I’ve been emailed and asked about what we cook for Alexis in terms of BLW and how our whole feeding process goes. So here is the breakdown.

First thing you have to remember is that we don’t really eat like a typical American family.  You almost never see green beans on our table, or green peas, or corn. No mashed potatoes (no reason for that, we just never get around to making them), no meats, no dairy. What you will see is mostly other types of vegetables, fruits, grains and fish. My husband was vegan for a couple of years, but I think we’re slowly starting to permanently introduce fish. I would always eat certain fish, because of its benefit when pregnant and now, but my husband used to stay away from ANY animal products (except for trace amounts in baked goods on occasion). But I think we have decided that the benefit outweighs the disadvantages. I do eat eggs once a month or so now, my husband doesn’t. We’ll occasionally “cheat” if we have to or want to. So at this point our family is a bit of a smorgasborg of vegan/pescetarians/vegetarians/whatever. However, our eating habits are constantly changing and I am not exactly sure which direction we are going with them.

Our goal is (and of course that doesn’t always pan out) to make sure that Alexis has a protein source at almost every meal (beans, fish), a few vegetable servings every time, whole grains (which can also be considered high in protein if you stick with quinoa) and fruit/berries for breakfast.

The time has come for you guys to learn about what it is I have been working on so hard for the last 6 months. FEBRUARY 28th!

DAILY MOM

I’ve mentioned this name in passing a few times, but I doubt many of you noticed or paid attention. However it is now a huge part of my life that I am incredibly excited about. It took a lot of work and it’s almost here and you, guys, get to be the first ones to see it. A new portal that will hopefully stand out in the sea of mommy-oriented websites. I first came upon the idea for the website when I was sick of wading through hundreds of useless posts that sucked me in and wasted my time on big corporate website ( you know the ones I am talking about, those with scandalous news and celebrity gossip).  One post that has the potential of helping me as a mom and a woman among 10 posts of useless (but admittedly entertaining content). I wondered if there was a place for a website that doesn’t try to entertain, but tries to help. I instantly thought of Pinterest and how awesome of a service that is. My next thought was “I wish there was a blog like Pinterest, where all that awesomeness was delivered to me daily in a blog format into my email or RSS feed.”

DING DING DING

(that was the lightbulb over my head) Now over a year later after the initial idea and 6 months of grueling work along with my kick ass team of moms, Daily Mom is here.

So what is Daily Mom?

This is how we define it!

Up until recently, Prematurity Awareness month would have been as far from me as a Leukemia month or something equally unrelated. I do know a few people personally who had premature babies, but I never actually heard exactly what they went through. It can be tough and heartbreaking. But I doubt that most mothers who had premature babies had to worry about their baby’s wellbeing IN RELATION to how the doctors are treating them. We all know, doctors are there to help and we put our trust into them.

This is different from the experience some people have in other countries.

Today I wanted to tell you the only premature story that directly affected my family.

Today we’ve got Lamaze toys by TOMY brands. Lamaze toys are pretty mainstream and aren’t known for being “green” in particular. However, the company, that also owns my favorite Boon, is obviously set on making safe products.

First of all, all Lamaze toys are made primarily out of fabric with a few small plastic components.

What Lamaze toys DO NOT HAVE:

Fire Retardants
PVC

Now that’s that out of the way…

APPLE PARK

{Read the first part about toy chemicals here}

I remember when I first got our Apple Park toys when Alexis was still little, I became obsessed. I had never seen organic toys that were SO COOL! I never even hoped I’d find something like that. A company that carries a good assortment of organic toys that don’t look like they’ve been sewn by hand ( though that look can be cute).

Take this crawling ladybug critter. It has a wood teething ring, a soft body and a cute little leaf to suck on. But that is not what kept ME playing with it. If you pull on the teething ring and let go, the ladybug vibrates and moves towards you. Wicked cool! So it’s a teething toy that later would be turned into a cool moving toy that even a toddler wouldn’t be bored of.

As we are approaching the most important holiday of the year (at least from a little kid’s standpoint), one might wonder if all those bright colorful toys that are routinely bought for babies and toddlers are safe. I mean, OF COURSE, they are safe! The government makes sure of it, right? Right?

Apparently wrong!

While 65% of people believe that toys that contain toxic or potentially toxic chemicals wouldn’t be allowed on the shelves of baby stores, the reality is more grim. In fact, our government has long since subscribed to the philosophy of “safe unless proven otherwise”. That is where we, as parents, are forced to do the due diligence before buying a cute toy.

It is true that we cannot protect our babies from every danger, no matter how hard we try – we can’t live in a bubble. But we CAN take certain steps to educate ourselves about, let’s say, toy safety, especially considering that aside from food (more on food safety in another post), this is the one thing that gets put in their mouths constantly in the first few years of life. I also won’t be talking about “fringe dangers”, like plastics that are yet to be found dangerous (all those millions of new chemicals, plastics and materials that get made and discovered in labs all the over the world have not been proven dangerous and thus are by default “safe” as far as our government is concerned). So even so called safe plastics are not necessarily safe. Wood is, of course, the best, but wood can have hidden dangers, as well as natural rubber.

What makes it even more dangerous is our current standards for levels of toxic substances in children’s toys are based on a 180 pound adult male. As you can imagine that makes a huge difference when the same amount of toxins is ingested by a 20 pound infant whose body and brain are developing and don’t have the same capability of processing toxins.

The issue also comes in when these toxins “interact” in our body and create different reactions all together than they would if they were simply ingested alone.

I would like to list all the common dangers, as well as the materials that are considered somewhat safe, ways to find out what is in your toys, hidden dangers of “safe” materials to watch out for, and finally a list of companies that are committed to making toy safety a priority and have been found to be more consciences and safer than others. What I will NOT cover is the physical danger of toys, like making sure they are age appropriate, can’t be choked on, as well as can’t cause bodily harm. Those are more common sense things.

The title of this post might give you an idea of how much Dr. Seuss I read on daily basis.

Ok, so I’ve been asked to write about this multiple times and I have looked forward to writing about this, as well. Kind of. Sort of. The only but is that I don’t really have much to say on the topic of postpartum body and getting in shape. I have done absolutely NOTHING. :( So I’ll write a bit about what changes my body went through from pre-pregnancy to now and what I am planning on doing about it.

There are a few “quirks” about my body that need to be known to understand where I am at after giving birth.
Number 1: My strong spot is my abs. It’s virtually impossible for me to gain fat in my tummy. And when I gain weight, my belly is the LAST thing to grow (after boobies) and even then it still has some definition to it.
Number 2: My weak spot is my legs. That is the first place where I gain weight and it shows immediately. So the rest of my body will be fine, but my legs and face will show whether I am heavy or thin.
Number 3:

I am so excited to be writing this post. To see the post about Feeding Gear we use, click here.

Baby Led Weaning ( BLW) has been one of the most fun, relatively stress-free experiences so far, if I can say so, being only over a month into it. But I feel like it’s only going to get better from now on.

{high chair is by Boon Inc}

First of all, for those who are unfamiliar with the term Baby Led Weaning, it has nothing to do with stopping breastfeeding the way the word “weaning” is in American English. I believe the name took roots in Britain where weaning simply means “introduction of solids”. However, introduction of solids does spell out an EVENTUAL weaning from the breast, hence the name.

{Just fyi, as of right now I am planning on breastfeeding for as long as Alexis wants it and I can manage, with two years being the goal on my part}

I first learned about BLW on one of the blogs I used to read when I was pregnant ( can’t remember which one, otherwise I’d give a huge shoutout to it for introducing the concept into my world). The idea seemed… well… unconventional, interesting and the arguments FOR it made sense to me immediately.

Instead of giving purees, you basically let your child explore, play with and eat real whole foods or finger foods so that small hands could easily pick it up. According to the book, 6 months old babies ( as long as they are truly ready for solids, which is a good guide to go by, even for pureeing  parents) are perfectly capable of and very interested in feeding themselves. They want to copy you, they want to explore new tastes and textures and they can do it pretty sufficiently.

My first reaction was “Won’t she choke?” Other than that, it seemed like a really cool concept. I held off making a decision until closer to 5 months. At that point, I was still intrigued by the idea, but I figured in order to do it right, I had to get all the information. So I bought the BLW book on my nook and started reading while rocking Lexi to sleep. When I was done reading, I COULD NOT WAIT to get started. At 5.5 months, Alexis has completed the checklist of “readiness”, but I was waiting till 6 months anyways.

That was until one morning when she was a week or two short of 6 months, while sitting in my lap, she reached out, TORE a peach out of my hands and bit into it. She had been interested in our food for a while, and reaching out to try and grab it, but this whole “I’m gonna take your peach and bite into it, and then chew it” made me realize it might be time to start slowly sharing food with her. Every time we’d let her eat, she’d go for it with so much gusto, it was contageous!

At first it was all done while sitting in one of our laps, which was pretty difficult. One of us had to be holding her and catching food, while the other eats. It was not the family affair in the way I had hoped it would be. A lot of food ended up on the floor because we just couldn’t catch it with our one free hand.

Then the high chair arrived, which made our life 10 times easier and a whole lot of fun.

Before her teeth popped out, it was pretty stress free. All she’d do is gum on both hard and soft foods, getting the juice or the soft parts of fruits and vegetables out. She enjoyed it quite a lot too.

Then the teeth came out and the biting started. This is where I started doubting the whole “let her eat grown up food” bit under the pressure of my husband ( who didn’t read the book, therefore was freaked out by the idea of her choking). She would bite off bigger pieces that she couldn’t manage so well yet and then start coughing. This would send Andrew into panic mode, telling me to grab food out of her mouth and “never give to her again”. It’s not that I wasn’t a bit freaked either, but the book covers this specific topic of choking and gagging and coughing very well and I was prepared for it a little more.

To quickly explain, according to the book, coughing and gagging is a completely normal natural response to simply having food in their mouths at that age. In adults the trigger for “choking”, and hence coughing from it, is in the back of a person’s throat. For infants of 6 months, though, that trigger is in the middle of their tongue. So when they bite a piece that is a little too big, they start coughing as if they are choking before they even had a chance to move the piece back into the actual “danger zone”. During these beginning months, they learn to bite proper size pieces, not stuff their mouths, chew, swallow, move the food around in their mouth, which, apparently, are all very complex movements. By the time that the coughing trigger moves back where it belongs ( nine months if I am not mistaken), an infant who has been fed non-pureed foods has learned to handle foods safely enough to be able to chew them up, or spit them out if the bite is too big. This way, most babies who were BLW’ed don’t ever need their food cut up in small pieces for them (except for choking hazards like grapes, cherries etc), and they enjoy family meals from an early age, because you feed them what you are eating ( with some modifications in the very beginning).

So while I know the rationalizations for why it’s completely normal for babies to cough/gag, it’s still scary at times.

Luckily in the last week or so, she seems to have gotten the hang of manipulating food  and she hasn’t coughed or gagged once. At the same time, we also try to avoid foods that could be hard to deal with. A few things that didn’t work out  in the beginning were baked potato strips, because they were too hard on the edges and she kept biting pieces off. I’ve stayed away from bread or crackers for the same reason. Anything that seem like it could get stuck in her throat, I am very careful with regardless.

As far as other foods, we won’t be doing meat or dairy, since we don’t eat that ourselves. I am not keen on introducing her to soy yet. We aren’t holding off on anything out of fears of allergy ( no family history, pedi told to go full steam ahead), though. Out of animal products, I think we will do eggs and fish, though I am waiting a little bit since there are still plenty of fruits and vegetables to introduce.  Obviously, no salt (except for in very small amounts in restaurant food- I check their sodium content online), no honey.  We are holding off on tomatoes and onions because they seem to give her reflux through my milk when I eat them ( and then also gave me heartburn when I was pregnant). We’ve made soups: split pea, spicy chickpea and squash, letting her grab the spoon and attempt to put it in her mouth herself. It took a few days of utter mess but she finally got the hang of it and will put a pre-loaded spoon into her mouth the right side up and in.

I have to say that Alexis was REALLY good at handling food from the very beginning. From the day I realized she was ready, she’s been grabbing and picking up foods like a pro, very surprisingly so. And she is getting better at it, the more she does it. She mimics us and makes the chewing motion. Or squashes the softer foods in her hand and then puts them into her mouth.

The following are the stages that she’s gone through while doing BLW:

{these are not official stages, just the ones I’ve noticed her go through}

Week 1: Eager to grab food and put it in her mouth. Eats with pleasure and interest

Week 2: Lots of gagging as she learns not to bite off more than she can chew (literally)

Week 3-4: The appearance of object permanence. She would pick up her food,  bring her hand outside of the highchair, and release the food. Then she would lean over to see where it went. Rinse and repeat. At that point very little ended up in her mouth, if any.

Week 5: Shake, shake, shake, shake it! Arms flying everywhere, plates and food follows. She picks up her food, starts shaking it and then drops. Or windshield-wipes everything off of the tray in an excited motion.

Week 6: Squishing stage. Everything we put on her tray goes through the “squish test“. She tries to squish the food as hard as she can, then eats what’s left in her palm. Strawberries crumble, cucumbers don’t, which causes her to try and squash them even more. {see below: 2nd row, 1st pic on the left )

{From top left: Damage after a strawberry fight, drinking out of a glass in a restaurant, eating split pea soup at CPK, having more strawberry fun, eating veggies at Bonefish Grill, Guacomole Hummus make up}

Week 7: Eating again using the “squish”, pincer grasp or conventional methods. No gagging, lots of chewing and spitting large pieces out. She’s really gotten the hang of it. Not well enough to let her eat anything, but good enough that most soft and hard finger sized foods are completely manageable.

We don’t give her juice or water on regular basis since she is breastfed, though she loves drinking out of a cup and adores water. I let her drink out of my cup whenever she sees me drinking but it’s usually once or twice a week, no more.

The following are the foods she’s tried and she loves everything, partially because she determines what to eat or not and how much, but the stared items are the her favorites:

Cucumber*, zuccinni*, squash*, sweet potatoes, strawberries*, peaches*, plums*, apples, kiwi*, bananas, pears, avocado*, potatoes, mushrooms,  raddish*, eggplant,chickpeas (mashed), split pea soup*, brocolli soup*, brocolli, red* and green pepper, avocado hummus*, mango, pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe, cherries ( cut in small pieces), grapes (cut in small pieces), carrots, and more.

We also tried this amazing recipe for Avocado Pear Popsicle from Pinterest. I loooooved the taste of it, but Lexi was completely freaked by the cold. She didn’t get the concept of holding it by the stick and kept trying to grab it with her hands. I think I’ll give it a few weeks and try it again. But it was still a lot of fun watching her reaction.

Things I love about  BLW:

• No stressing over intake. She eats- great, she doesn’t – that’s fine, too.
• Letting the baby control the portion and size
• No pureeing, minimal work
• Eating together as a family
• 
• Letting her explore and have fun
• Being able to eat almost anything at a restaurant
• 
• Very laid back in approach and attitude to solids.

Things that I don’t like:

• Choking fear
• Lack of studies/research ( the biggest issue I had with the book is the use of the words “anecdotal evidence suggests…”. I would have liked to see studies, but I realize this is more of a lifestyle choice than a “BLW vs puree battle” that would necessitate studies and proof)

I was always intrigued by BLW, but it wasn’t until I saw that Alexis was ready that the decision to go the BLW route  solidified. It really helped reading the book. I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone about to introduce solids, regardless of whether you want to feed purees or go the BLW route. It has a lot of great ideas on how babies should be fed, how to avoid food struggles & unhealthy relationship with food, etc. Like I said, the book lacked backing by studies, but it made so much sense that it was almost negligible ( aside from the annoying “anectodal evidence suggests…”).  I think it’s more of a lifestyle choice, like I said previously. BLW might appeal to some people and others might totally freak at the idea. It IS messy, no doubt about it, and there’s food waste. I know the book tried to downplay that aspect, but the truth  is that’s just how BLW is. And depending on how good your baby with manipulating food, it can make your uneasy sometimes. If those two things don’t bother you, then it’s an awesome way of introducing food to your baby. Really a lot of fun for both baby and mama. At this point, I can’t even imagine having to puree something ( I do puree soups, but that’s it).

 

As I was writing the postpartum beauty routine post, I realized how much it changed from before and during pregnancy and how I was struggling to find new routines that were faster but more effective.

I’ll be talking about what I personally arrived at and what products I use to make my life easier and how it differs from before.
I would also like to ask you, guys, if you have any problem areas or questions and what you’ve found to be most challenging when it comes to postpartum hair care and make up.

I’ll have 2 pros answer your and my questions (one for make up, one for hair) about what we can do to look beautiful and polished when our lives as new (or old) moms are far from it.


Ask your questions in the comment section. The questions should be about styling and applying make up and techniques or routines. Unfortunately, they won’t be able to answer questions about green/safer products to use (it’s sometimes I will try to discuss a bit in the actual post)

Looking back to the early months of Alexis life, one of the hardest things for me ( and my husband even more) was thinking of age-appropriate activities to do with Alexis. I wanted to make sure her awake time counted, that it helped her develop, socially, physically, emotionally, as well as bond and spend as much time interacting with us as she needed at that age. And considering that unlike most newborns, Alexis barely slept during that time, we had A LOT OF awake time to contend with. As I was reading various books on baby development, I was making note of beneficial activities I could do with Alexis that would help her develop as well as create some quality fun time with her, aside from all the typical things you do with a baby.  So I’d like to share with you 5 different non-traditional developmentally beneficial and fun things you could do with your infant.

None of these are “filler” activities, they all help your baby develop an important part of their system. And from experience, babies tend to enjoy them very much.

Please exercise caution and common sense when using these tips.  I am not a physician, or an expert of any sort. These are just the activities I read about and are/were doing with Alexis that I wanted to share. Also keep your baby’s age in mind. It has to be appropriate for your baby’s level of development. I’ll explain how to do it, what it does for a baby’s development and how Alexis liked this particular exercise, but it’s always best to read from the source, because I can’t fit all the valuable information into a short post.

Also feel free to watch the video for examples.

1. Rocking on a beach ball

HOW: Get a beach ball or an exercise ball, deflate it slightly, place your baby on the ball TUMMY DOWN. While supporting him (you can hold his sides, legs or thighs depending on how well he/she can control her body), roll him back and forth and side to side. You can sing or talk at the same time.
WHY: Strengthens the neck, is good for head control, provides muscle tone development. You can do the same but on his back, this helps his balance reflexes to develop as he will slowly tense his tummy muscles to keep himself balanced.

{Alexis: She loved this one from the get go. She’d get her head up high and look around while being rocked. I could see how her core was working trying to stay balanced and how she was figuring out how to move her body in response to the ball. I wasn’t happy about using what appears to be a vinyl ball, but in all my search for non-toxic things, I haven’t found one that isn’t made of vinyl.}

2. KICKING a BALL

HOW: Use the same beach ball to let your little one kick and roll it with her feet. As she gets older she’ll be able to pass it up to her hands and back to her feet. They love the feel of something different on their toes and what baby doesn’t like kicking.
WHY: Babies will learn about their legs and feet and how to move them at will. In addition, these exercises stimulate muscle tone, especailly knee flexibility for later bobbing , climing and walking
{Alexis: at first she didn’t really get what she was supposed to do with the ball, but after she kicked it a few times accidentally, she started getting the idea. Eventually it progressed to her moving it to her hands. It’s definitely a fun acitivity.}

3. Oil leg rub

HOW: Put some olive or vegetable oil on your baby’s inner thighs and while holding her/him by the ankles, GENTLY rub her/his inner thighs together ( back and forth).
WHY: Excerpt from the book: It is “beneficial because it provides sensory input that is familiar to the baby from his experiences in the womb and helps organize his nervous system. It will also facilitate the baby to release [...] any tight hip muscles. Since this is a sensory experience that baby had in the womb, it can be started soon after birth. The main focus of this activity is for baby to relate to skin sensations. If you make eye contact with baby or do this in a high visually stimulating environment, such as under a mobile, the baby’s nervous system may pay more attention to the visual input than the skin input. [...] This activity only lasts a minute and afterwards smiles, praise and songs would be great.”
{Alexis: You could see the “newness” of the feeling in her eyes when we first started it. I haven’t done it as much as I should, but the few times that I did do it, it was kind of fun to watch her reaction.}

4. Tub/Pool Play

One way around the whole “no swimming till 6 months” issue (see why) was to get a kiddie pool and let her splash there. But believe it or not, it took me THIS LONG to find a kiddie pool that wasn’t made out of PVC or with Phthalates (I’ll be writing about why it’s important and listing items that I found that don’t contain either). At some point I gave up the search after calling and emailing numerous companies that sell/manufacture baby pools and striking out. And then finally, I FOUND IT! A pool made out of polyester and with a pop up shade, to boot! Ta-da! So today (7/17) we’ll be filling it up and having some fun time. Alexis loves splashing and playing in the water and I am sure spending more time doing it will foster her love for water activities. You can also do the same in a bathtub, but with a baby who does doesn’t reliably sit up yet, you’d have to get into it, as well, since it can be very slippery.

Alexis seems to really love touching running water. I assume that the sensation of strong pressure is new for her and is something she likes to explore, so I often get into a tub and let the water run for her to grab (see video). It’s especially useful after she has had some food (we are doing BLW), because she usually needs a bath at that point. She often accidentally splashes water into her eyes, at which point I laugh and make fun sounds to show her that it’s not scary. Though she still look to me for reassurance when it happens, she’s become quite adventurous with water.

5. Leg support crawl

HOW: This one is a bit of a no-brainer if you ask me, but it was and still is a very important part of our day. From about 2 months of age ( it might have been 3 months, I don’t exactly remember), Lexi would make swimming movements whenever she’d get put on her tummy. She wanted to move and crawl. We would naturally place our palms to her feet so that she had some support to push off of and she’d be happy to move forward. It’s still something that we do on daily basis, as she whines and whines until she feels some support and can scoot forward. Once she starts crawling this will no longer be needed, but for the time being it helps her feel like she is getting somewhere. {see video}

WHY: Repetitive movement on the floor, forward or backward, stimulates the neurons in the brain to interconnect.

6. Infant massage

HOW: Some literature suggests that doing infant massage or deep pressure massage three times a day is optimal, however most recommendations are at least once a day which I think is more manageable. According to some books, if your baby seems uncomfortable during the massage, you need to do it frequently and very slowly, stopping as soon as the baby fusses. The irritability,according to Building Babies Better, comes from lack of total understanding of the sensation from the prenatal experience. Obviously, do not do deep pressure on the abdomen, and biceps and calves seem to be sensitive ( or better yet read a book about Infant massage).
I showed a few simple techniques in the video below, but it’s really about you touching the baby and showing the love. Some books recommend concentrating on the massage and not interacting with your baby, I choose to talk to her and sing to her, because to me it’s as much about bonding as it is about the massage. Doing it after a bath is usually easiest, but it’s important not to rush through it. Also, try cheek massage, Alexis loves that part. Since they use those muscles to suck milk, they need an occasional massage.

WHY:  It is well known and researched what amazing benefits infant massage produces for babies. A few proven benefits that are worth mentioning are: higher IQ, healthier digestion, improved weight gain, improved immune system (in a study of babies whose mothers gave them back massages at 10 weeks, there was a lower incidence of colds and diarrhea four months later), better sleep, enhanced muscle tone and coordination, more developed sensory awareness, better ability to handle stress, better bonding, self soothing, self-esteem, etc. Massage is very effective to do before a floor activity. It helps them use their muscles more efficiently afterwards.

For very small babies:

7. Leg Twist

HOW: You take your Little One’s legs and swing them to the side. Pause, then swing them to the other side. Take care not to twist them too much or make it too abrupt or scary. Basically, follow your baby’s cues. Of course, it’s always important to talk or sing to them while doing that.

WHY: Rocking stimulates the organs of muscle tone and balance as well as strengthens them. Poor muscle tone frequently equals poor coordination, as the body parts cannot put movements together. Helps your infant learn about different types of movements. Vestibular activities like this one are “essential for the inhibition of the primitive reflexes and the development of balance. Vestibular sensations are vital for posture, movement, and a sense of position in space , motion, depth and self.”

Alexis still loves this activity and smiles/laughs every time I do it.

You can see the video for examples of these acitivies

{in the first 3 activities Alexis is 3 months old, the rest are recent}:

 

Sources:
Some of these activities, along with explanations and some quotes were taken from the following books: Active Baby Healthy Brain  and Building Babies Better. For a list of all the books I recommend, please visit the books section