Until I had a baby who was 6 months old, I had no idea how confusing the world of feeding could be! Like, what bowl, spoon, plate, cup do I buy? What foods do I give first? What high chair do I get?

After reading this, if you have any suggestions based on what made your life easier in regards to feeding please drop me a comment below. I'd love to hear what YOU like using and why.

Since I am a pediatric occupational therapist, I wanted my baby to be as independent as possible even on day 1 of feeding. I do not associate myself with BLW (baby led weaning) or any other practice of feeding my baby. I simply use my intuition to guide my choices. The other things you should know about me is that I LOVE organic produce, and don't love plastic. I love ergonomic seating and tools and I am picky about the baby gear I buy.

I follow @lahlita_ on instagram and she is a wonderful person and Naturopath for babies! She wrote a book for feeding babies that happened to come out right before my baby turned 6 months old. Baby It's Only Natural. This book gave me so much confidence in feeding my infant. I went from despair to JOY in feeding my LO. She explained which foods were good to start with and which foods provide what benefits. She also explains what to do if your baby has discomfort or skin reactions.

I did follow her advice in her book and my baby never had constipation or other discomforts with digestion. That book was vital to MY well-being during the food introduction phase! Baby girl also had no issues with iron deficiency either. We also didn't feed baby girl foods fortified with iron. We did feed her free range organic chicken livers (cooked of course) and tons of kale and ground lamb meatballs.

We used sippy cups for 1 day before I read that it actually promotes immature drinking patterns. So we put away the sippy cup and instead we introduced liquid with a straw and with EzPz small cup and Munchkin 360 cup. I don't feel we missed anything with the sippy cups. When introducing drinking liquid out of a cup I used thicker liquid. You can use a smoothie or pureed soup. We use the Olababy spoon which is wonderful. She can already feed herself with the spoon if I scoop her food for her. The size of the spoon is perfect for gripping and scooping. The tip of the spoon bowl bends for increased success with scooping.

We also use the EzPz plate. The height of the sides of the bowl were perfect for encouraging independence. She was able to reach into the bowl (short sides) and pick up food (food hit side of bowl for stabilization) and then she could pick it up. She now uses a pincer grasp to pick up small food bits.

Baby bear is now 11.5 months old. She is still working on putting the Ezpz cup back down without spilling. She can pick it up by herself and take a sip of soup from it.

Her current diet mainly consists of oatmeal, lamb meat balls, peas, cooked apple, kale, sweet potato, sauted turkey and spices, and potato leek soup! She also tried pickles this week and seems to be OK with them. She also seems to enjoy the small star baby puffs (sold in Target). We got gluten free organic puffs. Not super healthy but very helpful when traveling and on the go snacking.

Another thing we love is the high chair I got. It's called the Keekaroo. Using a coupon I bought it new from Buy Buy Baby for $200. The chair grows with the baby so she can use it for years to come. It adjusts (height) and also has place for her feet. Right now we are using the booster seat with it so her little feet stick out and don't land on the foot rest but when we are done with the booster her feet will rest there. Foot support is so important with feeding because it's grounding and provides stabilization in order to practice fine motor skills.

Photo by: Alex Smith (Pexels)