We are into a really great routine with Bean at night lately. For one thing, he is LOVING his baths. Its the splashing. He loves the splashing. Specifically, he loves splashing me. He has a turtle that floats in his tub and he bats at it until it sinks and/or drowns. In the process, I have to change my clothes about three times. Loads of fun.
After bath time, we get ready for bed. Chris puts on Bean’s jammies and brushes his little, spastic hairs while I get his bottle ready. When I come back upstairs, I take Bean into my bedroom where our rocking chair is and I give him his bottle. While I’m rocking Bean, Chris is getting his humidifier filled and turned on and putting a clean blanket in Bean’s crib. By the time Chris finishes, Bean has usually finished his bottle and has started flopping around, trying to stretch out. That’s my cue to take him into his nursery, kiss him goodnight, and lay him down in his crib.
Wham. Bam. The Beast sleeps.
Lately, there have been 3 new products we have been using at bedtime that have been really fantastic. So fantastic that I thought I should share them.
First, when Bean has a cold, sleeping is always the hardest part. Even when we give him Benedryl throughout the night to help with the coughing, it is still really hard for him to sleep. UNTIL WE FOUND THIS:
This is Vick’s Vapor Rub for Babies. AND ITS AWESOME. I put it on Bean’s little chest under his jammies and (get ready for this…) I put it on his FEET! I know. Crazy, right? It was one of those weird wives tales that I had heard about before (actually, I think I heard about it first by comments some of you left on the blog at some point) and so I thought, “Why not?” We rubbed a little bit on each of Bean’s feet and then stuck them into his footie jammies.
The kid did not wake up ONCE in the night. Not even when his Benedryl wore off. He slept right through that. No coughing, no trouble breathing, no waking up. It was awesome! I don’t know if it would work for everyone, but it is totally worth a try if you’ve got a sick wee one on your hands.
Another little issue Bean fights almost every day is dry skin. Unfortunately, he got his Dad’s skin, which is about two steps away from being dry enough to make into a purse and matching heels. Bean has eczema on his tummy and sides under his arms and our doctor suggested we try Aquaphor because it was thicker than regular lotion. But it didn’t really help him. I was really afraid that our next step would be a prescription.
BUT THEN I FOUND THIS!!
This is Johnson & Johnson’s Vanilla Oatmeal bath wash for Bean. First, it smells heavenly. Sweet and luscious and yummy. But more importantly, the oatmeal is really rich when it lathers on Bean’s skin. When he gets out of the tub, he is soft and smooth. And totally delicious. I just can’t help myself and I nibble on him. Elbows, knees, toes, ears. Nom, nom, nom, nom….
When he gets out of the bath, we then smear him down with THIS AWESOMENESS FROM HEAVEN…
I like this one better than even the vanilla oatmeal body wash. This is baby oil, but its creamy. Hence the name Baby Creamy Oil. I just can’t put my finger on why this is any different than lotion, but it just is. Its like a thick cream, but it isn’t gooey. It goes on like lotion, but leaves your skin super hydrated and smooth. I even use this on my hands now and I smear Chris’ dry, cracked hands with it, too.
Its like awesome in a tube.
Its like a tube of awesomeness.
Its like an awesome tube of…awesome.
Go buy these things. Go buy them all and then sleep peacefully.
I’ve talked a lot before about what a hard time I had getting Bean Man to eat solid foods (here and here). The first problem was that he wasn’t ready for a long time. We tried at four months, again at five months, again at six months, and finally success at seven months. The second problem was that Bean didn’t like jarred baby food. He still doesn’t. I don’t know if it is the texture or the taste, but personally I think it is that he didn’t like being fed. He didn’t like the spoon and he didn’t like me putting the food in his mouth for him. He showed slightly more interest when I put food down in front of him and he could pick it up and feed himself, but it wasn’t until he was seven months old that he really started showing interest in food. I guess everyone was right.
He’ll eat when he’s ready to eat.
Now that Bean is an eater, it has been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because he is bulking up a little bit faster. He’s still pretty small compared to most babies his age, but I can notice a difference in the meat on his bones since he’s been eating food. But on the flip side, because he won’t eat jarred baby food, that really left me no choice but to make the food myself. And, as a full-time working mom, I just didn’t think that I would have time.
At first, it took me a couple weeks to get in my groove and those few weeks were pretty hectic. Turns out, for as small as babies are they can go through some food! Granted, only about 10% of the food I put in front of Bean actually made it into his mouth, but still. He was going through food like crazy. And that meant for a few weeks my life consisted of working, making baby food, playing with Bean, making baby food, writing blog posts, making baby food, washing my hair, making baby food, etc. But in the past month, I have created a little system for myself and it turns out that with a few simple tools, a good schedule, and a little bit of time, it isn’t all that hard.
In December, I posted about how my mom came to visit and we made pureed baby food that we froze in ice cube trays. It was really great. I’d throw a cube into a little Tupperware container and send Bean to school and by lunchtime the cubes had thawed and were ready to eat. If you really don’t have much time as a working mom, you can feed your baby like this every day and still feel confident that he is getting healthy, hearty, fresh food in his system. But I found that Bean’s independent streak made it hard sometimes for him to eat ONLY pureed baby food. He couldn’t do that himself, so about 15 minutes into the meal, he’d get bored with me doing it for him and he’d start fussing to get out of his high chair. But, I noticed that he would eat Gerber Puffs for as long as I put them in front of him. He just liked being able to do it himself. That’s when I started fresh steaming veggies for him for each meal. I’d steam them and cut them up really small and he could chow on those like he did his Puffs. But that was really time consuming.
It took me a about a week to realized that in the same time as it took me to steam one meal’s worth of food, I could steam one whole week’s worth of food. And that’s when I started to form my little system.
Today, this is what it takes to feed Bean Man…
As a working mom, I am motivated by guilt. Pretty much all the time. Guilt over the time that I’m away from him. Guilt over the stuff I’m feeding him. Guilt over pretty much everything. Its just my nature. And using store-bought, canned, jarred, boxed food was one more thing to feel guilty about. But you know what? I dropped that guilt pretty darn fast. And I’ll tell you why.
My feeling is that as long as Bean has a balanced, healthy diet and as long as the MAJORITY of his food is fresh, healthy, and of the earth, then a little help from the grocery store every now and then isn’t going to kill him. And it gives me more time to hang out with him, and I think that is better for his development than a canned lima bean is bad for it.
Having said that, there are some essential items that are store bought that I keep on hand at all times:
Plain yogurt: Bean loves yogurt. I read somewhere that plain is the best for babies his age because the kind with fruit has a lot more sugar in it. I do sometimes mix his yogurt with fresh fruit at home though.
Canned fruit: I don’t use this a lot, but if I’m out of fresh fruit, its nice in a pinch. Its also been good to use to introduce Bean to fruit that isn’t in season. I use the Lite kind to reduce the sugar and I wash the fruit off before I serve it to him to get any of that syrup residue off. I cut these up into little chunks and he likes feeding these to himself.
Elbow macaroni: I boil a big batch of these once a week and store them in Tupperware in the fridge. When I give them to Bean, I cut them in half. While they don’t have any nutritional value, Bean likes them as little snacks and they make a good filler food to round out a meal.
Lima Beans (or any bean that I don’t have time to cook): Cooking fresh beans is a process and its one that I just don’t have the time for, to be honest with you. So, I use canned or frozen beans for Beanie. Again, I rinse these off before I feed them to him to get that canned starchiness off of the bean. I cut the bean in half and he can feed himself. His favorites are lima beans, but he also likes green beans and peas from cans. (Although, with the peas, be sure you mush them up because those are the perfect size for a choking hazard.)
Applesauce: Now, I know you can make homemade applesauce really easily and especially since I already steam fresh apples for Bean anyway (I’ll talk about that later). But I find the jarred applesauce is just as good and is cheap, too. To me, personally, its one of those things that’s just better out of the jar. I try to get the homestyle or natural when its on sale to reduce the sugar intake, but this week regular Motts Original was the sale item. So, Motts it was!
Gerber Products: Bean loves Gerber Puffs – peach, sweet potato, cherry, banana, any flavor. He loves them! In fact, when he was first starting to actually eat real food, I used the Puffs to teach him how to eat by putting a piece of real food under the Puff so he couldn’t see it. The only thing about them is that they melt on contact with saliva and so they don’t teach him how to chew because they just slide down his throat. He also really likes the Gerber Yogurt Melts. He’s not as crazy about these as he is the Puffs and he prefers real yogurt, but in a pinch, they work just find to distract him or keep him busy.
Not pictures: Frozen veggies, like broccoli (which I steam and then puree to a chunky pulp with apple juice to smooth it out). These are great for those times when I run out of fresh in the middle of the week.
While those store-bought items are staples in our house, we use fresh fruits, veggies, and meat about four times more often. And there are staple items that I buy every time I am at the grocery store:
These are some of the fruits that Bean eats straight-up. He loves apples and strawberries, but I still put these in that great feeder that my sister gave Bean for Christmas. That way, I don’t worry about him choking. The bananas I just cut into little pieces and he can eat those himself. But the avocados? Hands down Bean’s favorite food. I chunk them up into little pieces and he stuffs his face. He’ll eat an entire avocado if I let him. And I’m okay with that because they are SUPER good for him and they mush right up when he gums them. He loves them!
So far, everything I’ve talked about has been low maintenance and quick to prepare. But the bulk of Bean’s food comes from steamed fruits and veggies and those are what needs a little time for preparation. So, here’s how I do it.
On Sunday afternoons, I chop. And I chop. And I chop. I chop enough food for Bean to eat all week long. Right now, my general list of chopping includes squash, zucchini, apples, carrots, and sweet potatoes. Once I get everything chopped, I put them into labeled Ziplock bags that are dated so I know when I chopped them.
While I’m chopping, I am also steaming. I steam enough for 3 or 4 days at a time. I have tried to steam everything at one time for the entire week, but I found that by half way through the week, things got a little mushy and slimy. So now, I steam enough to get through until Wednesday or Thursday. It usually ends up being about one medium-sized Tupperware container.
All total, I think it takes me about an hour and a half to chop enough for the week and to steam enough for half the week. Then, with all my chopped fruit and veggies in their Ziplock baggies, on a Wednesday or Thursday night, I just have to throw handfuls of stuff into the steamer and I’m set to go for the rest of the week.
Some of Bean’s favorites are steamed sweet potatoes. I chunk up 2 sweet potatoes for a week. Throw a couple handfuls into the steamer and Bean eats them like candy. He loves them!
He also LOVES steamed apples. I steam them because I’m a weenie and I’m afraid he would choke if I gave him a small piece of a fresh apple. But if you put some chunks into the steamer, they get good and mushy, while still keeping their full flavor and nutrients. Bean almost likes these better than puffs. Now, at this point, you could add a few ingredients, throw ‘em in the blender, and make yourself some applesauce. But Bean is a purist and I’m lazy, so we just stop at the steaming and pick up with the jarred applesauce when we’re feelin’ frisky.
More recently, we have added a little meat to Bean’s diet. I boiled two chicken breasts on Sunday and shredded one of them and put the other in a Ziplock baggie. I usually mix the shredded chicken in with apples or squash or something else with a mushy texture so that it isn’t so dry and hard to swallow. So far, Bean seems okay with it, but it does give him pretty gnarly gas. I think that’s cause he’s not used to meat in his system yet.
I know some people say that you can also just cook the baby’s food while you cook your own food, but the truth is that Chris and I don’t really eat simple enough for Bean. Or healthy enough for that matter. And I was always cooking two separate meals at night; one for us and one for Bean. Doing it this way seems to save me a lot of time. I spend an hour and a half on Sunday afternoons and then half an hour on Wednesday evenings when I steam. And when you add these fresh, steamed fruits and veggies to the fresh fruits and veggies and the some help from the store, Bean eats a LOT and he eats really healthy. And we’re ALL happy.
The last tip for feeding babies while your working is to create a space in the fridge that belongs to your baby. I made a little area on the right side of the bottom shelf in our fridge and that is where anything Bean eats is stored. This makes it so much simpler to pack his lunches and feed him meals because I don’t have to think or search. I know whatever I pull out is Bean-approved. Its also nice for when Chris pitches in at mealtimes. Because I’m the primary food-giverer, Chris sometimes doesn’t know what foods Bean can have and what he can’t. So, if Chris has to pitch in one night, he knows that anything in that one area is for Bean.
Being a mom of any station has all kinds of pros and cons. But being a working mom at times feels like its own beast of burden. I’m finding though that the more I plan ahead, the more time I make to spend with Bean. And doing simple things, like giving him the healthiest meals that I can, make me really feel like I’m doing okay. Like even though I’m working so much, I’m still providing for my baby’s needs. And that puts a smile on my face.
25Jan
Last week, I got an unexpected package in the mail from my mom. I have had a sinus infection ever since Bean got home from the hospital and my mom sent me a box of things to make me feel better. My favorite kind of cough drops (Luden’s…yumm….), some Kleenex, a magazine, and a sweet card telling me that I was still her baby. I felt all warm and fuzzy and instantly better.
Underneath all those get-well goodies was something she had made for Bean. My mom got all the crafty genes in our family. All of them. She can sew, crochet, paint, she teaches ceramics, she can write in perfect calligraphy, and she’s a mean puff-painter. In her spare time, she had sewn this nifty shopping cart cover for Bean. It’s hard to tell in the picture because there’s so much fabric, but these are the leg holes and the part that would sit in front of the baby.
I love the Thomas the Tank Engine print, especially! How cute is that?
And the inside is lined in a complimentary Thomas the Tank Engine print, too.
The thing I like about this is how big it is. Its a standard size to fit pretty much any shopping cart, but specifically to fit TARGET shopping carts. Does my mom know me, or what? She also put a few personal touches on it for us. She sewed in a few pockets so that I could throw my cell phone or wallet or keys in them while I shop.
She also sewed in a few loops to hook rings to so that I can hook Bean’s toys to the cover and not worry about him flinging them around wherever we happen to be shopping. This is really important because Bean is a professional grade flinger. He can fling with the best of ‘em.
Bean and I tried it out for the first time this weekend while Chris was traveling. I had to go to the grocery store and so Bean Man was going with me. It was the first time I’d ever taken him to the grocery store before. I mean, I’ve run in a couple times with him, but I’ve never taken him on my big, weekly grocery trip. And I was a little nervous. What if he had a meltdown? Would I leave my cart in the middle of the store and sneak out with him? Would I just push on and be THAT WOMAN with the crying baby? More than likely, I’d end up carrying him around on my hip while I shopped.
Not. Cool.
But I put the seat cover in the grocery cart and loaded him in and he immediately picked up some of the toys that were attached to the loops. He played the whole time and didn’t make a peep! He was SO good, in fact, that I later took him out that same afternoon to Target for another adventure. It was awesome! And I’m convinced that it was his comfy, cozy little seat cover that made him to relaxed and happy.
If you happen to be blessed with The Crafty Gene, I say bust out your sewing machine and whip up one of these seat covers. They retail for around $30 in stores and online, but you can make one for about $15, and you can add your own custom details! Here is the link to the pattern my mom found online: http://www.sleepingbaby.net/jan/Baby/cart_cover.html.
Happy crafting! Or, if you’re like me, Happy Finding Someone ELSE to be Crafty For You!
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