Food and Diapers

I don’t know if it’s cause Jovie’s our 2nd child or if it’s all the sickness in the household or us being occupied with moving or just plain forgot but I forgot to make a 6 months well baby appointment for Jovie. We do have one now but it’ll be a 7 months appointment instead. Oh well, better late than never, right?

It’s 6.5 months now and Jovie’s been eating tons of food: veggies, fruits, and rice/oatmeal, that I make (although the oatmeal I buy because the commercial ones has extra iron). I still go by the book, Super Baby Food, I had when our first was first eating and the Wholesome Baby Food website. She loves each one and just like her sister not so into sweets. Last month Jovie had pretty bad constipation and since then I’ve been regularly giving her fruits mixed with her rice/oatmeal + veggies. So far so good! In a little bit we’re going to do chicken liver. We love liver and so it’s not something terrible but I know a lot are turned off by things like that. We love to eat and we eat anything and so liver’s no big deal. Liver has a nice iron content which babies need more of starting at 6-7 months of age.

Which oatmeal have I been using? I’ve been using Gerber’s, Earth’s Best, and Happy Baby. Taste… Gerber and Earth’s on its own is just ok. Mixed with veggies + fruits and sometimes rice the taste gets better. Happy Baby is yummy by itself and yummier with the different mix. Container… Gerber is the worst, the spout doesn’t close well. The Earth’s Best hubby hates because oatmeal flakes would go everywhere. Happy Baby seems to be the cleanest and easiest to store. There’s no chance of bugs getting into the container because it has a lid top. Our favorite? Happy Baby because not only does it taste good and the container is better than the rest Happy Baby is the only one that has probiotic and DHA in it. Yes it’s a bit more compare to the other two but if you can you’d give your baby the best, right?

Diapering… We’re still using Nature’s Baby and gDiapers but we’ve moved it up a notch in terms of green living. We… or I should say I cause hubby wants nothing to do with it… have added cloth inserts to our diapering system. gDiaper now offers cloth inserts and I’m also using BumGenius’s inserts and they work very well with the gDiaper outers. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle the BMs but so far they haven’t been bad. Jovie’s #2 are not like they were when she was just months old. They’re more solid and with the help of some liners, cleaning have been a breeze. Since I only cloth diaper part-time (Jovie goes to daycare) I only bought 6 gDiaper outers and 12 inserts (6 gCloth and 6 BumGenius). The outer part doesn’t get dirty and so I’ll use it a few times a day. The plastic insert I’ll rinse off after every change and they dry so quickly (you can buy extra from the gDiaper site) and we haven’t done any extra load either. I’ll just rinse, wring, and air dry and it’ll go into the regular laundry. We do a load every other day anyways and I’ll throw the diapers in with whatever color and they still look nice.

Overall we love our diapering choices and so far our average monthly diaper expenses have been around $50. I know cause we buy all our stuff from Diapers.com: 3 Nature’s Baby diapers #2 and Earth’s Best wipes.

Happy 4-Mo!

Yesterday was Jovie’s 4-mo birthday. Yeah yeah yeah!!! She’s been such a great addition to our family and we couldn’t be anymore blessed.

We did do what our doctor told us to do when she turns 4-mo. Try baby food. But nope, Jovie’s not ready. She still has the little tongue-thrust reflex which is normal for babies, up to more less 6-mo, since this is their way of protecting themselves from choking. We’ll try again this weekend and see how she does. We’re not in too of a hurry and plus, babies her age get enough nutrition from nursing. For more info on when baby’s ready, you can read this little article on BabyCenter. Of course before stuffing food down baby’s throat, always consult your doctor. Ours said it’s ok for Jovie to start at 4 months but every baby’s different.

What was I going to feed her? Well, from what I read, the best food for baby is brown rice. So I found this easy recipe:

1/4 cup fine brown rice (I use a mixer to grind)
1 cup water

If this is baby’s first time eating, I’d cut the rice to 1/4… so about 1/16 of a cup to 1/4 cup water. You’ll be wasting a lot of rice if you don’t. BUT, if baby takes to the food (and remember, most will be out of baby’s mouth than in), you can store your home made rice cereal in little containers for later.

TIP: Once your rice is done, mix it with a bit of breast milk/formula and feed baby when she’s not starving. So nurse/bottle feed baby first and then do the rice. Baby’s first meal should always be the milk. The food is just a tool to help baby practice eating — for now that is.

When M, my first, was a baby I’d cook once a week and store everything in the freezer except for a day’s worth. This worked out really well for me, the working mom. There are tons of websites now (like the link above with the recipe) that can help you with baby food making but if you want to get a book, I still think the Super Baby Food book is still a great reference… even if you’re not vegetarian. Oh, always remember to NOT feed your baby food that can cause allergies until it’s time. This page has a great list.