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Showing posts from August, 2017

Leaving Sahan

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Our littlest guy, Sahan (aka Smushie) is going to be leaving his beautiful daycare very soon. I would keep him attending there until he was 18 if I could. It has been our home away from home for both our boys since – well practically since they were born. The daycare centre caters specifically until three years of age so like our first son, it is soon Smushie’s turn to ‘leave his nest’. Milestones tend to pull me back to my memories – in this case back to Sahan’s first day as a six week old. Contrary to what it may seem on social media my journey to 'own' being a working mum has been that – a journey. I know it may look like I have always known this and felt comfortable being a ‘working mum’ but it has not been a black and white process. Before Smshie was born we looked at all options. We first discussed the possibility of me totally stopping work for a few months.  This would mean taking our first son out of his daycare (that he had been attending since 12 weeks old) to be at

Reading Baby Food Labels

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Reading baby food labels - this is a topic I am hugely passionate about as many of you know! I am really frustrated at the current state of pre-packaged baby food and even more frustrated that we have major health care providers advocating the such food is nutritionally sound for our babies! So for or my brand new book - The Nourished Baby - I conducted my own research and looked at all the baby food products on the market here in New Zealand, Australia and the UK. I spoke on the AM Show on about this (though could have talked for a lot longer!). The major concern for me was finding that 15% - yes 15% of all products (in all three countries) contained ADDED sugar - this means ingredients like sugar cane and juice have been added into the baby food - marketed at baby food for as young as four months old. This is wrong on so many levels. I also found that a huge percentage - over 50% of the products contained fruit. I go into a lot more detail in The Nourished Baby about fruit and why

Windy Babies and Eliminating Foods

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Windy babies is a very common concern for new parents. Wind is the the air in your baby's tummy. During feeding your baby may swallow a lot of air along with her milk when they feeds as well as potentially gulping in air when they cry. While all babies can get wind, some will experience this more than others. Your babies gut is very delicate especially in the early new born days as it is very immature. While the organs of the digestive system are fully formed the upper and lower intestine which make up your babies gut take some time to mature - in terms of the bacteria that gets laid down as well as the enzymes that get processed. It is this process that can take longer for some babies. Some babies may also experience reflux - the technical terms for this is Gastroesophageal Reflux There is a valve at the top of the stomach that keeps food from going back up into the esophagus. If that valve is not fully developed, or opens at the wrong time, the stomach contents can move back, or