What stuff do you really need for weaning / feeding?

[aliceemma]

Baby catalogues / shops seem full of all sorts of stuff for weaning & feeding - but what's actually useful / needed out of all of these?

High chair
Weaning spoons
Bowls
Travel bowl & spoon
Beakers
Booster chair
Bibs
Sleeved Bibs
Steamer / blender
Safe feeder
Pocket highchair
Hand food masher
Place mats
Splash mats
Snack tubs

Did anyone discover any great gadgets they would definitely recommend or anything completely hopeless to avoid?

High chair
Spoons
Plastic bowls / cups / plates
Bibs
Place mats
Tuperware / ice-cubes / blender if you are doing puree

Never used booster chair or pocket highchair

Hand food masher = a fork

Splash mats useful if you have carpet or floor you'd like to protect. We have wooden floors that were easy to brush / mop.

I recommend ikea for highchair / plastic bowls, plates, cups, spoons, bibs - well designed and cheap

BLW. Old flannels for wiping up, sheet/ plastic mat for floor. Highchair (or bumbo and tray in my case as DD very small). Tupperware for leftovers. Long sleeved bibs.

We did BLW and needed -
Highchair
Sleeved bibs
Plastic sheet for floor (i had several cheap plastic tablecloths so was easy to chuck in the wash at the end of the day and have a clean one available)
Beaker

Have bought other bits later on as we needed them eg these mats were great, especially when eating out and have recently bought a booster seat, but would only buy the bare essentials to start with and then see what you find you need as you go on.

High chair - used the cheap ikea one for ds as the big bulky one from dd was a pain

Weaning spoons - used them for a while and then just used teaspoons

Bowls - had bowls from dd that I reused for ds (still use them for fruit snacks now)

Travel bowl & spoon - did use occasionally but you could take any lidded tub and a teaspoon and it would do the same job

Beakers - tommee tippee first cup is ideal as a first cup. DD and ds both used them from around 6/7 months for water along with food. Also used avent magic cup and cow patterned cup for milk.

Booster chair - used instead of a highchair at home from the age of 18 months.

Bibs - tommee tippee roll up bibs with a scoop bit to catch food were handy.

Sleeved Bibs - never used

Steamer / blender - used the existing steamer that sits on the hob. Used a cheap hand blender.

Safe feeder - bit pointless!!

Pocket highchair - never used

Hand food masher - fork or ordinary masher will do

Place mats - never used

Splash mats - essential under the highchair especially as we have a carpeted dining room!!

Snack tubs - had a snack trap for dd that got reused for a short while with ds.