Today’s post is brought to you in partnership with Gerber, but all opinions are genuine and my own. If you have a baby ready to eat or eating solids, read on mama!

With Layla approaching the one-year mark, I’ve been having increasingly mixed emotions. The thought of her not being a baby anymore makes me incredibly sad, but at the same time I love, love, love watching her learn new things and hit new milestones. I’d say one of the most fun parts of her getting older is getting to introduce her to new foods.

When we first started with solids around four months, she tried the Gerber 1st Foods®. And boy did she love them! As she’s aged, we’ve introduced other Gerber foods and just recently tried out the Gerber’s 3rd Foods® Lil Bits™ Recipes!

If you haven’t heard of the Gerber’s 3rd Foods® Lil Bits™ Recipes, they are Gerber’s baby food designed for helping crawlers learn to chew and mash. They contain the right sized soft pieces of fruits or veggies, perfect for practicing chewing! They come in seven fruits and three veggies, including the Apple Blueberry flavor that Layla tried.

Since Layla only has two teeth (and starting to cut a third–the teething horror!), chewing is still a new skill. She was very comfortable mashing the small bits of fruit, and I felt completely at ease with her ability to eat the food. And when it came to the taste test? Well I think it’s pretty clear that Layla thought they were a winner!

Chewing is such an essential developmental milestone, and experimenting with different texture is so important as well. I think we all know that Layla is a good eater, and making sure she experiences new tastes and textures (including lumpy foods!) will help her continue to accept a wide variety of foods in the future. Gerber’s 3rd Foods® Lil Bits™ Recipes hit all the marks for me. So if you have a crawler who is ready to start chewing, I would definitely recommend trying them out.

And don’t miss the Gerber Chew U Instant Win Promotion where you can:

1. Apply your little ones to Gerber Chew University

2. Win daily prizes! 100 winners per day will receive Class of 2015 Chew U prizes. Promotion period ends on September 4, 2015 at 11:59 p.m. ET

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Gerber.