Starting Solids + Our Feeding Essentials

Welcome back to another blog post! I have been sharing a lot recently about Joey’s routine, feeding, sleep, basically all the baby things. So I thought that I would put together a post about all our “baby starting solids” essentials and also kind of take you guys through how we went about introducing solid foods to Joey.  As a first time mom I was excited and a little nervous at the same time because I didn’t know what he could eat, if he was going to have an allergic reaction, what if he choked, etc… 

Looking back (Joey is 7 months old, we started at 4 months with permission from our pediatrician) it was not bad at all. We let Joey guide us and followed his cues which really relieved a lot of stress. I think that would be my #1 tip: let your baby lead the way, you will be able to tell if your baby is interested in actual food or if they still just kind of play with it and do not know to put it in their mouth (which is okay!) exposure is really good though because they do pick up on things really quickly. 

First, let me take you through our essentials that we use everyday with Joey’s meals:

• silicone bib 
  • Silicone is super easy to clean 
  • We have the one by the brand mushie and LOVE it! We have tried other brands but this one the food pocket stays open so it actually catches the food he drops 
  • To start out you really only need 1, once your baby is eating 3+ meals a day that is when I would get another one so you don’t have to worry about cleaning the bib often during the day but really it’s a personal preference 
• silicone suction plate 
  • We have the bumpkin one and the suction on it is great 
  • You can pop this in the microwave, super easy to clean, all around great 
  • You only need 1 
• silicone suction bowls
  • I got these off amazon because I have tried others and the suction is not as good. These suctions are great and are really good to use if you don’t need a plate for the food you’re giving your baby/once your baby eats snacks these would be good for things like yogurt, etc… 
  • Usually bowls come in sets, 1 set is plenty 
• weighted sippy cup 
  • We have the munchkin weighted straw cup and it’s awesome! SO affordable and seriously genius because the weighted straw holder moves in the direction your baby is picking up the cup so no matter what angle they are holding it at, they are still able to drink from it 
  • It took joey about 2 weeks to really learn how to drink from this and adjust to a different straw (other then his bottle) 
  • I would say have 1
• spoons 
  • We have the munchkin 6 spoon set, easy to clean, they are long which is nice and perfect for pureed foods 
  • Usually spoons come in sets, 1 is plenty 
• metal silverware set 
  • We again have the munchkin one, this one is really good for when you are feeding your baby something that needs to be broken into smaller chunks or actual pieces of food 
  • You only need 1 set 
• self feeding silverware set 
  • We have this plastic set, we went with plastic instead of silicone because I read that it is easier for your baby to actually pick food up with their fork once they get to that point since plastic is a little sharper than silicone 
  • Perfect size for Joey to hold and eventually learn how to eat with silverware 
• high chair
  • We have the chicco one, not my favorite because it’s not the easiest to clean but it does the job! Really any high chair you decide to get works 

Cleaning products:

• We use all dapple soaps/sprays 
  • Dapple dish soap  
  • Dapple all purpose spray (to clean the high chair)
• Munchkin bottle brush (I use it to clean bottles, sippy cups, spoons, bib, etc..) 

Alright you guys, now let me tell you how we went about starting Joey on solids! 

Let me start out by saying, make sure with your pediatrician that it is okay with you to start and also, every baby is different so follow your baby’s cues. Your baby is really smart and knows when they are ready for new things. 

Our pediatrician said we can start introducing foods to Joey at his 4 months check up so that is when we started. 4 months is still usually when you are mostly just giving puress (baby led weaning is more like 6 months) but again always make sure with your doctor, this is just what we were told. Now, I mention baby led weaning. I never took a course on this but I know there are ones out there if you decide to go this route. Personally, we just decided to start with purees at 4 months and then at 6 months we slowly started feeding Joey actual pieces of food. 

4 months

• Joey was only eating solids once a day 

The very first things we ever gave Joey was oatmeal 

• ground up quaker oats, water, a little bit of his formula 
  • (if you breastfeed your baby you can actually prepare the oatmeal with breastmilk instead of water & formula) 

We spoon fed him this and he LOVED it! Joey quickly learned to eat from a spoon. We primarily did just oatmeal for like 2 weeks and then we decided to cook Joey foods and blend them up. 

• They say you should introduce new foods one by one to your baby to watch for any allergic reactions which is what we did for a little while 
  • We would do carrots, broccoli, potatoes, bananas, yogurt, just to name a few
    • (basically anything that you can mash up we started trying with joey)
  • We cooked the foods that needed it and then mashed them up 
    • Our pediatrician told us to not start meats until 9 months because they don’t have the enzymes yet to properly break it down yet but that is the only thing we did not give 

5.5 months 

• Joey was eating solids 2 times a day
• We started trying to use a sippy cup around this time too (like when he was 5 months) 

Once we tried a lot of different foods with him, around 5.5 months we started combining different foods together 

• I came across happy family organics & started getting their pouches 
  • We gave these to Joey in addition to homemade purees  
  • This just made it easier and gave more variety/flavors 
  • They have good ingredients and very minimal preservatives 

6 months 

• Joey was still eating solids 2 times a day 

Now at about 6ish months is when we started giving Joey actual pieces of food. 

• Basically still the same foods he was already eating just not blended up or as mashed 
• This is also when we introduced things like pasta, rice, quinoa, etc… 

Again like I said, I never took a baby led weaning course so I am no expert but I did read different posts and tried to educate myself as much as possible while doing this, to make sure that we were practicing safe feeding.

We quickly noticed that Joey liked to have solid food with puress because it made it easier for him to swallow BUT again you can go down whatever route you choose with your baby. Some stick to purees, some only do baby led weaning, some do a combination (this is what we did because it worked for Joey) 

Some of you might be curious if Joey feeds himself or if we feed him, and the answer to that question in both! Joey actually wasn’t really ready/knew what to do with food until about 7 months old. We would put the food out in front of him but he had trouble grabbing at it and bringing it to his mouth. As of a few weeks, he finally learned to pick up bigger pieces and bite down on them (his 2 teeth made this easier for him too haha) I looked up how to cut certain foods so they are easier for him to hold, which also seems to be helping. I also want to add that you should not stress about feeding your baby or letting them feed themselves (I for sure over thought this, and looking back I don’t know why haha) every baby is different and some take a little longer to learn how to use their hands in this way. Your baby will slowly gain the skills necessary to navigate feeding themselves. Spoon feeding is not a bad thing! We always make sure that during each meal, Joey has big enough things he can hold and practice by himself in addition to spoon feeding him. 

7 months 

• Joey is eating 3 full solid meals a day 
• In addition to 3 smaller bottles a day 

I did a day in our life with Joey on my instagram not too long ago and it is all saved to a highlight if you missed it! I take you through Joey’s day but also show the foods he is eating. At this point, he eats basically everything except meat. We haven’t introduced that yet and probably won’t until around 9 months. 

As always, I hope this was helpful and that you enjoyed reading! Every parent’s journey is different but if this helps/gives even just one mom some ideas, awesome! 

I will link the recent posts that I uploaded which include Joeys current daily routine if you want to see when we incorporate solid foods during the day. I am also currently working on a blog post which will include some meal ideas for babies, so stay tuned for that!

-With love, Kasia