How to Feed a Henry

In my last post , I wrote about Henry's transition from a highchair to a booster seat. As a toddler, Henry's ability to drink from an open cup and use flatware are also improving. The more he practices, the better he is getting at these skills. Henry still uses straw cups for most of our meals. With the hot summer weather, however, I have been giving him lots of opportunities to use a regular cup when we are outside. He hardly spills when he drinks from an open cup, but he also enjoys pouring the water out and watching it splash on the ground. Henry practices drinking from an open cup. In the past month, Henry has become obsessed with using utensils at every meal. He wants to have a fork or spoon in hand, e ven when we are eating finger foods like a sandwich or grapes. I don't want to squash his enthusiasm, so I try to remember to give him a utensil with each meal. Henry focuses on stabbing a blueberry with his fork. Henry usually doesn't use flatware for...

Eating out with Henry can be a messy business , so I'm always on the lookout for ways to make it a little less so. Recently, we tried out two different types of placements designed for kids. Since Henry is still practicing how to eat from a bowl or plate, a placemat helps to make clean-up easier. Also, sometimes Henry wants to chew on the edge of the table, so a placemat helps protect the table from his sharp teeth. The first product we tried was the TinyDiner Placemat . This item receives rave reviews from other baby-led weaning families so I thought we should give it a try. This placemat has suction cups along the sides to help it stay on the table and a catch tray along the front edge to collect dropped items. When baby is done eating, it rolls up and can be tucked in the pocket of diaper bag. It is reusable and dishwasher safe. Henry eats Japanese food from his TinyDiner Placemat. The first couple of times we used the TinyDiner, Henry was distracted by the catch-tray. A...

I am always looking for new and exciting ways to entertain Henry while we are in the kitchen. As I've written about before, there are many common kitchen items that can easily be re-purposed to provide fun learning experiences for your little one. Here are a few of Henry's latest favorites: 1. Did you receive a large tin of popcorn for Christmas? It seems like these canisters reappear every year at the holidays. If you still have your tin on hand, Henry has found that it makes an excellent drum. Henry bangs on the popcorn drum. After you eat the popcorn or set it out for the birds, the tin also does double-duty as a storage container for your child's other kitchen toys.  Henry uses a wooden mallet as a drumstick. Thank you to Henry's Great Aunt Barbara for this multipurpose Christmas gift (I bet she thought she was just giving us popcorn)! Henry had so much fun with this that his Grandma decided he needed a real drum for his birthday. 2. Henry's Gr...

A few days after Christmas, Henry started reaching for our forks during meals. I thought it was a good idea to support Henry's lead and break out the flatware.  I wasn't sure if Henry was really ready for a fork. The general guideline is that babies can learn how to use a fork between 12 and 15 months, but I figured it would not hurt to let him try a little earlier.  Henry tries chicken on a fork. Right away, Henry figured out how to hold the fork and maneuver the food to his mouth. Sometimes he holds the handle and other times the prongs. It's a combined effort of using his fork and his fingers, but I'd say he is doing a great job with less than two weeks of practice.  I am not a fan of the plastic kids flatware. It looks and feels like a toy, not a tool. I figure if Henry wants to be like Mommy and Daddy using a fork, then we should let him use utensils that looks like what we use. Finding metal flatware for kids, however, is a challenge. Fortuna...

Henry has acquired several new skills over the past two months, including pulling himself up to a stand, crawling, and cruising along the edge of furniture. Last week, he figured out how to open the kitchen cupboards. After a few days of just opening and closing the doors, he finally started pulling items off of the shelves. Henry pulls strainers and towels out of the cupboards. Daddy and I have busy been preparing for house for Henry to safely explore. In the kitchen, this has largely meant reorganizing and rearranging. I want Henry to be able to access most areas freely so we have only installed a few barriers. The main cupboard holds our pots and pans and our rolling kitchen cart is filled with towels, napkins and strainers, all items with which Henry is welcome to play. Lower drawers hold mixing bowls, Tupperware and Henry’s bibs.  Henry opens a kitchen cupboard. The only area that is off-limits to Henry is the cabinet under our sink which holds the garbage...

We have finally had enough of our highchair. I’ve written before about our love/hate relationship with the Chicco 360 Degree Rotating Hook On Chair . It is a convenient space saver for small dining rooms, but the cleaning ritual is overly burdensome. In addition, we recently discovered a new issue with this product. After four months of daily use and two months of weekly dish washing, the metal components have started to rust. This product is great for traveling to Nana’s house, but it just does not make the grade as full-time baby gear. Henry has a drink in his new highchair. After a bit of research, I chose the Antilop from IKEA as our replacement highchair. We have used this model at a few restaurants and I was impressed by its simple design. The chair was very easy to assemble by just popping the steel legs to the seat. It is compact and a breeze to clean. The solid plastic chair means that crumbs have nowhere to hide. We even noticed that Henry sits more upright i...

Henry spends a lot of time in the kitchen. Since he really can’t help with the cooking yet, I find other ways to keep him occupied while I prepare our meals. We sing and talk and dance, but sometimes I need a few minutes to focus on the task at hand, especially when I am chopping vegetables or working with a hot oven. There’s no need to spend a lot of money to keep your little one entertained in the kitchen. You can use many basic items that you already have on hand.  Here are five of Henry’s favorite kitchen toys: 1.    Things with handles. You may know that one of Henry’s first toys were baby spoons. Now he loves batting around rubber spatulas, wooden spoons and pastry brushes. Henry plays with mixing spoons and spatulas. 2.    Empty cardboard containers. Henry’s favorites include egg cartons and paper towel rolls. Henry inspects the inside of an egg carton. Henry checks out a paper towel roll. 3.    Metal meas...