Six months old is an exciting time for you and your baby! Starting Stage 1 Solids is exciting, fun, and of course really messy! It can be overwhelming knowing what you need in order to start feeding your baby solids! If you are going the handmade route I have some must-have essentials that will help get you started on the right foot!

Need an introduction on introducing solid food to your baby? Read my post on starting solids here.

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Blender/ Immersion Blender

Stage One Baby food needs to be very thin,watery, and smooth. Sounds appealing right? Well for your baby that is the perfect texture! The consistency of the food needs to slide right off the spoon so you know for sure the food will slide right down your baby’s throat.

The best way to get this consistency is to use a blender or immersion blender. You can get similar result hand mashing some foods but it’s not nearly as easy or as foolproof.

We use this All-Clad immersion blender. We actually got it for a wedding present and never really used it until we had our daughter. Now we use it regularly. It blends food up so easily! It’s way easier to clean then our Vitamix and a whole lot easier to lug out of the cabinet!

Baby Spoons

As your baby learns how to eat independently there will be lots of spoon biting. You are going to want to pick up soft-tipped spoons like these. They are first stage friendly meant to be extremely soft to protect your baby’s soft gums and new teeth! The handle is also really easy for baby to grip! In all honesty, I randomly just bought these spoons off of Amazon and I am very happy with them! But any soft-tipped spoons will do!

Bowls

You are going to need microwave safe bowls to heat up your little one’s homemade food! When around the house I just use any old bowl I can find. But when we are on the go I love these lidded, microwave safe bowls. They are small (4oz) and you can even freeze food in them! They are BPA free and even have measurement markings. They are also dishwasher safe! I try to buy glass products whenever possible and these tiny bowls are a win for sure!

Ice Cube Trays

When making homemade baby food you are no doubt going to want to make large batches and freeze some for later! Doing this saves you so much time and effort! For freezing, I recommend freezing your stage 1 purees in plain old ice cube trays. I actually use my Milkies trays. If you want to get really fancy you could get these ice cube trays which were actually made for freezing baby food! But in the interest of saving money regular ice cube trays work just fine!

Make sure to stock up on ziploc bags to store the frozen purees in! Don’t forget to label!

 Sippy Cups

When you start giving your baby solid food you are going to want to start giving him sips of water as well! Enter the good old fashioned sippy cup! Like I mentioned before I try to avoid buying plastic whenever possible but these sippy cups are made from FDA approved recycled milk jugs which I love! They are dishwasher safe and spill proof! I’m extremely happy with them!

Bibs

Be forewarned: I am obsessed with these bibs! I was given them as a gift and they ARE THE BEST! They are 100% silicone which means you can put them in the dishwasher, washing machine or BOIL THEM! I am a little bit of a germaphobe and the fact that you can boil these bibs is nothing short of amazing! They also clean up really easily with a wet sponge or wet paper towel. The bibs are also really thin which means you can roll them up into the smallest little ball and stuff into your diaper bag! It’s awesome! Just get them. You will not be disappointed.

High Chair

Ah, the dreaded high chair…. Why do high chairs have to be so bulky with so many nooks and crannies for food to get stuck in! Am I the only one that hates high chairs? They are just so ugly! Let me be honest. Buying a high chair to clutter up our house was so far down on my list of things I wanted to spend my money on. I went back and forth on what high chair to buy. I had three requirements: 1. It had to be a small as possible. 2. It had to be freestanding. 3. It had to have limited places for food to get stuck.

This is the one we ended up buying. I like it, it gets the job done. It meets my three requirements. Is it something I am super thrilled about? No, but I feel like it was the best of the options.

There you have it! You are now ready to start making stage 1 homemade baby food! You can begin introducing your little one to all the amazing flavor in the world! Be sure to grab my free baby food introduction checklist below! It is a long list of different foods to try with your baby along with suggested time frames! Enjoy!