10 Things You Need For Meal Time With Baby

What do you need to make meal time easy and fun with your baby? Mikayla is loving meal time! And snack time too, although snack time seems to be every minute she’s awake. Here’s a list of items I enjoy using for Mikayla during meal time, including items I wish I bought or want to buy, now that I know what’s working for us and what isn’t.

This isn’t a sponsored post, it’s a list of items I actually stand behind. But some of the links are affiliate links and I may get a small kick back if you decide to purchase the item. Thanks!

1. A Highchair. We started with a booster seat, kinda like a Bumbo seat with the tray as pictured above, but Mikayla is now strong enough to shimmy the seat around. That’s cus we feed her on the counter. But you can attach a seat like this to a chair or put it on the ground. The booster seat is great for when we go to someone’s house for dinner or if we’re at a restaurant that doesn’t have a highchair. Eventually, I’d like to get a good highchair. I like this one: The Sprout Highchair by XOX Tot it’s expensive, but you don’t need an expensive one to do the trick. My in laws use one from Ikea and it works great too! What you want is something that’s EASY TO CLEAN and something that’s easy to get the baby in and out of. BONUS if you can take the tray off with one hand.
2. Spoons. I like using these soft plastic ones from Munchkin: Munchkin Silicone Spoons. Before Mikayla ate sold food, I gave her the spoon to practice.
3. Bibs! I like these Aden + Anais Snap Bibs. You’ll need lots… LOTS of bibs. I like larger ones with snap closures. Not bibs with velcro, cus it gets stuck on clothes in the dryer. Muslin bibs are great too, cus they’re great for soaking and wiping up the mess afterwards.
4. Bottle Warmer. It’s nice to have a bottle warmer, cus I can just pop a bottle in the warmer and work on prepping the rest of her food. OR I can pop her food pouch in the warmer and do something else while I wait. #Multitasking The bottle warmer I use is this one: Philips AVENT Bottle Warmer
5. Bottles. I exclusively nursed Mikayla for the first 5 months, but I was pumping too and saving all my milk. It took a lot of effort to get Mikayla to like drinking out of a bottle. We had tried so many different bottles and nipples. She finally took to these Playtex ones: Playtex Baby BPA-Free Ventaire Baby Bottle. After she became comfortable and used to drinking out of a bottle, it became easier to give her any kind of bottle like the AVENT ones we got at our baby shower.
6. Baby Food Maker. If you plan on making your own baby food, the EASIEST way to make food is using a baby food maker. I like using the Baby Brezza One Step Baby Food Maker, White. It’s super easy to use. It’ll steam your veggies then blend them automatically after steaming. So you literally just set it and forget it!
7. Silicon Food Tray or Ice Cube Tray. After the food purees I’ll usually put them in pouches and whatever doesn’t fit in my pouches I’ll put in an ice cube tray. I find the food a little hard to get out of an ice cube tray, so instead you can get something like the KIDDO FEEDO Baby Food Preparation & Storage Container Tray with Silicone Clip-On Lid.
8. Resealable Food Pouches. Food pouches are super handy if you’re on the go a lot. I like these ones from WeeSprout: Reusable Food Pouch. They’re easy to clean and easy to fill. They say they’re dishwasher safe but I hand wash them and stick them on the Boon GRASS Drying Rack, Green to air dry.
9. Snack containers. When we’re out and about snack containers are great. We pack so many snacks now cus Mikayla just goes through food like none other. She snacks all the time. We pack rice cakes, banana slices, cantaloupe slices, puff cereal. These containers are great and these ones are too.
10. Toothbrush & toothpaste. Now that Mikayla has teeth (7 to be exact!) it’s super important to start brushing them and getting her used to it. We like using the Baby Banana Bendable Training Toothbrush. It’s easy to clean and she likes chomping on it when she’s teething. For toothpaste, there are a lot of different options, but make sure you get infant toothpaste. Some infant toothpaste has fluoride, some don’t. Some people have mixed feelings about using fluoride, I say just ask your dentist, do your own research (that is relevant to where you live) and follow your gut.

HAVE FUN!

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