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Helping Toddlers Get A Grip On Their Utensils

By on September 21, 2012 in Inventions

Before Scott Swierski began inventing, he had to reinvent himself. He was in the real estate business, but when the market began to suffer he needed to get out. So, he started inventing, reports South Charlotte News.

Standing in his kitchen, he sifts through a plastic bin of forks and spoons designed with toddlers in mind. The bin holds an inventory of ideas that served as stepping stones to Little Grips, the invention he is now trying to market. He’s been selling the toddler-sized forks and spoons with unique handles to people as far away as Malaysia, Germany and Australia through his website.

It’s been said necessity is the mother of invention.

Perhaps, in Swierski’s case, it’s the father. When his 5-year-old daughter, Riley, was a toddler, he realized the toddler utensils currently on the market weren’t working well for her.

She’d fumble with or drop her utensils. Her food would fall off the fork or spoon on the way to her mouth. These were typical toddler struggles that Swierski thought he could fix.

He created utensils with wristbands and clips to keep them from falling to the floor. But that didn’t solve the problem of the awkward path from the plate to her mouth.

So he redesigned the handles to more easily fit a toddler’s grip. He created prototypes – including a particularly expensive one that was pressed out of a printer-like machine from a three-dimensional design.

food inventors toddlers

Angela Shupe has added 5,783 posts to Business Opportunities Weblog.

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  • http://www.melissadata.com Ray

    Pretty genius here! Kids will love it!

  • http://n.a. Cindy Hawkins

    Think like a kid! Small hands, tiny fingers, short range of motion, still a little clumsy getting it all coordinated – factor those elements in and, voila. Invent a kid-savvy utensil that works better than the ones on the market. And it fosters in toddlers that critical “Hey, I can do it myself!!’ feeling, so important to development for little folks. Love it!

  • http://websitedesigners.fr/ Mark

    What about think like woman and have big hands ?

  • Christine Timmerman

    I really like this idea and I think that children would especially love it. However, holding silverware in such a manner could encourage bad manners in the future when they get to the age that they need to hold regular size silverware. If after-testing this didn’t turn out to be much of a problem, I think that this is a very interesting idea that could allow kids more independence in their eating abilities.

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