3 steps to early literacy

1. Books

Picked up a book on animals from Darul’s bookstore. The text is rhyming and pictures large and colourful, Hana enjoys it.

Some of my other favourites:

Sandra Boynton: All her books I’ve bought have been really fun

Karen Katz: All the books I have are lift the flap, I haven’t really read much as its difficult for me to hold Hana and manouevre the flaps. I think she’ll appreciate it more when she’s bigger.

Eric Carle: The illustrations are beautiful and the text very musical and repetitive. I love all his books!

This book is her bedtime story. I read it to her during her last breastfeed before she sleeps. For all the other books, Hana and I read together flipping the pages as they are short and sweet. This is a super sweet book but rather lengthy for Hana at this age so I read it above her head while she breastfeeds. When she’s older I’m sure she’ll appreciate the pictures and the book more.

2.Poetry and rhyme

There is overwhelming evidence that early learning of nursery rhymes and rhythmic poems, songs, and chants significantly enhances early reading skills and phonemic awareness.  In fact research highlights phonemic awareness as a strong predictor of a child’s reading success.

Warning: Too much poetry and rhyme (I haven’t tried any chanting yet) can make you feel less of an adult. The cure? An occasional pear flatie from Cedele with honey nut ice cream with girlfriends in town. Check this out for their 100% almond cupcake recipe, sounds tempting!

3. Flashcards

I combine flashcards with tummy time.

Tummy time is so important to the motor development of an infant because it allows him to gain head and trunk control. Motor control develops in a cephalocaudal fashion. This means a baby first gains control of his head, then his shoulders, then his abdomen, and so on, all the way to his feet. Developing head control first allows a baby to visually explore his environment. From there, he can then learn to sit up and actually move through his environment. Babies can be placed on their tummies as newborns during supervised, wakeful time.

I’m so tired

I bought a Philips Cucina food processor and made homemade sausages with roast garlicky potatoes and a grilled pepper sauce.

I’m totally exhausted from cooking healthy meals(excluding this meal, we’ve cut red meat out of our diets) and exercising. The diaper rash is also wearing me out as I’ve been solely cloth diapering and I’ve been doing without help at home for the past week. Hana’s diaper rash has disappeared but a new heat rash has appeared along the crease of her neck. Argh!

Cloth diapering: Outside the home!

I bought a dry sack  from The Planet Traveller at Marina Square to store her soiled cloth diapers. Its a cool bag, waterproof and hopefully odourproof too! Its light and can be tucked away in a compact shape into your diaper bag. You can unfold it, fill it with diapers then fold it down to size. You can then hook it onto your bag or pram.

 

I started cloth diapering out of the home out of necessity as currently Hana is getting a rash with disposable dipes. I’m in the midst of searching for the right diaper for her as I can’t live without disposables! I need them at night and they’re just convenient when we go out. I’m currently testing out a few brands and will keep you updated. She’s never had this problem before so I’m a little puzzled.

Strrrrreeeetch

When Hana wakes she does this series of wierd contortions which fall into the category of stretching. She does it with her eyes closed and proceeds to stretching every single small neck muscle with vigorous side to side and craning head movements then proceeds to frantic stretching of her arms with vigorous kicking of her legs and arching of her back. Its like she’s trying to shake and shimmy every muscle awake. Her eyelid muscles are stretched the last with slow fluttering open and close and sometimes they remain closed for awhile, giving me hope that its a false alarm and she’s not going to awake therefore more minutes in bed for me! But slowly and surely two dark eyes stare at me as the morning rays peek thru my blinds. Sometimes I “pretend” to sleep hoping she would follow suit by mimicry (hey babies learn by imitating parents rite?). When she doesn’t seem to follow and starts making soft cooing sounds, I turn my back towards her and roll the other side hoping she would know I REALLY want to sleep. She would then patiently make small scratching motions at my back. As I proceed to ignore this too, she would start fussing and crying. I would then roll back facing her and try to feed her HOPING it would let me catch some shut eye. It doesn’t usually work. In the morning she wants to play before breakfast.

 

Finally I drag myself out, check her diaper for a change and the one thing I’ve  always never been able to figure out is– how does she always manage to get both legs into one leg of her sleepsuit (those long sleeved long legged suits with the feet attached that babies wear as pjs)…?

 

By the way, 6.30 am is the time I’m up everyday! Weekday and weekend!!

Mom and baby exercise!

All these images were from howstuffworks.com

I combine exercise time with diaperfree time. I place her on an adult exercise mat with a prefold lain under her to catch any spills. A lot of times though she remains dry the entire time as she’s had her series of poops and pees in the morning. I usually start with bicycling of her legs as shown above. I sing her this song: The wheels of the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels of the bus go round and round, all day long! I then do several repetitions substituting different vehicles like train, bike, car etc. Rhymes and repetition are great for language development and early literacy! More in another post.

I then bring her arm across her chest and wide open as shown above. I sing her the Barney song sometimes when I do this because it seems apt, at least the great big hug part! This exercise feels like she’s giving herself a great big hug.

I unclasp her grasp to encourage her to open her fingers.

They recommend this for older infants but I’ve been doing this exercise with Hana since the day she was born. It involves holding both of her hands together while she’s lying down then pulling her to a sitting position. Her head will flop backwards as its really floppy (its called the head lag right Aunty Quizas, see I remembered some paediatrics ). As she grew, the head lag became less marked and now she moves her shoulders upwards as I start to pull her up.

I tried this when I saw this exercise but it doesnt work for a younger infant, her face just flops forward and it looks uncomfortable.

Check this out! It has infant massage, baby exercise and mummy exercise guides. I can’t wait to use her as an exercise gadget!

How to make diaper changes quicker at night

Get some leg warmers to wear with your long sleeved romper instead of those sleep suits with rows and rows of buttons up and down the legs! Leg warmers bought at moomoofarm.

Hana in a prefold and Bumwear diaper cover.

Wave “hello everyone!” with both feet.

Wave with your left foot.

Now wave with your right.

Time to nap now.

Hana’s first cooking lesson.

Today I taught Hana how to cook. We oven roasted tomatoes. An ideal recipe as there is no stovetop cooking involved. I put her in a baby basket on the kitchen floor, showed her the ingredients and explained to her step by step. She smiled and laughed, I’m sure she’ll remember the recipe some day.

If you love sundried tomatoes, you’ll love these slow roasted tomatoes. Its also much cheaper!

Slow oven roasted tomatoes

Ingredients:

A bunch of tomatoes cut into 0.5 cm slices

A glug of olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Dried or fresh herbs of choice: basil, oregano, herbs de Provence all work well

Method:

LIne a baking sheet with paper or silicon pad. Arrange tomatoes in a flat even layer. Drizzle olive oil over and season well with salt, pepper and herbs. Bake at 180C for 1 hour.

I would definitely recommend lining the baking sheet with oiled paper or a silicon sheet. Some of the tomatoes stuck to the pan!

We had these in a salad. But its also great in sandwiches, its nice tossed in pasta. Use also as topping for a pizza. For a quick easy pizza sauce, I roast tomatoes for a shorter time so they still retain some moisture, about half hour and just mash them together. The sauce has a great intense tomatoey flavour.

So far we have been surviving on simple meals or my mom cooks and brings over meals as well as helping me with Hana. On some days though we have resorted to takeaways and on really bad days we order pizza in. I’m still hanging on till I get some help around the house in January. Then its back to work, part time in March 2010 then full time in May2010. I feel like these 2 months with Hana have really zipped by, it worries me somewhat that I would just wake up one morning and its time to return to work! I dream of doing some travelling before work hits me full force..

Cloth diapering:Prefolds

The thing about cloth diapers is that there are so many ways and options. What works for you might not work for someone else. I also find that how I cloth diaper differed when Hana was younger and now as she approaches 2 months of age. I initially wrote a very bad review for prefolds. As a tiny infant wets small amounts and very often, I struggled with Hana when she was in prefolds and I ended up not using them very much. Then again, different babies have different thresholds to that wet feeling so perhaps another baby wouldn’t fuss so much when their diaper is just a little wet. I knew that Hana HATED that wet feeling so I avoided the prefolds unless I was feeling super energetic and in the mood for frequent diaper changes.

As Hana grew and started wetting less often but in larger amounts, I started using prefolds again as she was dry in between pees. I also started practicing elimination communication with her or natural potty training. I’m really amazed at how it teaches you to read your baby. It really really helps you understand your baby. Like babies will not poo and pee while eating, just like adults. If you’re a mother, you would notice that babies “fuss” when feeding or “pop on and off” the breast latching and unlatching. For my baby, unlatching during a feed and eye contact is a definite sign that she has to go. With a prefold and diaper cover on, you can feel the warmth if your hand is on her diaper at the exact moment when she wets. To observe other signs that your baby needs to go, diaper free time  is essential.  Thats when I usually use a prefold just flat and under her. I then go thru our morning routine of bath time, then a massage and some books, flashcards and physical exercises. She has at least an hour of diaperfree time per day and I watch her poo and pee signals then. I offer her the potty when I notice this signs, at each diaper change, after a long breastfeed, after a nap and when I notice her diaper is dry.

This is my favourite way to use a prefold now. I just fold the cloth in thirds, stuff it into a cover and velcro it on.

Hana with her Bummis diaper cover under her Fisher Price mobile.

Babywearing

Photo from here with instructions

 

I wear my baby all the time. At home, so I’m hands free like right now as I’m typing this post. When I’m out and about, Hana sleeps so soundly in the sling rocked by the motion of my body that H and I often joke we forget she’s even there! Of course meals are entirely different.. Since I’m not moving, she wakes and often wants a meal of breastmilk, often at the time when the waiter comes with food! I always wonder, is it the smell of food that entices her? Anyway with the sling on, I feed her in it discreetly in public and often eat at the same time.  

 

I talked about different holds for nursing a couple of posts ago. The different holds results in different muscles of your arms and shoulders working and by rotating nursing positions you can avoid or minimize aches and pains in the early weeks of nursing. I then realized that different holds with my baby in the sling would be better for my back, neck and shoulders! I had initially thought that the only way to hold my infant with her soft floppy neck was in a cradlehold as shown above. I carry Hana only in that position but usually I let her go and she hangs snugly while my hands are free. I started searching for other positions suitable for infants and today I tried the vertical carry!

 

She  cried a bit while I struggled to put it on while reading the instructions on screen. But as soon as I tightened it around her and let my arms go, she nodded to sleep like she always does when she’s in the sling. I saw little ‘Umar do the same while Hana was still in my tummy. Somehow as soon as baby smells the sling and feels the warmth of your body, she quietens in a few seconds and falls asleep. This is a very useful trick when your baby is fretful around well meaning relatives and they keep on insisting she is fussing because you “don’t have enough” milk. I will usually say she’s tired, slip her into the sling and she magically quietens. To all the mommy’s to be, if you have latched your baby on since birth and are patient in the first 2-3 days with your baby, your milk supply will come in and in the next few weeks you’ll be spewing milk like a fountain. Still, each time your baby cries, when she’s tired or when she’s wet, you will be told you do not have enough milk and be advised on formula or even starting your infant on solids. Anticipate such comments and look at in in a positive way by knowing your baby, learning to read and communicate with her. Wearing your baby is the best way to have her always close to you and learning to understand her body language and the tones of her cries.

 

I still have loads to write.. more cloth diapers, I promised you more about prefolds and also I’ve been wanting to write my thoughts on elimination communication, I’ve been learning so much. Meanwhile, as some pre reading before the next post, read everything on this site!

 

I’ll be back soon, to those close to me, you know I’m down with a cold.. Hana is fine today but I’m watching her closely. I’m still practicing strict handwashing but somehow it seems impossible to put my baby in a bubble.. away from germs.. I’m keeping my fingers crossed..

These are my hands and feet.

Hana at 4 weeks old with hand and feet rattles

 

I was thinking about what someone said to me recently about how things on blogs are filtered. We filter all the bad and nasty stuff and write only about warm and fluffy things. I totally agree. In reality, looking after a baby is hard work. Its hard work but satisfying at the same time. It can suck at times and sometimes I feel lonely. Sometimes I feel like people think I’m a little bit nuts especially when I talk about potty training (elimination communication or EC) my baby from newborn. On the blog I talk about cloth diapers and EC and flashcards. But in reality I do have “off” days on which my baby is in disposables, I don’t offer her pee breaks and I don’t flashcard at all. I just concentrate on getting us both bathed. When H comes back, sometimes we eat pizza in bed cos I’m breastfeeding and too tired to get up! I guess the key thing is not to get too stressy about it. I don’t flashcard when I don’t feel like it. I put her in disposables when I’m too tired to cloth. Its easier to parent when you don’t take the whole thing seriously. And I always think  whatever we do or however we parent, the end product or how the child will turn out is not in our hands.