My daughter, Luna, started solids on October 1st. She was a week shy of six months old, and all the signs were there that it was time for her to start adding solids into her breast milk-only diet. My husband and I had decided to make her baby food ourselves. This has been one of those decisions that draw that “Oh. You’re doing that?” reaction from many. The decision was easy for us because we love cooking for ourselves using fresh, seasonal ingredients. So why wouldn’t that transfer to Luna?
I never thought I would be so involved in the world of solids, nor did I think about the idea of food sensitivities. I loved the idea of reviewing Little Bites, an app available in the iOS App Store, which helps keep track of your baby’s food sensitivities. My iPhone is the device I use the most in my life, and the chance to try something that could help me track the foods I start Luna on seemed like a no-brainer.
Little Bites allows you to enter different profiles for each child. This is not useful to me, but it would be if I had more than one child, especially as each child’s palate and preferences develop. Having an ongoing list available to you at all times to update is a lovely feature. Within the list, there is an icon that allows you to indicate if your child enjoyed the food: clicking once means that they enjoyed it, and clicking twice means they didn’t like it.
There are also direct links to recipes for foods that your child enjoys in the food database. The nice thing about the recipes is that they are divided by meal and then further divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced. We haven’t had the chance to utilize the intermediate or advanced recipes, but the recipe for the sweet pea puree was simple to prepare and among the first batch of solid foods Luna tried. This is great for the user who is just starting with making purées and just starting to introduce foods to their child. It also appeals to the user who has older children and is searching more for family recipes.
The foods listed in the app are divided into groups, and you can search within each group without having to look through the entire list. This is a convenient feature, especially in long groups, such as vegetables.
I also like the resources available within the app, which are great as a quick reference. The basic instructions on introducing solids were simple to understand and very helpful. Also, the cheat sheet for which foods cause most allergies was informative. This was helpful for me as a first-time parent introducing my child to solids.
Another nice feature that Little Bites has is the ability to compose an email of which foods are okay and which are not. This feature could be handy if you had to send the list to a childcare provider or school, a family member who will care for your child, or even as an easy way to compose a shopping list.
Overall, I think Little Bites is a great way to keep tabs on your children’s food preferences and a good resource for healthy recipes for your family members (of all ages). I like the user interface because it is simple and easy to use. The emailing foods feature alone makes it worth the app’s price ($1.99). Keep in mind that you can manage the diet, and the recipes are available without internet connectivity, which is helpful for those moments in the market without cell phone service.
The developer is currently working on adding features and is extremely open to user suggestions. Things I would love to see added are the ability to click on a food, which would then open a menu containing when you started the food, your child’s like/dislike of the food, and perhaps the ability to add a photo (if you’re like me, you have a ton of photos in your camera roll containing so many important “firsts,” but they often just get lumped in with all of the not-so-important photos) of your child enjoying or being disgusted by this particular food. This could make it an important reference tool and help you keep track of your child’s food taste in a scrapbook style.
If you’re looking for an easy way to keep track of the foods your child has eaten, as well as a tool to keep track of foods that your child may be sensitive to, the Little Bites app is a simple way to do so, and readily available for your i-devices.
