shoot, I may try that myself! LOL)
Jessica,
We use small bowls with flat bottoms. I found a multicolored set with lids at Walmart in a set of 4. They work great because they don't tip. We tried the suction cup bowls but they didn't stick for long. The suction would release. Probably didn't have good ones. We also started with the spoon. Anything that sticks to the spoon is great like spaghetti, yogurt, etc. Dry cereal is good for practicing, too. Also, only give him a little at a time.
We used the small spoons/forks that come in those flatware gift sets. They are real spoons & forks just kid sized. The plastic forks that you buy at the store don't work.
A great bib is also a must. We use bibs made by Dex. I found them at Burlington Coat Factory in Plano but you can find them online. They catch everything and they are comfortable, unlike the stiff plastic bibs.
Good luck!
Stephanie
Everyone has great answers, but I would like to add that we started with oatmeal, because it kind of sticks...Yogurt was pretty easy too.
