Kangaroo care for babies. Good article.

I am a doctor Mercola fan. This is a great reminder that skin to skin contact with our babies is so important. I had my little one at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland. They were fabulous about this! Click Here to see the link.

Unnecessary C-sections a $3.5B problem, study finds | California Watch

Unnecessary C-sections a $3.5B problem, study finds | California Watch

Play time ideas for Baby that are simple and homemade

 Now granted these pictures are not of the items I will talk about in my post but I found  my camera and so had to share pictures of Olivia playing! She loves books. She goes over to her bookshelf and often crawls over to me with the book she wants me to read to her. Her favorites so far are "MR Brown Can Moo", "In My Nest", "Polar Bear Polar Bear What do you Hear?" and "The Berenstein Bears and the Spooky Old Tree". She is just like her mama!

 So on to today's topic: Simple Homemade things for Baby to play with. I don't recommend anyone younger than 10 months play with these things. Olivia is just now old enough and with close adult supervision we have had lots of fun!

• Olivia is at the stage where she likes to touch and feel different textures. When I made pasta the other day I set some cooked pasta and uncooked aside in a stainless steel bowl for her to run her fingers through and play with. It entertained her the entire time I cooked dinner! She was squealing in delight. She did eat about a quarter of the cooked pasta. What she didn't eat I put on the compost pile(0:
• Another simple thing (but messy so baby should be naked and floor should be covered) is to mix corn flour with water (I call it glop) and let her go at it in a contained area. Olivia loves the squishy feel!
• Buy a plain piece of untreated pine or some other wood. Cut into 3 inch blocks, then sand and coat with beeswax. You have perfect non-toxic blocks. (which by the way are super expensive to buy online!)
• Homemade Bubble Bath. Most babies love baths. Miss Olivia loves bubbles in her bath. We make our own bubble bath by mixing our non-toxic dish soap with water and sugar. You will need half a cup of dish soap, 1.5 cups of water and 2 teaspoons of sugar. Mix together and poor in the bath under running water.
• I have to watch Olivia closely with this one. It is edible but too much would make her sick. Homemade play dough. My recipe is 1 cup of organic flour,1/2 cup of sea salt, 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar, 1 cup of filtered water, and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Mix together, cook over medium heat for 5 minutes (don't let it burn, it happens easily and quickly), let cool, then PLAY! Store in airtight container. Storage is variable depending on how you store it. I bought some food based food dyes for coloring!
• Homemade finger paint. Now warning this one is messy!!! So cheap to make. You need 1.5 tablespoons of white sugar, 1/2 cup of cornstarch, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1 cup of cold water, natural based food dyes. Mix all together except the dye in a medium saucepan over low heat. Gradually add food coloring until it reaches your desired color. Cook and stir for ten minutes. Until the mixture thickens to the paint consistency you want. Remove pan from heat. Store in an old glass jar. You may use immediately. Again not sure how long I can store for since I just started doing this.

Recipes found in "The Everything Green Baby Book"

Enhancing Digestion in Babies, Pregnancy and Beyond.

Image via WikipediaRecently I have been researching and experimenting with herbs. My husband the accountant will vouch for this! Perhaps in my future life I will go back to school and study herbology, for now though I must be content to self study through the lens of my nursing background. I already have a plan written out for growing a whole bunch of my own herbs this coming summer. I am excited to see what works and what doesn't.



My Digestion Story:

Until I was pregnant with Olivia I never really experienced any gastric distress. I quickly found that pregnancy changes things. Compared to a lot of women my pregnancy symptoms were mild, very mild. I would be slightly nauseated at night when I would lie down to sleep. I attributed this to position and thought I should start taking something to help. I began a nightly ritual of drinking a ginger tea concoction relabeled as a wellness tea for pregnant women, from Earth Mama Angel Baby company. It worked wonders!
 Then I gave birth to my lovely little girl, who seemed to experience many many symptoms of gastric distress in the first 6 months of her life. "Colicky" might be the word. She cried a lot. Then one day my mother came home with a small bottle of homeopathic medicine called "colic calm". My life changed for the better. Olivia no longer screamed as long. If she woke up crying or suddenly started to cry I would put a bib on her (it's black and stains) and feed her this licorice based product. Relief! I swear by it still. I recently read reviews on a similar product called "Baby's Bliss Gripe Water" and have ordered it to try it, since it is cheaper and it isn't black so it doesn't stain. I will let you know how it works. I also started her on probiotics for babies since she was a C-section baby she did not pick up all the normal flora a baby would passing through the birth canal. I believe this also helped her poor little tummy in the long run.

Since I am no longer pregnant I now drink straight ginger tea and/ or peppermint tea or hot lemon water when I feel slight distress or  take licorice tablets. I take deglycyrrhizinated licorice (DGL) tablets.( If they are not DGL they can raise blood pressure). Licorice is know for it's ability to soothe and heal the esophageal tissue by decreaing inflammation and ulceration. Most herbalists recommend about 760 mg prior to each meal if indigestion is an issue. I have also gotten into the habit of making sure I have the much spoken of "probiotics" and "digestive enzymes" in my diet on a daily basis by taking a supplement or incorporating it into my meal.

What do you do to treat your nausea, or indigestion?

Cloth Diapering: Why I decided to do it and what I use.

I started cloth diapering on a whim. I didn't look into whether or not it would save me money, although friends told me that it did. I just wanted to do it. Perhaps it is the nostalgia of remembering my Mom and Auntie Beth changing my cousins and younger siblings. Or perhaps I couldn't bring myself to fill up my garbage can with loads of "disposable" but not decomposing plastic diapers. I am honestly not sure. My friends from work gave me a head start by giving me most of my diapers as a "group gift". I loved them before I even started to use them.
Now that I use them, I adore them. There is something satisfying to me when I wash, dry and then fold them and put them away. It somehow soothes me. Reminds me I am a mother for a tiny little person.

Here are some photos and descriptions of what I use.

My wipes warmer. I also just use a white bucket with a liner for my dirty diapers. I wash them every other day so it doesn't really get smelly. I might need to find a lid before next summer though!

I use reusable wipes. It is actually easier when cloth diapering to do this because both dirty items go to the same place. Not the waste basket and the dirty hamper...just the dirty hamper! I don't put any solutions on my wipes. I just get them wet, put a couple drops of what ever essential oil strikes my fancy and place them in the wipe warmer. I have the Prince Lionheart Warmies Wipes Warmer. It has worked fabulously for me.

Flip diaper covers are some of my favorite because they grow with baby. At night I double up my Indian prefold diapers, place a hemp liner in there and then use a flip cover to seal it all up!

Rumparooz are some terry cloth diapers and liners that I bought on a whim on one of those daily deal websites. They work, but are not my favorite.

Happy Heinys is my only "natural" cover. It is made of wool. I love it. The only problem is they are so expensive that I have not bought any more. I like it because it has no synthetic materials. These are just a little too steep in price for me.

Bummis diaper covers were part of my gift from work. They have been great. I prefer the snap ones to the Velcro shown below. Now that Olivia is crawling the snaps hold better than the Velcro.

Dream Eze are night time all in one diapers I bought for Olivia. Here she is sporting them. They work great soaking up everything for 12 hours straight! Yes, she sleeps for 12 whole hours.

Here is a picture of my collection of Indian prefolds. Some of them are on loan from my wonderful friend and post partum doula, click here to check out her website. 

When out and about I need a place to put Olivia's dirty diapers I use this great wet bag. Seen below. It keeps everything, including smell sealed in nicely.

A recently purchased diaper that I am falling in love with is, Bum Joy, a fleece diaper made by a mom. It can be found on Etsy. Fleece wicks away the moisture and keeps Olivia's tush nice and dry.

My "on the go" diapers are bummis organic all in ones. They are easy for a quick change while we are out and about on the town. Again not a cheap item but the convenience has been well worth the price.

This is my toilet sprayer that I rinse Olivia's poopy diapers with. It works great! 

Green Mountain Diapers is a great resource for those interested in starting cloth diapering. I have purchased a lot of my stuff through them.

If you are thinking about cloth diapering. I highly recommend it. It is satisfying in so many ways!

Why we bedshare and why it works for us

Before I had a baby I thought "no problem I will feed her, rock her to sleep and put her in the bassinet at night." This never happened. I must admit I tried for the first few nights. I would feed Olivia, rock her to sleep and then put her in her bassinet. She would wake up five minutes later only for the process to be repeated. I quickly discovered that keeping her next to me made for a WONDERFUL nights sleep. ( plus my mom co-slept with me as a baby so it is only natural to follow in her footsteps) I would wake up before she started crying, sensing her early hunger cues, feed her and fall back to sleep. For me keeping her in bed enabled me to easily breastfeed. Studies show keeping baby close increases mothers milk, perhaps this has been true for me. If you know me you would maybe say I am fairly laid back, as well as the accountant, so the baby in bed has been a natural course for us to take. I have read a lot of studies on both sides of the co-cleeping issue and for me it all comes down to I WANT her in bed with me. It's just easier. I am a light sleeper and wake up in the same position I fell asleep in so suffocating her has not really been a worry for me. Granted at night our bed is much more sparse then this picture. We sleep with one pillow each and a single light blanket following Dr Sears recommendations for a "safe" environment for co-sleeping.

We placed our bed on the floor to prevent the danger of Olivia rolling out in the middle of the night. We don't allow our little puppy to sleep with us he is relegated to a kennel downstairs.

This is her so far unused crib. We tried naps in it but I have moved her back to naps on the bed. Good thing the crib converts to a toddler bed!( It would have saved us money to know we would do this co-sleeping ahead of time!) We have a video monitor which enables me to catch her when she wakes up before she starts crawling all over the bedroom!(0: Interesting note I am reading up on the Montessori method and they encourage you to have your child sleep on a mattress on the floor to encourage movement!

I have been asked "aren't you worried about the transition to her own bed". My answer " no not really." My dad one night decided it was time to move me out of their bed...and that was that. No crying, no fussing. I was ready. I still remember him saying 'I will be back to check on you.' ( prior to this I would fall asleepin in their bed and then he would carry me into my own) Other people have wondered if it affects our sleep or intimacy. The answer is no. 

For us co-sleeping has resulted in a happy baby and happy, well rested parents. 

Co-sleeping resources: 

http://www.sids-network.org/experts/bedshare.htm

http://www.suite101.com/content/psychological-benefits-of-cosleeping-a71446

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/t071000.asp

http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/161/3/237.pdf

Book resources:

Sleeping with Your Baby: A Parent's Guide to Cosleeping

The No-cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help...

The Attachment Parenting Book by Dr Sears