What is a nibbler and how does it help in complementary feeding

Prop­er feed­ing of the baby lays his healthy eat­ing habits and taste pref­er­ences. Nib­bler became an unex­pect­ed helper in this dif­fi­cult peri­od for par­ents. Some are sure that mashed food and a spoon are enough for feed­ing, oth­ers do not even know about the exis­tence of this gad­get. But there are those who have already appre­ci­at­ed the con­ve­nience and ben­e­fits not only for them­selves, but most impor­tant­ly, for the child. Let’s fig­ure out togeth­er what a nib­bler is and how to use it.

What is a nib­bler?

This is a con­tain­er nip­ple filled with pieces of fresh fruits or veg­eta­bles, which the baby holds him­self. The baby, press­ing with gums or teeth on a sil­i­cone or tex­tile mesh, sucks out fresh juice with pulp with­out the risk of chok­ing on a large piece.

This sim­ple, but at the same time orig­i­nal item is called dif­fer­ent­ly: nib­bler, fruit­tak­er or foot feed­er. From Eng­lish, the trans­la­tion of the word “nib­bler” means “feed­er”.

Nib­bler is eas­i­ly dis­as­sem­bled into parts:

• Nylon mesh bag or sil­i­cone teat with mul­ti­ple holes
• Han­dle for ease of use
• Con­nect­ing device that her­met­i­cal­ly clos­es the prod­uct
• Pro­tec­tive cap that allows you to take the nib­bler in a stroller or bag

How to use Nib­bler?

Nib­bler is easy to use: take an apple, wash it and cut off a piece 1cm x 1cm. For the age of 4–5 months, you can cut small­er. We put the prod­uct in a mesh or sil­i­cone con­tain­er, screw it in or close it until it stops or clicks (depend­ing on the mod­el) so that the child does not acci­den­tal­ly open the con­tain­er and pour every­thing on him­self. We pro­tect clothes with a nap­kin or bib. We remove the cap and give it to the pens. The first days we help the baby, then he him­self will hold him in his hands, gnaw and chew.

After each use, care­ful­ly wash and ster­il­ize the nib­bler with a mild deter­gent for chil­dren’s dish­es.

What is the dif­fer­ence between Nib­bler mod­els?

Let’s start with the mate­r­i­al of the mesh: nylon is light weight and able to take the shape of the prod­uct, and is also a fair­ly prac­ti­cal mate­r­i­al for one-time use, but it also has its draw­backs. First­ly, it quick­ly los­es its orig­i­nal col­or and changes it from the effects of acids con­tained in the fruits and berries that the baby will eat from it. Sec­ond­ly, the mate­r­i­al becomes rough after 2–3 appli­ca­tions and dry­ing, which can cause dis­com­fort and chaf­ing. Third­ly, the mate­r­i­al very quick­ly absorbs odors, which, unfor­tu­nate­ly, can­not be removed by any means. And the main, fourth minus of the mesh is that micropar­ti­cles of food get stuck in the tis­sue and can be a breed­ing ground for bac­te­ria.

Sil­i­cone mesh is a more famil­iar, easy-care and long-last­ing option. Food-grade sil­i­cone used for the pro­duc­tion of chil­dren’s nib­blers is hypoal­ler­genic, easy to clean and ster­il­ize. In addi­tion, it can be used as a cool­ing teether, at the stage of the appear­ance of the first teeth. You just need to put the nib­bler in the refrig­er­a­tor, and after 5–7 min­utes you will get a com­fort­able, chilled teether for a gen­tle and pleas­ant mas­sage of the gums. The han­dle can be made of safe plas­tic or non-slip rub­ber. For the small­est, a ring han­dle is suit­able, and for 6–8 months, an oblong han­dle, which chil­dren use as a teether, will be more con­ve­nient.

What kind of food can be put into the nib­bler?

• Fruits and berries: pear, kiwi, orange, straw­ber­ry, rasp­ber­ry, wild straw­ber­ry, etc.

Cit­rus fruits will be a bright new sen­sa­tion in the life of the crumbs, but the main thing is not to mix dif­fer­ent fruits and berries at first, and also track pref­er­ences and reac­tions to them, because they can often be an aller­gen for the body.

• Bread, meat or boiled veg­eta­bles

When feed­ing from a nib­bler, you need to remem­ber that the prod­ucts in it should not be too soft, because then the whole process of switch­ing to sol­id food los­es its mean­ing, and too hard, since the child can scratch the gums on crusts and crack­ers.

Nib­blers from the com­pa­ny KUNDER

Using a nib­bler, you will be con­vinced of its use­ful­ness, because it:

• devel­ops the child’s chew­ing skills
• intro­duces sol­id foods with­out the risk of swal­low­ing a large bite
• helps to quick­ly wean from breast­feed­ing and eas­i­er to accus­tom to com­ple­men­tary foods
• relieve itch­ing and anx­i­ety dur­ing teething