Family Feeding Gift Guide: Katie's BLW Gift Picks

Katie Ferraro (0s):

Can we be honest, most babies are good on onesies and baby blankets, but when it comes time for them to start solid foods, they don't have any gear to get a safe start to solid foods. If you're in the market for some family feeding gift ideas, this is the episode for you. Hey, there I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietitian, college nutrition, professor and mama seven specializing in baby led weaning here on the Baby Led Weaning Made Easy podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the competence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (42s):

Hey guys, welcome back. Maybe you're taking a short little shopping break to listen to this. It is full-blown holiday shopping season, and I know like everyone else, you are being inundated with ideas about gifts, but I don't know about you. I get tired of onesies and blankets and toys with a million pieces. I love giving and receiving feeding related gifts. So today's episode, I'm going to run you through some of my favorite family feeding gift ideas. If you've got a little one in your life to buy for a baby, who's maybe becoming a toddler. If you need an idea for someone in your life who feeds the kids in your family, I hope you liked some of these ideas in the family feeding gift guide here on the baby led weaning made easy podcast.

Katie Ferraro (1m 23s):

Now I know a podcast might not be the best platform for a gift guide, cause you're like, I want to see what these look like and then click the link to see where I can buy them and what the deal is. So I want to let you know that everything in today's episode, I'm going to link up in the show notes for this podcast episode at blwpodcast.com/78. I just did a huge blowout on my blog with tons of pictures and links. And I'm going to link to that. It's a family feeding gift guide, but I just want to run you through some ideas if you're like in the car running around or more likely if you're at home trying not to be in the car, running around. And you're thinking about some ideas for the holidays. I like to split up my gift guide in ages and stages.

Katie Ferraro (2m 6s):

So I'm going to do a quick rundown of what you can buy to get ready for feeding. If you have a baby who is in the zero to six month mark, and then what you might need for babies who are going to be six to 12 months, sometimes sooner right now than what changes at 12 months. And then I've got a couple of ideas for you guys as parents and caregivers. That's somewhat related defeating adult food stuff too. So here it goes. All right, for babies who are zero to six months of age, of course we don't need to feed anything except breast milk or formula up until the time they're six months of age plus showing the other signs of readiness to feed. But I know some of you guys are planners. So I think it's a good idea to invest in a high quality high chair.

Katie Ferraro (2m 47s):

Now we've done a lot of content on choosing highchairs. There's lots of great ones out there. What I would recommend when you're looking for a high chair though, is a lot of you might've gotten high chairs for baby showers or hand-me-downs, and they're not going to have an foot rest. If your baby's high chair doesn't have an adjustable foot rest, you've got to find a way to kind of rig it so that either pulling a chair in or stacking stuff. So baby's feet can be resting flat on a surface, preferably a foot rest, but any other makeshift surface will do. So when it comes to high chairs, a lot of people are like, Ooh, I need to return the one I got for my shower. It's fine. I do suggest making an investment in a highchair that will grow with your child. So adjustable foot rest is key. Something that grows with the baby into toddlerhood, even adolescents is wonderful.

Katie Ferraro (3m 30s):

And then also I like an option where you don't have to feed with the tray. You can get a tray if you want, but you can pull the baby up to the table. So in my holiday gift guide, I have two high chairs that I recommend. These are the two that I use both in my family and in my baby feeding practice, I recommend the Stokke Trip Trapp high chair, and then the Nomi high chair. So both were designed by the same designer. I'm actually having a representative from his team, come and talk to us about high chair safety on an episode really soon. But the Stokke has been around since 1972, the Nomi high chair, which is kind of a more modern version from the same designer. That's much newer. I like both of those. I would say maybe the benefit to the Stokke Trip Trap is that it's been around for longer in that you can get it used.

Katie Ferraro (4m 11s):

I always get mine on Craigslist. I have seven of these for my seven kids. I got most of them on Craigslist for about nine $80. New, there are 300 or $350. Again, certainly an investment. The Nomi high chair, there is that much, if not, maybe a little bit more it's much newer. So you can't find them used as frequently. But with the Nomi, there's a lot of options to customize to get the color you want and the wood, the color you want. So it's kind of a more modern looking high chair. And again, I'm going to link all of these out in the show notes for this episode at blwpodcast.com forward slash seven. If you're balking at the price of a high chair, I oftentimes remind parents that they paid sometimes two to three times as much for a stroller that they use hardly at all, compared to a high chair that you're going to use three times a day for at least the next decade.

Katie Ferraro (4m 56s):

So it is worth putting some money into getting a chair that you like. And one that is safe, the Stokke trip trap and the Nomi high chair. Two of my favorites when it comes to portable highchairs, I think if you travel, I love having a portable booster that book down as close to flat as possible. The one that I, I really like is called the Bombol B O M B O L. It's a portable booster. It's kind of like an origami style one and they have a special going on for Black Friday. If you're listening to this any time between November 25th in November 30th, if you use the code, Katie 10, you can get 10% off. So I'll link to that. Bumble booster blwpodcast.com/78. So get yourself a high chair.

Katie Ferraro (5m 36s):

If you're getting ready. The other thing take an infant refresher CPR course, the best gift you can give to yourself and to everyone who is feeding your baby is the gift of CPR skills. CPR skills save lives. Yes you took a CPR class when your baby was born, but that was at least six months ago. Take a refresher CPR course. I take an online course from a company called Thrive Institute. The CPR course is usually $35, but if you use the code, Katie 10, you can get $10 off. So it's $25 and Thrive. This is awesome. It's a husband wife team out of Oregon who run this. They're so cool. Katelyn and Brandon, they are doing this buy one gift one special for the holiday season, where if you sign up as a new member for the online CPR course, you also get a second log in that you can then gift so you can give it to your babysitter or your partner or your mother-in-law.

Katie Ferraro (6m 24s):

Anyone who feeds your child. I highly recommend that they have CPR skills. Again, CPR skills save lives and choking is a very rare, but real risk I'll link to that course. And that code Katie 10 works for $10 off mat blwpodcasts.com/78. So zero to six months, get yourself a good high chair and get your CPR skills up to speed. What about babies who are six to 12 months? This is where we're starting solid foods. I'm a firm believer that you do not need a lot of gear to start solid foods. You don't need to buy a lot of stuff, but having a suction mat or bowl really does help promote independent feeding. You might be like, wait a minute. That doesn't make any sense. I'll just like put the baby's food on the high chair or the tray, but we actually don't want to do that.

Katie Ferraro (7m 7s):

You want to feed out of a suction bowl or a mat and the brand that I like and do a lot of work with and recommend is called EzPz. I know if you guys are on Instagram, I share a lot of pictures and content using their products. As I use them again at home for my own seven kids, but also in my work, everything on their cyber sale is 25% off. And that goes till November 30th. If you're shopping after that, the code Katie 10 always works for 10% off at ezpzfun.com and just a couple products to start out with, especially if you're like looking for ideas for starting solids or a baby shower. I love the first foods set from EzPz. I think that's hands down. Like it's so smart. It's a tiny bowl, a two-pack at their tiny spoons and one of their tiny cups.

Katie Ferraro (7m 50s):

I used to buy all those pieces individually and put them into baby shower gifts. And then EzPz went and made a way cuter packaging, and it's cheaper to put them together in the package than to buy the pieces individually. Again, that's called the first food set, Katie 10 for 10% off at ezpzfun.com. If you're just starting solids, in addition to getting a little bit of gear to promote independent feeding, you're going to be concerned about the mess. And I don't want you to be stressing about the mess. Our goal in baby led weaning is not to prevent the mess, but we certainly can minimize the mess. So I have a few gift ideas for minimizing the mess. One is from the company called BapronBaby. I love this. It's a small shop. They make these bapron bibs, which are like a mixture between an apron and a bib, their full coverage.

Katie Ferraro (8m 31s):

They're this amazing material that you can just wash and rinse out underneath the faucet and put it in your drain board to dry. You don't have to wash the bib. After every meal, I use the same bib for three meals a day, and then wash it once at the end of the day, the vapor and bibs also tie around underneath your baby's shoulder blades. So it's a much more pleasant, sensory experience for babies than a bib. That's like choking them all up in their neck. You see babies eating with these really stiff silicone bids with the pocket, which I think is so gross. Cause it just traps gross food. I love the design of the bapron and bibs the code. Katie 10 works for 10% often when you get on their site, it's a little confusing, but their size that's called toddler is actually for six month olds. It says six months to three-year-olds. I've never had a baby bigger than a two year old who still fits in that size.

Katie Ferraro (9m 13s):

So I do toddler size for about six months to two year. And if you're buying for a two year old look into their preschool size bibs, I use those for all of my preschoolers are a great way to keep clothes clean vapor, and also makes these really cool splash mats. And that's a mat, you know, the same amazing material folds down, super small, rinse it, dry it in your drain board, you put it underneath the high chair. It helps minimize the mass, reduce the waste cause you can recycle food back up to the table. Great. If you're traveling and going to someone else's house, put that bapron baby splash mat underneath the high chair wallah, you'll be welcomed back again. Cause there won't be food all over the floor. Again, the code Katie 10 works at bapronbaby.com for the splash mats. And then as far as cleaning supplies go, I get a lot of questions about non-toxic cleaning supplies.

Katie Ferraro (9m 53s):

I feel like having been in feeding for 20 years and having seven kids, I've tried like every product out there. And I like and support the idea of non-toxic cleaning products, but I need them to actually clean. And so I don't know if you guys find this, but like a lot of the products out there like non-toxic great, but it's like not actually cleaning anything. The brand that I've found that not only cleans food and food stains and also smells good is Branch Basics. So I've been working with Branch Basics as an affiliate for a while. Ever since Lauren, who I work with, who I know listens to all of these podcasts and helps us edit. She turned me on to Branch basics and I like many people. The second I tried, it was an immediate convert. So branch basics makes non-toxic humanely tested, like no animalBtesting products.

Katie Ferraro (10m 36s):

You can basically feel good about using in your house. But again, like I'm serious about getting clean and they smell amazing. They have a deal going on for black Friday. If you use the code Katie 20, you can get 20% off all their starter kits. They've got these cold travel kits. Also these glass bottles, normally my code Katie 15 always works for 15% off their starter kit, but this is kind of expanding it. It's a great opportunity to get the glass bottles, which I love. They come with these rubber bumpers. My son did break one of them the other day. So they're not indestructible if you drop them on the floor, the wrong way, their class, they will break. But the starter kit technically comes with plastic bottles. You get an all purpose cleaner, a bathroom cleaner, a streak free, cleaner, like a hand soap. If you get the starter kit that has the laundry add on, it's totally worth the extra $10 I've been using Branch Basics.

Katie Ferraro (11m 19s):

Not only for my laundry, but also in my dishwasher. Like I can't think of one thing that I don't clean. I haven't cleaned my car with Branch Basics yet, but code Katie 15 always works for 15% off the starter kits code. Katie 20 is going to work until November 30th. So depending upon when you're listening to this, check it out again, linking all of them, these with the codes. Cause it's like impossible to remember at blwpodcast.com/78. So those six to 12 month olds get them a little bit of gear, get some cleaning stuff, get a full cover and a paper and splash mat, some branch basics to clean up after. You're good. Now what about babies? Who are 12 months old? What changes when babies turned 12 months? Well, the one big thing is we moved the baby to cow's milk, right? So you're going to ween off a formula if you're breastfeeding.

Katie Ferraro (11m 59s):

You're welcome to do that. As long as you and baby are both comfortable, but we do want baby to be drinking out of an open cup. So I recommend the EzPz tiny cup for six to 12 month old babies. That's what comes in that first food set. I was just telling you about, but the mini cup and many utensils are products that are designed for 12 months and up. So if you've listened to the podcast for any length of time, you know that my good friend, Dawn Winkelman, who is a speech language pathologist is also the feeding expert and designer for EzPz. She's been on talking about the design behind these products. They're very thoughtfully designed with your child's feeding milestones and age appropriate design features built into all the products. So at 12 months of age, it's time to size up to the mini cup and also the mini utensils. And we start offering the baby a fork at around the one-year mark babies prior to one, don't need a fork, but at one, get the mini utensils.

Katie Ferraro (12m 46s):

And that's kind of a good one-year-old birthday present or a transition into the one-year-old gift to get for babies who are becoming toddlers. Now, if you're thinking about cooking with kids, I've got some good ideas for you as well, because in order to keep your kids' interests alive in food, we can cook with our kids. And when they're a little bit older toddlers, it becomes, I'm not saying it's easy, but it becomes easier because of course they can't do it when they're babies. But I think a tower that you can put up against the counter to have your kids cook with you safely is a really, really good investment. Now there's super cool ideas on Etsy, creative people who are industrious can make their own towers. I don't come from one of those families. I use a tower called the Little Partners, learning tower. I don't have any discount codes.

Katie Ferraro (13m 27s):

I have links to them on the show notes for this episode at blwpodcast.com/78. It's a little on the bulky side. So it's kind of a pain to like move around. I move mine in and out of the garage actually have two of them, but they hold like three and four kids depending upon how big kids are. So I like it. Cause you can put a couple kids in each of the tower to help you. I can't guarantee that they're not going to fight when they're in there, but if you're looking for an option, I think that that's a really good investment. I've had one of my learning towers for five years now and it's like good as new, another good tool. If you're cooking with your kids are safety knives. And I have trialed literally every single safety knife out there, but the ones I've found that I really like it's called a KiddiKutter. Both words with a "K." I don't love that. Don't like cutter spelled with a K, but I get it.

Katie Ferraro (14m 9s):

They're trying to sell knives. They're kiddi cutter trading knives, the BapronBaby website carries them. They're literally the only knives that actually cut food, but don't cut kid's fingers. I didn't cut my own kid's fingers, but I let them cut with lots of different training knives that either cut their fingers or didn't cut the food. The kiddi cutter trading knives are awesome. They come in seven different colors. They're really small. They don't take up a ton of room in your drawers. And the code Katie 10 works for 10% off of those at bakerandbaby.com. Another cool idea that I was turned on to recently is the Raddish Kids Cooking subscription. This is kind of a cool feeding related gift. It's like a monthly cooking with kids subscription box. I don't have a discount code for it, but I'll link it up for you at blwpodcast.com/78.

Katie Ferraro (14m 52s):

If you're just starting out with baby led weaning and you're like, whoa, I'm not ready for like all this stuff yet. I just want to learn about it. I've got a number of great book suggestions for you. Again, I'll link them all up at the show notes today, but you've got to read the original baby led weaning book by Gill Rapley. It was recently updated for the 10th anniversary of the baby led weaning book. It's like the Bible. She's the founder of this philosophy. Baby led weaning book. Make sure you're getting the current version of it though. Cause it there's been some significant changes over the years and another fabulous one, Amy Brown. She was on the podcast talking about the research behind baby led weaning. Great little pocket guide called Why Starting Solids Matters. Tons of research in there. I love all of the baby led weaning cookbooks by Jenna Helwig.

Katie Ferraro (15m 32s):

She's on Instagram at Real Baby Food and my good friend from Ireland, amazing feeding colleague, Aileen Cox Blundell she's at Baby Led Feeding on Instagram. She's got a baby led feeding cookbook, The Baby Friendly Family Cookbook. If you need baby led weaning recipes, these gals are the pros. And as far as allergies go, we know that introducing allergenic foods early and often helps prevent food allergy. But if you want a great book that kind of summarizes the recent research and the, and the really massive change in the guidance that we now get and should be implementing with our babies. A great book is by my friend and colleague, Dr. Ron Sunog. He's a pediatrician who also specializes in food allergies, his book Eat the Eight preventing food allergy with food and the imperfect art of medicine.

Katie Ferraro (16m 17s):

If you're even remotely interested in infant feeding stuff, I think you're going to love his book. So again, all those books, good first reads. If you like, you want to maybe just bring someone else in your tribe up to speed on baby led weaning. Those are a couple of books that won't overwhelm them. We'll just give them what they need to get started. And I have a one-hour free workshop. If you do have the time I do offer it throughout the holidays as well. It's called baby led weaning for beginners. It's all about how to get your baby to eat 100 foods before turning one, without you having to spoon feed purees or buy pouches. So if you're listening to the podcast, but you want to see some more visuals and be sitting down taking notes. I also give away my hundred first foods list to everybody on that workshop. You can sign up at baby led, weaning.com and that'll take you right to this week's workshop times again, that's a free hour long workshop.

Katie Ferraro (17m 2s):

All right. What about adults? What do we buy for ourselves? There's two things I traded myself to this year. This was the pandemic year that I got into like literally having all food delivered to my house as much as possible. I've always been an Instacart fan. They don't have any great deals for holiday season. It's kind of hard to like, if you either have Instacart and love it or you don't like it. My sister doesn't like it. I love it. It changed my life. I don't waste hours and have to get babysitters to stay at home with my kids so I can go to the grocery store anymore. But besides groceries, home delivered meat and home delivered wine, obviously babies can eat steak, but we did a whole baby led weaning meet week recently where I showed you five different cuts of meats that babies can eat safely. I hope you have the resources you need to give your baby a variety of different meats. Early on.

Katie Ferraro (17m 42s):

Often we don't feed babies steak, but I had been getting ButcherBox the home delivered meat subscription service that are really long wait lists during pandemic. Once it ended, I got on it. As soon as I could, I get one large custom butcher box delivered a month. There's over 60 cuts to choose from at first it's overwhelming, but I found like the 10 that I like. And every month I make myself order one new cut to kind of like branch out of my comfort zone with me, my family of nine, we eat meat about two or three times a week. It pencils out to less than $6 a meal. I figured out I was saving about a hundred dollars a month. When I switched to ButcherBox versus buying groceries at the store, they always have a really cool special for new members.

Katie Ferraro (18m 23s):

They're giving away six free steaks up until the end of November, 2020. And then after that, there'll be another promotion. If you go to the show notes for this episode, BLWpodcast.com/78. I'll link to whatever this special is, but I think it's definitely a cost effective way to get high quality grass fed organic meat delivered right to your doorstep. The next one is wine. I'm a big wine fan, red wine, white wine, mixed wine, whatever. There's so many wine subscriptions out there. And I feel like over the years have either tried them or been gifted them. And I'm like, eh, you know, like nondescript, like I could just go to the grocery store and get the same wine, the wine subscription called Revel Wine. I just started checking them out, have a link on the show notes page where you can get $20 off your first $50 order, which is pretty cool.

Katie Ferraro (19m 8s):

It's kind of like a low stakes way to check it out, but they're like, we're not, if you're a fancy wine drinker, you might not be into ReVel Wines, but it's basically like the way I describe it. It's like a 15 to $20 bottle of wine that you're getting for somewhere around like 12 to $13 a bottle, you can get four, six, eight, 12 bottles. You can get it once a month, every other month, once every three months, there's tons of ability to customize which a lot of wines subscription services don't have. It's kind of no frills, but I love it's called revel wine club. BLWpodcast.com/78 has the link for that $20 off code. You can also gift like ButcherBox or gift Revel Wine club to someone else, which I think is nice. Like I do it for my babysitters who are over 21. My parents who helped me watch my kids, like just have a box of wine and a box of meat show up on your doorstep, like who doesn't like that.

Katie Ferraro (19m 53s):

So one more adult gift idea, Vitamix, blenders. I love Vitamix. I think it's a great way to make purees safely for babies, soups, smoothies. What have you, but they never go on sale. Except during the holidays, there's a select number of Vitamix mixers that are a hundred dollars off. And they also have these really cool factory refurb models that are also on sale. I'm going to link to all of them. If you've had your eye on a Vitamix like the week after, like the month of Christmas is kind of a good time to get it. Because they don't usually go on sale and then I can offer, get the dogs. If you guys have for babies, you know, we did a whole podcast episode all about why your dog should not be in the feeding area when your baby is eating.

Katie Ferraro (20m 34s):

If this is blowing your mind, you've never heard this. You've got to go listen to episode number 56. It was all about dog meets baby. And BLW do's and don'ts for the whole furry family and Dr. Alexandra Perry, who is not only a veterinarian, but also a baby led weaning. She came on to like give us everything. We need to know about how to keep our babies safe when we have dogs. And a lot of it is about keeping the dog away from the baby and away from the food that the baby is eating, but dogs got to eat too. So I don't know if you guys know this, but EzPz who makes the silicone suction mats for kids and babies. They have a sister company that makes silicone suction mats for pets. This blew my mind when I figured it out. I'm not an animal person, but I am a feeding person. And I know a lot of you guys have animals.

Katie Ferraro (21m 14s):

So it's called Ono Friends. They're so cool. Go to onofriends.com the code Katie 10 will always get you 10% off. If you buy your pet gifts, check out this basically like EzPz bowls for your dogs and your cats. I think you're going to love it. All right. I know there was a lot of gift ideas. Hopefully something in there resonated with you go to BLW podcast.com/78. We're going to link everything up and then I'll link you out to a larger blog post with tons of pictures. If you want to check out any of these ideas by yourself, something, if you're not even buying for anyone else, you deserve it. You guys are doing an awesome job. Feeding your babies, keep up the good work and happy holidays to you. Happy feeding. Well, if you've got a little one on your gift list, or you need to buy something for the person who feeds a little ones in your life, I hope you found something in that family feeding gift guide.

Katie Ferraro (21m 58s):

Helpful. Again, I'm going to link everything up in the show notes for this episode at blwpodcast.com/78. And I forgot to add one of my favorite products Puff Works. They are a peanut butter puff. I don't recommend very many packaged products or baby led weaning, right? Because we feed baby soft, safe versions of real intact foods. But peanuts are particularly tricky. I love the Puff Works peanut butter puffs for starting solids. One case of puff works is pretty much all you'll need to fulfill that recommendation to offer peanut protein early and often babies love these so you can get hooked in, you know, get on a subscription and keep getting them if you want. But I do think a case of puff works is super helpful when you're starting out solids at around six months of age and the code 20 baby led works at puffworks.com for 20% off, plus they have free shipping.

Katie Ferraro (22m 47s):

So again, all the family feeding gift guide ideas linked up for you at blwpodcasts.com/78. Thanks so much for listening, happy holidays and happy feeding to you as well. Bye now.