Weaning; The first ‘big’ milestone in a newborns life. As parents, we countdown the days until exactly 6 months before busting out the baby rice. From here onwards we begin shovelling food into the mouths of our little ones. Watching as they experience new tastes and textures.
Is it too soon to watch them suck on a Lemon? Let’s film them pulling faces every time they try new food. Let’s buy all of the fruits and vegetables the supermarket has to offer.
It’s all so exciting!
It’s not until they become toddlers and start to grab everything within arms reach that we realise they want to be more independent. They want to hold the spoon and feed themselves. They want to hold a cup and try to do everything on their own.
With Harriet, we did baby-led weaning from the beginning. So her level of independence when it comes to food is pretty high. That’s not to say she doesn’t make a mess, she does. A lot of it.
What she can’t do is use a spoon without dropping food everywhere. She’s got the right idea, but the food falls off before reaching its destination. To encourage her independence with self-feeding we started using COGNIKIDS® Dip, Sip and Grip.
COGNIKIDS® believe that every baby has a right to grip, grasp, hold, throw, chew, suck, creep, crawl, shake, dance, kick, flail about and sometimes even fall down. All of these actions are the building blocks upon which your baby will build their future skills.
TheCOGNIKIDS® Dip is a great way to introduce cutlery to little ones. It’s soft, safe and ergonomic for them to get to grips with. The motor skills and hand-eye coordination to take a spoon to your mouth is easy, right? We don’t even think about it. It’s actually a skill that takes a lot of practice. The motion of getting it there means food falls off of your generic spoon. The dip has silicone holes that soft foods can sit within, and little ones can suck the food off. Harriet has managed to self-feed with yoghurts, mashed potatoes and soups using dip. Of course, she still likes to get her hands in there, but she is learning. And I’ve seen a great improvement since we introduced dip into our meal times!
The sip cups also come in a 2 pack, they’re soft and flexible and rounded at the bottom to help prevent it from tipping over. The inside cup has measurements which is a nice feature if you are trying to measure how much your baby/toddler is drinking. This cup is from 6 months but needs supervision. It is an open top cup, after all, they will tip it. I put small amounts in, a sip, as the name suggests. So it’s mess-free but we’re still learning how to use an open-ended cup.
Alongside Dip and Sip, we’ve also tried the Cogni Kids Grip. A clever cover for babies bottle to held them hold it themselves. Although Harriet is 1 and can hold a bottle by herself I love how Grip stops it from slipping and being dropped. Not to mention, it makes her bottles look great and even attracted comments from strangers on a recent train journey at how clever it was.
We’ve foundCOGNIKIDS® to be a great addition to weaning and encouraging little ones to be independent. Harriets skills are improving by the day! To find out more about the COGNIKIDS® range and order some for your little learner head over to PreciousLittleOne where you can see their full weaning range in a great selection of colours 🙂
