Random Thought of the Day

On one of my recent grocery trips to Whole Foods, I bought these organic apple puffs for Holly. They are supposed to be a good first finger food for a baby because they are nutritious and they melt in the baby's mouth thus posing no choking hazard. (The latter is especially important to those of us who don't practice the baby-led weaning approach.)

As a baby that has had limited practice with finger foods, Holly is finding it quite challenging to use the puffs as intended. A lot of them end up getting mushed up in her fist or thrown to the ground. But, little by little, she is improving and we celebrate every small, painstaking victory. Today she managed to eat TWO! Yay! She also melted 2 in her little hand and dropped 3 on the ground and in her seat...

The packaging for the puffs recommends: "Use within one week of opening for optimal freshness." This package contains 675 (SIX HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE) puffs. It took me one week just to get Holly to eat 2.

Could this product have been offered in a smaller package so as to support the learning curve of a baby and minimize waste? No, because then Happy Baby company would not have been able to write "Best value: 40% more puffs" on the package! And everyone knows that 600 stale puffs is so much better to have than 400.

Thank you, Happy Baby, for making me choose between offering my baby stale food and wasting food.

Book Review: Building Better Families

I just finished reading Matthew Kelly's "Building Better Families: A Practical Guide to Raising Amazing Children". I thought there were a lot of great insights in it and that's funny because I approached the book with some cynicism due to the fact that Matthew Kelly was neither married nor a parent when he wrote it. However it appears from his anecdotes in the book that he and his 7 brothers enjoyed a good family life and upbringing with remarkable parents. As it turns out, this makes him qualified to speak on the subject.

Matthew Kelly is known for being a motivational Christian speaker. He talks to companies and individuals about becoming the best version of themselves. In "Building Better Families" he takes this familiar concept and applies it to the family. Specifically, he talks about how important it is that children see their parents working toward becoming the best version of themselves and that parents guide and encourage their children to make personal decisions with this goal in mind. He offers practical examples of how framing a disagreement between parent and child around this ultimate goal cools down conflict and makes the interaction more engaging "morally, ethically, spiritually" for the child in contrast to, for example, saying "No, because I said so."

Here are just a few of Matthew Kelly's prescriptions for parents: be authentic (share failures as well as successes with your kids), model the behaviors and character traits you wish to see in your kids, select good role models for yourself, and read books on leadership (because, he claims and I agree, great parenting is about great leadership).

I've never been so motivated to become the best version of myself as when I was pregnant with Holly. Knowing that everything I did could affect my baby's growth and development made me determined to do the right things, particularly in the domains of diet, exercise, stress, and emotional well being. I was pretty amazed at the things I was able to accomplish with this added sense of responsibility. But as soon as I gave birth to Holly, I relaxed my efforts: I started drinking coffee again, exercising less, and eating more junk food, to name a few.

Clearly, I should have continued bettering myself, and not just for Holly's sake. Thank you, Matthew Kelly, for helping me to regain that vision. I'm sure that my family will benefit from it.

Opinion: Baby Led Weaning

While researching weaning strategies, I uncovered an interesting concept: Baby Led Weaning.

This is the idea that a baby should be weaned directly to finger food rather than being spoon fed. It is my strong opinion that this strategy was invented by mothers who are lazy to puree their babies' food and want to nurse into toddler years. 

Admittedly, I have been giving Holly sliced apples to nibble on since she was 6 months old and she loves it. She used to grind her gums on the slice and just suck the juice out; but now that she has two teeth she is starting to break off pieces of the apple. In most cases the pieces are too big for her to swallow. So, I have to be on high alert when she's got an apple in her hand. This is incredibly stressful! 

The good news is that in most cases she doesn't try to swallow a piece that is too big. She actually opens her mouth toward me as if to show me and ask for my help; it's super cute! The bad news is that she still occasionally misjudges her ability to swallow a piece. I can't commit to a parenting strategy that makes meal times so stressful. And why would I? I also can't see the long-term benefit of skipping the spoon*.

There are a lot of resources for and a variety of acceptable strategies when it comes to weaning. I think it is a mistake to look at weaning to finger foods versus weaning to purees in terms of "baby-led" and "mother-led." A baby weaned to purees is a driver in the process as much as a baby weaned to finger foods, with the major difference being that the former manages to ingest more nutrients sooner! 

I think that, when all is said and done, every mother intuitively knows how best to wean her baby. And every baby is capable of communicating what works for him and what doesn't. It is a mother's job to read her baby's signs and amend her strategy appropriately. 

* There isn't any.