Holds a spoon and brings it to their mouth
Your baby has been using their hands to help them explore their world. They will have been coordinating their manual and visual skills to bring items to their mouth as they find out more about objects using their senses, including touch and taste.
Now your baby will enjoy joining in with routines by holding their spoon during mealtimes, mimicking your actions to bring it to their mouth and even attempting to feed themselves.
Hand-eye-mouth coordination
Your baby will have been bringing their hands to their mouth since before they were born[1], researchers have historically been divided over the exact reason that this hand-to-mouth movement appears so early on in your child’s development. It has been shown that, at various times throughout your baby’s life, the movement is likely to have held different uses[2]. It will have been a reflex, part of their feeding instinct, used as a soothing action, become an important way for them to integrate their senses and be a useful method for exploring the world around them.
Now that your baby’s vision is almost fully developed, and their depth perception is improving[3], their use of hand-eye coordination to bring items to their mouth will be becoming purposeful. Not only is this allowing them to engage in the exploration of objects (and curiosity about their environment) using all their senses[1], it will also be a key step in becoming an independent eater, allowing them to enjoy first finger foods and then using cutlery to share meals as they get older. To inspire their investigation, you can offer a variety of spoons; silicone, soft plastic and smooth wooden spoons all offer different textures to discover. Metal spoons can be tough on soft gums, so these are best avoided for now.
Embrace the mess!
You can encourage your baby to practice moving a spoon to their mouth by offering them lots of opportunities to try – and fail! Although it will be a messy and sometimes frustrating process, allowing your baby to control their spoon from the moment they start to show interest will mean they get to grips with the tricky skills of holding a long item, steering it accurately to their mouth and then managing to taste it, perhaps even to eat some food from the end.
Initially using their spoon will be more about the experience than true nutritional value, so you might want to keep a second spoon on hand to feed your baby alongside their efforts. Enjoy family mealtimes eating alongside your little one to inspire their cutlery use, but don’t worry if they are more interested in picking food up with their fingers. This is also an important step in their journey to feeding themselves!
What next?
Your baby’s coordination and control of objects in their grasp will continue to improve as they strengthen their motor skills. Offer lots of opportunities for your baby to move their body throughout the day. You will notice they are inspired to try lifting (and tasting) many of the objects they encounter throughout their routine.
Although your baby is interested in using their spoon at mealtimes, remember that the level of hand-eye coordination they will need to use utensils in the way we do as adults is a skill that needs time, patience and a lot of mess to perfect. It won’t be until your child is a toddler that they are able to consistently feed themselves using cutlery, and even then, using cutlery consistently won’t be easy until they are far older.
References
[1] Rochat, P. (1993) ‘Chapter 10: Hand-Mouth Coordination in The Newborn: Morphology, Determinants, and Early Development of a Basic Act’ in Savelsbergh, G.J.P (eds) The Development of Coordination in Infancy. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers
[2] Futagi, Y. (2017) ‘Eye-Hand-Mouth Coordination in the Human Newborn’. Pediatric Neurology. Oct; 75:43-47. Available online: Eye-Hand-Mouth Coordination in the Human Newborn
[3] Boyd, K. (08th July 2020) Vision Development: Newborn to 12 Months, American Academy of Ophthalmology. Available online: https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/baby-vision-development-first-year