Eating Essentials

A good high chair:

I use the Fisher price 4-in-one high chair, which honestly, didn't really meet up to it's price. I'd just go with a comfortable high chair instead. Maybe the other basic fisher price high chair or the space saver high chair from walmart.

Many bibs OR one kangaroo bib.

I love my kangaroo bib. I was getting sick and tired the many cloth bibs that were getting very dirty every time i'd feed hayaa. Hayaa did have to get used to it the first two times she ate, but it made my clean up much easier.

Food!

If you're giving the jar foods, I like the hienz organic little baby jars. Even though they are smaller, Hayaa actually likes eating them better. They have more variety as well. Her favorite is the apple, banana and oatmeal.

I'm going to try making my own food soon, this site has pretty cool recipes:

A spoon

I use the nuby spoons because I purchased them thinking the thermal colour changing is cool, but it doesn't really help much. It's better to buy sometime more flatter. Even a basic spoon will do, but get extra spoons for traveling, and some extra for home, in case one is dirty or gets lost.

Cereal/ finger food

We got Hayaa three types of finger food, the biscuit was good when she was younger, but now she doesn't like the taste of it. We got the baby graduates strawberry and apple and cheese puffs.. but she actually just prefers me to give her cheerios then anything else.
When she wants to take a break from the food, i pop a cheerio in her mouth, until she feels ready to eat again.

Water

Some water in her bottle really helps me while feeding. Sometimes she closes her mouth and doesn't want to eat, so I give her the water and she realizes that she's actually thirsty. After she drinks some water, she's ready to eat the food again.

A plastic toy

A toy will distract your toddler while eating, but make sure it's plastic so you can wash it later. If it's a soft toy, you'll have trouble when washing it.

A bowl

Needed especially if you make your own food. You should be taking out the jar food into a bowl anyway, but if laziness gets the better of you, sometimes you may just feed the baby from the jar. It really doesn't do anything if the jars are small and baby eats most of the food at that feeding time, but if the jars are larger, you should take some out and put the rest in the fridge. It's not good to keep heating the food and not using it right away.

7 month crazies

Hayya is a week short of 8 months now and masha'Allah she's quite a fast bloomer. She sits and crawls comfortably and even holds the sofa and picks herself up to stand. She's also quite active, which is good most times but there are days when she really tires me out.

On the down side, 7-8 months mean teething and separation anxiety and this month, the combination of the two has Hayaa acting up a lot. And the days when i'd be fasting, due to ramadan, i can't do anything except be with her all day :( She's a bit better now, but for a few weeks ago, every time i put her down, she'd start to cry. Today she really tested my patience and started to screech and scream at the top of her lungs. I couldn't take it any more, I called husband and broke down. Then I realized that perhaps nursing is not enough, maybe because she's either growing or because it's gotten less due to fasting, she needs more. I fed her food, changed her diaper then tried putting her to sleep, and alhamdulillah, she's now fast asleep.

When Hayaa was a baby, feeding her wasn't a big deal. There are no messes, it's quick, handy and i can give it whereever i am.. and she would fall asleep fast as soon as i did. Now, I have to give her food and it's messy, sometimes i have to make it, sometimes she's fussy to eat it, it takes a long time and then i have to spend another half hour or so putting her to sleep. but the silver lining now is that at times, when i can't take it any more, i can just hand her to husband or someone else and they can feed her and put her to sleep.. I don't necessarily have to do everything.

So there, every age has it's good times and bad.