Gerber Lil' Dipper

Pros: child can self feed, easy to use
Cons: not a spoon

The baby is no longer a baby! She will be a year old at the end of this month, and she is getting very independent. She sometimes fusses when we feed her and she tries to grab the spoon. So we bought her some spoons of her very own: a set of the ...

Pros: Introduces baby to eating utensils
Cons: Can be messy

Here lately, trying to spoon feed my 8 month old son has turned into a struggle. You see, a few weeks ago Mommy thought it would be cute to let him feed himself. Not only did he create a major mess, but I created a monster. Now every time I sit down to ...

Pros: has a barrier to keep baby from choking
Cons: Not practical for the price. May only be used for short period of time.

When I was still an infant teacher I had one parent who insisted on bring her own sippy cups, feeding accessories, and Tupperware-like containers with premade meals in them. I thought maybe a little excessive but she was a great mom and I knew she just ...

Pros: They do what they are designed to do.
Cons: none.

We purchased the "Lil Dipper" at Baby Depot after calling all the retailers in our area. Those are hard to find! We were excited to see how our 8 month old would do with these, after all he always is taking the spoon away from us while we are feeding him.

He really liked the looks of them I suppose because he grabbed on to them and of course stuck them in his mouth. We got those bowls that suction down to the high chair tray for him to aim those cute Lil Dippers in.

The plan didn't go quite as one would hope for. The only thing he dipped in the bowl was HIS HANDS! The Lil Dipper does hold some baby food in the grooves so I would say that they do what they are designed for. I guess the hard part is getting the lil one to learn how to use them!

Pros: Prevents baby from pushing spoon too far into mouth
Cons: none

Since the first taste of rice cereal and veggies, my little one (5 months old) has wanted control of the spoon (I was using the soft silicone Gerber ones, which are also wonderful, but too long for him to control himself) I searched for a shorter spoon that I could let him hold while I fed him and I found these at Babies R Us. He LOVES them! He's not coordinated enough yet to spoon up or dip any food up to his mouth, but he definitely got the hang of putting this into his mouth correctly. I load it up with a little baby food, and he takes over from there. Believe it or not, they make less mess because the shield that prevents it from being pushed too far into his mouth also keeps a lot of the food from spilling out all over his chin.