Last updated on September 24th, 2020 at 01:24 pm
It’s dinner time in our house about ten times a day since lockdown. My kids never stop eating and when they do they are complaining they are hungry? I would be slightly worried if I wasn’t in the same boat! But since we are in lockdown for the foreseeable future, it’s the perfect time for Baby O to master his first cutlery set for toddlers.
We have teamed up with doddl to test out their crafty designed cutlery for toddlers and to put Baby O through their Meal Time Milestones Checklist. They have gave us 10 challenges to see how he is progressing in his weaning.
So how did he get on with his first cutlery set for toddlers?
Challenge One: First Hold
Baby O has been good at holding a spoon. We introduced a spoon as soon as he could open and close his hands when he was fully sitting up. It isn’t about using it right away as much as just getting use to holding it during meals times at first.
Challenge Two: Pre-loaded Spoon
Then he mastered the pre-loading stage. Sometimes too well when it comes to his yogurt. It was one of the first foods he figured out how to get on his spoon especially because you can just still stick the spoon in yogurt and it sticks for them. It’s a good one to start with.
Challenge Three: Scoop, Scoop
Oh how much fun he finds in his morning breakfast now that he can scoop cereal up like his siblings. We started with dry cereal to teach him how to get it to his mouth first before we braved milk in it. He is great scooping up his casserole dinners with his fork or spoon too.
Challenge Four: Enter the Fork
The fork was the fun milestone to teach. Learning how to poke various foods on his plate and bring them to his mouth left him squeezing. The first few times he kept saying, “I do, I do!” From pieces of steamed carrots or chunks of cheese to cut up fruit on his plate these are just a few that we started out with and moved to him scooping and forking his dinner meals like casseroles.
Challenge Five: Spoon Liquid Showdown
Soon after, it was time to add the milk to cereal or eat some soup! This milestone takes a bit of time and yes there will be a mess. Weaning is a messy process!
Challenge Six: Getting to know the Knife
We have now introduced the doddl knife. He can hold it and recognises what it does like cut and push food onto a spoon or fork. He is just becoming familiar with it.
Challenge Seven: Fork and Dips
What kid doesn’t love dips? Chicken nuggets in ketchup or vegetables in ranch dressing it’s a tasty milestone for them to learning and fun too.
Challenge Eight: Two Hands
At this point, they are mostly using one hand. Let’s try using the opposite hand. Baby O can switch hands and knows which is his more dominate hand and picks up the knife with the other.
Challenge Nine: Combos
Whether it’s the spoon and fork, knife and spoon or fork and knife, this stage is just about having one in each hand and working them together to get food to their mouth. Baby O seems to like using his fork to push his food onto his spoon or one bite from each hand.
Challenge Ten: Final Frontier
Now this is where we are up to in our doddl cutlery challenges. Using the cutlery set together is a harder skill and takes a lot of practice. Baby O struggled to use the knife to push food like peas onto his spoon or master cutting food up like a sausage while using the other hand to fork it in place.
Baby O is just about there at almost two years old he has made it to challenge number ten. We are so proud.
The doddl cutlery set is the perfect size and shape to help toddlers learn how to hold their cutlery properly. Its lightweight and shape makes it easy for them to handle. Dishwasher safe and fun for every meal. They will feel like a big kid in no time and enjoy feeding themselves.
Baby O loves pointing out his spoon and fork to his siblings. Making him so proud of himself eating like they are. It finally frees up my own hands to eat my dinner while it’s hot!
The weaning process can take a while so don’t feel like you have to rush through the milestones. Every toddler is different and they won’t eat with their hands forever unless they are supposed to.
Find out more about the doddl cultery set here and how it can help your toddler reach each milestone.
*collaboration
