No solids before 6 months!

For anyone thinking of going the Baby Led Solids route, or the homemade baby food route, or the store bought baby food route, this is important information:

The following organizations recommend that all babies be exclusively breastfed (no cereal, juice or any other foods) for the first 6 months of life (not the first 4-6 months):

* World Health Organization
* UNICEF
* US Department of Health & Human Services
* American Academy of Pediatrics (breastfeeding group)
* American Academy of Family Physicians
* American Dietetic Association
* Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
* Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
* Health Canada

You are not starving your baby if you wait until the 6 month mark (with readiness signs!) and your baby will not sleep longer if you fill them up more (common myth!) - so listen to the experts out there!

I am quite aware that this post comes when my little flower is 20 months old and I am 8 months pregnant, so not timely at all, it's just that it really irks me when we see babies being stuffed with food or other liquids when all these organizations say that it's NOT SAFE AND NOT RECOMMENDED! We understand a parent's right to chose (what they feel is right) when it comes to stuff like cloth or not, co-sleep or not, pacifier or not, daycare or nanny, but when it comes to things that are either unsafe (no or uncorrect car seat, solids before 6 months), or take away a baby's rights (circumcision) I will speak out.

We'll be going the baby led solids route again for baby #2 - only 8 more weeks to go, excited and nervous!!

20 months!

Wow, Lily turned 20 months today! She's as awesome, sweet and adorable as the day we brought her into this world. However, now she can voice her opinion (no! up! down! MORE!), but at the same time, she says "merci", can listen to our commands, haha, like put your shoes away, come here, let's go outside, sit in your seat etc.

It's very fun having a little girl in the house with Jayson and I.

Food wise, nothing much has been going on... we were visiting our families for 2 weeks (hence the silence on my part) and our little flower had a great time visiting with her cousins, aunts, uncles, mamie, papie, pepere, grandma, papa - she definately spent some good quality time with everyone and it was nice to see everyone, especially since most people hadn't seen Lily (or us!) since Christmas.

It's always hard to eat as well as you want when you are away from your house and daily routine, but overall, I think that Lily ate a good balance of healthy foods with a few treats included. She did love eating crepes that her mamie made and ribs that her grandpa made! (pictures to come shortly!)

Lily, for your 20th month birthday, your daddy and I played hooky from work and went to see a baseball game! It was a great afternoon!

Also, tonight, for the first time, since we ate dinner quite early (before 6pm!) and then went to the park so you can run around, we gave you a bowl of Cherios after bath. You ate TWO whole (little) bowls... I had put milk in the bowl, but you didn't really drink any of it, it just went all over your arms and on the tray. I think that this was your first time eating a bowl of cereal with milk. We'll see how tonight goes, I hope that you aren't allergic or have any reactions to it (note that I had to give up dairy while breastfeeding you for the first year because of bad reactions from you).

You love your cheese though, so I hope all goes well tonight.

Next morning update: Not a good night, Lily tossed and turned and woke up so many times during the night! Unfortunately, it seems as if Lily has started having nightmares, boo for her! And as for the tossing and turning, I think we might have to do a little research on why you do it so much. You need your rest little girl!