For those who aren’t yet responsible for taking care of very small humans I might suggest checking out a different post.

(Please note, I am trying to start using more gender neutral language in my writing when not necessary, and honestly as far as I am concerned outside of their medical needs the gender of a baby isn’t the most important information. )

Last night while feeding our youngest we kept having to reform their food into something that they could hold onto. This led to many rounds of me picking up various food pieces from their bib and plate for the reformation process. All so that our little one could eat the food that had been presented to them. What was truly messy for me as a parent was finding the little pieces, as such my wife and I started chatting about ways to make a plate/eating set up that would allow parents of small ones to easily recollect and reassemble food items (at least those that had stayed in the work area). We started chatting about maybe a largish silicone placemat like item that would have a funnel point at one end for said loose food to go. The item might look something like this.

Behold the meal mat (no I don’t have a better name, yes you are welcome to suggest one)

The use case is that as food gets scattered on the mat, when critical mass is achieved, the baby’s caretaker scrapes the food toward the top of the mat and the little walled indent. There the items can be more easily smooshed against the wall to form the food into something larger for baby. See below for a very crude workflow.

a four step process showing how the food tray would work. At the start of a meal we have large pieces of food, at a critical point those pieces have become too small for a baby's grasp, those pieces are scooped together at the former

Now for this render there is only a funnel point at the top of the placemat for the re-consolidation process, a more realized model might have attachment points so bibs can be attached to the clean up mat, keeping the process more consolidated. Flip side of that proposal is that the interfacing of bib and placemat might cause more trouble than they are worth. Basically this quick and dirty post is more about wishing that it was easier to keep your dining spaces clean when feeding wee babies (please pronounce this with a bad Shrek impersonation). Now if anyone can somehow cheaply fabricate custom silicone items like this, or wants to collaborate on a project, please let me know. My wife and I would love a better method.

As per usual, questions, feedback, thoughts are welcome.

Mealtime Cleaning