December 22nd, 2007 | Babies, Parenting, Personal | 1 Comment
Should my 7-month-old baby be able to sit up independently? Sitting up is a 7-month milestone, but some babies do it better than others. I don’t know if Clarisse, born 2 weeks ahead of schedule, can be considered premature. Premature babies may often lag in milestones compared to other on-term babies of the same age. I wonder if there’s anything I can do to help her sit up on her own faster. Having underestimated the importance of tummy time, which I should have started a lot earlier, I wouldn’t want to make the same mistake here. So I did some searching …
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December 19th, 2007 | Babies, Health, Parenting | 2 Comments
As much as I stand by not introducing pacifiers to my baby, I have absolutely no qualms about parents who do so as long as parents are aware of hygiene and safety practices that goes along with pacifier use.
First of all, before you buy pacifiers, head over to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (http://www.cpsc.gov) website and make sure it is not a recalled product. Go with a major brand with an established product safety record.
Ensure the pacifier is clean:
- Soak pacifiers in boiling water or sterilizers regularly.
- When a pacifier meets the floor, give it a good proper washing. I’ve seen mothers who pick pacifiers up from the floor, put it their mouth, clean it with their saliva and tougue and putting it back into their baby’s mouth. Gross ;P
- Bring extra pacifiers along if your baby tends to drop it everywhere.
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December 18th, 2007 | Babies, Health, Parenting, Personal | 1 Comment
Despite my in-laws keep telling me to give my baby Clarisse a pacifier, to keep her quiet at times, I have never resort to pacifiers. I do not plan to introduce pacifiers to my baby in the future either.
And personally, I’m kinda pleased my baby Clarisse doesn’t seem to enjoy a pacifier. Granted, I’ve never put in the effort and time to properly introduce pacifiers to her but I did bought a pair of NUK pacifiers a few months ago. My baby has a habit of sleeping while breastfeeding, latching on to my nipple until she falls asleep. If she is not in a deep sleep, whenever I pull out my nipple, she will become alert and demands to latch on again. So I tried to replace my nipple with a pacifier immediately whenever I pull out. Baby Clarisse would eventually wake up after a few seconds sucking on the pacifier. Realising it’s not my nipple and starts to cry.
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December 17th, 2007 | Babies, Parenting | No comments
My baby Clarisse is 6 months and 3 weeks old now and I guess it’s about time we take language development a notch higher. She has already demonstrate her ability to understand words and phrases we constantly use to describe common activities (changing diapers
, potty
time, eating time, bathing etc.) around her. Now that she is well into her sixth month, language development will slowly start to evolve. Babies will start learning to express themselves around this time.
From what I’ve gathered so far from various sources, experts agree that the way parents speak and react to their babies can make a difference in speech development:
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December 15th, 2007 | Babies, Health, Parenting, Toys | 2 Comments
Let’s be realistic. Parents have to accept the fact that we’ll never be able to guarantee safe toys for our children. It’s good to know that politicians are starting to campaign for safe toys as a political agenda. As for now, we can do our best to safeguard our children from unsafe toys through knowledge and common sense.
Sign up for emailing lists to get yourself informed of the latest toy recalls at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Another good site for such information is U.S. PIRG.
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December 14th, 2007 | Babies, Health, Parenting, Personal | 1 Comment
Tummy time is important for babies. I confess, I didn’t realise it until I read about the importance of tummy time from a parenting magazine. A baby’s basic skills such as sitting up, crawling, lifting head and turning over is influenced by tummy time. The more time, and the earlier you encourage tummy time for your baby, the faster your baby will learn to master the skills above.
When I first saw my baby Clarisse struggling to roll over unsuccessfully, I helped push her buttocks a bit to help her to roll over. However, my father-in-law told me not to help baby Clarisse and should just let her do it on her own. It took baby Clarisse a few more weeks to successfully roll over on her own effort. I regret listening to his advice now that I realise flipping my baby over on her tummy helps in so many motor skills. I should have just helped baby Clarisse roll over so that she could have spent more tummy time instead.
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December 13th, 2007 | Babies, Health, Household, Parenting, Toys | 1 Comment
With the amount of Made-in-China toys recalled in the pass several months, I am concerned about the safety of toys I buy for my baby. The anxiety is heightened when baby Clarisse receives toy presents from friends and families. Baby Clarisse puts everything she can grab hold of into her mouth in a split second. Naturally, most of the toys in her crib are teethers. So it is important to make sure the toys she plays with is safe from toxicity.
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December 12th, 2007 | Babies, Breast Feeding, Personal | No comments
When my baby Clarisse was 3 months old, her breastfeeding antics started to annoy me. Baby Clarisse would latch on, suck for a moment, turn around and look the other way. She would repeat this annoying action - nurse for a few seconds, pull away and either smile at me or check out whoever is talking in the room. Or get distracted by the slightest hint of sound or stray of lights from the TV. I warned my husband or whoever is in the room not to talk whenever I nurse baby Clarisse.
It is most frustrating when she fool arounds when my breast milk starts to let-down. My breast milk would drop onto her shirt and face. Her shirt would end up drenched in milk and I’d have to wipe her face afterwards.
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December 7th, 2007 | Babies, Breast Feeding | 3 Comments
Being able to stay home and breastfeed my baby since the day she was born is one aspect of my life I’m most grateful for. Baby Clarisse has been feeding on demand for the past 6 months. It makes me feel good, as a mother, for being there whenever she needs me and knowing that I’m giving my baby the best that she deserves. The best nutrition and the love and care she feels.
Things got off to a rough start. I confess I gave formula after breastfeeding sessions to make sure my baby is getting enough milk for the first month and a half. I just didn’t feel confident in myself that I’m providing enough breast milk for her.
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December 5th, 2007 | Babies, Diet, Personal | 1 Comment
My baby’s first taste of solid food is nothing more than just plain good ol’ rice. All mashed and pureed at it’s finest. Baby Clarisse got her first experience of solids when I decided to start her off when she was 4 months and 3 weeks old.
My mother whipped up some pureed rice out of the blue one particular afternoon and tried to feed it to baby Clarisse. Surprisingly, baby Clarisse really enjoyed the meal and ate all of it. Albeit it was only a tiny serving of rice puree but I was pleased she did not spit it out. Babies who aren’t ready for solids tend to push them out with their tougue.
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