Eating with utensils?

At what age do we start making a big deal about them using their utensils to eat?

Marron is 2.5 and alot of times she holds the spoon or fork in one hand and eats with the other. On one hand, I feel that I should be pushing her to eat properly, but she is not a great eater -- every meal is a cr@pshoot regarding whether she will eat or not, and if so how much. So I kind of feel that however she gets the food in is fine with me at this point.

What do you think?

Re: Eating with utensils?

My DD s the exact same way - NOT a good eater at all. Sometimes she eats with utencils, sometimes not at all. At this point, Im not really pushing it all that much because like you said..Im more worrried about her just eating,

Re: Eating with utensils?

DD is 18 months and uses a spoon or fork - but not very well. If she's having yogurt or mac and cheese, she prefers to have me or DH put her food on her fork, then she'll feed herself.

She's actually pretty good at feeding herself - but she makes a mess.

Re: Eating with utensils?

Bumping for the evening crowd

Re: Eating with utensils?

bumping bc Im interested in others answers too

Re: Eating with utensils?

Ale is only 18 months - she can hold a spoon but I have to put the food on it for her.

But I wouldn't worry about it, especially if you just need to get her to eat. Hands work better anyway

Re: Eating with utensils?

Noah will be 17 months tommorow and he uses a spoona nd a fork but maybe 60% of the tiem does he use it versus using his hands, but he wants it at every meal.

Re: Eating with utensils?

Kaitee is 27 months old and she always uses a spoon or fork. She now tries to cut up her own food. If she is having trouble picking up the food with the spoon/fork she will pick up the food with her hands and put it on her spoon/fork and eat it

Brooke is 12 months and sometimes she uses the spoon but normally she holds the spoon in one hand and eats with her other.

Re: Eating with utensils?

Bryan is 21 months and does GREAT with a spoon. I have also introduced the fork. He still struggles a bit with getting things on the fork. I still do a "Hand over hand" method with him.
I think he'll catch on eventually. He has to figure out how to "Stab" the pieces.

Re: Eating with utensils?

DS is 16 months and uses his hands obviously, but also uses a spoon and fork-although not at every meal (most of the time though for atleast one part of the mea,l as he really likes using it). When we do use it, i have to put the food on for him/do hand over hand to scoop 85% of the time. With the spoon sometimes he will get some applesauce or other sticky food on it by himself, but it is almost by accident (like he puts the spoon into the bowl and the food just gets on it)

Message edited 11/8/2008 11:04:30 AM.

Re: Eating with utensils?

sorry double post

Message edited 11/8/2008 11:01:02 AM.