OXO Tot Feeding Spoon Set

Before I get into the real subject of this post, I just wanted to thank everyone who left travel-advice comments last week, both here and on Facebook. The exciting news is that Baba G's passport application is IN, and I just booked our trip a few hours ago. I'll keep you in suspense as to where we're going, as that is definitely a topic worthy of multiple posts. But I will say this: planning a vacation when a baby's going to be in tow is STRESSFUL.

You know what else is stressful? Trying to feed a kid who bites down on his spoon and WILL NOT LET GO.

I had been feeding Des with a short baby spoon made by Skip*Hop (I'll write up that set some other time when we actually use all of its pieces). But since we only had that one spoon and we actually thought we lost it for a short period of time, I realized I should have some back-ups. I spent about 5 seconds researching baby spoons on Amazon and selected the OXO Tot Feeding Spoon Set because it was highly rated, I've liked other OXO products I've bought for myself/our kitchen, and, really, isn't a spoon just a spoon?

I thought so... but now I'm not so sure. The OXO spoon is significantly easier for me to hold while feeding BG because it's longer and is angled just perfectly. But its soft material (the Skip*Hop spoon was hard plastic) seems to be enticing the heavily teething BG to clamp down on it rather than eat.

It was hard to get a picture of this while I was feeding him, but you might be able to tell from his expression (and his forming fists) that this poor spoon is taking a beating.

Spoon Tug o' War

I'm not kidding when I say that I can't get this spoon out of his mouth. It's to the point where I'm afraid I'm going to pull so hard that I'll crack one of his teeth, so instead I wait for him to ease up or I try to distract him (his water cup usually works) until he lets go. I am shocked by the strength of his four teeny top teeth, his two bottom teeth... and his overall willpower and general stubbornness. (Let's try to not think about what that last part means for his teenage years.)  I'm also confused as to why he wants to just bite down on the spoon rather than eat, since he's always seemed to like every flavor of baby food we've given him.

So is the problem the spoon, his teething, or his 'tude? It's hard to say. I've found that if I barely let the spoon rest in his mouth I can get it back out before he clamps down. This leads to food splattering all over the place every once in a while as I whip a fully loaded spoon out of his mouth, but at this point there's really no way around a huge mess at feeding time, anyway.

"There is no spoon." - The Matrix

The bottom line: I like the OXO spoon a lot because of its length and angled end. So I'm going to chalk BG's biting up to the fact that he's teething like mad and pretty much tries to bite everything that's even remotely near his mouth. The OXO spoons come in a set of 2 for $7 on Amazon and are available in multiple colors.