At Last! Dummy FREE!!!!!

First of all, I'd like to thank those that responded to my last post via Facebook. It was really interesting to think about some of the things that were brought up such as parenting styles and sleep training. In no way at all am I judging anyone on the way they choose to parent their babies and children. I think everyone has their own styles for their own children. Us included. It may not be the easiest way, but everyday is a learning day. Sleep training for us is necessary. I want our babies to be able to self settle. I don't advocate any special methods, but we have had some help from different bits of literature. For us, I let baby cry but I also will go in check on him and reassure him that we are there. We're on day 3 and it's going well...less and less everyday.

Now, we have reason to celebrate! NO more dummies for S!!! Yesterday, it disappeared and we still haven't found it. She seemed to accept that it's gone and we can't find it. She also knows that A's soothers are his and not for her bedtime. We aren't really giving it to A for the nighttime bedtime, but if he wakes too early, I will offer it to him.

We've also decided to mix a bit of spoon-feeding with the baby-led weaning style and it seems to be working as he's eating a bit more. Thanks for reading everyone!

SLEEPTRAINING begins:(

Alright so I know that teaching your baby how to sleep is an essential skill, but the process is utterly painful. I have to admit that I've been dreading this the second time around. S is amazing at putting herself to sleep now and I'm so glad we did it...but baby A seems to be a bit more needy so I really didn't want to do it. But he's almost 8 months old and I think it's time...so tonight we started. We did his routine of bottle, book, sleeping bag, sleepy song, cuddle and then sleepy time words. After the first couple minutes of crying, I went in and tried to give him his soother. He took it but as soon as he realized I wasn't staying, he started to cry again. Tried patting him and that wasn't working...he quieted down a bit so I left again. Waited five minutes and he still kept crying. Bending oner the crib SUCKS...he's on the lower setting now as he's decided to start pulling himself up to standing. This is the worst for trying to help him settle. After 15min of crying, I decided that I needed to just let him cry it out a bit so I took a shower. At the end of my shower, he finally fell asleep. From start to finish, it took just over 30min which I guess isn't too bad.

On a happier note, solids have been going well and bottle-feeding is MUCH better. Unfortunately, I need to pump twice a day and then top up with formula...but YAY!!! I really thought we wouldn't get to this day but now we're doing 2 bottles a day which is EXCELLENT. So very happy about that.

Yikes! Where did October go?

It's been much too long since my last post but it's been a pretty crazy month and a bit. I have to share the most disgusting poo incident to date yet! S went down for her nap as usual and about an hour into it, I heard her cry a bit, but sometimes she will go back to sleep. She stopped and there was silence, but about 15 minutes later, there was more crying so I thought ok, it's time for her to get up...opened the door and an all too familiar odor whiffed out the door. I took a look and there she was, standing, one hand holding her diaper and the other, a handful of poo! Ugh! So gross. I quickly scooped her up and proceeded to clean her up. Luckily, it didn't get anywhere else. Lesson learned, no more sleeping in only her diaper.

Halloween came and went. Poor S, came down with a virus that had her suffer a fever on and off for 4 days so she couldn't really celebrate Halloween this year. So I dressed up and Baby A in their costumes for pictures. Mommy and daddy, mainly mommy has enjoyed the halloween candy purchased for the festivities. Yum! Now, baby A has caught S's virus and ended up with roseola, a rash that sometimes breaks out onto the skin after the fever has broken. This totally freaked me out as S never had it so after 2 visits to 2 separate doctors, we were told that baby A is now recovering! Yay! Crossing my fingers that he will sleep tonight!

The Adventures of Starting Solids with Baby A!

Well, it's been awhile since my last post but lots has been going on! We started solids on Sunday with some banana and avocado! We decided to try a different approach this time around instead of pureeing and giving rice cereal with S. She is a pretty good eater, but she won't eat whole pieces of fruit. I bought the book called, Baby-Led Weaning by Gill Rapley, just to get some guidance on how to begin. I'm actually not quite finished it yet, but have read the most important parts to start the fun.

This post continues now about a week later and so far so good. We haven't been strict with it but we've been trying a variety of foods, like ripe pear, rice, steamed carrots, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, string beans and even some pasta with a bit of bolognese sauce. He also loves his rice rusks. We've also tried to introduce a regular bottle of milk, but that hasn't been so successful...any tips out there? We didn't have an issue with S as she got the bottle in the hospital and I also went back to work when she was 4 months old so she didn't have such a problem.
There's also the issue of baby a beginning to teeth, sitting up, and commando crawling...so much all at once!

Happy Belated Mid-Autumn Festival!

It's been about a week since my last post so it's time to check in. Yesterday was a beautiful day and we took advantage. It was also mid-Autumn festival day and I partook in some mooncake! Yummy but super fattening! Hitting the gym next month! I told myself I would give myself 6 months and then it would be time to fit in some exercise. We also signed up for the Unicef 3K family run so no too much pressure. I'm breastfeeding so I was worried to start too much cardio which could affect my supply and since we're exclusively breastfeeding, I didn't want to chance that until we start introducing solids.

So, to celebrate the stat holiday, we met with some friends at Middle Island for a bbq. It was a bit of a journey to get there but it was well worth it. S and A were awesome! We couldn't have asked for better babies! The weather was amazing the food was fantastic. S missed her nap and managed to last quite a few hours with running around outside. She didn't really meltdown until we got into the taxi to go home and then she passed out. All in all, a great day!

Mechanically Reclaimed Meat...WTF?

Ok, so someone sent me a link to this video today from Jamie Oliver's food revolution. He does this experiment in the UK which was successful and then in the US where it failed miserably...what is it, you ask me? Well, he shows them where chicken nuggets come from and I've known that it's pretty suspicious stuff, but now I really don't want to be ignorant anymore and eat them...basically, they take all of the chicken leftovers (bone, cartilage, skin) and grind it all up and coat it with flavour enhancers (all those E numbers), bread crumbs, salt, etc and then deep fry them for you...mmmm...NOT! That is what mechanically reclaimed meat or mechanically texturized meat. The links are to the videos on youtube. The first one is in the UK and the second one is in the US.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKSoiDtdi9s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9B7im8aQjo&feature=related

It really does make a difference that we know where our food comes from. More and more I really want me and my family to eat better and more knowledgeably so I will continue my efforts to feed my family food that is less and less processed and made from scratch. I know it's not always easy, but as usual, we just need to try our best!

It's all about positivity!

So today we had a great little moment between big sis and little bro. As I was in the kitchen, all I could hear were Baby A's giggles and S's jumping up and down, throwing down a wet cloth onto the floor. S was making her little brother laugh! It was really cute and I really wish I could have got it on video! S is still teething, but we had much brighter moments today and I tried my best to use some of the suggestions from Positive Discipline: The First Three Years. This includes encouraging autonomy and trying to get toddlers involved instead of doing everything for them. For example, I let her drink from a normal cup and instead of getting upset when she spilled, including her in the cleanup.



I finished reading this book on the weekend and I highly recommend it if you have kids 0-3. It was recommended to me by a very dear friend when I asked her for some help with disciplining S. It covers everything from sleeping, eating, discipline and development so that you can understand where your kids are at in their development. It's easy to expect so much from our children that we forget sometimes they just aren't ready for certain situations. I've also learned a lot about myself in the process and I know I'll continue making mistakes, but the emphasis is on that we can all learn from them. I also have to keep reminding myself that I have to watch how I behave as we are their greatest models at this stage and we need to model the behaviour we expect from our little ones. So I'm gonna try my best and hopefully little S follows suit :)