Hellobee Boards

We just use our normal every day dishes at cutlery for my 3.5 and 8 year old. We do have some plastic bowls from target that we use for snacks. But they handle the every day stuff pretty well and we haven’t had any broken dishes yet...

My 6 & 8 year old have been using our regular Oneida teaspoons and salad forks for awhile now. The exceptionally small three year old likes to use them, but I think she does a bit better with kid-sized cutlery (we have a few Nuby sets with the metal "heads", and some similar Disney ones).

Recently I've just been having the girls use our regular Crate & Barrel dishes, or our outdoor melamine set when we are dining on the patio/if I'm sending them out to the playset to eat. In the last year, we've broken one bowl, and that was because my 3 year old whacked it off the table (and I wasn't watching her like I should have been). I personally find that kiddie plastic doesn't dry well in the dishwasher, so using "real" dishes saves me a lot of work!

I like ikea for cutlery and target for divided plates. The kids have their own low drawer for dishes and cups so they set their own table (they eat earlier than us) and we also eat outside a lot so they set the table themselves out there (which involves a steep set of stairs so I don’t want glass or ceramic on that). Target makes both divided and undivided plates, as well as matching bowls.

We use these divided plates, bowls and cups. They are made of recycled materials and are very sturdy.

https://www.amazon.com/Re-Play-Divided-Plates-Yellow-3-Count/dp/B007HZBOFG

My 5 year old uses our regular utensils now. He asked to start using them around 4.5 and has been successful.

Ours are mostly from Ikea and Target!