The Un-Crunchy Mom

    While pregnant and after I was a very un-"crunchy" mom. I may have had some ideas of birth and child rearing that fit in with the crunchy granola moms but mainly I was not crunchy at all. Now I start noticing my ideas and views and wishes seem to be lining up more and more with those moms. Breastfeeding past a year, buying organic, baby led weaning and the like never even crossed my mind for a millisecond.

      At first I was sure I would do crying it out if needed as sleep training, well he hasn't been a great sleeper since the 4 month sleep regression (some nights are great), well I not only keep putting off sleep training but when I think about doing crying it out I make up my own lighter type of version with picking him up. The only part being kept in my mind is letting him cry a few minutes giving him a chance to settle down on his own, or letting him fully fuss it out if he isn't crying.

     I never thought about solids before but when it came time I decided I would be making the  purees AND using organic produce where possible. I never bought organic products before and never really cared. Plus I have tried purees 4 times so far  and I kind of wish that I had never done pureés but rather baby led weaning (BLW). Im too scared to fully do BLW but I think I will add BLW type foods and elements into how I feed him. For example, my son has started eating every hour to 2 hours about a month ago (except for nights) and after a few really bad nights (ever since I decided to take a break on solids) I began to think maybe adding solids will ensure he is less hungry and wont need to feed so often at night (and during the day but that is less important). Soon we will try avocado chunks, exciting to see if he will like it more then pureé.

Diapers. Disposables obviously, right? Well I thought it was nuts some ladies wanted to put that much effort and time into non disposable diapers. I mean, our moms did it and they think disposables are AMAZING and hey baby items keep progressing and making things easier for mom. Well, my son seems to have kind of sensitive skin. He gets reddish often enough, not a full blown diaper rash, he had 1 diaper rash that went away in like a day or 2 but he gets redness. I began caking on diaper rash cream even more then I used to but he still gets reddish sometimes even if slightly. I'm thinking "Great, who made these disposables *rolls eyes* I wish I could have done cloth diapering part time." Well yep thats I more thing with which my mind has totally been changed. I think cloth diapering 24/7 would be hard but I wish I could have done it during the day and only used disposables at night. Its cheaper and your child isn't sitting in chemicals and plastic all day. At the moment I am sitting here anxiously awaiting a cloth diaper I ordered to give my son a break each day from being in disposables. Plus yesterday a cloth diaper Bummis Swimmi diaper arrived. I was so excited it was like waiting for my birthday!

Next on the list is labouring. Hospital  check. OB-GYN, check. Epidural, if needed. I remember when I was reading birth stories when pregnant one girl wrote her mother in law said midwives are witches, well I didn't go that far but I was like "WHY in the world would you NOT take an OB". "Why would you do a water birth". I laughed at Lamaze breathing and the list went on. Well, next time I'm thinking of maybe going with a midwife so that the types of things I had wanted and put in my birth plan were followed more closely. I mean I loved my birth experience last time but maybe if I was more ready and had a carer who was more natural centered I would have had less interventions (even thought I did not have WAYYY too many but I did have some). Plus I hear water is very relaxing during birth, maybe I wont do a water birth but maybe I can get a room with a pool next time.

Next on the list. I always respected and thought the hardest job was being a stay at home mom. Well now I want to be one more then ever. *sigh*

Organic, healthy, natural products. I never really cared at all. Well now I am soo excited about the Little Eco-Footprint boxes I subscribed to. I will learn more and sample better products for my son. Why not pick the healthiest best choices for our little ones.

TV. Why cant little ones watch a little every once in a while. Well now I am like the guardian of the television. Whenever my son has view of it, I turn him or stand in front of it. No TV till at least 2 years old. He has his whole life to watch TV.


What I have not changed my mind on is: co-sleeping, home birthing. These are not for me. By the way I am not saying all  crunchy moms do all of these things either. Also not all moms change their minds nor am I particularly saying they should. Sometimes formula feeding may be the best choice because of the stress and problems with breastfeeding, sometimes co sleeping is and sometimes your child will tummy sleep if you want them to or not. Main thing is even things you are sure about are not a given, your mind may just change as your child grows. Now if your husband also allows you to buy the things needed for changing your mind all the time. haha just joking M already let's me get so much baby gear and I love it!

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Now for an update on the solids situation

    2 days ago I decided to try avocado  He had had a horrible night and kept waking up hungry. I decided with solids maybe he wont be so hungry in the middle of the night. I know, I know they say solids do not aid sleep but I still hoped. So sweet potato was tried about a week and a half ago and I decided this time to try another food: avocado. So I mixed it with a tiny bit of breast milk and mashed it. He made the ewww face again but he did not push any out of his mouth and he got more in himself then he did with the sweet potato. I call that relative success  I worry though that he does not like the consistency of pureés so I wonder if I should do BLW as I mentioned. Yesterday we did avocado pureé with a tiny bit of boiled water (mashed with a potato masher). Today I may try and give him an avocado chunk and see how that goes. Today is the 3rd day of avocado so we may try banana tomorrow. Remember with solids at first it is recommended to wait 3-5 days before trying a new food so that you know if there is an allergic reaction what the allergy is to and what to avoid.

Bring on the Food.... Or Should We?

  Well today we tried out our first solids. Yeah, yeah I know I said Saturday but life got away from us. Yesterday was a busy busy day and well I can't say I'm sad since this just meant that he was one day closer to six months when we gave him his first food. So this morning my husband took a walk with our little one and I cleaned the house and the baby bullet and put the sweet potato in the oven to cook. As the sweet potato cooked we played with our little sweet potato he was thoroughly enjoying playing with two of his toys in his crib and attempting to crawl around while we talked to him. Then I took the sweet potato out since it has to cool off before pureeing. During this time I prepped the high chair (found the table for the high chair), found a bib and of course got our camera and video camera ready. Since I have been feeding our son since day 1, M was going to do his first solid feed. Then the potato cooled off and I added the sweet potato and breast milk to the baby bullet and ta-da the pureé was ready in 10 or so seconds.

    So we sat Alek down in his highchair pulled it up from the semi lying newborn position to the fully seated position, strapped him in and put the table in place and the bib on.

My husband sat down in front of him with the bowl and spoon and I was ready with the camera and video camera. We were both excited and Alek seemed happy and excited too, he was smiling and kept reaching out. Well the first spoon went in his mouth a bit and we saw his expressiong change to....well maybe not disgust but a very obvious EWW. Well we decided to try a few more times and he kept sticking his fingers in his mouth and licking the sweet potato while making a grossed out face. He didn`t cry but he did NOT seem to like it. I then tried to feed him one a tiny bit and it went in...and then came out!

  We then decided to take him out and I gave him to spoon slightly coated in  sweet potato to play with and so that he could learn to hold a spoon. Well he put the spoon in his mouth and he made the same EWW face but kept biting the spoon so maybe he was getting used to the taste?

   Overall we tried about 4ish "spoons" of which he actually ate maybe 1/4 of a BABY spoon so not much. I was never planning to feed him as much as I had put in that bowl...that was just so that the picture would not look funny with under a teaspoon of food in it. Anyway, the plan is to try again tomorrow if we get another reaction like today we will give him a break of 1-3 weeks and then try again when he is bigger.


P.S Yesterday my mom taught me a simple knitting pattern so I could make Alek a scarf for next winter. It's going VERY slowly but I feel excited and maybe if it works out I can make him a matching hat!

Ready or not..

     Well today my son showed such obvious signs he is ready for solids they could not be ignored. As my husband and I ate he kept moving closer and just staring inside out mouths at times chewing his hand all the while. All the other signs are there as well.  Ready or not mommy but give me solids.We already decided that his first food would be sweet potato. Why? Uhhmmm it is extremely high in nutritional value vitamin A, beta carotene, potassium, vitamin E, folate and fiber and so on. An amazing site that should be a bible for baby food for all mom is : http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com and it says  "The Nutrition Action Health Letter rated 58 vegetables by adding up the percentages of USRDA for six nutrients (Vitamins A and C, folate, iron, copper, and calcium), plus fiber. Sweet Potatoes topped the list with a whopping 582 points; its nearest competitor, a raw carrot came in at 434."  The site also claims : "These wonderful vegetables are a great first baby foods,(even for the early solid food starter)."  The second reason I really like this choice as a first food is that we call him our sweet potato so it has an emotional meaning too that makes me smile.

     Since it is late today and tomorrow my husband is away we decided to try a sweet potato pureé thinned with breast milk on Saturday  If he likes it we will continue with solid food if he doesn't we will wait another week or 2 before trying solid food again. The plan is sweet potato then avocado then probably squash and well I haven't thought what will be a first food but I`m really getting ahead of myself. I haven`t even assembled and read all the instructions to the baby bullet that my wonderful husband bought. (Yes in baby items I say this is a useless item. Why do I have it? I had no other food processor so I needed one and I said it is useless only if you already have a food processor.Its also nice to have the little book with the information about starting solids and recipes but I prefer the site above! Also the cube freezer trays and refrigerator jars are nice but could be bought cheap without buying the whole product.). Anyways now I know what I will be doing tonight or tomorrow night. 
 This whole starting solids thing is very exciting and yet there is momentary sadness, and shock on my part. I'm excited because this is another milestone another first. I'm sad because time is flying so fast. I'm shocked he's in the age he can start solids. I also heard that diaper changes are no fun after the start of solids. Also I was hoping to make it to the recommended 6 month mark for starting solids. Why not wait till the 6 month mark then? Well he is OBVIOUSLY ready and beyond interested. Today it was VERY obvious even my mom commented that he has never been been this interested he was watching all the food, the family eating, trying to look in everyone's mouths, all the while pretending to chew (copying the chewing mouth movement) and looking fascinated. I have read to look for cues, what makes reaching a specific day in life make a baby more ready to start solids than the day before? Not all people are cookie cutters and do everything at the same point in time. He is about 3 weeks shy of 6 months but he is very ready. We will try solids on Saturday and I will update then how it went!