Feeding Development

Understanding feeding development in children is important because it can help you support your child the best you can. Certain milestones and developmental steps occur from when a child is a newborn until they are about six years old. How children develop feeding skills is often also associated with their speech development. For example, if a child only uses a sippy cup and is not exposed to drinking from an open cup early on, there are certain sounds in language they may find harder to produce due to the different muscles in the mouth that get used for each type of drinking. A great resource on feeding and speech development is the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and a link to detailed milestones is Feeding and Swallowing Milestones: Age Ranges (asha.org). 

 Below is a brief overview of approximate feeding development milestones which may differ based on each child and the family’s culture and approach to meals: 

• Birth to 3 Months: 
  • Children develop basic oral motor skills like sucking and swallowing. 
• 3 to 6 Months: 
  • Infants learn to accept different tastes and textures. 
  • Children explore with eyes, hands, and mouth. 
• 6 Months to 9 Months: 
  • Children develop specific feeding skills like spoon-feeding and chewing. 
• 9 Months to 12 Months: 
  • Self-feeding skills improve. 
  • Children will start to hold a fork and spoon. 
• 1 to 2 Years: 
  • Children begin to dip their utensils into food. 
  • Children lift and drink from a cup. 
  • Children can pick up dry cereal pieces using their fingers. 
• 2 to 4 Years: 
  • Children can drink from an open cup with one hand. 
  • Children can use a fork to pierce soft foods. 
• 4 to 6 Years: 
  • Children can use a child-safe knife to spread butter or peanut butter. 
  • Children use a fork and spook accurately and precisely.  

 Remember that understanding these aspects of development are important, but you know your child best!