When starting solid foods – there’s no magic for that

You never know how fast time really goes until you watch your babies go from being completely dependent on you, to being ready to start eating solid foods in almost no time flat. My daughter is nearly seven months old, but it still feels like yesterday that I was pregnant with her and heading to the hospital to deliver. I just cannot believe how much she has grown already in these short seven months!

It amazes me just how much you are never prepared for that next stage.

Rolling over, scooting, crawling, eating finger foods — the list goes on. We thought we had time to get the things we didn’t have or didn’t need when your baby is just an infant, but time has a way of sneaking away on you. So here we are with a semi-mobile baby who is ready to start eating almost everything in sight, ready to explore, ready to take on the world one teething biscuit at a time — and no highchair.  We haven’t baby-proofed yet either but I’m not ready to talk about that yet!

So what does a semi Type-A mom who needs a quality new highchair do?

Research, and then research some more.

Rule out the bad ones that aren’t designed well, don’t function well, and won’t fit the space. To help us transition into this next stage of babyhood, Inglesina sent us their Gusto highchair and we have been slopping it up ever since!

We’ve been using the Gusto for a few weeks now, and I can tell my daughter is really excited because every time I put her in the chair she gets this big grin on her face and starts bouncing up and down. This girl is ready for food!

I’ve mostly been making sweet potatoes in our Cuisinart baby food maker, and since I usually make a bulk batch, heating a smaller portion requires her to wait a few minutes before her food is ready. Giving her a teething toy to pass the time just doesn’t suffice, as you can see by this look on her face. (Don’t mind the stain, she had already gotten into the black raspberries when we were out picking. 🙂 )

I am actually quite surprised at how well she already handles a spoon by herself. Perhaps we could have started feeding her solids sooner, but that is mostly my fault for not being ready to say good-bye to her being a baby. *tear*

She is also quite adept at tossing the spoon on the floor. I mean this isn’t a magic ‘keep your floors clean’ type of highchair or anything, so it’s to be expected, but she didn’t even mess up the tray yet before this little blob of goo happened.

But don’t worry, she had a fine time getting sweet potatoes all over. All over her tray, her shirt, the back of the highchair, the straps, her nose. At least it wasn’t in her hair, right?

I imagine this to be her “mess, what mess?” look. Or maybe she was just tired of me taking pictures of everything. Either way.

I guess when you are patiently waiting for mom to get out the hose…er, I mean fill up the bath, you can still chew on the straps if you are hungry. They were full of sweet potatoes anyway, right?

After looking at this mess it is a really good thing that the seat easily wipes clean (I really hated our old fabric lined highchair). I think this one is made of some sort of polyester, but it feels like a plastic type material.

The whole thing does come off for washing, however, a quick wipe now and then will save you from having to wash it all the time — and just a hunch here, but since baby is going to be eating more than one time a day you’ll need to do a lot of clean-ups. Not having to run to the washing machine every time is a huge deal.

Oh…and did I mention I love that it has a removable tray liner that makes this goopy mess really easy to clean as well! You can hand wash or throw it in the dishwasher while the large tray underneath stays mess free. Our old highchair did not have a removable liner and I will never have a highchair without one again.

I’m ready for a kitchen makeover

I’m not sure if you could tell by looking at the pictures, but my kitchen is small.  We don’t really have room to keep a highchair in there full-time unless it is sitting right smack dab in the middle of the kitchen (which sometimes it is anyway). Being able to fold up a full-feature highchair into a something compact is a must. The Gusto actually folds very slim, plus it stands on its own so I don’t have to worry about propping it up.

As far as letting my daughter feed herself so she can practice, have a little independence, and enjoy each new phase that life brings us?

Totally worth doing it again.

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Want to see all of the features of this highchair? Check out my youtube video where I demonstrate all the fun things like how to open and close it, adjust the height, and recline the seat.  http://bit.ly/gustodemo