Does your 17/18month old feed themselves well?

Elliott will be 18m in a couple of weeks.  He isn't really interested in feeding himself,  he might try a couple of spoonfuls at breakfast and has a go with his yoghurt, or his pasta but generally he gets quite bored and wants to get down so I have to distract him by letting him look at a book or toy whilst I feed him.  Doing it this way he will eat a full meal,  but if I were to leave it to him he'd get down after a couple of mouthfuls so he can go and play!

Please tell me how your LO feeds themselves, and if you have any tips to encourage it that won't stop him eating either!

Thanks

Charlotte wants to feed herself but she's not very good at it. She wont let me near her with the spoon! If I actually want to get any food into her it has to be sandwiches!

Thanks for your reply! Funnily he used to hate being fed, everything was finger foods but now he prefers me to feed him!

Yes Tate is very good and feeds himself most things, he especially likes using his fork!

Flynn was totally different and I had to feed him most things until he was over 2, he'd do finger foods but wasn't very good with cutlery.  It just took time for him to get the idea, he was better if he ate infront of the tv

I haven't done anything any different with Tate but he does like copying Flynn, the main hit with him has been his fork!!

Loves finger foods, and he can feed himself things like weetabix, his Hipp Organic mealpots and yoghurts with varying degrees of messiness - usually depends how hungry he is - sometimes it appears to be quicker to use hands! Messy!

I think his skills have improved massively from nursery really, the 'babies' sometimes sit with the older children and I think there is a degree of imitation going on.

G is getting pretty good feeding herself now. She has always done finger foods but now she is insisting on using a fork for most meals. She has been using her own spoon for a few months and is now quite good at it. We have found with forks she is better with an adult fork that we encourage her to hold part way down. She got frustrated with baby forks as they seem harder to spear the food with. She does manage to get some huge spoonfuls of food as well - that is when we get the real mess!

She is definitely better since she has been eating with the older children at nursery.

Thanks all! x