Nicole - i'm pretty sure mum bought us one of those things you're talking about (is it the mesh bag thing for putting food in?) - we haven't opened it. thought about it, but in the end we didn't bother. we have just decided to go with baby led solids with E. a couple of times she's gagged and gotten food stuck - but not often. she is pretty good at making sure it's small enough to go down - or she spits it out. i guess my thought on it is that i don't want to give her a false sense of how things are processed as she chews (does that make sense - i want her to know that she is biting food off kwim?) i guess i worry that, if we do use the mesh, she may become reliant on it and have a lot more issues when we give her food in it's true form...