Must have items for weaning?

[Pastaalldaylong]

Hi please could you recommend any of your must have items for once baby starts eating/drinking?

She is EBF at the moment (refuses a bottle!) And I've no idea where to start....I'm thinking things like bibs, cups, high chair...etc? Thanks

Ikea antilop high chair (cheap, easy to clean, easy to transport if needed). Long sleeve bibs. Non spill sippy cup.
Plastic spoons at some point but I started with finger foods and only bothered with spoons when they had more fine motor control

Lots of large, cheap washable fabric bibs. Really you probably can't have too many, they get grotty so quickly & we used to keep the nicer, newer ones for taking out to cafe's etc. Also a couple of the silicone bibs with a sort of "cup" thing built in for catching the inevitable deluge of dropped & dribbled food. To be worn over the fabric bibs.

If you plan to make your own purees etc, some of the freezable mini pots for baby food. I used to make mashed potato, carrot, peas etc in batches, freeze in tiny blocks & turn it out into a box. Easy to mix for different meal options, & convenient for taking out as it lasted ok for a couple of hours in a cool bag as well. (Obviously need a microwave to heat it once you get there.) Ice cube trays would do ok as long as you get lidded ones that are certified BPA free.

I only mention making purees etc as its massively cheaper than buying ready made.

Cheap shower curtain. Put it under the high chair for really messy meals then just shake outside/ into the bin and wipe.

The ikea highchair
A large shower curtain for under the highchair
Bibs with sleeves.

@AwdBovril yes I'd prefer to make them rather than buy. Interesting you mention fabric bibs too, I just assumed the plastic pelicany ones would do? We have a wooden floor that can be wiped but assuming for very messy meals a shower curtain would work well then.
Any recommendations for reading material? Planning on a combination of puree and BLW I think.

Loads of towelling bibs, as pp said keep some as best for eating out. Lots of muslins for covering the child's lap. Bamboo spoons.

I bought a twist and shake mat and bowls and they were so good ds cracked feeding himself really quickly so didn't get much use out of it. The bowls come with lids which is handy. They are very expensive though

The issue with plastic all over bibs is if your child doesn't like them they will work out how to get their arms out of them or do other things you haven't thought of to get food everywhere. Fabric ones go over their heads/go around their necks so don't restrict their arms.

I find the bibs with built in sleeves good, otherwise their top underneath gets food on the arms. Fine in summer if in short sleeves or even naked but at this time of year they’re likely to be wearing long sleeves! That said I’ve struggled to find bibs small enough for my daughter - only jojo and bibetta ones fit her and they’re still large. I bought cheap ones in Aldi and they’re laughable, her arms are only half way down the sleeves, useless. She is very small though.

I also found at 6m the ikea highchair was no good as she was small and not great at sitting and it doesn’t have much support, we ended up buying a more expensive one with shoulder straps etc and it’s much better than the type you get in restaurants.

I found some some weaning spoons have ridiculously long handles and my daughter couldn’t get them to her mouth! The shorter the handle the better.

I recommend the baby led weaning book by gill rapley. I haven’t done purées at all. Frankly I’m lazy and the idea of pureeing and spoon feeding didn’t appeal, and I think those pouches must be bad for the environment as I suspect they’re not recyclable, easily at least. The improvement in my daughters motor skills in the past 6 weeks since we started has been huge, I do think feeding herself has played a big part in this.

Hippychick long sleeve bibs - they only sell online so you'd need to order them. Cuffs are elasticated so it doesn't matter if the arms are too long and they have ribbon ties for around the neck so your daughter can't just rip the bib off. Silicon icecube trays for freezing small portions - I made vats of bolognaise and cauliflower cheese at a time and froze baby sized portions so I'd have a ready supply of quick meals.

I bought an espresso cup specifically for DS rather than going down the sippee cup route, espresso cups are small enough for babies to manage from the start!

Annabel Karmel book is great if you are thinking of combined puree and BLW.

I totally recommend the Tidy tot products. We used the tray table/bib combo but they've got a new bib only version now - worth a look, really lovely products and so useful. Also love the Babycup ('Babycup first cup'), really tiny open cup, looks very small but makes sense when you see it being used - lots of other cups are closer to adult-size cups in comparison. Seen good reviews for it from EBF and from bottle refusal too. Gill Rapley books are great. Kokoso products are lovely for washing foody faces (and for bath time) - so gorgeous. Best wishes for weaning adventures

Not sure if it's just the ones we got that were rubbish, but I found that the bibs with velcro fastening didnt last long as the velcro sort of wore out and stopped sticking (if you see what I mean) and DS was able to easily pull them off. Now we have bibs that fix with poppers or the fabric ones with a hole you just pop over their head.

I hardly used bibs. I just stripped him off and then cleaned him up with a damp flannel.

BLW.

We used a shower curtain and one of those dining chair harnesses and that was it. Gave her what we had. Easy.

Hand blender for making purees (personally I wouldnt bother with an expensive "baby food blender", a stick blender for a tenner in sainsburys was perfectly adequate)

The Ella's kitchen purple book had lots of good recipes including times for cooking various fruit and veg purees, a weaning timeline, sticker chart etc.

Silicon plate with little sections so the food didnt get spread all over the high chair and was harder to throw on the ground compared to a plate

@Pastaalldaylong - Gill Rapley, Tracey Murkett wrote a wonderful Baby Led Weaning book (buy second hand from eBay or borrow library), I loved it, it was so helpful cos it explains really simply how it works, about the gag reflexes and why it empowers your kids to feed themselves. It also helps loads, as it hammers home the - food before 1 is just for fun! and so I never stressed about how much my kids ate and mealtimes never became a battle ground. It is also cheaper than puree and less waste and made my son super un-fussy (until he turned 2 and is in an anti green veg phase!) but that was a great 18 month run !!

I bought a bamboo bowl / spoon - bowl stuck to tray / table - and while this one is dishwasher safe, I just washed by hand cos so easy and then used every meal. Bottom comes off as they get older, so can keep using.

Dont get me wrong BLW is messy but when you have so much more stuff to worry about - don't make food a worry! Good luck !

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