While the introduction of foods doesn’t start until around six months of age, it's possible to introduce a teether such as our Quadopus and Training Spoon Teether at around 3 months. Teethers are great for helping your baby learn to chew and teaching them to pick up objects, plus they help ease symptoms of teething like irritability and discomfort.
Your baby will automatically bring this to the centre of their tongue and over the next few months you will guide them to move it to their back molar where they will bite down and learn to chew. Holding the spoon in their hand before feeding begins also teaches them to accept this new object and they will go on to use it comfortably!
Whatever method of feeding your baby you wish to follow, from the baby-led weaning, spoon-feeding or a combo of the two, you will want to help improve their motor-function skills and the pincer grip. The best way to do that is by introducing our training spoon to your baby.
The benefits of doing this early for your baby:
- Developing the ability to grip and hold objects firmly
- Developing hand-eye coordination (awareness of space, developing "visual-motor abilities")
- Skills in the Sensory Process are being fine-tuned (to build up their sensory processing skills with the different textures and sensations of the food they are touching)
What is a Training Spoon Teether?
A training spoon teether aids with the development of the pincer grip and the strengthening of muscles in children's hands. This promotes self-feeding as well as the development of superior hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
The main features of our teether spoon are:
- Unique flat head - there is no right or incorrect way to hold the spoon
- A little nodule on the top of the head is meant to activate the suck reflex on your baby’s tongue
- Flexible
- Textured handles for grip
- Short handles for babies
At Six Months:
Continue to offer the spoon and start to coat the tip with your baby’s purée and allow baby to self-feed. As your baby gets better with their hand eye coordination offer them a bowl with some of the food, like our Silicone Suction Bowl. They may not be able to manage this perfectly so, in between their attempts, you can offer some purée from a different spoon.
At Mummy Cooks, we have a wealth of advice on feeding your family. We cover everything from meal prep and slow cooker recipes to moving baby on to family foods and preparing food safely. So whether you're looking for quick and easy meal ideas or want to learn more about healthy eating, we've got you covered - Feeding the Family Advice page
