What do you put in your mesh feeder?

[mommydearest]

So far DD has had bananas in hers, but what do you guys put in your mesh feeders?

[jenjen0713]

I put watermelon in there for him to gnaw on. Way messy, but he loved it.

[janu98]

OOOOO awesome thread!! I have been looking for new ideas to put in our mesh feeder.....

So far I have put : watermelon, peaches and ice cubes (to help with teething)

[doubleR]

I mostly used it for fruit - all kinds of fruit, but thought I'd chime in with this ~ we were at a restaurant and DH put a piece of his prime rib in it and DS *LOVED* it. He went to town on that piece of meat and then a few more. He was older at this point, almost a year, but he was slow-going with the solids for a while. I never would have thought to put meat in it though!

[Scooter]

I tried a couple types of fruit, but it was really messy and I hated that thing, so we stopped using it. Banana is ridiculously hard to clean out of it!!

[Marisa]

Surprisingly -- cooked ground beef, unseasoned. DS loved it, and chewed on it until the meat was totally nasty and grey. :D Good for iron, though!

[katnbug]

I'm with scooter on this topic. WAY too hard to clean.. especially banana. I ran it under hot water and scrubbed it to get the banana out, without luck. Then I put it in the diswasher, and it still had banana in the seams!

I really want to use mine more (I got a 2-pack, so I have another brand new one).. But how do you ladies clean yours out?????

[MichelleRenee]

I haven't bought one because we don't have a dishwasher. Sounds like they are hard to clean with or without one!

[BethIrish]

We have a 2 pack - and honestly, every time I put something in it, DS is more interested in chewing on the handle and not whatever was in it!!!!!

[wine_o_girlie]

My son is psycho for the mesh feeder so we use it all.the.time. - probably almost daily. It is hard to clean but I actually use a bottle brush on it with hot soapy water and it comes clean. I throw it in the dishwasher once or twice a week as well.

So far, we've done peach (his favorite), banana, steamed apple, steamed sweet potato, steamed zucchini, watermelon, plum

My son really, really, really wants to feed himself so I think that's why he loves the mesh feeder. He's only 6 months old so he can't really do finger foods yet but he is a pro with the mesh feeder.

[Delaney21]

My DS loves the thing too! We mostly put ice cubes in it, which is a definite sanity saver at a restaurant! He will chew on that for 15 minutes and be quiet :)
We've also put frozen banana in it.

[wine_o_girlie]

We put mango in it yesterday for the first time and he LOVED it.

[kemorr]

I'm with Scooter on that thing being particularly hard to clean - especially banana. I usually find myself picking small dried bits out of it after it has been through the dishwasher then tossing it back in for a 2nd or even 3rd dishwasher cycle. I also find it messy - DD mostly swings hers around, smearing sucked on food everywhere. However, I do use it on occasion for teething biscuits. On the one occasion I've given DD teething biscuits outside of the mesh feeder, she managed to bite off a piece that could easily have become a choking hazard and given that mesh feeders were developed by a Dad whose kid almost died from choking on a teething biscuit - I'm paranoid about those things. So, these days that's about all we use it for. She's getting pretty good at eating finger food sized pieces of fruit, so no need for the feeder for them. I've not tried meat - but that's a good idea!

[mayham]

I'm with the others that it TOTALLY SUCKS to clean banana out of the mesh feeders!

We've tried banana, peach, and mango so far, and DD LOVES it! We've tried them all frozen (for teething) and she much prefers frozen food in it.

MichelleRenee - we've run ours through the dishwasher and it doesn't seem to get it much cleaner than just hand washing.

I've only seen this at BRU. Is there another place to buy the replacement bags cheaper? I'd love to buy these things in bulk, but I haven't looked into it yet, and was wondering if anyone else has!

[shaqangel]

my ds loved his! the very first thing we put in was mango and he went nuts!!! he loves mango. we also put cantaloupe, grapes, plums, bananas (just once - hated cleaning it out), apricot and chicken.