photo credit: Alessandro Perilli

Fact or Fiction?

Last night my husband got a call from a close friend who has 2 little girls ages 4 and 2.

He was looking for a referral for a baby dentist. It turns out that his 4 year old has two cavities–one behind each front tooth–and they need to be filled.

Now this sounds bad enough–but it gets worse.

Because a toddler will not sit still long enough to fill a cavity, the dentist will need to put her completely under to execute this procedure.

Can it get worse?

Yes.

It will cost them $4,000.

Her parents feel so awful about the whole thing because–and I know many of you will find this hard to believe–no one ever told them that you were not supposed to let your baby fall asleep with bottles of milk.

They HAD heard about the dangers of letting your baby fall asleep with bottles of juice, but the milk thing alluded them because they didn’t know that milk has sugars in it.

When I heard this story, I had to blog about it just in case I could enlighten even one more parent who might be in the dark about this. As it turns out, it seems like not having this data may not be so unusual after all.

Milk, formula, and breast milk ALL have sugar. It’s called LACTOSE. In fact, anytime you see an ingredient in any food/drink ending in “-ose”, you can be sure it is some form of sugar. (Not that there is an ingredient list or “food facts” label on your breast milk, but still, you get my point.)

I don’t know where I’d heard it for the first time, but somehow I knew that bottles with juice or milk should never be given with unless the child is going to drink it down right away.

Letting the baby fall asleep with such a bottle (or breast) in his mouth allows the sugary liquid to pool in his mouth behind his teeth. If this is done continually, it can obviously begin to erode the teeth and cause cavities. After all, those baby teeth are very small and vulnerable.

When my pediatrician told us at our son’s one year check-up to knock off all bottles (except for those with water) for the sake of his teeth, I have to admit, I thought he was being a little “Dr. Doom-ish”, but I did take it to heart and I am doing my best to keep the milk in the sippy cup and only the water in the bottle.

As soon as I started to make this switch, I realized how FAST he drinks down a sippy! It was amazing. It takes him all of 3 minutes to gulp down a sippy whereas a bottle he will nurse for 20 minutes, maybe more. Seeing this quickly taught me the difference between using the sippy and the bottle when at first glance, I really didn’t see point in making the switch.

I won’t lie, there are PLENTY of times when Phoenix cries for the bottle with MILK and I give in–PLENTY of times. But he knows that for naps, it’s water ONLY and he is satisfied with that.

Whew.

Hope this helps.

One other lesson from our parenting seminar…

This one was a real winner.

Give your kid the power of choice!

Sounds like a bunch of psycho-mumbo-jumbo but it works!

Here is an example:

It’s 8:10 PM and my 22 month old refuses to lie down and go to sleep. He has had his bottle, I have read to him for about 30 minutes, he had a good dinner and his diaper is clean so I know he doesn’t really want for anything.

I could do many things: I could say goodnight and walk out with him crying (knowing that he will have no blanket over him); I could demand he lie down and cause a further upset; I could give in by taking him out of the crib and delay the problem of getting him to lie down (knowing that next time, he’ll be even more cranky because he’ll be even more tired) or…

I could drop the subject of sleep entirely and say “Okay, which side of the crib do you want to put your head on? This side or that side?”

Seems like a stupid question but it WORKS!!

I reversed the whole thing by letting him make a decision on his own that he is happy to make…it is really like magic.

Keep in mind, I may have to ask him several times before he gives me an answer but eventually, he will choose a side and HAPPILY lie down accordingly.

It doesn’t matter what I allow him to choose. If your child likes stuffed animals, change the subject to which animal he wants to sleep with. Or if he is old enough and he understands the concept of time, ask him if he would like to go to sleep in 2 minutes or 4.

(And stick to whatever he chooses!! Your trust in this is VERY important! Do not give him options for things on which you are not prepared to deliver.)

Just let the child decide, on his own determinism, something about how his bedtime will go.

Another example: my little boy likes to go into the tea drawer and pull out all the boxes of tea and empty them on the kitchen floor. I know, as most parents do, that if I tell him “no” he will want to do it more and it will be an even bigger battle. I do not want to go that route; I also do not want to clean up 75 tea bags every day.

So, when he goes into that drawer, I calmly walk over and say “Okay, remember how I told you that you could choose one? Which one do you want, this one or that one?” (for ex., chamomile or peppermint–one tea bag or the whole box, it doesn’t matter). He will choose one and walk away from the drawer!!

You may be thinking that this is a bit manipulative. I assure you, it is not. It is a technique to eliminate unending battles about an unlimited number of things. It works off the principal that if someone has the power of choice to decide, this is more important to them than any responsibility they may have in the matter.

It works on adults, too, but that’s another show.

Try it next time your child is doing something you wish he wouldn’t.

MAGIC.

My husband and I went to a parenting seminar at our church and we learned a lot of really great tools that we could use in raising our kids.

But the most surprising lesson we took home that day had to do with the concept of treating your child with dignity.

What does that mean exactly, you ask? (As did I.)

Well, here is a definition: Dignity: The quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect. It originally comes form a latin word which meant “worthy”.

Basically, if you are treating someone with dignity, you are treating them in such a way as to grant them respect and some elevated status. In short, you are pretty much treating them in way in which most of us parents would like to be treated 24/7. (Wouldn’t that be nice.)

So how do you do this with your kid, you ask? (As did I.)

Well, for example, when you are about to interrupt your child in the middle of whatever he is doing to scoop him up and take him to the next place, do you let him know beforehand? Do you allow him to finish what he is doing or do you get impatient when he refuses to comply?

It seems to me that if I was in the middle of something and someone came by, picked me up with no warning and put me in a car or stroller, I’d be pretty upset.

Here is another one: when your child does something you wish he wouldn’t do in a public place, do you yell at him in front of other people? Are you one of those moms I have seen say to their child “You are embarrassing me!!” loud enough for others to hear?  I have often wished the moms who say that had the sense to really know who I was embarrassed for in those moments.

When your kid refuses to share his toys, do you ask him if it’s okay to let someone else play or do you chastise him and force him to share by taking his toys against his will to give to the other child . My husband and I have found many times that if our boy does not want to share something, we can always solve it by asking him which toy he WILL share. This resolves any upset very quickly which could have escalated into two crying kids in seconds.

It seems that any law of behavior that one would apply to adults would also apply to a child. A child has opinions, moods, gets hungry, gets tired, and has curiosities that wished to be fulfilled. This can drive us, as parents, a little crazy from time to time–especially when we cannot figure out which one it is–but it would make sense that if we could consult the child rather than enforcing our decisions on him and further grant him the respect and dignity that we expect from him, we might just get someplace.

A child’s world is so much different than ours. They see everything from a different angle, hear things that do not make sense all day long and find humor and beauty in things that, to us, are so mundane. I think that as parents, if we can take time everyday to understand the real world of the child by taking the extra time to grant them their dignity, we might just get a lot more in return.

You know what they say, when you point the finger, there are three pointing back at you.

So the next time we find ourselves thinking “he just won’t listen” or “he refuses to understand” or “she is being such a brat!”, maybe we need to take a look in the mirror and see who is really causing the problem.

Hello, my name is Samantha and I think I might be a Food-Snobby Alpha-Mom.

(“Hello, Samantha”)

Have I gone mad?

I don’t give my 2 year old any sugar—ever.

I grind up fresh flax seeds to in a coffee grinder that I add to his organic oatmeal.

photo credit: digiyesica

He doesn’t eat birthday cake at his friend’s birthday parties and I don’t even own a microwave.

The pasta he eats is made from 100% organic rice and I make his formula from scratch.

OK, be honest–I can take it–am I an Food-Snobby Alpha-Mom?

In my own defense, I don’t THINK I am annoying to my friends that have babies yet do not subscribe to my strict dietary standards. I don’t lecture them about feeding something as seemingly harmless as Nabisco Wheat Thins although they have high sodium, artificial colors, white flour, bad fats…I digress.

Am I wrong to uphold these rigid rules with my little one?

I worry about the way kids are maturing these days, they seem to go through puberty awfully young, don’t they? When I was twelve, the other girls at school we not the big breasted, overweight 12 year-olds that I see now at the schoolyards. Am I crazy to think that this early development could be a result of the hormones that have been pumped into the malnourished animals from which come their milk, their eggs and their meats? I am not a dietician but it sure seems suspicious.

My husband has a friend who has not one, but two kids developing autism. She feeds them a diet of fast food, sugary snacks and processed goods loaded with artificial flavors, colors and preservatives. Am I crazy to believe that MSG is playing a major role in the direction her kid’s health is taking?

I believe in the ALWAYS, SOMETIMES, NEVER adjudication to all the foods my son could eat.
In the ALWAYS category, we have things like:

• Organic green vegetables
• Organic beans and rice
• Organic Almond butter
• Organic goat’s milk
• Organic fresh fruits
• Organic eggs
• Organic Flax seeds
• Organic meats (chicken, steak, lamb)
• Organic 100% whole grain bread
• Organic avocados (available year round!)

photo credit: blmurch

SOMETIMES:

• Anything from the above list but non-organic
• Natural cheese crunchies
• Lara Bars (natural but still high in sugars)
• White flour bread in a restaurant
• Regular pasta noodles

NEVER:

• Fast food
• Anything with MSG (or any of the hidden names for MSG-for more information on this, see http://www.msgmyth.com/hidename.htm or just google “MSG hidden names”)
• Anything with high fructose corn syrup
• Cakes, cookies, hard candy and junk food of this sort
• Deep fried food
• Anything with synthetic sweeteners i.e. aspertame, splenda, saccharine, etc.
• To sum it up, the “NEVER” list is made up of pretty much ANYTHING that is advertised on TV

There are probably lots more I could add to all three lists, but this is the general idea.

Again, I ask you, am I wrong?

My parent’s generation doesn’t always understand. They raised their kids on a relaxed diet that included foods from all three above groups and we all seemed to come out fine. (Granted, most of the foods on my “NEVER” list didn’t even EXIST when we were growing up!) But the foods we ate as kids were generally healthier than today’s modern-day counterparts. The same can of soup that we ate did not have the long list of added ingredients that today’s soups have. Manufacturers who desire a longer shelf life for their foods, who need to compete with newer and tastier products and who want to get the same flavor for a fraction of their cost are adding things to the foods we may have grown up on that were not previously there.

Someone once told me that a good rule of thumb is that if your grandma wouldn’t know what it is, don’t eat it.

In addition, the parents of today need also take into consideration the environment in which we live: the smog, the chemicals in today’s water supply, the fragrances in our toiletries and our cleaning supplies…these things add up to a highly toxic environment that slowly deposits small residual amounts of “everyday poisons” into our bodies every day simply by waking up and going through our day. The bodies of our past generations did not have to endure these factors in the way that ours do.
We live in a chemical-oriented society.

Are you aware that the Environmental Protection Agency reports that the average American consumes four pounds of pesticides each year and has residues from over 400 toxic substances in his body?! More than 3,000 chemical additives are found in the food we eat.

photo credit: Axel Buhrmann

In a conventionally grown (non-organic) strawberry, one can find up to 30 different kinds of pesticides!

How many of you know or have known of someone who has fought cancer? I’d be surprised to find a single person who has not known at least one person first-hand. These chemicals do create their effect.

If I can compensate in any way for all these negative environmental influences by giving my toddler a diet that is organic, high in vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, good fats and protein, then I am sorry, but I am proud to be Food-Snobby Alpha-Mom!

As my child is not even two yet, he is growing to love the fresh, whole foods that I prepare for him. And I make sure that he doesn’t feel left out of social events where other kids are eating Chuck E Cheese pizza by simply arriving a little late to a party or diverting his attention to another activity for the 15 minutes or so that they are chowing down. It has not been difficult to prevent him from feeling separated from the group as far as his diet is concerned. I am sure my tactics will have to evolve as he gets older and starts to become more cognizant of what the other kids are eating but we will work that out along the way. But up until now, it has never been an issue.

Another tool that has been a huge help to me in rounding out his diet from day one is a book that someone gave to me: “Super Baby Food” by Ruth Yaron. This book was written by a mom who figured out herself how to make it easy to give your baby a SUPER healthy diet right from the start. She has so many helpful tools such as pureeing organic veges in advance and freezing single servings in ice cube trays to use days later! This is genius! This book really helped me to understand everything I needed to introduce solid food to my child and believe it or not, her ways are VERY inexpensive and time saving. The only tool you need is a $20.00 coffee grinder in which you will grind fresh seeds, grains and beans. I highly recommend this book to get you moving in the right direction!

And I promise you, you won’t ever get a lecture from me (unless you ask), but you also won’t see me joining you at McDonald’s for lunch.

As my husband and I are expecting our second baby in April, we are currently playing the name game.

This is a tough game to win.

We actually got very lucky with our first baby when we both fell in love with the same name at the same time. We named our baby boy Phoenix and we couldn’t have been happier with this name. I didn’t realize back then how unusual this must be. For what really are the chances that the name that you cannot live without will be the same name that he is in love with? Pretty unlikely.

Therefore it stands to reason that one or both of you will have to find a compromise and agree upon a name that both of you can, at least live with, and hopefully, like very much.

I am not okay with compromising on this issue. And neither is my husband. So we are on an endless search at the present to find a name that we both love as much as Phoenix. I think I have seen every name conceivable by now and I am getting concerned that this will not resolve happily for both of us.

There is an additional part of the problem: along with the trend of parents giving their babies very unusual names, there is–at least I feel–a tremendous amount of pressure not to use any of these unique monikers.

This is frustrating because occasionally I will find a name in a book or some other medium that we both really love and I find myself saying, “oh, we can’t use that because that is what ’so and so celebrity’ named their baby.”

How will it look to my friends and associates if I name my child Maddox or Shiloh or Suri or even Violet? I feel it will reflect a very negative light–it just comes off like we are star-obsessed. Regardless of the fact that I may have not even thought of a particular name until I saw it in a baby name book, if a celebrity has already used it, I feel like it’s too late for me. Now, no matter what, it looks like I got the name from the celeb and I HATE that!

My husband disagrees. “Do you know how many “Scott’s” there were in my classes growing up?!”.

I understand there were a lot of Scott’s. What my husband, Scott, doesn’t understand is that is precisely WHY people started with these crazy names in the first place. They don’t WANT anyone to have the same name as their kid.

I don’t think our parents cared about this aspect of baby naming. They were quite happy picking their favorite from list of about 20 names. Michael, Allison, Jeff, Michelle, Lisa, David…these were our friends growing up, and no one cared that there were 4 of each.

The truth is that in 10 years, maybe even 5, no one will remember, and your child–my child–will have individuality and a personality and whatever name we decide to give him will have become truly his own.

I guess the trick now is just really not caring what other people think. Or maybe I should make a NiX baby t-shirt that says, “My parents got my name from a BABY BOOK. They SWEAR!”.

Welcome to Nixbaby.com! More posts to come…this is just my little “hello” :).