I'd say be baby-led with that like everything else. We never "introduced" a spoon, they've been IzzyMouse's plaything/distraction object of choice in cafe's etc for months before she started eating. But then she has an all-round cutlery fetish. I'd also suggest, and forgive me if I'm wrong, that at least some of those babes pictured with spoons will have had loaded-up spoons handed to them, which seems to be OK by consensus on this site at least as it's still up to them if they stick it in their gobs or not. My LO is just 1 and having a go at spooning up food on her own, but she doesn't get very far so we rotate 3 at mealtimes - one for her to stick into food, one for me to hand to her loaded up, and one floating for her to wave around, drop on the floor, hand to me to indicate that I'm being too damn slow etc etc. We started with thick yoghurt, I seem to remember, as I didn't want to think about how she would go about eating it otherwise...