How about a novelty spoon… a favorite character?

Does he have finger food yet? He should pick up the spoon thing pretty quickly if he can already do the hand mouth motions .

My daughter loves using her Dora spoon, try to give her just a plain plastic one but I think it’s more fun for her to have a novelty one

I’d start with finger foods so they get used to the hand to mouth motion (if they haven’t already). Start with thick things they can spoon and won’t easily fall off the spoon. Just be prepared for the mess, but let them try and encourage for doing it.

Plastic sheet for under high chair, show them how you put it in your mouth then hand spoon to bub and say your turn to eat with spoon.

Give him a plastic spoon when you are feeding him and suggest he feed you. Then you feed yourself and ask him to do the same. May take awhile but works in the end.

I think kids learn effectively through positive modelling so make side you both eat and demonstrate the use of cutlery and I would hope your little one would then follow suit.

Just put the food on the spoon & hand the spoon to the baby. They are learning which takes time, they’ll get there.

I just give them a spoon and let them go for it

Here’s something fun to try… Have a meal-time toy animal/person character that you and baby can “spoon feed”. We have a few little bath toy ducks and frogs (easy to wash!). Baby loves “feeding” Froggy, while he says (well, Mummy says on his behalf) “yum yum! A spoon for me and a spoonful for you”

Get a big ground sheet under the high/low chair, you can buy suction bottomed bowls and soft spoons and let them have a good time discovering feeding themselves.

Place a soft spoon in front of your little person and let them pick it up and then model for them how to use it. Take your own spoon and eat some food with a spoon. They may initially need a little hand over hand guidance to get the food on the spoon into their mouth. It will probably be messy to start with; but that is the fun of learning to use utensils to eat. Have fun!

Give them a soft spoon so they won’t hurt themselves if they accidentally bang their face with it. its a fun time but very messy! Enjoy!

To get my kids to feed themselves, i had two spoons one for them and one for me to feed them. Talk to them while feeding them say something along the lines of scoop up the food and open your mouth, in it goes yum yum yum. Do this a few times and walk away for a minute(make sure the bowl isnt to full or it might end up on the floor.) Keep talking while walking away and say scoop it up and in your mouth, yum yum, It might take a little while but my kids loved trying to scoop their own food into their mouths before i had a chance to once they got use to the routine. Then slowly if they have got it right only say the saying when you want them to keep eating. If they have stopped.

It’s neater when you feed them! Another idea for a splat mat is a cheap plastic shower curtain – you can hose it off and hang it on the clothes line. My daughter started using the spoon and eating properly after 1. She always tried and would just bang the spoon on things and chew on the spoon. I think it helps if they see you and other children eat as then they want to copy.

We had one spoon and one for baby. Let him play with the spoon and when he is ready he will start trying to use it himself

We only used one bowl for hot food as we found that cooled off too quickly. I am surprised your baby hasn’t already started to show interested in the spoon. Try giving your baby the spoon with firm food on it. If it runs off the spoon before he gets even near his mouth on more than one occasion he may quickly lose interest. Perhaps put the spoon in his hand with a small amount of food on it and guide it to his mouth. That’s how we got ours interested but all babies are individuals.

Generally babies will let you know they are ready by grabbing the spoon from you so have two spoons. Sit in front of your little one and you each have a bowl and spoon and your baby baby can copy you. Baby at this age will already be eating sandwiches and banana and other finger foods. If you are concerned about a mess, spread a split garbage bin bag under the high chair for ease of clean up.