Does your child use utensils?

Our little one uses them! I started by loading it for her and helping her put it in her mouth using her hand. She's also experimented on her own. Thick handles with little fork/spook tips are best! We never used silicon, straight to stainless steel. She's still learning how to load a fork, but drops stuff with spoons. Sometimes she still opts for her hands! But I'd say within the last month she's been using cutlery more often

Not all the time but we do offer at most meals. Food still falls off of her spoon most of the time. She’s getting better at the fork but still a work in progress.

My daughter is 15 months and I normally feed her myself so she can eat all her food but lately she’s been grabbing my hand and reaching for the spoon and she would scoop the food from the plate on her own. I didn’t have to teach her. She just wanted to do it. I think they’ll start when they’re ready. I realized forcing my kids before they’re ready is just harder.

Mine will not eat if she sees others using silverware and she doesn't have any! We started with forks about 3 months ago and she does excellent. She started out using her hands to put things on the end of her fork and then putting it in her mouth, but she's got the hang of it now. Spoons are harder because everything falls off, but she tries. I would say that most of her substantive eating is by hand still. When she's truly hungry she doesn't have time for the whole silverware thing

I've always let her eat with her hands or feed her myself (depending on the food I was giving) but about 2 months ago she started reaching for the spoon. So I began offering it to her, preparing for the mess she'd make. After the first week, she's able to eat with a spoon by herself with minimal mess. She still doesn't understand how to stab her food with a fork yet though, she just treats it like a spoon. But I feel like that'll come in time if I keep offering it & showing her.

@Lissy agreed! My family would make me feel bad for her not using utensils sooner but whenever I tried she would get frustrated and throw the spoon. It was much easier when she decided she wanted to do it herself.