My youngest is so different from my older two children.
He, for the most part is laid-back and easy going, except when it comes to one thing.
FOOD.
He can be the most content baby, but when the air shifts, the tension becomes almost palatable. As the winds rise, he would start to mutate the jolly baby face into one of monstrous wrath. These signs would mean that we were 3.2 seconds away from a temper tantrum and victuals would need to be located for him ASAP.
He eats with gust,o and it is amazing that he is right on target for weight. However, food always has been a constant battle between him and myself. When he was just starting table food, his biggest complaint was that I could not spoon it into his mouth fast enough.
We developed an uneasy rhythm.
Spoon, Gulp, Scream
Spoon, Gulp, Scream
Feeding him an entire jar of baby food (no joke) took maybe five minutes. And heaven forbid, I didn't grab two jars on a day when he was feeling particularly hungry. But screaming, you know, is all a part of this joyous journey of growth call parent
The real struggle was not known until he figured out that he could control his hands. At which point he thought he would be more capable than me to shovel food into his mouth.
Now feeding time became a nightly wrestling ritual. Who would maintain control over the spoon? Feeding grew more arduous for both him and myself, as well as becoming much more messy as he tried to show me that he could do it. I became formally introduced and treated nightly to the baby food facial.
Then I found a saving grace. I found these little pouches filled with baby food.
I could just take off the cap and hand it to him. Little mess for me, no fuss from him. Nick loved them. He could now feed himself at his own pace and I could finally breath a sigh of relief.
But as the nights of quiet feeding passed, I began to realize that each individual pouch was expensive, and I still had quite a few jars of traditionally packed baby food.
But I could not go back to the way it was before. I began to look for alternatives and low and behold I found them from a company called Squooshi
.
Squooshi makes these little reusable baby food pouches. They remind me of little zip-top bags with a spout.
I was so excited to try these little things out. When they arrived I immediately pulled them out and started trying to fill one up. I looked over the little slip of paper that came with it, and followed the instructions. I opened the zipped end and started spooning the food in.
(Whoops! Forgot to put the cap on the spout and now there is baby food dripping off the counter and onto my shoes.) So I put the cap on and tried again.
It was a huge mess.
The opening is rather small and in the process of spooning the baby food into the pouch about half of it gets on the outside of it and on your hand. Then you have to try to close the zip top which squishes out even more of the baby food. (Maybe that is why they call them the Squooshi)
Even though they were a mess, Nick loved them. Feeding time was no longer a battle of the wills. He developed a sense of pride that you could see beaming from his happy face.
I kept using the Squooshi pouches for that reason alone, and I did eventually devise a system that made filling the pouches faster and mess free. Here is where I will share this secret with you to save you time and a mess: I learned to forget about the ziptop as far as filling goes and just to use them for cleaning. I took a cupcake filling injector, loaded it up with the baby food and then injected the baby food directly through the spout.
TaDa! After mixing up a batch of baby food and loading it in to the cupcake filling injector (the one I have and the one shown are Wilton
-branded), I could fill half a dozen of these Squooshi pouches in as little as 5 minutes.Thank you for staying with me through the entire Feeding Frenzy.
Comments and Suggestions are always welcome!
