My twins’ first experience with solid foods was around the 6 month mark. Since then, I’ve had more than my share of of hits and misses when it comes to buying their bowls, cups and other feeding utensils.
I used to think it was just a matter of walking into a store and grabbing the cutest cup/bowl I could find. No siree! I quickly learnt the lesson that you can easily waste spend an embarrassing amount on sippy cups and bowls if you start off on the wrong leg.
To date, I know we may have gone through up to 40+ sippy cups (TWINS!) and probably the same number of bowls and plates. If I had to do it again, here’s what I wish I would have known:
- Plates and bowls - Should be microwaveable if you make and freeze your own baby food. When I had bowls that couldn’t go in the microwave, I would have to defrost the foods in ceramic bowls before transferring to the babies’ bowls. For me, it was just additional dish washing that I would have preferred to avoid.
- Bowls – To suction or not? Yes babies have a tendency to grab their bowls, wave them in the air (because they really don’t care!) and create a food shower. Bowls with suctions on the bottom can reduce the frequency of this occurrence BUT the thing with suction bowls is that the ones with permanently attached suctions are not microwaveable.
- Sippy cups – Valves or no valves? There is a place for both. I recommend no-valves for when the babies are just learning to drink and don’t have enough suction power to overcome the valves.
- Sippy cups – What type valve? The Playtex sippy range has a valve system that consists of 2 joined pieces of rubber that fit into the spout and air hole. Guess what? My babies have really strong arms and enjoy banging their cups against the high chair tray. A few hard knocks and the valve becomes dislodged making the cup spill-proof no more. The Phillips-Avent type spouts have a different, less leaky mechanism but they are hard to suck out of. It’s a trade-off.
- Sippy cups – Handles or no? To eliminate problem highlighted in #4, I started using the Take and Toss Spill Proof Cups that do not come with handles.
- High chairs – Full versus booster? If floor space is an issue, then go for the booster type that attach to normal chairs.
- High chairs – Cloth versus plastic? No matter how easy to clean the cloth material is, the high chair is still going to be a grimy mess. Plastic can be wiped clean, cloth has to be laundered. Consider your laundry tolerance when choosing a high chair.
- High chairs – Tray washability. A lot of high chairs now boast of trays that are dishwasher safe. The problem is that those trays are not however dishwasher sized. The trays on the highchairs I’ve had did not fit into the dishwasher or the sink. If you really want to be washing the tray in the dishwasher, shop with a tape measure.
- Spoons’ bowl size. When the babies started solids around 5 months, some of those cute spoons had bowls that were too wide to fit into their mouths. My recommendation, start off buying spoons with smaller, tapered bowls.
- Washcloth. Regardless of what utensils you buy, an easy-to-clean washcloth is the cornerstone of your solids-feeding arsenal because ovens come with a self-cleaning button, babies do not.
One more free tip: Just because a baby can use a spoon, doesn’t mean you should leave them alone with a bowl of yogurt
Yetunde is the proud mom of twin girls, affectionately nicknamed Sugar and Spice. She blogs at mytwintopia and has officially learnt to never take her eyes off twin babies with yogurt.
The post Twinfant Tuesday: Feeding Utensils 101 appeared first on How Do You Do It?.