Boon Benders are the perfect eating utensils for your toddler. There will come a time when your baby or toddler will graduate the infant spoon yet doesn’t have the mouth big enough for an adult spoon. That was my problem. I couldn’t use the infant spoon because it wouldn’t hold anything yet the adult spoon wouldn’t fit into Laylas mouth. Then walking around BabysRUs looking for a carseat; I found these little gem. Of course when I saw a big sign that read BPA, Pthalate and PVC free on the package; I didn’t hesitate to purchase one. Extra kudos for how modern and fabulous it looks.
The Boon Benders are designed with self feeding {or self attempting to self feed} toddlers in mind.
Benders adaptable utensils were designed to help make the transition to regular utensils a little easier. Parents can position the adjustable end to the perfect angle to accommodate the child’s grip. As motor skills develop, adjust little by little, until straightened.
Although I personally don’t let Layla self feed, yet; I use it to feed her. The spoon size is perfect to pack everything into her mouth without dropping it all over the floor. It is soft so doesn’t hurt her in anyway, and it’s deep enough so all the food stays on the spoon. Once she is ready to self feed, I can bend the spoon so it’s easier for her to handle. Bending it back and forth can be a bit entertaining, just in case you are bored. Boon comes in two funky colors, neon orange and hot pink. I am just glad it wasn’t powdered blue or pink, we try to avoid that as much as possible.
Boon is an innovative company with modern parents in mind. Aesthetically pleasing, safe, ergonomically designed and most of all affordable; I think you will be hearing a lot about Boon on Eco Childs Play, especially from me. Stay tuned…
[This post was written by Susie Kim.]
I started off with Gerber metal spoons with silicone tips and saw all the other plastic toddler spoons on the market. Even though this spoon looks easy to use and is modern – it’s still plastic. I re-thought and re-vamped our baby purchases about a year ago (my son is 23 months now) and decided to eliminate as much plastic as possible. I hate plastic in my mouth – for cups or utensils. We got a stainless steel set from Oneida. They have a smaller baby set and a toddler set. Our son doesn’t see us use plastic, so we wanted him to use the same things as us. They are safe and prepare him for the next stage – our utensils!
Two little notes —
One, if a baby is ready to eat sollids, they’re ready to self-feed. (Converse: if they’re not ready to self-feed, they’re not ready to eat solids) See my articles on baby-led solids for more info, or go to http://www.baby-led.com or any other site about Gill Rapley’s research.
Two, my experience with this kind of toddler utensil is that they’re just not big enough to actually do much with. The spoons are so shallow, they can’t really pick anything up with it. And those fork tines are so thick and dull, they can’t spear anything with it.
Those are very cute, and I like the bend in them, that might make it easier for a kid to get it to their mouth. I wonder, are they ‘adjustable’ to left- or right-handed? It might be frustrating for a kid trying to use it with the other hand, with the bend going the ‘wrong’ way.
Anyway, we used a bunch of different toddler-sized utensils, plastic, metal, and bamboo. I think the Oneida ones ended up being our favourites, but they were still really too small to be practical for very long. We quickly found that “child-size”, rather than “toddler-size” cutlery were the ideal. Our set of Ikea kids cutlery — fork with good tines, spoon with a deep enough bowl to actually scoop something, and knife with rounded serration so she can cut soft food but not her fingers — is Just Right.
Whoops, just re-read the article, I’d missed the bit about where the parents can bend the plastic to the ideal angle. So ignore that bit in my previous comment. 🙂 The rest still stands though!