Hello, it’s been a while! Not sure why I haven’t blogged for such a long time, I guess it’s like when you stop going to the gym one week and get used to, you know, not.
Well I’m back, so here we go.
I thought I would continue my series of top things for babies, this time the topic being food!
Note: the title says “mummum” as they babies say that in India for food and is pretty much the only word Zeff says when running around the house.
Right, let’s take this back a few months to feeding the milk monster…
7. Thermos flask
I’m going to assume you have already thought about getting a bottle for milk! Obviously if you can, you will be a mummy and have convenient portable milk bottles ;), but if you can’t or are a Daddy, then you’ll be needing to feed your little one with bottles.
I won’t go into which bottle to buy, but just suggest you try a few if you can afford it. Every baby seems to prefer a different one. In another blog I’ll rant about Como Tomo bottles which we use… But not here.
So why a thermos flask? Am I suggesting you give your baby a coffee?
If your baby is like Zeff, you will need to warm the milk up to body temperature or face a look which suggests you are trying to poison him.
Normally you will be in a café where the staff would be happy to give you a cup of hot water to warm your bottle in, but sometimes you’re not (you may have been adventurous and gone to the park). And sometimes they think an espresso cup will fit your bottle and the baby is screaming and you’re British so can’t possibly complain or ask again for a bigger cup! In times like these having some hot water to hand is a life saver.
I also recommend finding a plastic tub or pot (soup pots work well) to bring with you too to perfectly fit your bottle into.
8. Tommee tippee perfect prep
When transitioning to formula I asked my friend how to make it, and his advice was:
1. Buy a perfect prep
2. Make the milk
And he wasn’t wrong! The perfect prep is awesome. With two simple pushes of a button and a frantic shaking in between, you will have milk made at the perfect temperature.
No faff of boiling a kettle and waiting the exact amount of time for it to cool down, just beep, shake, beep, feed.
Extra top tip 1: don’t buy this at full price! It’s very expensive (£100+). Find a local Facebook group or car boot or eBay or gumtree and buy it for £10-20 there. Or get a friend to loan you one like I did. You can clean it and put your own filter in, it doesn’t need to be new!
Eg on ebay
Extra top tip 2: the problem with this machine is that it’s magic and you won’t know how to make milk without it. Problematic for holidays…. So:
1. I recommend buying a few pre made bottles. For at least the flights etc where you can’t get to a kettle. They’re about twice the price of powder.
2. These steps are pretty much the same:
a. pre boil a load of water in advance and leave to cool. We left this over night in sealed bottles.
b. When making, boil a little bit of water (about 30ml for a 180ml bottle) and mix the powder in that
c. Use the cooled pre boiled water to make it up to the full amount.
d. Revel in your new found chemistry skills as it’s the perfect temperature.
9. Don’t buy a sterilising machine
Seriously. All a sterilising machine does is boil water. Spoiler alert: Boiling water is not hard to do. We have a Tommee Tippee box given to us, which is literally a plastic tub with a lid and small hole in the lid. Put a bit of water in that, whack in the microwave for a few minutes, sterilising done. If that is too expensive, then any equivalent microwaveable box would be the same.
This box comes with the manual pump kit: Asda
Or a pan. Pans can boil water too, but a little slower.You don’t need the bulky expensive machine to boil water for you. Trust me.
10. Bamboo bamboo bowls
Now our little monster is eating adult food (and I do recommend baby led weaning and saying no to purées (NHS advice too if you don’t believe me)), you will need to get a bowl.
At first (and still now for us) you will want a bowl that sticks to the table. Unless you enjoy picking up a bowl many many times.We’ve tried a few bowls which pretend to stick. Most don’t. Tommee Tippee did not, despite the price. Supermarket brands don’t even try.The only one we have found which lives up to its description is the bamboo bamboo bowl. Yes it’s expensive for a bowl. And yes your baby will still manage to lift it up somehow. But it does give you a few precious moments of a bowl firmly stuck to a table. And is pretty too.
11. BIBaDoo bibs
At the beginning of feeding there will be mess. So much mess. More mess than you can imagine. More mess than you have food in the house. Their clothes are doomed.
At least they were until we bought a BIBaDoo bib.
All I will say is: he ate soup, his clothes were spotless. A miracle.
Note: now we use this pelican bib. Cheap, wipe clean and a big catchy thing. Best we’ve seen, but no idea where we bought it I’m afraid! Maybe savers… It was only £2 or so 🙂
That’ll do for now I think. Until next time!
Disclaimer: Please read my Parental Disclaimer before applying any of my advice or ramblings to your child.
Daddy Coder 