Toddler Knife Progression and Favorite Toddler Knives
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This post has been a long time coming since I did my cooking with toddler series several months ago. Knives are an exciting tool for toddlers to use if introduced safely. Of course with all the tools I will discuss you should supervise your child closely. These tools are toddler-safe only when supervised. This post goes through how we introduced knives from 14 months through the knives he uses now at 2.5. It also discusses some of the progression of skills with the knives we introduced to our toddler.
We started the toddler knife journey with my son around 14 months with an egg slicer. The egg slicer is a fantastic first cutting tool because it is safe (it is just metal wires) and easy to use. I will soon introduce it to my daughter as well. The egg slicer does a good job cutting mushrooms, strawberries, avocados, and bananas. I am sure it cuts eggs well too but we have never used it for that! This is still the tool my son uses for slicing mushrooms and likely the one I would choose too.
The next toddler knife we introduced is the “Montessori wooden knife.” This is a common first knife in the Montessori world which is probably why it is often referred to as a Montessori wooden knife. I don’t love it for long-term use, but it is a good one to work on skills with. It cuts bananas, mozzarella cheese, and other soft foods. My son got into it around 15 months. It is incredibly safe which is why I like it as a step in the knife progression despite it being more challenging to use.
Following the Montessori wooden knife, we introduced the crinkle cutter at 16 months. It uses the same motion as the Montessori wooden knife but it is easier to use. It cuts far more effectively and can do harder things such as apples, sweet potatoes, and carrots. I do recommend the wooden knife first since it uses the same motions and can allow you to become more comfortable with your toddler using a knife. This one is still not sharp but it is sharper than the wooden one. Note that some people have reported other brands of crinkle cutters are sharp. This is still my son’s tool of choice for cutting many harder things.
The next knife we introduced to our toddler was a small metal toddler-safe knife at 17 months. This is one of our favorite toddler-safe knives because it is small for small hands. They also have a serrated version which we introduced around 2-years-old. I would not introduce the serrated one until you are confident with your child using the non-serrated knife. With this knife, my son started by using top pressure and just pressing down. Slowly over time, he learned how to saw with it. The other aspect using a knife like this is learning to hold the fruit or whatever else is being cut. We started with me holding it as he cut and slowly transitioned to him holding it. The combination of sawing and holding took him several months to get down. This little knife is a dog and I use the ears on it to remind him which part goes up (ears up). The serrated version of this knife is now my son’s go-to knife.
At 18 months we introduced a nylon knife. This is also a great safe toddler knife option. My son does prefer the metal ones but many toddlers love these. They work to cut while being very safe. My son finds he can cut better with his metal serrated knife though. These are also larger than the small metal knives. As with the small metal knives these ones your toddler needs to gain the skills both to hold the object being cut and saw with the knife.
Another knife skill to work on is spreading with a knife. We use a small butter knife. My son at 2 could spread very effectively but it was a skill that took quite a bit of practice! We introduced this sometime around when we introduced the small metal knives.
At 2.5 my son is very confident with all these knives. He is now working on cutting with a butter knife at the table while steadying with his fork.
