Author Archives: Jeni

About Jeni

Creator of Little Sproutings, Written by Jeni Taylor, MPH MSN RN. I'm a nurse, public health advocate, and new mom living in Los Angeles, CA. I created Little Sproutings to share my experiences as a mom and discuss relevant baby-health topics through well-researched posts to help parents (new, experienced, and expecting) learn the why and how.

Part 1: Overheating & SIDS

To all my readers, I know Saturday is Sproutings Saturday, but I am just exhausted. Usually I have enough energy and time to get these posts out, but this week I’ve been having some inexplicable combination of writer’s block, fatigue, and intimidation with the topic I chose. I felt like a mess this week, I literally couldn’t finish a phone conversation with Jeff because I was feeling so anxious about the pressure to post this week.

So this will be a two-part installment.

I started to outline and draft my post, but realize that the topic is so important that rushing to publish the post would not do it justice.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is such a devastating conundrum where the reasons for why it happens cannot be predicted, quantified, or defined. It just happens. There is a lot of research that has been conducted, task forces built, and powerful public health campaigns that have been created that have a continued impact on the incidence of such a heartbreaking condition. But there are still gaps in our knowledge about the topic. Continue reading “Part 1: Overheating & SIDS” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: Ponytails and Bows

Here’s a recap of the last week:

She started doing this funny face when my mom was doing it – you know that face you make when you don’t want to scratch your nose but you have an itch? Like an overemphasized whistling face? She copies that face when you do it to her, hehe
We Asian people are generally familiar with the expression “aiy yaaaaaa!” The Asian equivalent of “Oh geez!” Jia will copy this saying, it’s really funny to us 🙂 Mom was saying it to her during diaper changes as she wriggled around and she would say it back!
Generous Doggie Feeder – I filled up her snack cup with those organic rice puffs and she was playing while munching on them. The pugs came up to her and were so excited, trying to find one she’d accidentally drop on the ground as she grabbed fistfuls of puffs to shove into her mouth. So she tried to feed them individual puffs. We’d say “No! No feeding the doggies!” so she walked into the kitchen and started to empty fistfuls of puffs into the doggie food bowls haha!
Little Baby Bum wins again – I’ve mentioned quite a few times on here how my daughter really doesn’t like car rides. She’ll never be one to conk out when buckled into her carseat. So when she is cranky or just wants to play but we have to go somewhere in the car, she’ll protest… In an effort to minimize how many times I actually have her watching Little Baby Bum on our phones, I decided to hook it up to the car tape adapter and play it through the car’s speakers. Turns out this is just as good! She is completely happy to listen to the nursery rhymes! At least, so far.
Bath Crayons – I bought her a pack of bathtub crayons for her Easter basket, hoping it would ignite a little artistic expression in her. She loooooved them! She drew all over the bath tub sides and when she was finished with one color, she places it back into the soap holder in the wall, swapping it out for a different color. She has such a great time in the bath tub, she could care less about her toys. Only drawback is she gets VERY upset when it’s time to put the crayons away and exit the tub. This is the link to the Munchkin 5 Piece Bath Crayons Set here.
What she’s snacking on lately:
- Plum organics Mighty 4 nutrition bars (mango/banana and strawberry are all acceptable to Jia)
- Happy Baby Puffs – the easiest and most portable snack for her to travel with
- Happy Baby Gentle Teethers for portable carseat snacks
- Ella’s Kitchen (organic) Nibbly Fingers (mangoes + carrots)
- She scarfs down Happy Creamies (I mentioned in the last WSDW post, those coconut milk snacks blended with fruit)
What she’s turned against:
- She’s over raspberries. I guess I overdid them.
- Happy Yogis – yogurt and fruit snacks

Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: Ponytails and Bows” »

Breastfeeding While Sick

So I’ve been scrambling my head trying to come up with a simple topic for this week’s post that didn’t involve lots of researching, since I lost a day this week from Jeff and my wedding anniversary. (He took Monday off so we could stay overnight at National Harbor to celebrate, so I kept thinking I had an extra day) I am also trying to keep track of my ideas for posts as they pop up into my head, but most of the time that happens when I’m driving or at the grocery store; some place where it’s not that convenient to jot down my thoughts.

So, after being sick twice in 30 days (the first was that nagging and uncomfortable sinus cold-turned bronchitis spiel I had that lasted 10 days at the end of February and then my recent bout with the stomach virus that seems to be going around practically everywhere), I wanted to highlight what I’ve learned from being a breastfeeding mom + being sick.

So here goes… Continue reading “Breastfeeding While Sick” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: Peekaboo!

As usual, here’s what she’s doing this week:

As she lay on her changing pad, I found out that she knows how to play peekaboo now! She’ll cover her eyes with her fingers, smiling, then I’ll say “Where’s Jia?!!” and she quickly moves her hands away and laughs.
Meet me at the Carwash – I was getting us ready to go to the park one afternoon and as I carried her around the kitchen, she spotted Jeff’s bottle brush (he uses for sports bottles and such) so I gave it to her. I put her on the floor and she started “cleaning” out the cup holders on her car.
Bubble Baby – We went to Axel’s 2nd birthday party and in her party favor bag was a small bottle of bubbles with a tiny little bubble wand (among many other really awesome trinkets!). We knew she loved bubbles because there was a little bubble machine at the party, so we started blowing bubbles with it. The next day, she walked over to her bubbles and I said “here, bring them to me!” and she walked over to me, carrying the bubbles (that’s pretty impressive, too!). Then, after watching me dip the wand into the bubbles, she wanted to take over. So, she took the wand from me and tried dipping it in herself. Only thing is, she put the wand into her mouth instead of blowing through it, ha. After about a dozen times demonstrating how to blow on it, she did once (no bubbles though)!
If you start laughing at something (or someone, the tv, etc) she starts laughing.
She really follows my gaze. I looked at the ceiling while in thought, and I noticed she looked up at the ceiling then looked back at me smiling. I know this one sounds pretty insignificant but I mean, I find it very very amusing.
If she hears clapping on TV (I was watching Dancing with the Stars and when the audience started clapping) she claps.
She can blow a kiss (partially)! When you blow a kiss to her, she puts her hand up to her mouth and smiles, but just doesn’t have the “release” part of the blowing a kiss down yet.
Buckle Up! Whenever she’s placed in her carseat, climbs into her toy car if she wants to go for a ride, or is seated in her kitchen table booster chair, she tries to put click her seatbelts together.
At the end of bath time, Jia started putting her bath toys away in the toy organizer.
Winky Blinky – When she was watching the shapes blink in Little Baby Bum’s Shapes Song (click video below), she would squint and blink her eyes just like the shapes. It’s so cute!!! Picture at the bottom!

My Thoughts: Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: Peekaboo!” »

Child CPR (Age 1 to Puberty) and Relief of Choking

This post is to address choking and unresponsiveness in CHILDREN 1 YEAR AND UP only. If your infant is unresponsive or you need instruction to relieve choking in infants, please review Infant CPR and Choking.

Click to Immediately Jump to Instructions For:

Basic Life Support Terms for Children

IF YOUR CHILD IS UNRESPONSIVE

IF YOUR CHILD IS CHOKING

These types of posts are the most important ones I will ever write.

I choose to write posts like these (Infant CPR/Choking & Child CPR/Choking) because it is so important that we have the necessary skills for our kids thrive in a safe and healthy environment. That means being prepared for the worst.

You can do your best to read up on how to install your carseat properly and learn what shouldn’t be allowed with the carseat (aftermarket pillows/strap covers/body supports/seat protectors), how to properly check your baby’s temperature in event of a fever, feeding organic whenever possible, using eco-friendly products, fully vaccinate them so they are equipped with the best possible immune system to ward off threatening illnesses, or even buy the coolest stroller with all the bells and whistles. But what’s most important? Keeping them alive. Continue reading “Child CPR (Age 1 to Puberty) and Relief of Choking” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: And She’s Off!

Update on Jia:

FIRST STEPS! This just in! As of 3/24/15, she is walking! Slowly but surely, it took our little sprout 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, and 1 day to get her first steps in! She took a total of about 6 steps on 3/24 and then this morning (3/25/15) she took about 7 steps in a row! Our video quality isn’t so great, so we’ll document again later. Recall, she did take 10.5 months to crawl but was crawling like a speed demon, so pretty soon I imagine she’ll be walking confidently!
I read from a BabyCenter newsletter that if your toddler isn’t yet walking, what you can do to encourage them is to pretend to trip over your feet while you walk – showing that even adults have trouble with it. So I did this. And fell over. Many times, and she belly laughs a LOT! This was good for when I actually fell down the stairs trying to step OVER the baby gate (instead of opening it, since Jia was standing at the gate), she laughed while I gripped hurt parts of me in pain.
Sprouting a left bottom molar and a bottom right tooth, for soon to be a total of 8 teeth. This means she’s temperamental! She really had no distress through the first 6 teeth, so this is the first time she’s just a crabby unpredictable mess hah…
Because of the above, her naps are unpredictable. It’s a few days of 1 hour and 30 min naps and then a day of 30 minute napping after rolling around flailing her limbs and chattering to herself for almost an hour. Or even 1 hour and 15 minutes of blabbering and rolling around. That day we had no nap until 4 PM that afternoon.
She loves Happy Family Brand’s Happy Creamies! While at my weekly run to Target, I picked these up from the baby aisle, along with teething crackers. Gave them to her after she picked through all the peas in her macaroni and cheese and ate an orange and she scarfed them down.
She’s also back to her Happy Baby Puffs, yay! I like to put this in a snack cup for her to nosh on while she and I go jogging.
I hate to admit this, but LittleBabyBum nursery rhymes (on YouTube) make her so happy. After jogging with her and I need a quick shower – I play this on my phone and she is just quiet and happy. I don’t like to show her screens, since The Academy says not til after 2 years, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I also handed her my iPhone when she for some reason is screaming and upset in the car (babies and toddlers are not fans of traffic and mine in particular dislikes car rides IN GENERAL) with the video playing. It works like magic. Only to be used in dire times of need. (To view Little Baby Bum’s YouTube Channel click here)
Scavenging Around: My friend (and one of Jia’s godmothers) Megan was here the other day and Jia was digging through her purse. She pulled out her car keys and then crawled over to her princess mobile and tried to use her keys with the car. She also did a cute thing where she took an item out of Megan’s purse, looked at it, then placed it back in (versus throwing it aside).
MyPhone… She took Megan’s iPhone and put it up to her ear and said “bababababa!” Apparently Jeff has been teaching her how to use the phone on her learning farm toy that has a pretend phone, quick little learner!

I made these baked sweet potato bites a week or so ago and she seemed to really dislike them. But then I tried again a while after and it turns out, she really likes them 1) cold; and 2) sitting in their foil pouch (not on her plate). So I ripped off a square of foil to put on her plate and housed the sweet potatoes in there and it was just about the only thing she ate for dinner.

Steam a sweet potato for about 15 minutes. Remove.

Cut into small finger-sized pieces

Place on non-stick foil (or spray with cooking spray or drizzle with olive oil)

Cut pieces of unsalted butter and arrange over sweet potatoes. I used a cheese grater and grated a cold stick of butter over them. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Place in oven at 350 deg for about 15 minutes. Watch them, because I really didn’t pay attention to how long I really baked them! Allow to cool and serve!
Pasta! Whole wheat noodles and these spinach/garlic noodles from Trader Joe’s, cooked then mixed with some butter then organic marinara sauce is something she apparently likes!
Claps and bounces when music is playing, a LOT of clapping!

Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: And She’s Off!” »

You, Preeclampsia, and Your Sprout

Since this is my first pregnancy post on Little Sproutings, I wanted to write about something relevant that I went through during mine. (You can skip ahead to the “So What’s Preeclampsia?” part if you don’t want to read about my experience.)

My “Pre”-Preeclampsia Experience

For the last month and a half of my pregnancy, I was on “pre-eclampsia watch.” It was hard for me to distinguish between pre-eclampsia symptoms and being stressed out at a busy job as an ICU nurse. My heart rate would go up, sure, but whose wouldn’t when one of your two patients is crashing? My feet were ridiculously swollen, but I was pregnant! And on my feet all day! Sick patients don’t take a break so a swollen busy nurse can elevate her feet! Sure, my charge nurses and manager had no problem (as far as I know) with my frequent trips to the bathroom, needing to sit down more often as I lugged around my planet-sized mid-section, or taking lots of mini-breaks to eat a snack. They were great in assigning me with patients that didn’t require super heavy lifting and avoided putting me with patients that were on contact/droplet/airborne isolation (and we had quite a few during my last trimester). The nurses I worked with were so sweet and helped grab supplies for me, would turn my patients for me so I didn’t have to strain; they really were the best nurses and coworkers I could ask for. Continue reading “You, Preeclampsia, and Your Sprout” »