By Angie Gilchrist
Feeding a baby can be a big mess. You use one hand to feed the baby and the other to hold the bowl. And then baby spills some on the floor. You can either stop holding the bowl or stop feeding the baby if you want to clean up the mess. Wouldn’t another hand be great?
The Baby Dipper Bowl gives you that free hand — or it did for me as I tried it out to see if a different bowl would really change our meal times. The Baby Dipper Bowl allows you to feed with one hand while you do whatever you need to with the other, be it entertain your tot, clean up his mess, defend the incoming spoonful of food or hold back siblings from distracting the hungry child.
Huntsville’s Barbara Schantz created the Baby Dipper Bowl out of her need to feed her first set of twins (you read that right), girls Greta and Cora, at the same time.
“I have tried 30-40 bowls on my twins, hoping one of them would help make meal time easier, but none did,” said inventor and mother Schantz. So she designed her own.
Schantz’s Baby Dipper Bowl allows a child to be fed with one hand, really. I tried it out on my ten-month-old daughter, and I found myself more relaxed than normal because I wasn’t stretching to catch something flying off the high chair or having to clean something every few seconds as I normally would be doing with a traditional bowl.
The Baby Dipper Bowl has several features that separate it from other feeding bowls. The bowl has a sloped bottom, which allows mom, dad or whoever is feeding baby to easily scoop out food with just one hand. The bowl also has a rubber base that is attached to the bowl to prevent it from sliding around during mealtime. Lastly, the bowl is made from a sturdy see-through material, so baby and parent can easily see how much food is left. An added feature is that Baby Dipper Bowls are BPA free and come with a fork in addition to the bowl and spoon.
Meals at my house weren’t nearly as stressful or messy while I was trying out the Baby Dipper Bowl on Charlotte. I wondered to myself, “Could this bowl really be making the meal that much easier? Or is Charlotte just going easy on me these past few meals?” After several days of eating with the Baby Dipper Bow,l I have come to the conclusion that this bowl really does make a difference at mealtime. A bonus is that as Charlotte gets older she can still use the bowl – she’ll just be feeding herself.
The Baby Dipper Bowl’s usefulness doesn’t end when your baby graduates to toddlerhood. The shape and sturdiness of the bowl lends itself to those who are learning to successfully feed themselves, and the bowl is designed to make less mess, since the sides aren’t splayed like traditional bowls. Schantz even uses the bowls on her second set of twins, Franklin and Carlton, who are both 18 months old. Toddlers can have the pride of feeding themselves, and the parents and caregivers have a lot less mess to clean up – a win-win situation!
I never would have thought changing the bowl I feed my child with would make our meals that much less stressful, less messy and dare I say relaxed, even if only for five minutes before Charlotte hollers to get out of her high chair.
The Schantz Family
Interested in trying one out or giving one to some parents you know? Save some shipping and buy the Baby Dipper Bowl locally at one of these area locations, including A Nurturing Moment, Posh Mommy and Baby Too, The Little Gym (both locations), The Laurel Tree and Twice Upon a Time. It is also available in select shops throughout the nation and internationally in The Netherlands. You can also find the Baby Dipper Bowl online at several retailers including BabyDipper.com and Amazon and in the current One Step Ahead/Leaps and Bounds catalog.
Angie Gilchrist is a freelance writer who loves to get outside with her three-year old son, Eli, and 10-month old daughter, Charlotte.
on Mar 14th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
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