Tag Archives: feeding

1 Month (20 Meals) of Yumbox Daycare Meals!

Yup, this Saturday’s a fun one!

No research articles, no checking statistical integrity or inclusion criteria for control and intervention groups to formulate a conclusion, today! And I know it’s been a while since I actually published a *new* Saturday post, but with a sick toddler, I’ve had my fair share of distractions.

After getting slightly burned out by the time- and brain capacity- intensive Saturday Sproutings posts, it’s time to take a break and post about something I have been learning to adjust to, as Jia’s new routine is full time daycare for 8-9 hours a day:

MEAL PREPPING!

Nope, I’m not a gym rat referring to some uber healthy meal prep that involves a ton of brown rice, lean meats, veggies, and plastic ziploc containers, I’m talking about daycare meals. Continue reading “1 Month (20 Meals) of Yumbox Daycare Meals!” »

#SummerofDad Week 9: Food & Fun Games

We’re now wrapping up our last week at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, or as I’ve come to know it: our seaside mansion escape. Our stay has been wonderful and I’m somewhat concerned that Gabe will go into withdrawal, as the energetic, gregarious extrovert won’t have dozens of people to wave and smile at or have rolling lawns to frolic upon. But considering we—as in only Gabe and dad—are going up to visit the Grandparents in Maine, I’m sure we’ll get by. (I will now try to stop ending my sentences with prepositions.)

Next week we begin the next big travel phase, where Jenny flies to Chicago for a week and we go to Maine. This marks the first time ever that Gabe and Jenny will be apart for more than 24 hours. As I said before, it will be a learning experience for all of us. Gabe will learn to get by without Jenny, Jenny without Gabe, me without Jenny—lots of learning! But I think it will be overall beneficial. I’m glad she’s getting to go take advantage of her professional opportunities, but we will definitely miss her when she’s gone and we look forward to picking her up at the airport!

In any case, that’s for next week. This week, nothing “exciting” happened, unlike last week. (Update from last week: The dermabond has finally fallen off and the cut is healing well. I forgot how small the actual cut is.) Other than trying to keep his cut covered and out of the sun, there were some fun and interesting moments:

Continue reading “#SummerofDad Week 9: Food & Fun Games” »

Weaning from Breastfeeding

So, I was going to delay this topic for an unknown length of time because I wanted to write about other things – like, the nutritional changes breastmilk goes through after your baby is 12 months old, the physiological changes that toddlers undergo to indicate readiness to start potty training, etc. because I planned on nursing Jia until she was 18 months old.

But, since I’m getting a bit anxious to get my body back to myself I figured – hey – as long as I was reading up on it, may as well write about it! (And besides, we clocked in an entire 14.5 months of 4 nursing sessions a day.)

First Things First – What’s Recommended? Continue reading “Weaning from Breastfeeding” »

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: 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!” »

The Best Lactation Cookies You’ll Ever Eat

So I was inspired to post this cookie recipe that I deemed on the Little Sproutings Facebook Page as “the best cookies I’ve ever had – even better than DoubleTree Hotel cookies!” after my friend asked for the recipe for her friend who delivered her babies 2.5 months early. I’m not even exaggerating, not even a little bit. They are THE BEST cookies I’ve ever had. They’re the kind that are a little crisp on the outside but soft and gooey on the inside.

If you are a nursing mom, you more than likely have some intense cravings for goodies in almost all forms – burgers, croissants, huge sandwiches, and let’s be honest – cakes, brownies, cookies, chocolate… So why not make those goodies count toward your milk supply?

Filled with milk supply-supportive brewer’s yeast, flaxseed, and rolled oats, these cookies pack a good punch of lactation power. There are other supplements you can take to increase your supply, but those (like fenugreek) aren’t evaluated by the FDA and the effects on babies – especially fragile NICU babies – are unknown. However, brewer’s yeast, flaxseed, and rolled oats are safe and I’d been given the OK in the past to donate my pumped milk while having consumed these ingredients.

(A little on low supply: A lot of new moms think they have a low milk supply, but usually they don’t. If your baby is gaining weight appropriately and on breastmilk alone, you don’t have an issue with supply. For more on that, read KellyMom’s post here. It is not common for moms to have issues with milk supply – nature intended on moms to breastfeed. There is a lot of propaganda and false information out there about moms having issues with supply – this is purely a money-making tactics of formula companies. Most often it is a latch or supplementation problem, where moms supplement breastfeeding with formula, which tells the body it doesn’t have to make more milk since baby isn’t taking it.

I have never had an issue with my supply and was patient from the get-go knowing what to expect (only teaspoons amounts of colostrum to start, milk kicking in around 3-4 days postpartum), but I do like my sweets. Why not make them count? Continue reading “The Best Lactation Cookies You’ll Ever Eat” »

Nutrition in a Nutshell for Your Sprout: Children (5 Years+)

Child Nutrition (5 Years and Up)

So back in my public health days, I worked for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s department of Child and Adolescent Health. Much of my work was dedicated to creating an educational program that supported healthy diets and physical activity of pre-school and school-aged children. I spent hundreds of hours designing a program and performing bill analyses that were written to improve overweight and obesity in the LA Unified School District. So, for a portion of my early adulthood, this topic was my jam.

The diet of a 5-year old (and up) is very similar to what our diets, as adults, should resemble: healthy and lean meats, half of the plate consisting of a variety of brightly colored fruits and vegetables, whole grains (not refined white flour that has been stripped of its healthy fiber), etc. It’s hard enough for us to follow, but it is of paramount importance for us to get our kids off on the right foot in these early years.

If you missed previous Nutrition in a Nutshell posts, click the links below

Nutrition in a Nutshell For Your Sprout: Infancy

Nutrition in a Nutshell For Your Sprout: Toddler & Pre-schooler

So, what should be the focus for these (still) growing sprouts? Here’s a summary:^1-9 Continue reading “Nutrition in a Nutshell for Your Sprout: Children (5 Years+)” »