BabaBooty.comFab finds for funky tots

We are in full weaning mode here at the minute, with Mr Mirth happily munching his way through a variety of fruit and vegetables. When shopping for some weaning bits and pieces, I came across the Beaba Mulit-Portion freezer trays and I’m a big fan.

These silicone freezer trays have been specially designed for refrigerating baby meals and I reckon they do a really great job. Each tray contains seven 60ml / 20z tubs which you can fill with whatever puree you have prepared for your baba, then you simply put on the lid and stick it into the freezer. Once the puree portions are frozen, you simply pop each one into a freezer bag and you have an easily accessible stash of baby food.

Freezer trays for baby food aren’t new but, for me, two things make this one so superior to the others that I have tried:

First, the frozen purees are so easy to get out of the tray – the silicone construction means each serving can be plunged out with very little effort and conveniently stored in a freezer bag.

Second, the portion sizes are much bigger than other trays I’ve tried. This means that at the start of weaning, you can make small portions but as your baba’s appetite grows, you can increase the size of the portions without having to use more and more trays.

At around €12-14 per tray, these are not cheap but I was lucky enough to find a 3 for 2 option so I can make enough purees for 21 days at a time. My freezer is currently chock full of freezer bags filled with various purees which saves me lots of time and makes my life so much easier, you can’t ask more than that from a piece of silicone !!

I am also confident that I will get use out out of these trays long after weaning, I can see myself using them to freeze things like left-over wine that can be used later for cooking, making individual desserts like panna cotta or even jelly or adding a few sticks and making some home-made  lollipops.

There are a couple of things in our changing bag which have made it a lot easier to be out and about with Lollipop since she started eating solids. I’ve been meaning to post about them for a while now so here goes:

Lollipop eats her lunch and tea earlier than us. Obviously, when we are at home, that presents no problems. But when we are out and about, it would be a real pain to have to bring the troops home early to feed our little lady.  So, I had a look around at what was available to facilitate on the move feeding and I found the Chicco thermal flask.

This stainless steel flask allows you to keep your baba’s food warm when you are on the move. The flask comes with two 250 ml containers which are plenty big for storing complete meals and the flask stays hot for five hours. So you just heat up your baba’s meal before you go out, seal it in one of the pots, pop it into the flask and off you go! A yummy hot meal will be ready whenever that little tummy starts to rumble.  You don’t even need a bowl as you can feed your baba directly from the pot. The flask can also be used on its own to carry hot or cold drinks so it has a long life after baby lunches. This is a fab bit of kit and I use mine all the time. This flask isn’t easy to find but I got mine from an Italian site called Bimbo Market . The good news is the flask costs just €19.90, the bad news is that the standard delivery cost is pretty big  (a hefty €24.90!!) so I’d recommend  getting a few things at the same time to make it more economical (don’t worry….there’s lots of good stuff on this site).

The other thing that I find really useful is the Annabel Karmel Lindam Cutlery Case.

This little red case is BPA Free and can store two spoons (or one spoon and something called a Foon…a find of fork/spoon hybrid….I’m not convinced!). Obviously you don’t need a cutlery case but I find it really convenient as it keeps the cutlery clean, in one place and easy to find in the bottomless pit that is my changing bag. A word of warning though, the case only fits the smaller of the Annabel Karmel cutlery which is pictured above (not the first stage weaning spoons) and may also be too small for many other cutlery ranges. Since the Annabel Karmel cutlery isn’t expensive I just bought a set when I bought the case.  The case costs £2.49 and the small cutlery set costs £2.29. Both are dishwasher and steriliser safe.

Throw in a bib, a couple of muslins  (check out these funky pink and blue sets from Ikea) or a pack of wipes and your baba is ready to dine anywhere !

As I’ve mentioned recently, over the last six weeks I have been weaning Lollipop onto a bottle. While she is now very happily feeding from her bottle, the journey from breast to bottle was not always a smooth one.

When Mr Moo was born, I had read a little too much about breastfeeding and was so worried about ‘nipple confusion’ that I waited too long to give him a bottle. By the time I tried it, he was a very determined little man who was very clear about what he liked and he didn’t like bottles !!   We went through a very difficult period with me trying a variety of bottles and methods while Mr Moo glared at me tight-lipped and furious. Eventually, having spent a lot of time researching this issue on the web, I ordered some very unusual looking bottles called: the Adiri Natural Nurser.

This bottle is designed to resemble a mother’s breast, so that the bottle feed is almost like nursing. Its so easy to use, is soft and is BPA free so I was thrilled when Mr Moo took to it straight away. I couldn’t  believe my luck. The Nurser comes in three different flow sizes and we used these bottles right up to the time when Mr Moo abandoned bottles altogether when he reached one. ( For more information about the Adiri Natural Nurser, click here.) I recommended the Nurser to lots of people with great success and thought that I would use it for all the children I might be lucky enough to have.

So there I was, MammyMcSmug, popping a Nurser into Lollipop’s mouth expecting everything to go swimmingly….well it didn’t. While she didn’t create the fuss her brother had done when a bottle was first given to him, it was obvious that she didn’t like it. The most she would take from the bottle was 1 to 2 ozs and even then she looked like she was only doing it because she was feeling sorry for me.

Having eventually succeeded with Mr Moo, I knew that the right bottle was out there, I just had to find it. My sister recommended the Haberman Special Feeder which is now called the Medela Special Feeder. She’d seen Tracy Hogg use it on an episode of The Baby Whisperer and had used it successfully with Little T.

These bottles were designed for babies with special feeding needs (like a cleft pallet or Downs Syndrome) but are also recommended for breast fed babies (for some more info on the science behind them click here.)

So I ordered some of them and Lollipop gobbled up the first 3ozs that I gave her using it (why do my children only like the odd looking bottles?). We gradually built up the amounts and once she was happily taking over 6ozs we switched to a Nuk bottle which (hurrah) looks normal and was more easy to use (the Special Feeder has a very narrow neck which made it difficult to get the scoops of formula in without serious spillage).

So I guess every child is different and although trying to get your baby to take a bottle can be really very stressful, it always works out, you just have to find the right bottle for the right baba.

There are some bits of baby equipment that, as an over cautious first time mum, you think you will need, you buy , you use a couple of times and then you pack up for the attic. These are the things which do not make it down from the attic when baby number two comes along.

The My Breast Friend feeding cushion is not one of those things.

I had read about this cushion before Mr Moo was born and when he arrived three weeks early, Mr Mcspendy was dispatched on an emergency mission to buy one for me. I used it constantly when feeding Mr Moo and when Lollipop arrived, it was the first thing taken down from the attic. It really is a fantastic cushion for supporting the baby, easing the pressure on your back, helping your posture and for allowing you to feed ‘hands-free’ (so you can eat, read or surf).  It is also very good if you have had a C-section because it keeps the pressure off your stiches. It has a removeable cover which can be machine washed and has a handy pocket which I have used for everything from muslins and lanolin cream to snacks and my Nintendo DS (which kept me sane and awake during those night feeds).

The only negative thing that I can think to say about this product is how odd I look when I’m wearing it (‘wearing’ probably isn’t the correct word to use but it describes it best!). It looks like a strange kind of rigid tutu but looking like a frumpy ballerina is worth it, trust me. But don’t just take my word for it, this cushion was voted Best Breastfeeding Product in the 2007 Mother & Baby Awards.

If you are expecting twins, there is a new cushion which has been specially designed for feeding both babies at once!!!