Tag Archives: Development

Spice Up Your Sprout’s Meals!

I’ve gotten questions from a couple of moms asking when it’s safe to add herbs and spices to their infant’s foods, which ones are baby-friendly, and if/how adding herbs and spices can make a positive influence on their babys’ food preferences down the line. I was actually pretty curious about this myself, since it’s challenging (at least for me) to be super creative when I cook Jia’s meals and have been tempted to toss in some seasonings. It can be especially hard if you’re not really skilled in the kitchen, to stray away from the norm, the routine, your repertoire.

As I was conducting my research for this topic, I actually couldn’t find any resources from the American Academy of Pediatrics or any empirical research saying that incorporating herbs and spices weren’t recommended for babies and at what definitive age to begin introducing them. I am taking this to mean that since there’s no formal policy or recommendation against herbs and spices being introduced, then it’s not of great concern. What I did find was encouraging – the AAP recommended that in place of salt, parents should be encouraged to cook with herbs, spices, and lemon juice. So there ya go, the AAP says herbs and spices should be used!

In researching, what I found interesting is that many other cultures actually start adding spices to infants’ diets as soon as they begin solid foods (South Asian, South American, East Asian, etc). This includes spicy seasonings, too.

In the US; however, we are so overly conservative about adding herbs and spices into baby’s diet, that our babies are often stuck eating bland foods until they are toddlers. Get creative, mom (& dad!)

Though it’s up for debate on whether or not spicy seasonings should be added to baby’s diet (see first bullet below), one thing is pretty clear – parents are introducing a variety of flavors into their babies’ diets so that they are exposed to a wide range of tastes, which can positively influence preferences down the line. This translates to a less picky eater!

Through my research on this topic, I found some main pointers for when you are beginning to spice up your baby’s food:

Wait until your baby has reached about 6-8 months old to introduce herbs and spices. This is actually more or less up to you, mainly because you want to sort out any intolerances, sensitivities, and preferences in foods. In an article from Live Science, Dr. Anca Safta, a Pediatric Gastroenterologist recommends that the aromatic spices (cinnamon, cardamom, dill, garlic, onion, coriander, cumin, turmeric, ginger) should be introduced first. She says that this is because the flavor of “hot” is not necessarily a taste, but an activation of pain receptors. This can lead to intestinal upset, diarrhea, and irritable bowel syndrome. Because of a baby’s maturing gastric system, she recommends these be delayed a bit longer. Conversely, Dr. Stephen Borowitz, University of Virginia’s Professor of Pediatrics says that a baby’s digestive system is normal at birth and that spicy foods needn’t be avoided and that using such spices is both “reasonable and appropriate.” Pediatric and Adolescent Dietitian for the Children’s Hospital in Boston, Vanessa Kane-Alves RD says, “there is no list of spices to avoid.” However you interpret the many views on the use of herbs and spices for your baby’s food, remember to:
Keep with the 4-day rule! After introducing one type of spice, continue to do so for 4 days before introducing a new spice, so that an herb or spice can more easily be identified as the culprit of a sensitivity.
Breastfeeding (and pumping) mamas rest assured! Herbs and spices are transmitted through breastmilk, so your little one is already being exposed to a variety of flavors as long as you are. And, if you are still breastfeeding by 6 months, good for you! Keep going! Remember, the World Health Organization recommends to breastfeed up to 2 years old and continue as long as possible.

Fresh or dried, here’s a list of some baby-friendly herbs and spices to get started: Continue reading “Spice Up Your Sprout’s Meals!” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: Tongue Twinsies!

I really enjoy writing these posts. They’re so much easier to write; stream of consciousness writing at its best. I mean, I see why there are so many moms out there in the blogosphere writing about their kids these days. It’s so easy to write about your fascinating child, sharing with the world how your day-to-day is changing, what s/he is doing now, what challenges you’re facing, etc. No research, no citations, not having to make sure what you’re saying is backed by legitimacy. And, judging by the numbers I’m seeing, you guys enjoy reading this type of post, too! So I think I’ll be able to keep up with this What’s She Doing Wednesdays thing! (I’m definitely NOT going to start shifting away from the health-topic posts for Sproutings Saturdays!)

I found out that not only does she love mimicking certain things we do, but she LOVES sticking out her tongue and watching me do it back. As we stand in front of the mirror, she sticks out her tongue. She looks at me (in the mirror), so I stick mine out. She smiles then turns to look at me face to face to make sure I was still doing it. She laughs and continues to stick her tongue out in all sorts of directions. So cute.
She’s discovered how doors open and close. I was in the bathroom and she was kneeling on the ground one hand on the door, moving it back and forth. She realized if she pushed it enough, she could close it completely.
We can self-feed pouches! The picture above is of her first time holding and sucking down a pouch on her own! Now, deciding to finish it is another story. She only wants to eat from the pouch if she’s holding it, because if I hold it (after she gets going) it’s just not as appealing 😉
“Pacifier Pop” is what I’m calling this new game that Jia finds absolutely hilarious. Jia is the squirmiest most stubborn little booger during a diaper change, writhing and refusing to lay on her back while I remove sharp diaper pins, fold a diaper, or even take off her pants and socks. She turns on her belly and gets on all fours trying to grab at anything she can, whether or not that would cause her to fall off the changing table. She sometimes even cries because she doesn’t feel like getting changed. So, today she was crying, so I got her pacifier (Wubbanubb) from the crib and I brought it to her face then thought – I’ll put it in my mouth! So I did. She started reaching for it, lying down nicely on her back. I turned my head away dodging her hands and she starts laughing. Then once she grabs ahold of the frog, I refuse to let the pacifier go. Then I let her “POP” it out of my mouth with a loud pop. She CRACKS UP!!! I struck gold. At least, for today.

Mom Thoughts:

My car needed maintenance done so I was driving Jeff’s car to Trader Joe’s. With the shopping cart cover in the back of my SUV, I realized she would have to sit in a shopping cart without a cover. It actually turned out even better than using it, because the seatbelt on the cart does a much better job at keeping a squirmy Jia well-seated. Thank you, Trader Joe’s (and Target!) for having sanitizing wipes. (I usually bring a ziplock of Lysol wipes in my mom-bag but didn’t take it with me to TJ’s since I thought I remembered them having a bucket of wipes near the carts) This is nice to learn since TJ’s and Target are my second and third homes.
I finally took out the newborn insert from the Infant Car Seat. I’m probably really late on this one but my little girl is *sniffle* growing up so she doesn’t really need that head support anymore. Sad day. She is already 1.5″ away from the top of the seat, soon to be outgrown.
I learned a lot about carseats in the past 7 days. I think a purchase of the Graco Milestone or Diono Radian 3-in-1 carseat is in the near future. Once Jia outgrows her infant car seat, she’ll need a seat to continue rear-facing until 2-4 years old. Two years is the absolute minimum the AAP recommends, four years is preferred. But, I want a seat that will be more-inclusive, meeting requirements for when she turns forward-facing in a harness (until 5 years old), and then with a normal seatbelt in the high-back booster (from 5-10) and then a backless booster (at least 10 years old). I had no idea before THIS WEEK (thanks to Car Seats For The Littles!) that you needed that many car seats. Am I the only one? My gosh. This also means my in-laws will need to get one for their car since the big seats aren’t meant to go in and out of cars all the time. Why can’t they make infant car seats slightly larger so that it can hold them til 2 years old? Like an Infa-Toddler Car Seat. Then we can bypass getting another rear-facing seat and just get one for front-facing? I know there’s the Graco 4ever and a few other types that go from infant seat to backless booster, but I’ve learned those are super bulky, really heavy, hard to install, or don’t allow for much room in the back for other carseats or people.

Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: Tongue Twinsies!” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: My House is a Battlefield

So in an effort to publish mid-week posts on this blog, I figured I’d give a shot at “What’s She Doing Wednesdays” to write about new little quirks, developmental milestones, likes/dislikes, funny behaviors, etc. So here we go:

What’s She Doing Wednesday – My House is a Battlefield

In the short few days into this first full week of 2015, Jia has managed to really show me a new and growing side of her. This week I really felt like I was starting to raise a toddler. Oh boy.

Here’s what I’ve experienced in the last (maybe not even) 48 hours:

I put safety gates at the top of two sets of stairs, not bottom. We decided to wait on the lower gate to see if Jia would actually climb them. Tonight (Wednesday) I turn my back to load the dishwasher real quick and was away for MAYBE one minute and return to find Jia already climbing up on the 3rd stair. I supervised her while she successfully climbed the remaining 4 steps to the gate. Time to get a bottom-of-the-stairs gate. This was definitely THE week to get the safety gates installed. Thank goodness I ordered them Saturday and PRIME delivered them by Monday. Patting myself on the back here.
She has decided she doesn’t like smashed food. She was a fan on Sunday. Not after. Unless it’s breakfast and she’s eating mixed berries with oatmeal. Turns head violently away from the spoon and refuses to look back at me til she can “feel” that the spoon is nowhere close.
We found the first food she disliked: Yogurt. HATES yogurt. And it’s great that I got a huge tub of Plain Organic Whole Milk yogurt, since that was a waste. Thank GOODNESS she was a fan of the (yogurt) chicken I baked tonight and scarfed down an entire mini-chicken breast! (recipe is below). This kid loves (loved, because who knows now): black eyed peas, spinach, pumpkin, quinoa, lentils, all fruit, brussels sprouts, green beans, avocado, beets, carrots, butternut squash, peas, fig, kale, persimmon, salmon, chicken, turkey. Yogurt really took me by surprise.
She’s found she can command the doggies by dropping food on the ground. She gets a huge kick out of this (look at the picture above), in between screaming because she doesn’t feel like eating the food she used to love.
Threw her head back in annoyance that she wasn’t allowed to drink from her sip cup until her spinach/sweet potato-smothered face is cleaned off.
I can no longer dump a handful of Happy Baby puffs to keep her occupied while I prep her food/dinner/clean dishes. She now eats a small amount then drops them one by one to Mei Mei. Then laughs her head off.
As I’m typing this, she’s flicking the cords behind the TV and peeks around the corner at me with a VERY mischievous grin on her face as she cackles.
Discovered and loves trash cans. This includes the bucket we keep her dirty soaking poo cloth diapers. Ewww.
“Doggie water bowl? Fantastic place to clean my hands” (I’ve had to run and pull her away from it twice since starting this post)
She discovered the unending fun that is toilet paper. We keep a roll of the “good stuff” in her changing table area, in case we get a real hefty poo in a cloth diaper.

But thankfully, here are some beautiful and adorable new things we’ve seen: Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: My House is a Battlefield” »

Your Little Sprout’s Growth Charts Explained

Almost all of us have been there. Sitting at the pediatrician’s office, the nurse wheels in the infant scale for his or her weigh-in, encircles your angel’s head with a halo-like measuring tape, marks the examination table paper at the heel and top of the head.

After gathering all the important info, they enter the information into the computer (or on a form) and scribble a number down on your progress report paperwork in their corresponding ” _____ %ile” spaces (“blank percentile”).

Maybe you’ve sat there confused. “If there was something wrong, they’d tell me…right?” you thought to yourself.

If this sounds like you, I’m here to clear it up! I’m going to walk you through reading a growth chart and interpreting the numbers.

What are Growth Charts?

First off, growth charts were made in order to track infant, child, and adolescent’s development (length, weight, and head circumference factors) from birth up to 20 years of age.

The lines show the distribution of the population according to that specific measurement.

For instance, if a measurement falls along the “75” line, then that means for that measurement, 75 percent of girls (or boys, depending on the chart) at that age/weight/length/head circumference were shorter/weighed less/had smaller head circumferences. We’ll get into that in our practice exercise below. Continue reading “Your Little Sprout’s Growth Charts Explained” »

Avoiding a Sick Sprout…

OK guys – As a healthcare provider (even if I’m on an extended “break”) I wanted to put this out there as my nurse’s Public Service Announcement for all parents who have babies, young children, kids, if you have little baby cousins, nieces and nephews, best friends who have little babies, or who are pregnant… GET A FLU SHOT!

Flu season is September 1st through March 31st (that’s the guideline we follow in the hospital) and the best way you can protect your child against a whopping case of sleepless nights, fever, crying, irritability, difficulty eating, etc etc is to get vaccinated and to vaccinate your kids!

Why Vaccinate?

In general, your baby needs to be up-to-date on all vaccines. ALL VACCINES. There really is no excuse for this. So much media sensationalism exists trying to unjustifiably pin long-term health effects on vaccinations, but no. Don’t buy into it. It’s ridiculous. It leads to worse problems, like the resurgence of diseases that used to be things of the past. Here on Little Sproutings, I try not to be incredibly opinionated about some issues, but failing to vaccinate your child is a whole other story.

For more about vaccinating your child overall, see the “Additional Info” section below and additional resources at the end of this post.

Flu Vaccinating You & Your Sprout

The flu virus affects everyone. Babies and young children especially need a vaccine to defend their little bodies against the flu, because their immune systems aren’t at full strength and the effects of a flu illness are worse for them. Additionally, the course of a flu illness is more easily complicated with pneumonia because of a developing immune system. Continue reading “Avoiding a Sick Sprout…” »

Your Snoozin Sprout

Whether or not you plan to (or currently) “sleep train” your baby, new parents and parents-to-be are familiar with wondering if their baby will be a “good sleeper,” or if they will be up all night long. It seems as though the instant you bring your baby home, strangers and family members start to ask “ohhh is she sleeping through the night yet?”

For some, it’s nothing more than an innocent question, but for others it can be obnoxious. Tired parents will sense a notion of judgment or eagerness to hear of the parent’s failure to being able to keep their baby asleep, or they just dread hearing the question because it reminds them of how little sleep they are actually getting.

Good sleeper or not, there’s one thing that I think we can all agree on – that newborns sleep differently than young infants, and young infants sleep differently than older babies. When Jia was sleeping in our living room in her crib, Jeff and I tiptoed around our 1-bedroom condo like you wouldn’t believe. For a handful of weeks I was living on-edge after 8:30 PM. I dreaded bedtime. Whether it was the dogs barking at something they heard outside our window, needing to take a quick trip to the fridge, opening and closing our squeaking front door (thank you WD-40) or wondering if the dropping of the shampoo bottle in the shower was enough to rouse her from her light sleep, I was going nuts.

Nowadays, in her own room sleeping 11-11.5 hours straight, I still wonder: how come our friends’ toddler needs the clanking of pots and pans or loudly opening and closing dresser drawers to wake up, whereas sometimes it seems Jia can sleep through an army passing by her door but other nights her sleep will be disturbed by Jeff blowing his nose next door?

We started talking about this and I became curious – how are sleep patterns and brain waves different for infants and toddlers, and when do they change?

Continue reading “Your Snoozin Sprout” »

This Sprout Was Made for Walkin…

So, Jia isn’t going to crawl. Doesn’t want to. My guess is there are two things that contribute to this: she’s not in day-care around other babies thinking “oh wow that looks cool, let me try!” and the only consistent examples of crawling on all fours are her fur siblings, Kona and Mei-Mei. I think she realizes she’s more like us than her siblings. She’s had plenty of tummy time, too. I actually don’t mind, I welcome her current lack of all-fours mobility. It helps me run to the bathroom or kitchen with the comfort of knowing she’s probably only backwards-scooted at most, a foot from where I left her 5 seconds ago.

Many babies never crawl and instead go straight to cruising/standing then onto walking. Though crawling is a milestone, it’s not a developmental requirement. Additionally, pediatricians think that the push for “Back to Sleep,” the public health campaign that has drastically decreased the number of cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) has contributed to less children crawling these days. Since babies are spending more times on their backs than on their tummies, their back and torso muscles may not be as strong as before “Back to Sleep” began. According pediatricians (cited on Parenting.com), studies have not shown any negative developmental outcome associated with skipping the milestone of crawling. Continue reading “This Sprout Was Made for Walkin…” »