by Becky Vieira posted in Products

When my son started on solids it was adorable. I?d spoon feed him pureed fruits and vegetables, and our biggest concern was a stained bib. Cut to six months later and the feeding game has changed completely. It looks more like the aftermath of a food fight than an Instagram-worthy moment.
I now retrieve actual food ? goodbye, liquid peas ? from his hair and dodge the occasional blueberry. And it?s messy. Oh, so messy.
One evening I found myself on my hands and knees picking up food before I mopped the area under his highchair for the fourth (or was it fifth) time that week. Walking across my kitchen held as much appeal as striding barefoot in a gas station bathroom. It was sticky, dirty and a foul stench was emanating from the corner of the room (turns out I missed a bit of the previous night's meal in my cleanup).
It was time to call upon the powers of splat mats, which are essentially a giant coaster that your child?s highchair sits upon. Instead of those berries being mashed into your floor, food lands on the mat. My kitchen floor is now so clean that you could eat off it. Which is ironic, as it also solved the problem of having food all over my floor.
I?m a self-admitted product junkie. I happily tested several splat mats and narrowed the field down to my five favorites:
1. Sugarbooger: This is one of the bigger splat mats, measuring 42? by 42? ? perfect if your little one likes to use mealtime as a chance to exercise her pitchin...