Our Favorite Utensils

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Start offering utensils at 6 months.

Let’s talk some of our favorite utensils! (You’ll learn much more about promoting utensil use in our toddler course). Judy recommends utensils with short handles made for little hands. Offer loaded utensils as early as 6 months (watch sharp ends), but always encourage your child to touch food with their hands and don’t get discouraged if they go back to using their hands, even if they know how to use utensils. We never want to discourage use of hands, as many young children default to this and may stop self-feeding successfully if they are discouraged to use their hands.

Check out the utensils section of our Amazon Shop for a complete list of our favorites.

Shown, from the left:

• Constructive Eating​ spoon and fork
• Nuk Gerber Graduates fork and spoon (this is what my girls use)
• KiddiKutter safety knife for older toddlers
• The First Years take and toss fork (this is the most rounded fork I could find at Buy Buy Baby when preparing for the baby-led weaning course video shoot)
• NumNum GOOtensil (our FAVORITE first utensil, which also doubles as a teether)
• Pick-Ease, a safe toothpick (mine is missing its sticker!)

Offer utensils often so your tot gets used to seeing them and eventually can stab, scoop and cut food themselves! Start by loading the spoon for them, and eventually you’ll see that they're wanting to load it all on their own.

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