FEEDING: Meal Mates Smart Serve Suction Bowl With Lid by The First Years (Sammy Bear Pan)

Pros: Comes with a handy lid for portability, has a suction bottom for sticking to tabletops, dishwasher/microwave safe.
Cons: Color starts to rub off after a while.

SB and I would have given this Meal Mates Smart Serve bowl a thumbs up until just recently. SB had been using this bowl since he was about 7 months old, and I really liked it because of its size (not too big and not too small) and the fact that it comes with a lid, making it easy to stick SB's lunch/dinner in a bag for eating out. It also has a suction base, which allows you to stick it on a table surface and prevent spillage. I actually never used this feature myself (the suction piece is removable), so I can't comment on how useful or effective it actually is.

The reason why the bowl gets a thumbs down is because the color actually started to rub off. Even though the bowl is dishwasher safe, I always hand-washed it, because I don't like to put plastic items in the dishwasher. One day, after about 7 months of use, I happened to towel-dry the bowl and noticed that there were orange streaks on the towel (our bowl was an orange color). I thought maybe it was just leftover baby food, so I kept rubbing the bowl to get it clean but the orange streaks kept appearing on the towel. After several rubs on the same spot and still getting orange spots, I realized that it was the bowl's color that was rubbing off. I was not happy at the thought that SB could have been ingesting the bowl's dye with his food, and I actually don't know how long this issue existed, since that was the first time I had towel dried the bowl.

Needless to say, I promptly threw the bowl out. As a side note, the only wear and tear the bowl experienced was through hand-washing and scooping food out out of it. I never put it in the dishwasher and never even put it in the microwave, though the manufacturer says it is safe for both. Not happy with this product.

Retail Price: $5-$7





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CUPS: Playtex First Sipster Sippy Cup (Sammy Bear Pan)

Pros: BPA and phthalate free, spill proof, handles are attached to lid so no need to align with spout.
Cons: Hard to get any liquid out with valve in place, SB mainly just chewed on the soft spout instead of drinking from the cup, no measurement lines on the side.

The Playtex First Sipster Sippy Cup was the first sippy cup I purchased for SB. I got it when he was about 7 months old. It has a rounded, tapered spout that was supposedly designed for an "easy transition from a bottle to a cup." But for SB, it was anything but easy.

I chose this cup from the many options out there, because it is both BPA free and phthalate free and I liked the fact that the handles were attached to the cup. That means you don't need to take care to align the spout in between the handles, which is a handy feature. Also, I had read reviews that said that it is one of the few sippy cups that is truly spill proof. I tested that out, and it really delivered on the promise. You can turn it upside down, shake it around, and turn it on its side, and not a drop will leak out.

Unfortunately, that also means that it takes a lot of effort to get any liquid out of it. From the first time SB tried this cup, he had trouble drinking from it. He would suck on the spout, but I could see that very little would come out, and he seemed to find it frustrating. When I would try to get him to try to drink more, he would turn his head away (I tried with everything from water to juice to breastmilk). I actually tested it out myself to see how hard it is to get liquid out, and it was pretty darn hard, even for me! Eventually, SB just started to treat the spout as a teething toy. Instead of trying to suck, he would just gnaw on the spout. I think he figured he might as well get some use out of it. I didn't let SB gnaw on it too much, though, because I had read reviews that said pieces of the spout broke off after prolonged gnawing. The spout is made of a semi-soft rubbery material called thermoplastic elastomer or TPE (I looked that up on the web, and it is usually a combo of rubber and plastic). It is firmer than a silicone spout but softer than a plastic one, making it the perfect "teether" in SB's eyes.

I gave the First Sipster about a month to see if SB would take to it, but he never did. I've tried out other sippy cups on SB since then, and he has fared much better with them. I ended up getting ones with a hard plastic spout, so he wouldn't mistake the spout for a teether again, and that has worked much better. Also, he does seem to prefer a fast flow, so I ended up taking out the valves. That has worked much better, as well. He now drinks from sippy cups like a pro.

You're probably wondering why I never tried taking out the valve from the First Sipster to see if SB would take to it then. The reason is that the First Sipster has slightly bigger sip holes than most other sippy cups I've seen, and I was concerned that the flow would be too fast without the valve in place. But I did recently decide to give it one last chance to see whether it would work well without the valve in, but the liquid came out so fast for SB that he started gulping like crazy and ended up in a coughing fit. That sealed the deal for me. No more First Sipster for SB.

One other negative about the First Sipster is that it doesn't show measurements on the side. It is a 7-oz. cup, so you can estimate how much you put in the cup, but it's hard to tell how much liquid has been consumed without measurement lines, and I, for one, like to keep track of liquid intake.

Overall, the First Sipster gets points for being spill proof and its convenient lid/handle construction, but the bottom line is that SB never found it easy to drink from. I've read plenty of reviews that state that their child took to it pretty easily, while some others state that their child had trouble with it, so it seems to be a case by case thing. I personally think that sippy cups shouldn't be so difficult to use, especially ones that are supposed to be a trainer cup, but that's just me.

Retail price: $4.00-$5.00


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SNACKS: Gerber Graduates Biter Biscuits (Sammy Bear Pan)

Pros: Satisfactory taste, low choking risk.
Cons: Contains wheat, messy, irritated SB's lip.

I bought these for SB to snack on when he was about 11 months old after determining that he was not allergic to wheat. The biscuits contain wheat flour, which is a potential allergen for young babies, as you're probably aware. Most sources I've read give the guideline of 9-12 months for introducing wheat for the first time to a baby. I gave SB his first morsel of bread at around 10 months, and thankfully, no reaction. I wonder why they don't make more teething biscuits/finger foods without wheat given that many babies get their first teeth before 9 months (SB cut his first teeth at 6.5 months) and it would be helpful to have some snack options that you could pick up quickly at the store. (More industrious moms would just make wheat-free finger foods/teething biscuits from scratch, I know, but I opted for an intermediate solution in Baby Mum-Mum crackers. See my blog post here.) In any case, I thought these biter biscuits would make a nice snack for SB to gnaw on at age 11 months. I read several parent reviews that said that their child loved them, so I thought they'd be a sure hit with SB.

Unfortunately, not so. The first time I gave one to him, he gnawed off a tiny bit off the end and then promptly left it on his tray and ignored it. As always, I had tested the biter biscuit before giving it to SB. It's quite a hard biscuit, so unless your little one has super strong jaws and a good set of teeth, it would be difficult to bite off a piece big enough to be a potential choking hazard, though of course it's always best to monitor to be sure. If you gnaw on it, the biscuit crumbles and dissolves easily in your mouth. The taste was satisfactory - fairly sweet and you can definitely taste the molasses in it. One thing to note about these biscuits is that they make quite a mess. As the biscuit crumbles and melts in your little one's mouth, the sticky bits and pieces get all over their hands, mouth, tray, etc. Even with the small amount that SB ate, he got pretty messy.

My main issue with these biscuits is actually not the fact that SB didn't love them or that they make a mess. It's that they made his lip bleed. Yes, bleed. The morning after I gave them to him, I noticed that his bottom lip had a crack in the skin - kind of like when you have chapped lips and you get a split in the lip skin - and it was bleeding. I thought it was strange but just attributed it to dryness. But this split in his lip lasted for several days, which was strange, because even though his lips do get a tad dry from time to time, they've never cracked and the dryness never lasts for long. After some thought, I realized that the biter biscuit could be the culprit. I tried giving him the biscuit again, and sure enough, soon after, I saw that his bottom lip was irritated again. I'm not sure what in the biscuit caused the irritation. It could just be that, being very hard biscuits, the rough edges irritated his lip skin. I also looked at the ingredients list: Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Sugar, Corn Flour, Whey (From Milk), Milk, Molasses, Ultra Low Linolenic Soybean Oil, Cornstarch, Sodium Bicarbonate, Soy Lecithin. Nothing too out of the ordinary, though I wonder if molasses could have been the irritant?

I'm not saying that your child will have the same issue with these biter biscuits, but I thought I should mention this problem for reference. SB does have sensitive skin in general, so this could just be something that is particular to him. Just an FYI!

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