Do you feed your 1 year old much off a spoon?

[Anonymous]

DS has been feeding himself finger foods since around 6 months, at 8 months he refused baby food. Right now he only eats yogurt or applesauce off a spoon. It is so much easier to have him eat finger foods, but he is not eating things like soup, hot cereals, I mean I guess this is not a big deal but I was just wondering what other people do. The cereal thread got me thinking about it. I am sure he would eat oatmeal, but he usually gets a waffle and fruit, homemade pancake with fruit in it, or dry cereal fruit and yogurt; stuff he feeds himself. Maybe I am just being lazy not wanting to feed him off a spoon, when do you have kids start using utensils on their own? Should I just give him a bowl of oatmeal and a spoon and let him go to town?

[Anonymous]

I was just wondering the same thing! Our one year old is eating mostly finger food, but will only eat baby food veggies. I am still feeding her, but trying to get her to feed herself, which she will do for about a minute or so. Not sure if I should be trying to teach her to eat with a fork and spoon herself yet.

[Anonymous]

We started giving her utensils around a year or so, esp. since I saw her grabbing for them. BE PREPARED FOR HUGE MESSES. We often let her have a spoon and we used one too.
They have to experiment to get good at it. Have some patience.
We had the benefit of that time at the start of summer so we had many outdoor meals.

[Anonymous]

Neither of the kids really dug the spoon but loved the fork. Gave them both one of the Gerber Kid Sized Forks at around 10 months.