Tag Archives: Baby Products

These Safari Chimes™, by Nûby™, are additional interactive toys that blend both fun and function. They feature bright colors, playful sounds, a variety of textures and fun characters that are sure to captivate your baby’s imagination. Additionally, they hang from a clip that easily attaches to stroller, high chair, car seat, etc. Characters and/or colors may vary.

The best spot is on the handle of store carts. He can move it back and forth and it doesn’t come off. He alternates playing with the toy with listening to people telling him he’s cute and eating a bunch of Puffs while we grocery shop.

Oddly enough, I was thinking the other day how much leaving the house has changed from just a few short months ago. When he was just a few weeks old, we always had to be very specific about when we went out and for how long and we ALWAYS had to bring a bottle. Now, we can do whatever as long as it doesn’t mess up his nap time too much. We bring Puffs, a puree in the squeezy spoon and some water in a sippy straw cup and we’re good to go. It’s crazy to think back on the days when I swore leaving the house, among many other things, was never going to get easier, but it does and each new day is so much more fun than the last. Yes, I’ll miss my wee little baby as we reach each new milestone, but I am looking forward to each stage in his life.

The Nuby One Touch Electric Warmer and Sterilizer was meant specifically to make Brett’s life easier. True story. In fact, we love it so much that this product gets the distinct recognition of being in my very first video product review!!

Brett feeds Trent with a bottle during the day and he eats 3 bottles each day. At first, we figured we didn’t need a fancy-schmancy product to help in this area. Brett just ran the hot water into a large cup and placed the bottle in the cup until it was warm enough for Trent to approve EAT.

Oh boy, this method led to a frustrated baby! In the beginning when feeding times had yet to be exactly established, when Trent decided he was hungry, that bottle had better be ready. But it wasn’t, and the bottle-in-a-cup-of-hot-water method proved to take too long for his liking. Which led to crying….from Trent too.

Then, by the time he would get the bottle, he would scarf it down so fast. Poor little guy.

We’ve had the bottle warmer for several months now and it is a MUST-HAVE for anyone that has to warm up multiple bottles each day. Seriously. I can’t even believe we tried to go without one now that we have it.

Since it looks nice and matches our kitchen color scheme, we leave it out on the counter for convenient use. You simply measure out how much water you need based on how many ounces of milk or formula are in the bottle and pour the water into the warmer. Then, place the bottle in the warmer, push down on the button to turn it on and walk away.

The water will start to steam up and once the water is gone and the orange light turns off, the bottle is ready!

It is so much faster and easier than dealing with a cup of hot water. It uses less water too!

It can also be used as a sterilizer and we also use it to warm up Trent’s baby food purees. The baby food storage containers that we use for our homemade baby food fit perfectly into the unit (they can be found here).

And, as always, I love that Nuby products are BPA free!

From Nuby:

The 2-in-1 design of this Natural Touchâ„¢ Warmer and Sterilizer evenly and safely warms breast milk, formula and baby food. Or you can use it as a quick and easy-to-use sterilizer for bottles and pacifiers. It sterilizes in just minutes! Simply use measuring cup (included) to add water, load the sterilizer and touch the button to start.

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I did not receive any compensation for this post, although as part of this program I received items to sample or review. As always, all opinions are my own and 100% honest.

That’s what Brett wanted to say to me when I recently made my first Craigs List purchase. And I don’t blame him whatsoever.

In fact, I’m truly disappointed in the entire experience.

We’ve sold a couple of things on Craig’s List before. A brand new telescope and a used workout bike. The telescope was still in the box, so we didn’t have to do much to prepare other than Brett taking several photos and writing a nice post for it. The bike was about 2 years old (but barely used I’m ashamed to say) and we completely wiped it down and included the owner’s manual and attachments. We got exactly what we asked for in both cases.

Other times we’ve needed to sell items (camera equipment, textbooks…not much, really), we’ve used eBay and had good results. We cleaned our items, took plenty of photos, disclosed any major flaws if there were any, and provided as much detail about the product and how much use it had gotten.

We once had a treadmill that we wanted to put on Craig’s List. We had known that the belt was acting funny, but we figured we could fix it before someone asked about it. So we listed it, but quickly realized that the belt wasn’t something we could fix. We quickly took the listing down from Craig’s List. Sure, we could have tried to sell it to someone that knew how to fix it, but we just didn’t feel right trying to sell something that was broken in our eyes. So we called our trash pickup company to schedule a curb pick up for the next day, we put it out by the curb and BAM! it was gone within 30 minutes, which is crazy since we don’t get a whole lot of traffic on our road either. I guess we could have sold it, but we were ok with just cutting our losses on it.

As a sidenote, do you notice the theme here? We got rid of a workout bike and a treadmill. We sound like lazy bums, huh? In our defense, both items were in the room that we were making into Trent’s nursery and we didn’t want to put them in the guest room…so out they went. And then we bought cake…just kidding!

Ok soooooo…after all that, back to our current situation. I had never actually purchased anything on Craig’s List. Any time I had ever went to look or search, things weren’t in great condition, had already been sold, or weren’t much cheaper than just buying new. I’ve seen quite a few friends get good items for a steal…why couldn’t I?

Currently, there are a few things we need/want for Trent…one of them being a highchair. We had been putting it off until he started eating solids and we think now’s a good time since he is outgrowing the Bumbo.

So last month, I decided to look at Craig’s List for a highchair. I saw 3 recent highchair listings. I looked up each one on Amazon for price and reviews. All seemed pretty good, so I emailed them. Two had already been sold and 1 was available. Score!

Since the person only used a stock photo of the item, I asked for a personal photo. They said they didn’t have a way to really do that. Hmmm…ok whatever.

So after a couple of calls, I met the lady at her job, drove her behind the building to her car and she took it out to show me.

This was the point I realized that Craig’s List MAY not have been the place for me to shop. It was not in almost NEW condition like the description said. It definitely needed to be cleaned, but I figured it was doable at a moment’s glance. The tray insert and toy attachment were missing, so I was able to talk $5 off (it was only $30 to begin with on an item that was regularly priced at $108). Then she couldn’t figure out how to fold it back up, so we tried for a few minutes and I finally figured it out, so she said “Make it $20 - Merry Christmas.”

$20 for a highchair…sweet, right?

Not one bit. The entire drive back to work, I kept thinking about how it needed to be cleaned. I didn’t get the high of getting something new and nice for my son and I felt guilty.

When Brett brought it in the house that night, we just stood there looking at it for a few minutes. We could tell that we were both disappointed, but were trying to make the most of it. He didn’t want to make me feel bad, so he kept saying we could try it. But I gave in and said no after he talked about how kids drop food and reach down in the chair to find it and eat it and since this wasn’t new or ours to begin with, you never know how clean it is. I immediately felt sad and guilty for comprimising when it comes to stuff for Trent. I felt like a bad mommy for trying to save some money when it comes to him. Especially on an item that gets eaten on. I’ve been trying to be better about saving and doing our best with Brett being home now, but we are just going to have to find other ways to do it because hand-me-downs from strangers are a no-go for us for certain items.
If you’ve found a great deal on Craig’s List, then I say kudos to you! I’m not downing ALL Craig’s List transactions, because there can be deals to be had…even things we’ve sold were in great condition.

After all that, we decided to purchase the highchair we’ve been eyeing online for the past few weeks, the Graco Blossom 4-in-1 Seating System.

We’re super excited about it because I think this will be the only highchair we’ll ever need. Trent can use it as a highchair now, then he can use the booster seat while his future younger sibling uses the highchair.

I also think having a highchair will help Brett prepare meals…they can hang out in the kitchen together. Maybe Trent will learn how to cook and I’ll have two chefs in the house!

I’m about to assemble it and I hope to do a review in the near future once it’s been Trent-tested!

So what about you guys? Have you had luck with Craig’s List? Tell me about your experiences, good or bad, in the comments!

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It’s time for Cooking with Trent!

As I mentioned in my Nuby Nibbler Review, Trent’s solid food-eating journey began with homemade sweet potatoes a few weeks ago. We started out with a vegetable, because babies can sometimes prefer the sweetness of fruits over vegetables once they start fruits, so we wanted him to be interested in a vegetable first.

Sweet potato is a popular choice as a first food and it was quite simple to make. Sweet potatoes have so many nutrients:

How to make easy homemade sweet potato baby food.

We started with 3 medium sweet potatoes. Place the sweet potatoes on a baking sheet with aluminum foil and pierce the sweet potatoes with a fork or knife.

Bake for 1 hour at 425 degrees. They are done when they are wrinkled and tender and able to be easily pierced with a tip of a knife.

Pull them out of the oven and let cool. We let ours sit for a couple of hours while we ate dinner and hung out for the night.

When they are cooled, cut them in half.

Scoop the insides out into a food processor. Throw the skins away.

Blend for about a 30 seconds. Continue blending while mixing in water and scraping the sides until the potatoes are the desired consistency. This will depend on what level the baby is at. Trent is just starting out, so we make his to a puree consistency. Older, more experienced babies may not even need the potatoes to be watered down. I’ve even read that you can also use breastmilk or formula to water them down. We used Gerber Pure Purified Water.

At this point, they are ready to eat!

Next, we did 3 things. 1) We left out a small serving to give him once we were finished. 2) We put some in the refrigerator for the next 2-3 days (it is recommended to not use any food in the fridge after 3 days). 3) We divided the rest up into these Fresh Baby Freezer Trays and put them in the freezer.

We chose these trays because they create nice little ice cube sized servings and have a lid, so the smell or taste of a nearby food doesn’t leak into the baby food.

Once the cubes were frozen, we transferred them into a Freezer Ziploc bag and labeled it with the food item and the date it was prepared. Baby food can stay in the freezer up to 3 months! By labeling the bag, you can make multiple bags and know which one to use first.

Each night, we just take out how much we want to feed him the next day or two and place each cube into a small container in the fridge to defrost.

After the food is thawed, you can either 1) remove a container from the fridge and let it sit out for 30 minutes prior to meal time to reach room temperature or 2) warm it up using a small saucepan. Trent likes warm baby food, so we actually use our Nuby bottle warmer to warm his food up. It is not recommended to use a microwave since it can cause hot spots that will burn baby’s mouth and can cause loss of nutrients.

Three sweet potatoes yielded 24 servings. He is only eating one serving a day right now, so we have almost a month’s worth of baby food for less than 30 minutes of actual work (not including the baking time) and for just a few dollars! Making your own baby food doesn’t have to be a tedious or expensive process. Trent gobbled them up!

We have been reading these two books on homemade baby food to get ideas on what foods to start with and recipes for as he gets older.

Cooking for Baby

The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet

Products we use to prepare the baby food:

Steamer Pot

Food Processor

Fresh Baby Freezer Trays

Baby Food Storage Containers

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I’ve been holding onto the Nuby Nibbler for a few weeks, anxious for Trent to use it.

We’ve been waiting for the 6 month mark to start Trent on solid foods and thought the Nuby Nibbler would be perfect for him to learn with. I tend to be a little a lot more impatient than Brett, so I have been wanting to start solids for the past few weeks, but he said we should wait. Nevermind that his main reason is because he wants to postpone the crazy stinky diapers that come along with the solid-food territory…but alas! He can not postpone the inevitable forever!

So he better hold his nose and man up because it’s time for this baby to get his grub on!

From Nuby:

The Nûbyâ„¢ Nibblerâ„¢ is a great way to introduce soft solids when your child is ready. It allows your child to eat whole foods without the risk of choking. With the “Squeeze and Twist” Locking System, your child can safely use without risk of opening; meanwhile it is easy as 1-2-3 for parents to place food inside! The Nibblerâ„¢ also come with a convenient cap to keep it clean during travel and storage. Suggested whole foods (age appropriate) include: frozen fruits, fresh fruits, ice chips, veggies, and other similar foods.

I’ve mentioned it before, but we will be making our own baby food. We chose sweet potatoes as his first food to eat and he loved it! He even tried to take the spoon to do it himself. For his second food, we gave him a piece of banana in the Nibbler.

The Nibbler makes it easy to give your baby a healthy food even if you don’t have time to steam/mash/blend/puree. To put food into the Nibbler, just twist off the mesh holder from the handle, insert the food into the mesh and then twist back on.

Photo source: www.buybabydirect.com

Babies can then chew the mesh and work the food out of the tiny mesh holes, turning it into a consistency that is easy for them to swallow.

It comes with a cap, so you could put some food into the Nibbler before leaving the house and the cap will keep it safe. Or if you are going to a restaurant and you know you will want to give your baby some food there, you can bring the Nibbler along and the cap will keep it from getting dirty along the way.

To clean, just twist off the mesh holder part from the handle. I did find that banana wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to clean out of the Nibbler, as there were lots of itty bitty pieces to pull out of the mesh. Perhaps other foods will be a little easier.

Some other food ideas to use with the Nibbler:

Sweet Potatoes
Pears
Peaches
Nectarines
Avacado
Grapes
Cherries
Plums

For foods with skins that you can’t let your baby eat, just scoop out the insides to put into the mesh.

Once Trent realized there was yummy food in the Nibbler, he grabbed onto it and started sucking out the banana. He has been so curious, reaching for our cups, bowls and utensils whenever we eat, so it was nice to finally be able to hand him something and say “Here, have fun!” I think it also helps him learn to feed himself, as opposed to us just spoonfeeding him every time. We want him to be an independent little man!

Of course, this is my own personal experience and we have consulted with Trent’s pediatrician regarding his consumption of solid foods. Talk to your pediatrician if you have any questions or concerns.

You can find the Nuby Nibbler at:

Amazon.com

BuyBabyDirect.com

ADD NUBY USA on Facebook! and Twitter fans follow NubyUSA, @nubyusa on Twitter!

I did not receive any compensation for this post, although as part of this program I received items to sample or review. As always, all opinions are my own and 100% honest.

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