Noah’s first solids: Rice
| May 11, 2012 | Posted by Mabel under Just Noah, Weaning progress |
Date
7 to 10 May
Item
Rice cereal
Category
Grains
Brand (if applicable)
Organix
Cooking & serving method
1 tsp plus 4-5 tablespoons of water after milk feed at noon
Reaction
Semi-positive as the first two days, he found the texture and taste to be interesting, thus she finished everything. However, on the third and fourth day, he didn’t seem all that keen after the first couple of spoonfuls and didn’t finish the cereal.
Other notes
The sippy cup is becoming familiar and he seems to enjoy gnawing and sucking on it but the amount that he’s actually drinking is less – perhaps about 10-20ml. He seems to prefer breastmilk over water (no surprise there) and his wet diaper count is still very good; in fact, all his diapers are “wetter” than before.
Starting…
| May 7, 2012 | Posted by Mabel under Just Noah, Parenthood, Weaning |
…on solids, that is.
My Munchkin bowls and Lock n Lock containers arrived just in time for Noah’s grand entrance into the world of yummy food! LOL. He has been ready for solids for a while now but we decided to put it on hold until he was nearer to his 6mth (corrected age) as it lessens the chances of him developing allergies or gastro issues – the allergies are a cause for concern because of his eczema (you can see it on his face now *sob*).
I’m starting him on Organix rice cereal and then by end of the week, will move him to either organic apricots or prunes and organic peas. Making homemade purees got me all excited again and I dug out the BEABA for a good clean as well as to purchase some spare parts like the spatula and steaming basket. I might consider changing the entire steaming container but after examining, decide against it as it was still in good shape. One problem I foresee with the homemade purees would be the lack of seasonal fruits but summer is coming so it’ll be a good time for me to stock up on fresh local produce and use those in my purees instead.
I also plan to keep a paper food log just to track how he reacts to each food item. As usual, Super Baby Food coupled with the website wholesomebabyfood.com will be leading the weaning front so yay! The next chapter is here!
At the homeopath…
| May 5, 2012 | Posted by Mabel under Eczema, Just Noah, Parenthood |
We visited the homeopath today to discuss how to go about Noah’s eczema and she confirmed my reasons for wanting to stay away from the cortisone creams. They are best reserved ONLY for the extremely bad cases of eczema and even then, should only be applied on the areas that are red but she warns that constant use can lead to asthma which is harder to treat. When we said that we didn’t get any, she smiled and told us that that’s good!
She never commented or asked about my diet during my pregnancy. She did, however, ask about family history of allergies and eczema. I guess that’s more of a contributing factor than what I ate. Her questions were focused mainly on Noah’s temperament, behaviour, sleeping & eating habits, environmental factors (“is it hot or cold when he scratches?” “does he sweat a lot?”) and other things like his poo, whether he drools, where does he appear to scratch or itch and so forth. She checked Noah’s skin and remarked that she doesn’t see any oozy patches (which is good), just a lot of crusting going on which means that the skin is healing and told us that the key is in catching the patch when it’s hot and inflamed (just before it starts to ooze). Once it oozes, no grease on the affected area as it will inhibited healing. Hm.
She then proceeded to devise a couple of treatments. We would then start the treatment according to what Noah likes. That meant we had to test out five different things with Noah and see how he responds – salt, sugar, lemon juice, vinegar and smoked salmon. Just a pinch of any one of these items each day. If he responds well, then we pick the treatment that corresponds with the right taste. We have three weeks to see if the treatment works. If it works, it will clear everything up. If it doesn’t work, we’ll be back to square one. Either way, we’ll have to give her a call to see what is the next step.
She also encouraged me to continue putting on creams. People with eczema must not go a day without creams or moisturisers. Dexeryl, she agreed, was not rich enough so it is important to find whatever works for Noah. We were told that even though a cream may work in the beginning, it may lose its potency so we have to be prepared to end up with a lot of creams that DON’T work or outlived its use. Any oils and butters are fine – just do a patch test and if he responds well, stick to it. If he starts to break out again, then find another moisturiser that works.
She pointed out that it’s good that I am stopping him from scratching because scratching makes things REALLY bad so at this stage, I’m prepared to invest in “tools”. Am thinking of ordering a scratch sleeve for him and then use that as a pattern based for bigger sizes.
For once, I felt good about the whole thing. As I left the office, I felt more strengthened to help Noah fight this battle. Prior to this visit, I was on the verge of giving up as I felt that I wasn’t going anywhere. This form of treatment is quite similar to TCM – Traditional Chinese Medicine – where herbs and other ingredients are used to treat the body or root cause and not just tackle the symptoms. Encouraged, I decided to place an order for 10ml samples of a variety of oils – I read – that will help with eczema such as argan, rosehip, evening primrose, burriti, borage and butters like mumuru and cupuacu.
I hope to find a few that works for him and with any luck, we’ll have his eczema under control.
One of those days.
| May 4, 2012 | Posted by Mabel under Parenthood |
Today was just one of those crazy days.
I call it “Cry, Whine & Torture Mummy” Day. It’s bad when you have one kid who does nothing but cry, whine and well, does everything under the sun to annoy the heck out of you. But when you have two…
OH.MY.GAWD.
Eva got things off to a GREATTTTT start. Heh.
For breakfast, she got oats with milk and dried strawberries. It didn’t go down too well. When I asked her to finish her meal, she whine and cried. Drama queen at work. Then it was potty time. When I got her pajamas off, she whine and cried. Put her on the potty, she cried. Got her dressed, she cried. When we headed out, I asked her to hold my hand, she said no and grabbed my bag instead. Ended up flat on her face and well, my bag broke too. She cried. For 500 over metres, she cried and whine. I bought some bananas for her, she cried. I went to the post office and came out with two parcels which meant that I couldn’t hold her hand. You’d think that she’d be okay with that but no. She THREATENED to cry. All that drama for two hours non-stop.
For lunch, she poured water all over herself, dropped rice everywhere and just took her sweet time eating. As if that wasn’t bad enough, by the time she wound down for a nap, Noah decided to go berserk. He couldn’t sleep so that meant whining, crying and wanting to nurse to sleep. And just when he went about to doze off, Eva comes out of her room and decides not to nap. A harsh word got her back into her room but it woke Noah up so back to square one. For the entire afternoon, he whined NON-STOP and wanted to nurse to sleep. Then Eva decides that the ink on her reward chart was delicious and licked it clean. Noah was still whining and fussing. After four hours of whining and fussing, he finally dozed off…in the swing.
Me? Exhausted and drained. Bah.
I need a break.
Seriously.
A new chapter!
| April 17, 2012 | Posted by Mabel under Just Noah |
Or at least soon to be one.
A few weeks back, we started testing if Noah was ready for solids as he could sit well supported and has pretty good neck support. The test is nothing unusual or special – just a spoon with some water as the first solids should be of a liquid consistency and similar to breast milk.
The first time we tried, it was funny. He didn’t know what to do with the spoon and just kept his mouth shut. Sure sign that he wasn’t ready.
A week or two later, we gave it another go. This time, he gummed the spoon but the water came dribbling out due to his thrust/gag reflex. So no go again.
Last week, I tried. He was more receptive and swallowed a bit of the water but I still wasn’t convinced that we ought to start him.
Yesterday, we tried and I must say that it was a good outcome. He opened his mouth for the spoon, tilted his body forward (sign of interest) and swallowed the water (with a funny face).
Still, I won’t be introducing solids to him until he hits at least 5.5 months old (adjusted age). That should give me some time to prepare whatever I need in terms of cereals, fruit and vegetable puree as well as utensils and equipment. Not to mention an adjustment to his schedule as well as Eva’s. It can be challenging trying to get two kids down for a meal!
I must admit that I am a little reluctant…this new chapter is also a sign that he’s growing up and ohmy, too fast, I feel.
Life skills: Pouring and transferring
| March 26, 2012 | Posted by Mabel under Good Days w/ Eva, Just Eva, Parenthood, Playtime Learning |
Inspired by the book “I Can Do it: Play-and-learn Activities to Help Your Child Discover the World the Montessori Way” (link here), I decided to do work with Eva on some basic life skills. The book recommends that we go through Chapters One and Two first before attempt the rest. Since Eva already knows some life skills like brushing her teeth, combing her hair, putting on her shoes and jacket (I started working on the jacket a few days ago and now I just need to open it for her and she’ll slip her arms in herself. Managing the zip catch still requires work but she’s an expert at zipping up and down!), I decided to see if she can handle skills like pouring and transferring. These skills will help with self-feeding as well as get her exercising those muscles she’ll need for learning to write next time.
Here is a series of pictures I took while we were busy working on this activity. It took about 15 minutes and I used kidney beans before moving onto rice to make things a little bit more challenging. She transferred the beans without any problems or spillage but the rice – ohno! One thing good about this activity is that it ties in with her love for cooking and she was so into it so much so that when asked if she wanted to watch a cartoon, she said NO! Hehehe.
I also got a glimpse of some skills which she picked up from me while she observed me as I cooked and baked – namely patting down the rice. I do that (patting and smoothing) when making fruit bars and the base for my cheesecake as well as cookies, etc. Nice to see that she’s applying what she sees and changing it to experiencing it herself.
Transferring from small to big jug – very easy, no spillage, pour all at one go.
Pouring from a big jug to a very small container – not so easy, requires some skill and manoeuvring. Some spillage!
So focused!
Cleaning up some spillage; this time, we did some transferring using a teaspoon and two small containers.
Patting down the rice!
Adapting the method; instead of leaving both containers on the tray, she picks one up and makes herself more comfortable (I would think).
