Tag Archives: gas

Chamomile Tea for a Cranky Baby

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Did you know that you can give a small amount of Chamomile Tea to calm a fussy baby down? Gas, upset stomach, restlessness, colic, etc. can all be helped with just a little spot of tea!

First, you need to get some fresh chamomile flowers, not the ones that are pre-packed in tea bags. They look like this:

Screen Shot 2013-05-04 at 7.21.17 PM

Most stores that sell tea have “loose leaf” teas, and that’s what you want. Chamomile tea. Just brew a cup of this tea using a tea infuser:

Screen Shot 2013-05-04 at 7.23.25 PMOr, if you’re feeling crazy, you can use a tea infuser that looks like this:

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Let the tea steep for at least 10 minutes. For smaller babies, give them a dropper full of this cooled tea for teething, crankiness, colic, etc. For toddles & babies that are a little older, they can have a few ounces.

My favorite online tea shop hands down is David’s Tea.

I order all of my tea from them, especially my “Egyptian Chamomile”

Xo

Lisa O

NO MORE RICE!!!

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Dear parents,

Perhaps one of the greatest offenses created by the people in charge of telling you what’s good and bad for your baby is suggesting that you should start off solid feeding with RICE CEREAL (aka bland, nutritionally bankrupt, crap).

Over here in America, land of the “feed your kids McDonalds and soda”, we just gobble up large food corporation propaganda. If you didn’t know this already, the food industry owns almost everything. When you go into a grocery store and see all these different brands of a certain type of product, it makes you feel like you have a say so, like you’re making a choice. WRONG! There are only 4 main owners of ALL food brands you’ll see in your general supermarket. They cleverly package different items with different “brand names” that truly all come from the SAME factory and have the SAME ingredients. Sneaky, huh?

Back to rice: the fact of the matter is, babies should not have rice until after their first year….and if you really wanna go for it, wait 2 years. Humans don’t start making the enzyme called AMYLASE till after they are one year old (up to 2 years). Amylase is responsible for splitting grains. So, lets do some math here: pump baby’s tummy full of rice/oatmeal + no grain splitting enzymes present in belly= SWOLLEN BELLY AND GAS.

Why do pediatricians and other sources recommend starting out with rice cereal? “Supposedly” it’s low on the chart of possible allergens. WRONG again. LOTS of people are allergic to grains. It’s something that started a while back, now it’s stuck, and most people just take it for fact. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say, “Give em’ some rice cereal, it’ll keep em’ full longer.” UMMMM yeah, because we all know giving our child food makes them sleep through the night! HA! If it were that simple, somebody would have won the nobel prize for the concept already.

Enfamil makes a horrible formula called Enfamil AR (AR stands for added rice). Stay away from this stuff! Also, never, ever, put oatmeal in a baby’s bottle. There is no quicker way to put your child on a lifelong path to unhealthy eating and tummy issues.

Harsh, but always true,

Lisa O

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Battle of the Bottles

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Since I didn’t know what to start with, I figured I’d go with something pretty basic that all mothers of small babies can benefit from. Don’t you love it when you go to babies-r-us and you’re faced with 800 different options of bottles, all claiming to be the best due to the latest technology in, um, drinking? Have no fear, I am here to tell you the BEST option I’ve tried as far as bottles go. First of all, there are a few important factors when it comes to bottle feeding. Whether you are offering breastmilk or formula, you’ll need a good bottle that doesn’t create a vaccum (causes gas) and has a slow flowing nipple (crucial for newborns). This may not come as a shock to some of you, but I’m going to have to cast my vote for Dr. Brown’s bottle as my #1 choice for the following reasons:

1. Dr. Brown’s bottles are different from all other bottles because of their patented 2 piece vent system. It makes for GREAT vaccum free feeding. Air bubbles never mix with the formula or breastmilk, thus the baby does not ingest it. Less air= less gas. I have no clue how this works, but it does.

2. They have 4 different levels of nipples, so you can gradually adjust the flow. You want a really slow flow nipple for a newborn. When my daughter was very little, I sucked on several different brands of nipples (lol), and Dr. Brown’s had the slowest flow, thus mimicking the breast, excellently.

3. They also have two different types of nipples, a thin one and a wide neck one. It doesn’t make any difference, it just gives you the option (my daughter drinks from both).

4. All of their bottles are BPA free and they also make glass bottles for you super eco-friendly moms.

So, that’s that. I think I have a crush on Dr. Brown…….oh and p.s. nobody is paying me to say these things!

More info here at their site: http://www.handi-craft.com/bottles/how-they-work/

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xo

Lisa O