Baby Feeding Gear - 3 Essentials

AB is now 6 months old! And boy is he *huge* (past the 97th percentile on height and weight)! At around 4 months, he hit a growth spurt that has just continued unabated for 2 months now. At some point, he just wasn't getting enough calories from breast milk and he started waking up in the middle of the night to eat. So, we started him on solid foods a bit early to get more calories in him during the day.

I reviewed my earlier post on baby food in the first year, thinking that I might revise it, but found it to be pretty much complete. But, what I haven't written about is gear!

There are three essential items that you need in order to feed a baby (drum roll please)...
* a highchair
* a bib
* a spoon

Really - that's it! It doesn't get any simpler.

In highchair-land, I like to keep it really simple. We use the Safety 1st Booster Seat attached to a regular dining room chair. I dislike big bulky special purpose items (like formal high chairs, changing tables, and cribs) that you only use for a short amount of time and then have to get rid of or store in your attic. The thing I love about this booster seat is that it fits in my dishwasher. Every couple of weeks, I just disassemble it and load it up in the dishwasher and, voila, it's clean! This model has been around and essentially unchanged for years, so you are likely to be able to find it on Craig's list. They hold up really well, so there is no need to buy it new.

You do not need to get fancy with bibs either. I like the bib to be easy to clean, and to have a catch pocket that stays open. Many bibs have catch pockets that are sewn flat against the main bib making them essentially useless for catching anything and impossible to completely clean. I love the Built NY Tidy Bib. It's made of wetsuit material which is easy to clean. I just wash it off with a sponge on a per-use basis and toss in the washer once a week (inside a mesh laundry bag so that the Velcro will not catch on other items). The catch pocket is created with Velcro closures allowing the bib to open completely flat for cleaning. Other people really like the Baby Bjorn Bib. I decided against it for my own use because it's a bit bulky to pack in the diaper bag. But it's a good option if you don't mind the bulk.

Spoons - use any baby-sized spoon you want. It really doesn't matter as long as it's small enough to fit in their mouth. But, for feeding on the go, I absolutely *love* the Boon Spoon! The food goes into the spoon handle and is dispensed out onto the spoon as you squeeze. It's brilliant! You can feed the baby with one hand anywhere you are without fumbling with a food jar and spoon separately. There is a little lid that snaps onto the spoon for traveling and storage. Because the food is dispensed onto the spoon directly, there are fewer drips down the baby's chin. It also solves the problem of the famished baby getting frustrated that you can't spoon the food out of the baby jar fast enough. With the Boon Spoon, you can squirt the food out as fast as your little guy can eat it. (Did I mention AB's 2-month long continuous growth spurt? This little guy is *hungry*!)