Cheap & Easy Way To Improve Your Family's Nutrition

Many people throw away nutritious without realizing it.

"We can use leftovers that we normally waste in order to improve the quality if our food," Maria de Lourdes (from the book How to change the world by David Bornstein) said, "the dark green leaves and peels discarded from cauliflower, broccoli, beets, carrots, sweet potatoes can make a powder t. Wrap them in groups, dry them,, blend into powder, sieve, and eat one teaspoon a day."

It can be added to other cooking a to boost the nutrition or as a thickener to soups, stews, cream sauces, baby food, add it to salt cakes like a cornstarch.

Easy breezy days

I used to hate schedule, because I think we should react with our children's desires, for example, feeing on demand or when they're interested in exploring the stones, we should go along with it. It just makes sense. However, I've gone too far, from child focus, to child-centred, which makes my family life a chaos! I've just realised this has not done my children any good, as I've always mad! Mad at why the house is always a mess, mad when I'm hungry and I don't want to cook macaroni cheese again!

So gradually we got a part time cleaner to help with household chores, and have a schedule on 'roughly' how the day would go. Very young children actually need routines to feel secure. So here I am have a daily routine and a meal plan for 1 week in advance so I can shop the right amount of food we need to prepare a fresh meal and don't need to throw away 'been in the fridge for 2 weeks' veggies.

Tools I found that makes it a no-brainer:

For my schedule, I take reference from http://www.adaycare.com/ourday.html, and change a bit for my baby & toddler's sleep time and their interests.

For Easy meal preparation
http://www.earlychildhoodlearnings.com/go/kidsmeals/

An interesting article on including your children to do household chores:
http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/klocekchores.pdf

Around 8:30 - 9am, we have a little music and movement section to encourage more physical movement, and movement that helps to develop the left & the right brain.

My playlist for my baby:



For my 3 year old that likes to jump and hop and turn around, Stay and Play and Feeling the beat has a good choice of action songs.





More about movement and development of the brain at brainwave:
http://brainwave.org.nz/995/#more-995

Story telling skills

Just came across a good book on story telling:



This is always a challenge for me, telling and making up interesting stories to tell my children. Sometimes I just couldn't find the right book when I want to tell my children something, like not to bite or hit, or some values that's important for me and I'd like to pass on, telling stories are more memorable than just 'telling'

Boy/Girl ??

Just revisiting some interesting sites to predict the sex of the baby, but just for fun. The Chinese calendar was quite accurate for all our babies, although we didn't plan it on purpose.

Chinese Calendar

Boy or Girl Quiz (old wives)

Baby gender prediction

Baby Gender Prediction

Sex Selection Techniques - before Pregnancy

Planing for a baby boy or baby girl

Some highly recommended books for getting pregnant and on choosing the sex of baby:


Taking Charge of Your Fertility



How to choose the sex of your baby

Exercise

I was watching Move and Groove with my daughters, and we were doing some exercises. This is a good DVD as it includes some easy move, stretches and drinking water after each song. Jas copied the children drinking water and she can almost remember the lyrics. She had fun jumping, turning around with me, couldn't quite run on the spot yet, but she'll learn it soon, I'm sure. It's fun watching her learn how to tap her feet, and learning all the action words.

My 1 year old just moved from side to side and crawl around, and drinking too! She's not into dancing as much as Jas.

Sleeping problems & illness due to temperature change

Because of teething and the heat, or temperature change between day and night, my toddler starts waking more often at night, and has a runny nose. It might be the flu, or hayfever, we're not quite sure, but the doctor has prescribed something for hayfever, and it seems to ease a bit after the medication. We also give her the welda teething powder and it seems to help. My husband prefers the powder over the gel as he says the gel has alcohol in it.

She seems to be going to bed later and later, 2 weeks ago, she went to bed 9pm sharp and woke up around 6am every day. But now she'll cry really loud when we put her to bed, and keep playing until 10 or 11pm, and afternoon nap is behind schedule for some reason. My strategy is from today, since she's quite an energetic child, I'll give her more physical challenge, more crawling, jumping...etc late afternoon so she'd be tired enough to go to bed.

One thing I found that's not working by the babysitting at afternoon nap is putting toys on her bed and let her play. The other thing is giving her eye contact when she put my toddler to bed, this will make her think it's 'playtime' as well. Then she'd associate play to bed. But our toddler should learn that bed is only for sleeping, nothing else. That's when they'll sleep in bed alone.


Merry Christmas!!

Busy days

Busy busy, it's all I can say about my lifestyle now. With 3 children under 3 really makes a big difference to my lifestyle, but it's all worth it when I see them giggle and play with each other, taking care of each other. Watching how they interact with each other, sometimes it's heartwarming, sometimes it's fun and sometimes make me so mad when they all cry at the same time.

The favorite word for my eldest 2 and a half is still 'no', my toddler starts to walk and explore everything, and my sweet baby who only sleeps, feeds and smiles. I think this baby is the luckiest as I've had the experience, I pretty much know or guess why he cries and respond to it. For babies up to 3 months, it's usually one of the 4 things: hungry, wind, tired or uncomfortable (wet/dirty nappy, too hot/cold)

Christmas is coming, Merry Christmas and blessings to all the parents in the world, you make the world so wonderful with your lovely baby.

Telling my toddlers about the new baby

At my 26 weeks pregnancy, I'm starting to tell my toddler about the new baby arriving, as with my second child, I told her she'll have another baby to play with her. I'm still preparing myself for the challenge of caring for 3 babies + toddler combination. Friends ask me to have more rest now as it'll be hard work later. It's quite hard now as I'm pregnant and tired. I think once the baby is born, I'll start my intense exercise program to build up my energy level and keep listening to holosync to keep me calm to face problems. Also helps me to have better sleeps (or sleep state) whenever I want to, as the main program induces delta brain wave which is the most relaxed state, just like having a dreamless sleep. I think I'll need to be able to sleep whenever I could grab some time, as I get grumpy if I don't have enough sleep, and I'll feel guilty if I'm mad at my children.

What's better than telling her a story about the new baby and she'll be a big sister soon!




Also started doing baby yoga with my 8 months old, as they said it'll help relieve colic and wind. She had a constipation after changing formula to the next step. That night really gave me a fright, she had been having fever for the past two days, and she refuse to take any milk that day (seems like she knew it's the milk that gave her constipation) and was crying for almost 1 hour, we tried everything but doesn't work. Then we took her to the night clinic, they checked everything and found out she might be constipated. They gave some pedialvte solution and later she pass poo with a bit of strength.

So I came across Baby Bliss and started doing the routine with her every day. I certainly felt more connected to my baby, and it's quite cute doing her the half lotus position! The DVD also has a routine for stimulating the digestive system and helps bowel motion that my baby enjoy doing.

Baby yoga & massage

Children's behaviour & discipline

Just came across some good DVD's about children behaviours and how it has changed over the years. It's interesting to discover that as Nigal Latta (Politically Incorrect Parenting Show) said the word punishment has vanished from our vocabulary. Academics will frown at the word 'time out', most would disagree on smacking, this is something quite common growing up in my generation. Carrot and sticks always work in training animals, humans are fundamentally animals too, rewards will encourage our behaviours, and pain will put us off from certain behaviours. But wait, we don't treat our children like animals! Funny thing is sometimes we treat animals like our children.

As parents, I think we try our best not to encourage certain bad behaviours/ habits in our children. I think I try to avoid doing things to my children that I didn't like my parents did on me while growing up.

The method learned from Toddler Taming is to ignore bad behaviours as best we possibly can, in other words, do not give attention for bad behaviour. Dr. Christopher Green also recommends time out, as long as it's done with reasons and not too much. After viewing those 2 DVDs, I think toddlers behave like us too, when we don't get what we want, we'd be unhappy, but instead of throwing tantrum, we act differently. And when we're angry or upset, we need sometime to cool off too, I think this is how I see time out now.

One chapter I particular like is the 'Discipline - Putting Parents in Charge" from Toddler Taming, as sometimes I felt like my toddler is in charge of me. From now on, I'll try to ignore whenever my toddler is throwing a tantrum, with a bit of explanation as of why as well, and maybe asking her to join back when she's less upset.

Relieving stress

My children have started day care for 2 days a week, they seems to settle well there, the other days I take them to different playgroups as I want to see how they interact with other children and how they learn, so I won't miss much. Also teaching them (one on one) instead of 1 to 10 in daycare.

I enjoy using the 2 days for myself, just watched sex and the city II the other day and I can totally relate to Charlotte, it's hard sometimes, especially with no support. A mother need a lot of support for everyday things (housework, cooking, changing nappies..etc) and also emotionally from family as well.

Many times, I just felt like I couldn't stand it anymore and want to escape. And at this time, I found a program that can calm me down, I remember that day I had a big argument with my husband and my family doesn't support me, tears were running down my face as I listened to the demo. Slowly I started to be calm and peaceful, and I seem to be looking at the conflict outside of myself, and see ways to resolve them. In my 2 days 'personal time', I spent 1 hour listening to holosync and I hadn't had any argument with my husband since I started listening and our relationship seems to be getting better.

The magic behind holosync is to get our brains (left and right) to synchronize, making me think of a technique for calming unsettle children as well. I read it in a book called Why Won't My Child Listen?, it talked about why children become unsettled and how just a few exercises that stimulate the left & right brain can help with concentration and better learning. There's more information on the Brain Gym website. Let's not think about whether those exercise will really induce learning, but one thing for sure, I think children are like adults, if we're stress or ill, we'll be frustrated or angry or depressed easier, not to say to learn, to be friendly or to solve problems.

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Baby shower diaper cake

Today is my toddler's 2 year-old birthday, we didn't host her a big party, just the family get together and enjoy a nice chocolate gateau, yum! She loves it, especially the icing flower! We thought well, only once a year, we'll let her have a bit of sugar delight. Her finger was on the chocolate cream before we finished singing her the happy birthday song! :-)

Talking about cake, I received a very special gift for my premature baby that I think it's quite creative, it's both a practical and nice looking gift. It was in a 3 tier cake shape, and when I opened each layer, there were different gifts and the outer layer was wrapped in diapers (nappies)! It's a perfect gift for baby shower as the parents could keep the diaper cake until the baby's born. I'll save this page for my future gifts to newborns. :-)

Baby sleep training

Finally everything starts to go on track, I'm not a routine person, but I found that once I get a routine started, I get more prediction on what my day will be like and hence more time to rest and more free time for me to write blogs! There was a time I felt very stressful, as I felt like I was non-stop for the whole day, either changing nappies, cleaning, cooking or feeding.

Just was reading an article on sleep-training, it's quite interesting to find out that there are many methods to train our baby to sleep through the night. The article recommends training babies from 5 months, which is now for my baby. My first baby was sleeping through the night since she was around 3 months, but my second baby wakes up 4 hourly for feed until now.

The Sears Method seems to be more humane, it's called the no-cry method, it's about being flexible to change approaches (eg. cuddling, pacifier, nursing..etc), and being consistent to try one method for a while before changing approach. This method is created by Dr. William Sears who's an advocate of attachment parenting, his book is called The Baby Sleep Book: How to Help Your Baby to Sleep and Have a Restful Night. Other similar method include Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect, and Communicate with Your Baby.

Another method is the Cry It Out, also called the Ferber method which leaves the baby cry for a set period of time, and check to calm after the set period. Highlight is to put babies in the cot awake, and basically leave the baby cry until he/she sleeps on his/her own. His book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems has strategies to teach babies to have a good night sleep (and most importantly parents won't be overtired with sleep deprivation)

I heard parents from the hospital that says the Cry It Out method really work, and a day care centre manger also said, "Sometimes you'll need to be cruel to be kind." meaning letting the baby cry so they can learn to sleep on their own, which is good for both the baby and the parents. I've tried this at the beginning for my baby, sometimes she cried for about half an hour before falling asleep, which I think she's just too tired and dropped off. But every time when I went to her, she'd give me that sad look on her face whenever she awoke. So I try with the pacifier, and sometimes cuddling her for a while before putting her to the cot. I found that when I bath her before going to bed at night, she'd sleep for longer period. Now I'm getting smiles on her face whenever she sees me when she wakes up! :-)


As for my toddler, she loves watching DVDs, especially the Brainy Baby series, she now can recognise and count from 1-10. I think a reasonable TV time is good for children, those DVDs do the repetition, which is essential in toddler's learning, for us. iQ Toys has the DVDs at a good price. It's funny to see her said 'wee' and nodding her head to me once, she picked it up on the French preview!

My premature baby arrived!

My baby arrived early at 28 weeks and weight only 1.13 kg, the labour happened so fast and before I know it, baby was born. I didn't feel much of contractions, I thought it was abnormal pain from my heavy tummy. People actually commended during my pregnancy that my tummy is big, a bit low and baby might come soon! After delivery, the hospital took a whole lot of examination to find out what trigger this early birth. They also advised me that 95% of premature babies survive, and they might develop other disablilty if not taken care of carefully. They found out there was a bug in baby's blood, and that's probably why she was born prematurely. Thinking back, I guess during this pregnancy, I got flu often, and one time diaherra for about five days, it lasted that long because the doctor wouldn't give me any medication as I was pregnant, and the same with the flu and cold. So I guess there're constantly bugs in my blood around month 5-6.

For my 1st baby who was born healthy, it was thinking more about how to educate her, and this time, I am thinking about survival, and wants to learn more about how to raise a healthy premature baby. As long as she's growing up healthy and normal, this is all that matters. More info about the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in the ADHB website.


Other support:

Parent Care - 9th Floor Auckland Hospital (outside NICU)
Ph: 307 4949 wxtn: 25469
Email: prems@ihug.co.nz

They also host playgroup for NICU and SCBU babies, and Mums and Dads Evenings.

Internet Forum
www.everybody.co.nz
--> Communities -->Parenting --> Premature Babies.

TABS (Trauma and Birth Stress)
Email: sue@tabs.org.nz

Books to read with young children

Here's some recommendations from storylines, a Children Literature Charitable Trust of New Zealand:






















A Book of Pacific Lullabies

My Maori Colours

How much sleep does your child need?

Good resources to share:

How much sleep does your child need?

15 months toddler

Time flies.... my baby is already 15 months old! The main thing that concern me now is her education, when should we start teaching her different things like manners, letters or numbers...etc. However I still think it's a bit young to teach her any of that, I'm more concern about what interest her? Saying what we're doing to add her vocaburary of the language, and just go along with her. And try not to say too many 'no' to her, instead use positive languages like teeth are for eating, not biting.

Another thing is health issues, babycentre has a good page on Toddler Symptom Guide that could refer to.

It's time to have a look at our home and possibly re-arranging it.

At eight months old, babies usually range from 25.25 inches long and 15.25 pounds (10th percentile) to 28.5 inches long and 20.5 pounds (90th percentile).

Once your baby starts pulling up on furniture, it's time to inspect your home for rocking chairs, recliners, and anything else on wheels or that's unstable. If your baby tries to pull up on an item that moves, shifts, or falls over, he can go tumbling (and the item can fall on top of him too). Block his access to these unstable items as much as possible using baby gates or simply move the item to a room that is inaccessible to your roaming baby.

- Parenting Weekly

My baby doesn't seem to crawl yet, she seems to be pushing herself backwards or sliding backwards instead of crawling, but heard from a friend that her baby didn't crawl and go straight to walking. She doesn't seem to drink much milk these days, and she starts to understand a few words, it's so exciting!

Outings

We went to the zoo the other day, yes, a 7-months old is a bit young for it and most of the time, our baby is either sleeping or feeding in her pram. We saw some seaseals, a hippo, elephant, zebra...etc, she didn't seem to comprehend much but was an experience. After the trip, I think next time for any outings, I'll take the baby carrier, I had a trial on the ergo carrier and it was good, it's more comfortable than the other ones that I got from Farmers which keeps falling down from my shoulders, and easier than the sling I got from trademe. I think it'll last longer than the other ones as well, it's well worth it. I also bought the bubba wrap, but I'm not very good at tying knots and my baby keeps sliding down for some reason.

She's a bit cranky these days, maybe the teething pain, and have a little problem sleeping too, the plunket nurse recommended just leave her crying to sleep, stay beside her but no eye contact to distract her to play, and wait until she get to sleep. I also pat her lightly to try help her to get to sleep. Just found a book called Teeth Are Not for Biting [Board Book] which is funny book to let baby learn to deal with sad, cranky feelings.

Reading to her is a good idea too, there're some free downloadable story books here, like Cinderalla, tortoise & the hare, sleeping beauty...etc.

6 months

Couldn't believe time flies, when I look at my last post, it was September! Was busy all these months with the baby, housework, looking for part time work...etc. I'm really enjoying motherhood now, as the baby is starting to learn things and I was more used to the routine and what to expect. She's well and picking up new things every day, it's delighted to see that.

About feeding, she seems to be less keen on milk and more keen on solids, I was doing her puree apple, carrot, banana and spinach. The plunket nurse suggest to add vegetables to help her digest better.

Still puzzling as the day care centre I'd like her to join is still on waiting list until April, still struggling to find time for work.

Found something good to start at 6 months: Tips for promoting speech & language development