Best items to have on hand for infant feeding

Whether your grands start with purees or your kids want to try the baby-led-weaning approach that is popular now, you'll need a few items on hand as the littles start to experiment with food. Here are the things I stocked in my cabinet when mine began solids, around 6 months. (And yes, there are affiliate links with some of these items!)

There are so many highchairs to choose from, and really you just have to think about where you're going to place it, and if you can leave it out all the time or if you need to store it away when the kids aren't there. I leave mine out all the time: And I have a friend who has this folding one that she puts away in her laundry room when it's not in use:

I love these suction cup bowls and these silicone spoons. And what I ended up doing was tethering the spoon to the highchair so it wouldn't keep landing on the floor! All dishwasher safe! As they got further along into self-feeding instead of the purees, I used these suction cup plates.

I do love these silicone bibs that catch all of the things that don't actually make it to their mouth:) These mealtimes are SO messy while they are learning how to eat, and I'm not sure if I'll ever go back to a "regular" bib now.

Cups--where to start? Should they learn from a spout or a straw first? Should they just go ahead and begin with a normal cup with no lid? Well, no strong opinions here--I just got what my kids said they would like to introduce first to the grands. So we started with a straw cup and then taught a spout cup.

And food itself--we made some of our own with this Baby Brezza baby food maker--it steams and blends all in one, and from there you can store the food in pouches or jars. You can even adjust the blending level, if you want a really smooth puree or leave it a little chunky when they are ready for that. During the weeks that we didn't have the right produce on hand, or maybe time to make the food, we did keep a small stash of BeechNut, Once Upon a Farm, Serenity Kids, and Plum Organics jars and pouches to use. We liked the ingredients--nothing added, just the fruit or vegetable or meat! It took mine a little while to get used to sucking out of a pouch, but eventually that worked and so it was pretty nice to take those on-the-go. I also found these Happy Teether teething crackers and these Little Spoon rings and I would offer those at the end of the meal while I was cleaning up the bowls and spoons and the FLOOR:)