Food teether for baby

Ultimate Guide to Baby Feeders: Mesh and Silicone

You may have seen baby feeders, whether mesh or silicone, and wondered what they are for. They are a great tool for feeding babies and toddlers—and are especially awesome for teething relief. There are many on the market though, so today I’m sharing the best of the best.

Baby Feeder

A baby feeder is made up of an easy-hold handle and a little pouch with lots of holes. The idea is that the holes allow some of the flavor and texture of the food to come out, without the concerns that may come with larger pieces of food.

This means you can worry less when it comes to choking risks.

One thing to keep in mind: They don’t allow babies to have the full texture experience of the food—since the texture is mostly the mesh of the feeder. That means you don’t want to use one of these for every meal (or even most meals).

Lots of exposures to lots of textures helps babies and toddlers gain confidence in handling all sorts of foods, which can make feeding kids a lot easier over the long run.

But an infant feeder can be a handy tool to have in the mix, especially if on the go, starting to transition to baby food, or trying out a new food that has you a little nervous.

And they are a great way to offer cold teething relief to soothe baby’s gums.

Baby Fruit Feeder

Many people like to use baby feeders to offer fruit, either fresh or frozen, since the product is a safe way for baby to suck on and explore the flavor of a wide range of fruit.

TIP: Another name for this is Baby Fruit Pacifier.

Best Baby Food Feeders

Below are my top picks for infant feeders chosen for ease of use, durability, and ease of care (as in washing!). There are different materials listed, as well as specific information on each product.

Best Mesh Feeder

Munchkin Baby Feeder, sold in a set of two. (Or choose the ones that come with travel caps.)

This baby feeder has a streamlined, simple design of a mesh bag for the food and a ring for baby to hold onto. Small, digestible pieces of food come through so baby is getting some nourishment (and comfort if using for teething) without the risk of choking. It’s about $7 for two of them.

Best Silicone Feeder

Boon Silicone Feeder

This baby feeder, which is priced at under $6, is made from durable silicone and can be used with fresh or frozen foods. The interior stem forces food toward the tiny holes in the feeder and the small handle is sized just right for baby’s little hands.

Kidsme Baby Feeder

Baby Feeder Pacifier Combo

Kidsme Food Feeder

This popular Kidsme feeder has a replaceable silicone pouch that comes in two sizes, so you can adjust and replace as your child grows. It has a unique handle style that some babies may prefer and can be used as a pacifier too. It’s usually priced around $15 and is recommended for ages 4-24 months.

What baby foods should I put into a baby feeder?

Here are some fruits that are good to serve in a baby feeder:

Raspberries, fresh or frozen
Strawberries, fresh or frozen
Blackberries, fresh or frozen
Cantaloupe
Honeydew
Banana
Mango, fresh or frozen
Roasted sweet potato
Roasted butternut squash
Ripe fresh pear
Fresh cucumber, skin removed
Watermelon
Cooked red meat such as steak
Frozen grapes (These are NOT safe served to a child this age in any other way as they are a choking risk. They are fine served inside the feeder, though.)

TIP: You can use frozen fruit or ripe fresh fruit that’s soft and easy to gum. Avoid any fruits or veggies that are very hard as baby may be frustrated by that texture.

Frequently Asked Questions

What age can baby use a mesh feeder?

Babies can use an infant feeder soon after starting solids around 6 months, or when they can easily hold it and bring it to their mouth.

How do I use a baby feeder to help with teething?

If you fill the feeder, whether mesh or silicone, with frozen fruit, you can soothe teething in infants who are eating solids or in toddlers. It’s cold and yummy, yet requires no real work for the child to suck on, so it’s comforting.

Are all of these baby feeders BPA-free?

Yes, if you choose a mesh baby feeder or one made from silicone, they are BPA-free.

What’s the best way to clean a baby feeder?

Try using a bottle brush or just running water to clean out the mesh. It should be fairly easy to clean if you avoid letting it sit too long with food in it!

Are baby feeders good for babies?

The one downside could be that if you rely on them too much, the child learns the texture of the feeder, rather than of the food. This can make it harder for a child to learn to move actual food around in their mouths and harder for them to accept a range of textures in the future when you don’t want to be using the mesh feeder as much.

Because of that, I recommend using this product at limited times such as when on the go at a restaurant or to help sooth a teething infant, baby, or toddler.

This is not recommended as a way to feed your child at every meal.

If you are worried about choking, review this information on toddler choking and trust that if you serve foods that are easy to squish between your fingers, baby is sitting down at meals, and you are with them, they will learn to eat like so many other kids who have gone before them!

5 Popular Baby Food Feeder Options to Keep Baby Safe and Less Messy

Looking for a baby food feeder? Read on to discover the advantages of a baby food bottle feeder, mesh baby food feeder, silicone baby food feeder, reusable squeeze pouch baby food feeder, and a baby spoon feeder. These can help your child learn how to start to transition from baby feeders to more soft foods and someday solid foods as they get older.

I love my kids when are babies, but I don’t always love taking the time to sit there and feed them baby food from a jar (and I certainly don’t love taking the time to make my own baby food purees). I’m all about that baby-led weaning and finger foods! I am a busy mom with other kids and work and school so easy is my approach to introducing baby foods.

I wait until at least 6 months before introducing any type of baby food. I usually buy some rice cereal and mix it with a little formula or pumped breastmilk (if I have any pumped) and give it a go. I may then try spoon-feeding some simple, single-flavor jarred baby food to my infant.

Once they get more a hang of the idea of food, and can move food around in their mouth and swallow better, I start giving the baby small, soft bits of whatever we are eating at the table, along with baby-friendly puffed cereals, freeze-dried yogurt bites, and more pureed baby foods perhaps from a baby food feeding pouch.

The biggest fear I have every time I start feeding babies is the fear of them choking.

This is one of my greatest fears, not just at the dinner table, but as they crawl around and find all the tiniest bits of whatever all over the floor and stick it in their mouths! I have pulled so many pieces of paper, leaves, grass, and toys out of my fifth baby’s mouth. It’s nerve-wracking!

And that’s why I love the idea of a safe baby food feeder.

Why it works for easy feeding

Using useful tools like a mesh baby feeder is perfect for helping your child transition to soft foods and solid foods. It’s also an easy way to help your baby’s gums transition to eating a small size of food as well. Baby fruit feeders are great because they are made of safe materials with tiny holes that allow your child to hold onto the food-grade silicone handle and start to figure out the best way to eat.

This is a great way to introduce small amounts of food to a teething baby or to introduce them to new flavors of food in a fun way.

Keep in mind that a baby’s age and the baby’s diet needs to be kept in mind. Young babies shouldn’t be eating the same thing as an older baby so you still have to be very careful as well.

Use these for little hands. They also work great to work on hand-eye coordination as they’re putting them up to their mouths. I also love that they’re made for easy cleaning, too!

Baby Food Feeder

Using a baby food feeder is a new thing for me to try with my fifth baby, but I like it so much!

Not only does it make feeding babies safer but makes mealtime less messy! (See my post on limiting messy eating toddlers for tips for the slightly older crowd!)

I discovered that there are several very popular baby food feeder options out there today, so I wanted to discuss the various options and what makes them each great or not so great and where you can pick them up.

Munchkin Baby Food Feeder

To help facilitate this discussion, Munchkin sent me a few baby food feeders and a cool sippy cup cleaning brush set to review.

#1 Baby Spoon Feeder

This type of baby food feeder is where you dispense baby food through a baby food dispensing spoon. You simply fill up the soft silicone end with soft pureed foods or things like yogurt and then you squirt baby food out from the silicone part out onto the spoon!

I tried ours out with some Greek vanilla yogurt. While it still ending up being messy and it made all sorts of fun “farting” noises as I pushed out air along with the yogurt, which then kinda sprayed everywhere, it was pretty easy to use.

What I like about this versus a bowl or jar that you are spoon feeding your baby from, is there is less back and forth from the jar or bowl to the baby’s mouth. When babies are at the “swat at everything” stage, it means less chance of baby food ending up on the floor, or my lap.

So, still kinda messy but better!

It’s pretty easy to clean out, and you can take the squeeze feeding spoon on the go as it comes with a hard plastic cover you just snap on to the end of the spoon.

They come in colors blue, green, and pink and are $7 each on Munchkin.com. You can also find them on Amazon (though for more).

Munchkin Baby Mesh Feeder

I have seen many friends over the years who use and love these mesh baby food feeders (and even pediatric occupational therapists highly recommend mesh feeders)! They are especially handy as a baby teething feeder! You can put some frozen raspberries or other frozen fruit or even an ice cube in it and let your baby safely gnaw and gum it, cooling their poor aching teething gums!

The Munchkin fresh food feeder is perfect in that you can give your baby chopped up pieces of fresh fruits and vegetables without having to puree them to a pulp! The mesh prevents large pieces from coming through so they won’t chock on the fresh food! Yeah!

I put some cut grapes, pieces of chicken, and more in mine when I tested it out to give to my 8-month old baby. She loved gnawing on it!

Some of the best foods for a mesh feeder include:

raw apples
chunks of melons
frozen blueberries
pears
peaches
raw carrots
nectarines
chunks of meat

It is recommended to empty and wash out your mesh feeders shortly after use to make it easier to clean out and prevent any food going bad in there! I found it super easy to rinse out with a little dish soap at my sink. But some foods like bananas can be more difficult to clean out of it.

The Munchkin Fresh Food Feeder comes in pink/purple, green/blue, and yellow/green colors for $3 each on Munchkin.com. You can also opt for one of their Munchkin Deluxe Fresh Food Feeders that come with a convenient on-the-go cap with snap-tight closure for $4 each on Munchkin.com. Amazon has the 2-pack fresh food feeders that I received for $5.99.

Munchkin Silicone Baby Food Feeder

Similar to the above fresh baby food feeder, there is also a Munchkin silicone baby feeder too (but I didn’t receive this product to try out).

The silicone baby feeder is actually designed for babies ages 4+ months whereas the other ones are designed for babies 6+ months old.

The silicone baby food feeders are easier to clean, but smaller and actually designed for baby food purees rather than large fresh food, though some people still put large pieces of food in them (but it’s harder to fit them in these).

Munchkin silicone baby food feeders come in pink, green, and blue and includes an on-the-go cap for $4.50 on Munchkin.com.

Baby Food Bottle Feeder

I don’t use baby bottles hardly at all, so maybe that is why I had never heard of a baby food bottle feeder before!

There are some bottle manufacturers that offer alternative bottle tips that allow you to squeeze out baby food from inside the bottle to the base of a replacement bottle head – a food dispensing spoon!

With our baby twins we had used baby bottles that could swap out tips for sippy cup tips, and we used those silicone sippy cup nipples with moderate success (until they got teeth and stuck utensils, pencils, and other objects into the opening making anything but spill-proof). The baby food feeder bottle nipples also make sense!

It doesn’t appear like there are many bottle companies that actually make these anymore. Nuby used to make one called the Nuby Infa Infant Feeder and the Nurtur Care Infa Feeder but they are no longer available for purchase. I did find that Sassy offers a baby food nurser bottle (on BuyBuyBaby and Amazon).

The cool thing about this product is that it has a vacuum disc that keeps air out and moves cereal or baby food without clogging. Plus there is a handy travel cover so you can take baby food on the go much easier. The spoon is also like a soft nipple which is easier on those little mouths than a regular spoon.

Reusable Squeeze Pouch Baby Food Feeder

I recently got a reusable squeeze pouch baby food feeder from Noobie Box‘s Noobie Eat Box. I have always wanted one of these because I hate how wasteful and expensive all these baby food pouches out there! You can easily fill one of these up with apple sauce, your own fruit purees, or yogurt and save yourself a ton of money, time, and trash!

Squeeze pouches are super handy for feeding soft pureed foods to babies (and older kids too – let’s be honest!), especially on the go! No utensils required and when they get older can safely suck them down themselves without making any messes.

My baby at 8-months old cannot manage one of these on her own (she loves to squeeze them) but uses baby food squeeze pouches has helped her develop some sucking skills, skills that will come in handy when introducing sippy cups with straws.

If you are interested in picking up reusable squeeze pouches, there are many options on Amazon from brands like Squooshi, WeeSprout, Baby Brezza, Kiddzo, and others costing about $9.99-$19.99 for multiple reusable pouches.

Munchkin does not carry any baby food pouches, but they do have Click Lock Food Pouch Spoons! They work with most leading pouch brands. The spoons are twisted onto the ends of the pouches, allowing you to squeeze baby food from pouches onto a baby-friendly spoon. They’re designed for kids ages 4+ months. It’s pouch feeding without the mess (hopefully).

You can get a 2-pack of the Munchkin Click Lock Food Pouch Spoons for $4 on Munchkin. com.

If you want to pick up several of these great Munchkin baby food feeders, remember that you get FREE Shipping on Munchkin.com Orders Over $25 + FREE Returns! Plus, you can also Sign up to receive an additional 10% OFF!

I’m so glad there are so many great and innovative baby brands making products to help me feed my baby safer and cleaner!

I’d love to know what you’ve thought about various baby food feeders you’ve used over the years, sharing your own reviews of which one(s) is your favorite.

Be sure to check out these other great posts:

Thrifty Mom’s Guide to Essential Baby Feeding Supplies
15 Must-Have Baby Items
How to Take Care of a Baby’s First Teeth
How to Transition Baby from Bottle to Sippy Cup
What Happens When You Grow Up to Be a Picky Eater Adult

Why does a baby need a teether and how to choose it?

How much joy appeared - the long-awaited baby was born! Mom begins to shudder and worry: she listens to every sound, sigh. Worries have come and one of these worries is the eruption of the first teeth.

The first tooth of a baby is one of the important achievements on the way to growing up.

You can hear that late teeth are a sign of latent rickets, which is definitely an erroneous opinion. As children's dentists note, even the healthiest babies can have delayed teething and in no case is associated with any pathologies. “Late teeth are stronger!” - often said.

The eruption of the first teeth, most often, occurs at the age of 4 to 9 months of a baby's life, when his gastrointestinal tract and salivary glands begin to function normally. In general, nature gives the command to start eating solid food, and the teeth begin to cut.
This process is usually painful - the child's mood very often deteriorates, tearfulness begins, sometimes the temperature rises. Sprouting teeth inflame the gums, and the child feels itching and needs to satisfy it. How does he do it? Biting, scratching - to bring down the pain in the gums a little.

During this period he bites everything he comes across - hands, lips, toys, mother's breasts. Moreover, the harder the bitten object, the better for it. Especially for children of this age, toys are created that a child can gnaw fearlessly - teethers.

Usually a teether toy is a rubber or plastic ring filled with a special gel (usually silicone) that can be cooled in the refrigerator (but not in the freezer). When the baby chews on a toy - a teether, a soothing pleasant coolness acts on the inflamed, swollen gums, and the child, exhausted by aching pain, can feel much better.

It is very important to pay attention to which teether you choose for your baby. And they differ from each other according to the following indicators:

Country of origin

Practically, more than half of children's goods come from China, where they don't really worry about the health of Russian babies. For the sake of the beautiful appearance of the goods, manufacturers do not hesitate to add poisonous paints to them, and synthetic chemistry is used as a material for toys, up to mercury compounds. There is no need to even say what sad consequences this can lead to. But I hasten to note that not all Chinese goods are unsuitable for a baby. If it has a factory marking and a quality certificate, then fears are in vain. In addition, you need to use only those manufacturers whose names have been on the market for a long time and whose reputation is impeccable. This is especially true for children's teethers: after all, their child does not take them out of his mouth. In this case, the quality of the teethers should not cause any doubts.

Teether materials

The most commonly used teethers are made of latex and silicone. Latex is a softer material, and therefore more elastic and flexible. There is an opinion that such teethers do not have a bad effect on the emerging bite of the child, although they wear out quickly enough. However, even more rigid silicone does not carry a bad load if the teether itself is made in an orthodental (anatomical) form. But its hard texture is perfect for additional sterilizations of the product.

Expiration date and use of the teether
Of course, the terms indicated on the package should be given special attention, since their gradation clearly depends on their capabilities.

General requirements for teethers are simple:
Easy to hold in the child's hand;
The total volume of the toy must be such that the child cannot swallow it or place it down the throat, but at the same time it can easily bite;
No harmful materials or paints;
The surface of the toy should not be too hard, should not have sharp corners that are dangerous for possible injury to the child.

As you know, the biggest critic of a product is the baby himself. It happens that he likes the teether, and he gladly “grinds his teeth about it”. And it happens the other way around - a beautiful toy is completely ignored by them. Therefore, do not be discouraged if the teether you purchased did not cause great delight. Might be worth getting another one.

I wish your babies painless teething!!!

Tatyana Frolova
user Tanya Des

Teethers: types and features of choice

All babies have a moment when they start teething. The appearance of milk teeth brings discomfort not only to the child, but also to his parents. The baby is in pain, may not sleep at night, often cry, refuses to eat. Parents will obviously be worried about this behavior. To relieve pain, it is worth buying pacifiers, teethers and toys for teeth.

Content:

Tips for parents on choosing a teether
Kinds
From what age to use
How to care
Advantages and disadvantages
The best teethers

Teether advice for parents

The most suitable and effective way to eliminate pain is to buy a teether. It can be used multiple times. Before you buy it, you need to understand what you should pay attention to when choosing.

Material

Teethers are made from different materials. It is worth giving preference to safe materials that are easy to process. In addition, no specific smell should come from it.

Silicone

The most popular material. It is absolutely harmless, has no unpleasant odor, is pleasant to the touch, elastic and dense. Such teethers retain their original appearance for a long time.

Wood

For the manufacture should be used only dense species of trees. The teether can be a natural color, which is better for the baby. There are also colored items.

Plastic

Such teethers are suitable for a child if they are made of high quality plastic. The product can be processed and it is very dense. Bite off a piece will be hard enough, so it can be considered safe.

Latex

This is a thinner and more elastic product. Such teethers quickly become unusable. Also, latex often emits a specific smell, and it is unpleasant in taste.

Shape

It is best to choose round or oval products with an internal hole. So it will be more convenient for the baby to hold it in his hands.

Species

There are many types of cutters.

With cooling effect

One of the most popular types. Due to the cooling effect, pain in the gums is relieved and the child becomes much easier. The product can be either the usual round shape, or have the appearance of animals and other figures. As a rule, plastic or silicone material is used.

Teether nipple

The product is in the form of a dummy. For the manufacture of plastic or silicone is most often used. It can only be bitten, it cannot be sucked. May have a different shape. Such a teether can be attached to the child's clothing.

Silicone brush

No less popular product. The teether has small bristles, which makes it look like a brush. They are very convenient to scratch the gums of the baby.

Vibrating

This product runs on batteries. As soon as the baby bites it, vibration will immediately begin to be emitted. Such a light massage has a positive effect on the condition of the gums, improves blood circulation.

From what age to use

Every baby starts teething at different ages. For some, the first tooth appears at 4 months, while for someone it may appear only by the age of one. You can give teethers to your baby from the age of three months. It is from this age that he develops an interest in surrounding objects that he will pull into his mouth. For starters, the most common rodents are suitable. After six months, you can give teethers with different effects and more complex forms. The product in size should be slightly larger than the baby's fist.

How to care

Depending on the material, products may require different care. Silicone teeth are processed in special devices. They are much easier to tolerate this process. You can sterilize them many times, and they will not lose their original appearance. But you don't have to do it every day. After use, the teether should be dipped in boiling water and left to dry.

Products made of latex and plastic lose their appearance with frequent sterilization. The procedure should be carried out with hot water and detergents. Wooden products do not tolerate water and heat.

The main advantage of rodents is their multifaceted effect: massage, cooling and soothing effect. When used in a child, blood circulation in the gums improves, swelling disappears. If you follow all the rules for use, properly sterilize, then the shortcomings will not make themselves felt.

Top Teethers

Kanpol Baby

Made from silicone and plastic. It has the shape of a circle with a hole inside. There are inserts made of transparent plastic, inside which are colored balls, from which a slight rattling sound is made.