Feeding your crew
Gear. Gear is our favorite. Fun to research. Fun to buy. And so fun to pass along to next person when you’re done. We are both addicted to gear. Food gear is no exception. Though not quite as fun as strollers. We will save you the time of wondering what to do about a second high chair. Once your first child is able to sit up well, a $20 booster seat is all he needs. So put the high chair away until your second child needs it and get yourself a booster seat. In fact, Cara even says you can skip the high chair entirely and just buy a second booster. Linda would disagree on this matter since her daughter took so long to eat that it was easier to stick her in a chair since it was sometimes an hour of sitting/feeding. She says that if you want to purge your plush high chair because it’s just too much to clean and move around, the Ikea plastic high chair for around $20 is a great purchase because you can take it outside and literally hose the spaghetti off of it.
If you’re still using the high chair and want to prolong the purchase of a booster, the bouncy works great for when the baby is moving to solids, provided the incline is high enough. Park your Baby in the bouncy, Toddler in the high chair, and serve up the Moveable Feast (you know by know that Baby’s food will be on his shirt and Toddler’s will be on the floor).
Boob gear is, of course, determined by nature. Bottle gear is determined by your little one’s preferences – sometimes you have to try different nipples/bottles to see which ones your baby will accept. Start with any recycled brands you have left over from #1 and progress to other brands (just buy 1 until you’re sure the new brand is a fit!) until you find a match.
We did find, if you are pumping, that Avent makes a nice system of bottles, freezer cups, and disposable bottles that are interchangeable and easy to use/re-use/toss.
As you may know by now, the only thing that multiplies faster than rabbits are sippy cups. Many a husband has been known to run screaming from the kitchen in frustration after being attacked by the “sippy cup museum” – the cabinet of 100 different types of mismatched sippys and lids. Find a brand you like, stick with it, and buy lots so when lids get lost or melt in the dishwasher, the bottom isn’t useless because it can be matched with others in the museum. Even better, when #2 was born Cara moved exclusively to Take N Toss disposable sippys when she left the house. This way she wasn’t spending a fortune replacing lost sippys because she was too frazzled to keep track of two children and their respective drinking paraphernalia.
You will go through more bibs than diapers, believe it or not. After 6 months of trial and error and a lot of laundry and tossed skanky bibs, Cara recommends the soft plastic bibs with adjustable necks that have a well that curves out at the bottom. These wonderful inventions can be rinsed off with a sponge or tossed on the top shelf of your dishwasher when they get really gross! They have no trim or plastic pockets, so they get nice and clean very easily! A friend with an older child gave Cara one of these at a baby shower for #1 and told her it was the best invention ever, but she ignored the advice and rediscovered it the hard way – don’t make the same mistake!
If you’re still using the high chair and want to prolong the purchase of a booster, the bouncy works great for when the baby is moving to solids, provided the incline is high enough. Park your Baby in the bouncy, Toddler in the high chair, and serve up the Moveable Feast (you know by know that Baby’s food will be on his shirt and Toddler’s will be on the floor).
Boob gear is, of course, determined by nature. Bottle gear is determined by your little one’s preferences – sometimes you have to try different nipples/bottles to see which ones your baby will accept. Start with any recycled brands you have left over from #1 and progress to other brands (just buy 1 until you’re sure the new brand is a fit!) until you find a match.
We did find, if you are pumping, that Avent makes a nice system of bottles, freezer cups, and disposable bottles that are interchangeable and easy to use/re-use/toss.
As you may know by now, the only thing that multiplies faster than rabbits are sippy cups. Many a husband has been known to run screaming from the kitchen in frustration after being attacked by the “sippy cup museum” – the cabinet of 100 different types of mismatched sippys and lids. Find a brand you like, stick with it, and buy lots so when lids get lost or melt in the dishwasher, the bottom isn’t useless because it can be matched with others in the museum. Even better, when #2 was born Cara moved exclusively to Take N Toss disposable sippys when she left the house. This way she wasn’t spending a fortune replacing lost sippys because she was too frazzled to keep track of two children and their respective drinking paraphernalia.
You will go through more bibs than diapers, believe it or not. After 6 months of trial and error and a lot of laundry and tossed skanky bibs, Cara recommends the soft plastic bibs with adjustable necks that have a well that curves out at the bottom. These wonderful inventions can be rinsed off with a sponge or tossed on the top shelf of your dishwasher when they get really gross! They have no trim or plastic pockets, so they get nice and clean very easily! A friend with an older child gave Cara one of these at a baby shower for #1 and told her it was the best invention ever, but she ignored the advice and rediscovered it the hard way – don’t make the same mistake!
