I was helping Edward to eat his dinner the other day, and I thought I'd compare and contrast the various eating implements he has used.
At the moment he's using a Royal Doulton Bunnykins melamine bowl. It's got a suction grip on the bottom which stops it moving around the table top while he's trying to get a morsel of food on his fork or spoon. It's also got nearly vertical sides, which gives him something to push against when he's trying to spear something with his fork. A different bowl with gradually sloping sides sometimes causes him to accidentally push the food out of the bowl.
Here's a photo showing the vertical sides of the bowl.
Ed uses a spoon with a head like a large teaspoon; this type of spoon is deeper than most baby-style spoons, and it's much easier for Ed to keep the food on the spoon. The shallow spooons are hard for him to use by himself. The fork has metal tines. These make it much easier for him to spear the food and carry it to his mouth without dropping the food off. His manual dexterity is now adequate for him not to jab himself in the lip, cheek, or eye with the metal fork. The bulbous handles help too.
Here's a range of spoons and forks he's used in the past. The forks are actually shaped like a spoon, so they can be used to pick up food without spearing it. Taht's just as well, because the blunt platic tines are no use at stabbing the food, but prevented puncture marks on Ed's skin before he had adequate manual control. You may notice that the metal spoon (Which is Bunnykins) is of the shallow type, and it wasn't really very easy for him to use. Each of these implements has some kind of motif which Ed likes to look at.
The bowls got a nice print of a rabbit tableau on the bottom, and he likes looking at that too. He gets a sense of achievement by eating his food and seeing the picture at the bottom.
"Hmmmm. That looks good."
"It is good!"
"I'll have some more please Daddy."
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