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sophie giraffe for sale at amazon today - $17.37

sophie giraffe for sale at amazon today - $17.37

Vulli Sophie the Giraffe Teether
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000IDSLOG/ref=cm_sw_r_an_am_ap_am_us?ie=UTF8

Great Online Baby Sign Language Dictionary

This website has a great baby sign language dictionary (www.babysignlanguage.com) when you need to look up a word quickly!

For everyday signing, we use the Baby Signing Time videos available on Amazon

I love this baby food and nutrition book

When Charlotte started solids, I checked out a bunch of books from the library to get ideas for types of food to feed at different ages and for recipes. One of the books I checked out was Happy Baby: The Organic Guide to Baby's First 24 Months. One of the authors is Dr. Sears, the author of a bunch of parenting and baby sleep books.



I ended up tagging so many pages in this book, that I bought a copy for myself.

I found the following pages very helpful:

On page 73, there's a chart that shows approximately how often babies need to eat when breastfed.

On page 75, there's a chart that shows approximately how much weight baby might gain.

On page 83, you can find some guidelines for breast milk storage.

On page 99, there's a chart that shows approximately how often and how much babies need to eat when formula fed.

On pages 160 and 162, there are sample eating schedules for a 7 month old and a 10 month old. I found these very helpful.

On page 176, the book discusses nitrates in homemade baby food and how long to cook different types of food.

Since Charlotte just turned one, pages 187 through 229 were particularly useful since there was a chart showing about how much protein, carbs, fat, vitamins, iron and calcium a one year old should receive and from which foods. The book also goes into detail in these pages about why each nutrient is important for baby's growth.

Chart of Solid Foods

I found this chart that is pretty good for solid food ideas to introduce to baby at what age. Scroll down on the page past the ads to see the chart.

http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/baby-food-chart.html

How'd she get over there?

Baby is now 10.5 months old and can crawl about quite well in any direction except forward. I'm up late reading about all of the un things I could sew for her and turn on he monitor to check on her. She's fast asleep in the corner. The black triangle towards the right is her hair.

When baby sleeps, sometimes I function on fear. Fear that she'll wake up after only 30 minutes of sleep and not go back down, fear that a stuck poop is going to wake her up meaning changing her and the end of the nap. Right now, I'm feeling the SIDS fear. The bumper that I made for her is still attached to the crib so that her little limbs don't get caught in between the rails and wake her up. If she should turn her head, which I've often seen her do while sleeping, will she wake up, or will se be stuck there and be at risk for SIDS? Yesterday, the foot of he lullaby dog hanging on the crib was grazing her forehead which solicited a cry from her. Hopefully, a face plant into the bumper wil do the same. I'll just keep watching my little princess and the pea...

Teething and Feeding

Baby's top teeth have popped out and are super sharp. She doesn't bite me, but her upper left tooth is rubbing on my right nipple as if it were slowly slicing it off. I have changed from cradle hold to football hold on that side and it seems to have helped. my friend suggested that I retrain her to latch differently. We'll see how that goes. :)

Foods I Avoid While I Breastfeed

I found this list (below) of foods to avoid on babyzone while breastfeeding. I don't avoid all of them, but avoiding some have helped my baby with her gas and constipation issues.

Caffeine
I try to drink after nursing so it's out of my system before next nursing

Chocolate
Same strategy as caffeine

Citrus fruits
When I eat cuties, she gets gassy, but when I drink orange juice, she seems to be ok

Broccoli/Cauliflower
I avoid broccoli, it gives her gas

Alcohol
Don't have time to drink

Spicy foods
I don't eat much spicy food, but the few times I ate it, didn't seem to bother her

Garlic
When I eat, doesn't seem to bother her

Peanuts
I haven't had peanuts since September of 2009, very afraid of food allergies for her

Wheat
When I eat, she doesn't seem to be bothered; she's been eating wheat puffs since she was 6 MO (9 MO now) and is fine

Dairy products
I can eat all dairy except for milk, makes her gassy; we tried giving her yogurt, but she
got a little rashy on the torso

Corn
I can eat, doesn't give her problems.

Shellfish
I haven't tried shellfish, afraid of allergies

Eggs
I can eat eggs, doesn't bother her; we haven't tried giving her egg yolk yet, maybe at 1 YO

Soy
I'm Asian, I eat soy, doesn't bother her; haven't tried giving her soy yet, but tofu is on the list

Fish
I can eat fish, doesn't bother her; I avoid fish with mercury, other bad stuff, etc.

Peppermint
I haven't tried, according to babyzone, it reduces milk supply

Parsley
Same as Peppermint


The babyzone website from which I got this list is here. They call out all of the reasons to avoid the items on this list.

Take Fish Oil to get Rid of Baby Eczema

We went to the doctor's on Mother's Day to have baby's cold checked out. We left with some advice about her eczema. The doctor on call suggested that I eat more fish oil to reduce eczema inflammation in baby. I had already been taking two 1000mg tablets (Kirkland brand). She recommended that I take one more thousand mg a day. I've been taking 3000mg per day and baby's skin is just PERFECT now!

Baby Beach Tent

When we went to Hawaii, Charlotte was five months old. Daniel's coworker lent this baby tent to us: KidCo PeaPod

It was great for laying Charlotte out on the beach without having her in the sun. If she were a better napper, she probably would have slept in it on the beach. But alas, she loves looking around, especially at people.

We also used it as a "crib" for her in the hotel room. The hotel was kind enough to provide a real crib, but she wasn't having it. The pod also came with a self inflating mattress pad, like the ones you take camping.

Mom's hair falling postpartum

I read somewhere that after giving birth, the thick hair that women enjoy during pregnancy starts to fall out as levels of estrogen (the hormone that lengthens the time of the growth cycle of hair) drop. I think mine just started to fall out last week. Baby was five months and one week old. I'm still breastfeeding exclusively, but she has started to eat fewer times and has gone for longer stretches of sleep at night. For me, the hair didn't come out in chunks or handfuls. I just noticed a little more in my brush and a lot more tangled in my hair ties when I pulled them out. So long thick hair...

What does let down feel like?

I described what let down feels like to my husband the other day. The closest feeling I could think of was pulling a length of dental floss through the v between two fingers plus imagining the area tingling like a blister tingles, but not so painful. It took me a month or so to really be able to feel when I was letting down, so it's not something painful.

New High Chair!!!

Charlotte is getting close to six months which means she'll be eating solids soon. We have a Fisher-Price Healthy Care Deluxe Booster Seat 
that a friend gave us, but it seemed to be too big for her right now. Yesterday, we went to Babies R Us to just check out the high chairs, but ended up taking home a green Inglesina Zuma.
It's the most high tech looking piece of furniture we have. We looked at Baby Bargains best rated chair, the Graco Contempo - B is for Bear, but decided it wasn't exactly what we were looking for. Plus it was about the same price ($119) as the Zuma ($120 - online return item).

I love scoring deals in the clearance section at Babies R Us.

It's hard to leave a happy baby

Today was the first day that baby was so happy to be put in the crib and it had to be at the nap time when I leave for my evening classes. It was so hard to leave her when she kept grinning her wide gummy smile up at me while all swaddled up in her sleepsack. It's much harder to leave my happy baby than my crying baby. I cried on the drive to class today.

Mastitis is no fun

Last weekend, I had a clogged milk duct in one of my breasts. It didn't hurt. It just felt like I was engorged but only part of my breast was engorged. There was also a little whitish colored bump on my nipple. I took a warm bath and hand expressed the milk out and was able to clear the duct and soften the part that was hard. This was on Sunday. On Monday the clog came back and I tried to get the milk out in the shower (didn't have time for a bath).

By Tuesday, my breast was infected. It was very hard, I couldn't hand express milk out and it was pink like an old bruise. I woke up feeling really cold with chills and thought, "oh no!" I'm getting sick. I wanted to beat this since we were headed to Hawaii in a couple of weeks so whenever baby slept, I slept. When I kept getting chills and feeling flush in the face (no fever though), I called my OB. They didn't call me back until the next morning, but I spoke to a triage nurse that evening and she prescribed some antibiotics for me. The chills lasted through the night, but by morning, I felt 100% better and could function to take care of baby.

Some fun details:
I had to take 7 days worth of antibiotics four times a day.
I took the antibiotics (Dicloxacillin - 500mg) after nursing so that baby would get less of it.
We still fed baby some probiotics to keep her digestive tract working.
To clear the duct, I nursed with infected breast first everytime.
For the first few days of infection, the infected breast would hurt so much after nursing that I couldn't cover it up for about 30 minutes.
One week later, I feel great, the breast is pretty much soft like before (not completely) and the little white bump on my nipple is gone.

More than Morning Sickness

When I found out we were expecting, I was surprised to find out that there was a lot more to pregnancy and motherhood than I could have ever expected. This blog is my way of documenting all of the little surprises that I encountered.