Building Your Registry - Starting Solids

Size Matters

Everything you serve your baby on or with should be scaled appropriately to their size. Imagine eating with a serving spoon or trying to cut your dinner with a butcher knife, it would be a huge pain! In order for your baby to be successful, they need the appropriate tools, and a major part of that is tools that are proportional to their body.

Spoons

Spoons! So many spoons! You will end up with many, but I suggest starting with a self feeding spoon that can be pre-loaded and a parent feeding spoon. Even if you’re doing primarily baby led weaning, it’s handy to have a couple of long, spoon-feeding spoons like these for introducing allergens and such. As for self feeding, to start with look for a spoon with texture, that food can be mashed into so that as your baby brings it to their mouth there’s no worry that the food is going to fall off! Extra bonus points if it’s double sided like this one. Once your baby has the motion of spoon feeding down, a spoon like this with an easy grip is great for them to start understanding keeping the spoon upright. 

Cups

With the introduction of solids you can also start to introduce sips of water at 6 months. The best cups to have are a baby sized open cup such as this, but be prepared to get messy! It takes a long time for babies to learn to master the open cup. In the meantime, you can also introduce a straw cup for more practical drinking. The most popular straw cup to teach your baby to sip from a straw is the honey bear, because you can squeeze it to bring liquid up into your baby’s mouth, cueing them to suck. Once they've mastered the straw, you can introduce more water bottle style straw cups that are better for on the go. My favourite is the Dr. Brown's cup with weighted straw. Also, if you're using the Dr. Brown's bottles, this conversion kit will turn them into a straw cup for when your baby is ready to transition off bottles.

Materials

Silicone has become the material of choice for baby plateware because it’s not breakable and avoids the potential of microplastics. However, it almost always inevitably ends up tasting like soap, and making your baby’s food taste like soap, after prolonged use and washes. There are many different opinions on washing, baking, etc to avoid and get rid of the taste, however I prefer to skip the headache of all of it and serve on metal plates instead. These come with removable non-slip suction bases, and can be thrown in the dishwasher for easy cleaning.

Keeping Clean

The Catchy is an incredibly expensive piece of plastic, however it does work. If you’re sensitive to both food waste, and not wanting to re-serve food that hits the floor it may be a good option for you. But keep in mind that it does greatly increase the footprint of your high chair, so it’s not ideal for smaller spaces. If keeping the kitchen floor clean is more your concern, a washable pad such as this is a good, cheaper, alternative. You'll also want to stock up on some wash cloths to keep in the kitchen. As for keeping your baby clean, that's a bit of a lost cause. Part of the journey of solids is exploring different textures and sensory experiences. Generally, I suggest feeding right before a bath, in only their diaper, but if you need to keep them clean the best course of action is to double bib with both a smock and a silicone bib.

What to Buy & When

Most of these things you won’t need at all in the first six months of life, so if you add them to your registry, think about where you’re going to store them and how you’re going to remember what you already have when the time comes to introduce solids. I usually suggest purchasing some self feeding spoons around 4-5 months for baby to use as tethers and allow them to familiarize themselves with the items, before you add food into the mix. The same goes for the small open cup, it can be a toy long before it gets used!

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