The best baby products when starting with solids

Another milestone! You started to feed your baby with solids. It is exciting but can also get scary. There is so much to learn and there are so many baby products when starting with solids. But which ones can really ease the introduction to solids a little bit?

In this post I am telling you the best baby products when starting with solids for me.

It is great to see our little ones getting bigger and doing new things everyday. But this time is something bigger – our baby is getting solids. You read some information about what to feed your baby, how you should cook it, and so on. But there are so many related products, which ones are really needed?

We didn’t buy everything at once, instead we decided to get the products as we go and the need appears. That was a good choice because we just bought exactly what we really needed but we were some days (or weeks) without a specific product that had really eased our life.

Here is my list of MUST baby products when starting with solids. Some allowed me to do everything faster, to proper store, or to easier feed him even when we were outside.

1. Thermos

2. Bibs

A bib is something you know you need, maybe you even have received some already as a present.

We have three types of bibs and we use all of them. The little triangles are very useful for our baby not to get all wet when he is drinking, on top of that goes a “eating bib”:

3. Baby spoon

As a mother you want to get the best materials to put inside your baby’s mouth. Maybe you read already something about silver cutlery. It is known to be cleaner because it just needs a warm water wash to be bacteria-free. However we decided to try the bamboo and plastic options. Here our experience:

4. Baby bowl

5. Baby bottle and/or cup

You will need it so your baby gets as much water as he/she needs. There are so many options. If you have been feeding your baby milk from a baby bottle you know already what would be most likely for him/her to accept.

Usually the first choices are baby bottles which the teat is similar to the breasts as the phillips avent natural or the medela calma.

But maybe you want to go already for something more “in-between” a baby bottle and a cup, as the maginal cup from Nuk, or actually already a cup as the munchkin Miracle 360 Sippy Cup. All options are appropriate if your baby is getting along with it.

6. Freezer trays for baby food

I guess not everyone is freezing baby food, we do it and I am happy that we don’t have to cook every two days (because cooked meals can be stored for one day in the fridge). But I totally understand if you prefer to cook for your baby and do not want to give him/her thawed food.

We decided to buy this tray, specifically for baby food. It is BPS free and approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). I guess you could buy another tray but usually the volume per cavity is too small. This one can fit around 53 ml per cavity.

I confess that it is not always easy to take the frozen food out of the tray. I believe that you have to position your hand and finger in a specific way. It always worked for me, but sometimes I had to push harder.

Another feature that is very important for us in a freezer tray is a cover. It assures a better storage and allows you to stack trays or other containers on top of your baby’s food tray.

7. Small pot

One of my best purchases in terms of baby products when starting with solids was a small pot. I am very happy with the one from WMF that we purchased. I actually would like to have two of them because I am using it so often that there is no time to wait for the dishwasher and I have to wash it by hand four times a day.

The other feature that I think would have been nice is a lid for the pot. Specially when cooking whole-grain rice. Here is an example of a pot with lid from WMF.

8. Cooking machine for baby meals

Some of you might be thinking that this is an absolutely superfluous item, that you can perfectly cook your baby’s meals with a pot. And you are somehow right, however steam cooking preserves nutrients better than cooking in water. Again, you can steam cook using a steam pot or a pot with a steam supplement. But these machines do that, and blend also, all in one recipient, so you don’t have to clean that much after cooking.

We bought the Phillips Avent 2-in-1 in second hand, and it was one of our best purchases. I used it so many times and now I could’t imagine doing all those meals without it. My mother-in-law has a normal cooking machine, a Thermomix, and she even told me that she would have bought the Phillips Avent 2-in-1 anyways.

There is a new Phillips Avent 4 in 1 which you can use to steam cook, blend, defrost and reheat all your baby’s home made meals. Béaba has also a known steam cooker and blender machine and parents who have it are very happy. Some brands, like QOOC have a small baby food maker, which is perfect for traveling. You just have to see which one fits more to your needs.

9. Eating seat/chair for babies

You can start by feeding your baby in your lap or someone else’s lap and sitting in front of him/her, but that will turn to be too exhausting. At some point you will need a baby high chair or a seat adjustable to an adult chair.

We have the Cybex Lemo system which we used before with a bouncer and now with the baby chair. Check my opinion together with all the pros and cons of the cybex lemo seating system with a bouncer on my Youtube channel.

Another good option is a baby seat, adjustable to a normal adult chair. Here is an example of those, the Chicco upto5 Graphite:

Because we went to restaurants or family members houses which have other seating chairs and we tried them with our little lion, I put together here the four top chairs we have ever used:

I really hope this post helped you to ease your little ones first meals!