Homemade baby food

It has been a longtime since my last post!

My baby is already 7 months old, and he still sticks to his mamma's milk! Well I started giving him rice cereal when he was 6 months old. 

Since then every day he sits on his high chair around 11am. Today finally for a first time I could give him all the amount I made (1/4 bowl), and he didn't refuse at all! 

I started giving him fruit almost same time as I started cereal. He loves banana, papaya, pear, apple, watermelon in another hand he likes fruit. I suppose most of the babies like them. 

Well I was totally scared when he poop banana! and I had to stop it till I asked his doctor if it is ok. It is OK! He poop anything I give to him almost the same shape. 

I decided to be a good mom and make him a fresh homemade food.

I did made some dishes already. I'll post the recepies of them next time when I make again. 

Today I made sweet broccoli dish. 

It is a fast and super easy dish to make!

Broccoli is a good source of vitamins and minerals:

 BROCCOLI: (1 cup - steamed)

VITAMINS: Vitamin A - 2415 iu  Vitamin C - 101.2 mg  Niacin - .86 mg  Folate - 168 mcg  Vitamin E - 2.26 mg  Vitamin K - 220 mg  Contains some other vitamins in small amounts.

MINERALS: Potassium - 457 mg  Phosphorus - 105 mg  Magnesium - 33 mg  Calcium - 62 mg  Sodium - 64 mg  Selenium - 5.7 mg  Iron - 5.5 mg  Contains zinc, manganese and others

Ingredients:

1- 3 to4 stalk of broccoli

2- a medium size carrot 

3- a slice of papaya 

Wash broccoli under cool water. Chop stems and florets into small pieces; using just the florets will many times yield a smoother puree. Steam until tender.  

Add a steam and soft carrot and a raw slice of papaya, place into your choice of appliance for pureeing and begin pureeing. 
Add water as necessary to achieve a smooth, thin consistency. 

       

My baby loves it !!! 

My Baby's 5 months old !

It was my baby fifth months birthday, and I wanted to make it special to my little darling. What would be good celebration for him to enjoy? For sure cake and mummy's friends is a way but I decided to spend time with him in the toy shop and pick up a few suitable toys for his age!

Well I searched in google for a 4-6months old's toy, and I knew exactly what are the interesting things to him. 

As he has a fisher-Price gym and he enjoyes it for a little while I was looking for other products of Fisher-Price company, and bouncer was the one in my mind!

Well I let him to sit in it at shop, but I didn't like it because of the way he stand in it, (somehow ban infront) 

Actually I tried to correct him but I couldn't, and why I was concern is because his head almost hit the toys infront of his eyes. 

Any way I gaveup on this one, even though his neck and back are quite stable! 

As i was showing the toys to him and they really were interesting to me, he refuses to look at them. He has a sound to make for I'm bord ! Here it comes, and he wanted to move.

Well I pick up a few small toys, and lets go! 

He loves to be held and walk around.

At home he wants me to hold him otherwise he just follows every movement of me with his eyes. 

In my case 5 months old's toy is his mom! And all what I read earlier about toys of his age, he is not interested for more than a minute . 

Anyway still he is not able to sit, and I hope he will change when he can sit ;) 

Annoying sickly Malaysians

Unfortunately my baby caught a cold, and it was a few very difficult days for me and him.

He started to cough followed by fever and ended up with antibiotics !

Well the sick boy and I couldn't sleep at night as every cough would wake us up and by the time the first sign of going back to sleep came, the second cough would attack!

I could blame everyone as I was too angry that my baby is in pain.

I'm still unhappy over some of the people I encountered over here!!! 

There is a group of these people who think that if they pass the virus to someone else they will get well as they have PASSed on the virus!!!

I learnt this sad fact when I was pregnant and I was trying to avoid getting sick, I remember once I entered a Guardian pharmacy shop and a lady with flu started following me. First I thought she was trying to do her job as she was a sales person, so I told her I knew exactly what I was looking for and I didn't need her help since she was sick! But  she ignored my request and stood next to me, and coughed almost straight into my face! I left the shop immediately! 

My hubby later explained that some people believe on passing on the sickness. This is a first reason for my anger.

There we go, people cover your mouth when you cough!!!

90% of people over here don't cover their   mouth when they cough. Really!!! No one taught them? 

Well my baby's pediatrician told me to avoid shopping malls, and have a morning walk and evening walk in the street! For the reason that sick people still want to shop without wearing a mask, not just that they don't cover their mouths when they cough, with some going there to pass on the sickness !!!

Well I don't want to walk my baby in the park or even on the street because of Dengue! 

I wish those Malaysians that read my post rather than getting angry or thinking about responding with the usual rude statement of "if you are unhappy go back to your country! " would think over the solution for this problem, that could make living here even more beautiful! 

Sahar.H

My Pregnancy Facts

I'm going to share with you my 10 facts about my pregnancy, I was asked by one of my lovely friend who is going to be a mom soon

Actually it was a while before I get pregnant. I was thinking about it, and 

1- It was a kind of planned pregnancy 

2- I had morning sickness in late evening

3-I had a craving for pork, cheese and nuts, and  chocolate was my best friend 

4- I had to travel 2 times during my second   trimester which I wasn't really happy about it

5- I really was excited to know the baby gender, and I had a sense that it is a boy.

6- I didn't like the pregnancy experience 

7- I changed at least 5 doctors, and finally felt in love with the last one 

8- I had a planned C-section 

9- I didn't like to wear a pregnancy outfit so I didn't wear any 

And my selection made people not to see that I am pregnant during the entire pregnancy

10- I didn't have any baby shower and any pregnancy gifts

Diet

The old and boring topic! But not to our body. 

First thing comes to mind about diet is not eating enogh or eating what you don't like. 

In my case diet is a beautiful start of a new lifestyle. 

There is a fact that we live one time, so we should enjoy our life! 

Well are you in the group of people that you enjoy food a lot more than anything else?... You should leave what ever is against eating...

But if you care how you look more than eating or you like a healthy long life go for your special diet. 

I get diet to stay slim, and healthy. My diet is always full of eating break!  

Thanks to Internet which let us to gain just in time knowledge about everything. With a simple search you can find out what nutrition and how much a body needs to stay healthy! 

Pick a notebook and start writing what ever you are eating in one day in it! At the end of day calculate the total calories you had! If you are not sure about the calories, or you cook some food mixed with many things, just google them, one by one and add them together. Depends on what is your favorite weight to be, you will have diffrent calories need a day. On average body needs 2000 calories a day. You can use the following website http://nutritiondata.self.com/tools/calories-burned to find out your personal needs.

Cut off your intake of what is on your list that you don't need and you can skip it easy! The next day try to cut them. If you think you want everything then you can use plan 2 which is burning it up. Again with googling you can find out how much calorie you can burn with different tasks and exercises! For example, breastfeeding is a way to have extra 500calories a day !!!

Good luck 

Sahar.H

Happy Mommies/ Stay young

Have you ever wondered if I put on my night cream, apply my face mask, go for a facial, dress up, put on my make up, and so on, will i be the same as those days everyone were saying you look amazing!!!  

Sure you'll look the same if you are taking care of yourself.

Once I read Chad Sugg's beautiful quote which I have enjoyed many many times : 

   "enjoy your youth, you'll never be younger than you are at this moment" 

I'm gonna write a list of what does matter for a mommy to stay beautiful:

#1. Diet, of course as our bodies built a storage of fat just in case of famine!!!

#2. Exercise, to get back on track again

#3.Day/Night skin care products

#4.Nutrition and vitamins 

#5.Dressing up

#6. Stay in touch with old friends

#7. Shopping, to encourage ourselves to look in the mirror more often

#8.Manicure &Pedicure 

#9. Face and body Massage

#10. Do not let anything stop you from being happy 

#11. Avoid stress 

#12. Drinking water

Please share with me if you know other ways to stay young !!! And I love to hear your opinion on them.

I'll go through some of them in a separate post soon. 

Sahar.H

First time I went out with my baby

Let's start over again, being a mother is a lot more than doing the chores at home, it also means you cannot go anywhere that is not baby friendly !

Let me see newborn friendly! I remember my baby's pediatrician said no outdoors or crowded places such as shopping malls as far as possible for the first month. Well as I mentioned before my hubby is not a doctor but he is as good as one in enforcing the quarantine.

For the first month I stayed home 24/7! Though I was overjoyed for having my baby, but that month, our satellite broke down, the home Internet was cut and the whole day was spent with just me, hungry baby and my smartphone (luckily still had Internet access).

I was counting the days to baby's first month celebration, I went out finally for an evening tea! 

<br>Alexis Bangsar 

Everything looked new, I mean it, everything!!! My feeling was like a person that left a cave after years. I was too excited, well it didn't take long before my baby cried for milk. Although I was wearing my nursing cloth at the restaurant, unfortunately a waiter pretended to work close by to peek at me, I felt totally uncomfortable!!! 

So I started making myself a small notebook to write down details of places where I have visited and their baby friendly ranking on a scale of 1 to 10, based on my reasons!

It has grown to be a big directory today!

Firstly the good thing about it is that I have a record of places with my own review based on my personal preferences. For me, this works better than online reviews ! 

For example, I have tried many of the baby rooms in shopping malls. I'll share with you about them soon. 

Ladies, if any of you open a baby friendly tea shop which allows breastfeeding, let me know I'll be your loyal customer. 

Sahar.H

Happy Mommies/ newly moms

Today's post is all about the early days of baby's arrival. 

I am going to share with you my personal experience. 

In my post "about me" I told you that I live far from my family, so all the time during pregnancy and giving birth, and baby's early months I was on my own!

As I had scheduled an elective C-section, I watched many videos, and read a lot about the delivery. As my hubby is not a big fan of public classes, we skipped the classes that the hospital provided, Just the thing I can say about those days is that I was so scared !!! I was thinking I am very lonely except for my hubby who has to be at work, and read that I will be confined to bed, unable to move about for weeks!!! 

Well everyone's  experience is diffrent. In my case, I was walking by the second day. All those scary videos and articles became for me just Internet stories. During my hospital stay, my whole experience centered on having and holding a very lovely baby!!!  

I was totally in love.

Luckily the hospital I gave birth in promoted breastfeeding, and I had a lactation consultant almost everyday. My hubby is a great medical dictionary even though he didn't pursue a medical degree. However I believe he has studied even more about healthcare out of his interest than those at medschool. For numerous reasons, he totally disagreed with using infant formula! And that's why he supported me for breastfeeding.

The best thing for new moms if they don't want to go through the hormonal changes suddenly which in some cases could lead to postnatal depression is breastfeeding!

All the new moms have concerns over their ability, their milk supply and so many   unnecessary things. 

For the first 2 months, everyday I was worried my milk supply is not enough, and my baby is still hungry! Well I wasn't imagining his hunger as newborns breastfeed almost all the time. Every day for a month, in the late evening around 6 to 7pm, my baby started crying to be breastfed. And this activity can last like 4 to 5 hours non-stop,till he fell sleep. Still I am not sure if he was hungry or was it colic?! 

From 5 weeks old, he never got colic again as I learnt about the causes of colic and had fine tuned my diet till he reached  13 weeks old.

During the crying month I was too lonely, worried and desperate. My hubby had some important work to do during those days, that's why I was totally alone.

Well now when I look back to those days,  I feel like I'm too happy it's over but ladies, it's over very fast !!! And the good news is he gained weight perfectly. 

I will write about the recommended diet to increase breast milk supply which works on me in another post. 

As a new mom with early experience, I tell you my baby needs to cry then suckle, and we are doing great! 

Everyday I am more in love with my baby, doing all his chores by myself let me know him better, and our relationship becomes beautiful.

Now that he is 3 and half months he doesn't cry anymore even if he is hungry, instead he is trying to talk to me, he makes gurgling sounds whereby the volume and pronunciation are different, it is like a conversation to me! He is too happy and that makes me feel like I am a good mom! 

"Being successful in what we do is a reason to be happy."

During my journey with my baby I am gaining new insights - one of them is to forget about the well meaning advice of others about babies ... Just go with your heart ... your love and your instinct works the best. 

Sahar.H

Happy Mommies/ Magic cure

Once upon a time on a happy day I became a mother! Days and nights were passing faster than the blinking of my eyes. There was not enough time for anything except for daily routine works. I started thinking about all my childhood stories, and I wished for the "Magic Lamp of Aladdin"!!! 

Well I didn't find the magic lamp But I realized that it's true that we are in charge of our life! 

I started creating a cure for my problems, and it happen to work as a magic cure for me.

#1 Magic cure

I started to write my wish list. 

The way I was passing my days, I would need that list sooner than I realize.

So creating a to do and wish list was the first step. 

I made a weekly plan out of my list, and that diary turned out to be my magic cure! 

I'll share with in every post of mine one of them.

Diapers, Drypers

The first supermarket shopping I had for a baby was when I was around 8 months pregnant. I had a long list of stuff to buy. One of them was diapers, as it is my first baby and I had no experience, I decided to buy more than one brand. First diaper brand I chose was Drypers. 

I chose it because I saw some parents are buying it, and it's economical.

Well I tried Drypers WeeweeDry and Drypers Soft on my newborn.

I didn't like WeeWeeDry. As I liked the feel of cotton cloth for a diaper, the diaper didn't feel like cotton. In the Drypers website they didn't talk about the cloth material except they just wrote it is breathable, however I felt otherwise. Another reason for me not liking it is the diaper's absorbency power! The company describes it as "new Soft Absorb Layer made up of a soft wavy perforated layer that helps to draw and secure poo away from newborn baby’s sensitive skin to keep skin clean and healthy" or in other words the absorbent powder that they use. My experience showed that baby's urine will stick like gelatine balls on baby's butt !!! I personally prefer Drypers Soft which has less absorbent powder residues.

Drypers advantage as mentioned earlier is it's price. 

Sahar.H

Happy Mommies / Hands

Today I will tell you, one of the ways I enjoy doing my chores.

Having a baby made a lot more changes than I was expecting ! Getting my nail done was my favorite thing to do, especially having all kinds of design and colors could make me feel like " I can't choose" ! But now, definitely I can't go to the nail salon, because I can't leave my baby alone nor take him with myself! 

I started painting my nails myself and with the amazing top coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - any nail color I can use, and it is dry in 30 seconds. 

 

After my baby has his feed, and start his nap, I can color my nails and it's gonna be dry less than a minute. 

Changing a diaper with the red nails is so much fun. Actually I enjoy looking at my nails while I'm using my hands. It makes me happy :)

Holding the baby, feeding him, playing with him, bathing him, and whatever other work, it's just different after my nails are done. By different I mean enjoyable. 

Ladies it's the time to put on your lipstick and have your hot chololate ... isn't hot chocolate more tasty if your nails are done !? Just try it ❤️

I will share with you my favorite colors and brands of nail polish, and how I like them in my future posts. 

"Happy babies have Happy mommies"

Sahar .H

Diapers, MamyPoko

If you live in Asia, you would know that MamyPoko is one of the strong brands of diapers in South East Asia. 

In my post on Huggies I mentioned that, I met a new parent couple in hospital. They gave their opinion on Huggies, and as I was still pregnant, so I was curious to know people's opinion on baby's products, I asked them what diaper brand are they using? The answer was unreservedly "MamyPoko is the best"!!! Well it was their first baby, not even a month old yet. 

They are in my first consumer group category, the group that media made it clear to them, what is a good brand. Congratulation to the MamyPoko company I love your marketing strategy. 

((I was out of MamyPoko diaper, just grab an opportunity in the supermarket))

First thing that everyone checks a diaper brand for is its price! MamyPoko is not cheap!

When I dressed my baby for the first time with MomyPoko it leaked! Because I was using Huggies with the elastic waistband and MamyPoko doesn't have it. I didn't know it will loosen itself around the waist after sometime of wearing it!!! I left a breathing space for my baby on the tummy, and later when I changed his diaper my hand could go through the space between diaper and tummy !!! 

I hate it when I had to tighten the diaper around his waist that much. 

One other problem I had with MomyPoko was at night time. I had to change my baby's diaper at least 2 times at night, the changing diaper routines woke my baby up, and so all the hope of just waking up to feed baby, and catching up on sleep was gone.

What if I didn't change the diaper at night?! Well, easy and short answer! His bed could become like a cloth on top of the boiling pot! Full of moisture and warmth.

If there is one thing I like about MomyPoko, is it's coverage of the baby's butt. MomyPoko's coverage compared to Huggies is much wilder in both ways - horizontal and vertical on baby's bottom. 

All of my updates on MomyPoko will be in this page.

Sahar.H

Diapers, Huggies

Diaper

As I wrote in my previous post, I am going through the diaper brands that I have used on my sweetheart's butt. As I will go through the details of each diaper, I will write on each brand in a separate post. 

I want to start sharing about my baby!!! Since every baby is unique, so I will tell you about my baby's size. 

    

Now he is around 6+ kg, his thighs are lovely, because he gained weight there first. Usually I can't dress him the size that the diaper brands suggested because the diapers are small around his thighs and leave a red mark there, so I have to use a bigger size. Right now I am using  L size.

About his skin I can say I just love his ultra soft skin which fortunately is not sensitive. He got diaper rash just once which all settled down by the next day. 

Well, let's start with Huggies ...

The hospital that my son was born in provided Huggies and a new parent we met told us the hospital used Huggies because they received them for free! But the nursery staff told us, they use Huggies because babies wouldn't get diaper rash !?

Anyway, after my 3 night stay in hospital, my son finished exactly one packet of S size Huggies. However, on the day of our discharge, they opened another new packet, so we had no choice but pay for the extra packet. That's my first time experience of the brand! It was Huggies ultra. Even so, I liked using them. 

My baby was born 2.9 kg, he was too tiny when we first brought him home. Huggies fitted him very well. It felt breathable to me and the cotton looked ok. What I like most about Huggies is the elastic waistband. 

Anyway my son couldn't wear S size when his weight was about 3.5kg anymore because of the red marks the diaper left on his thighs, So I had to switch to a bigger size. 

I started disliking Huggies because of the overall fit on my baby.  The recommended size by weight was leaving deep red marks on his thighs, while the bigger size was leaking. It is too narrow on the butt. 

Well, I still continue using Huggies because I dislike the other brands that I tested more than Huggies, until I tried a Japanese brand ( I'll tell you about it soon). For now, I still have Huggies to use. 

My dear hubby suggested that I better try Huggies dry pants too, so I did. Not a good idea !!! As my baby is fully breastfed and his poop is soft, taking off the diaper was too difficult, so I used scissors. Later I found out that pants are good when the babies can stand up themselves, and is recommended for active babies. However I think around the thighs the dry pants is a bit tighter than Huggies ultra. 

I was reading the reviews on diaper brands and I read lots of positive comments on Pampers but where I live,  I still haven't found it at the local supermarkets! I am not sure if the Pampers company doesn't want to sell here or I am looking for it in wrong places!?!? 

I will update you here on my Huggies experience.

Sahar. H

Happy Mommies/lips

Hello ladies 

I'm going to share one of my secrets today on how in the boring afternoon when my little bundle of joy has his nap I enjoy myself.

I think it's not just me but all the girls, we love to look at mirror and meet a gorgeous lady there, that will give us confidence and joy. 

For sure waking up many many times at night, doing all kind of chores wouldn't let us remember a inner voice is saying "hey girl put that basket of laundry down and put on your lipstick !" That's it Lipstick 💄 

I can't remember when was it, that I discovered the fact "I am no longer sad!" when I saw my lipstick mark on my coffee cup, since then anytime I feel sad or even tired just picking up that  baby miracle would change me a lot more than just a red/pink lips.  

Girls Put On Your Lipstick and Make Yourself a Cup of Hot Chocolate 👍

In my future post I will tell you how I started enjoying my chores.

💋

Products

Diapers: 

Diaper duty It's a mommies job, but it's true to say that none of us could think of touching or thinking, and even having a dream about poop when we were our mommy's girl. There you go we are spending hours everyday with it.

We got used to looking at inside the diaper, check the quality and quantity of the poop much stricter than the drug companies do for their production line.

We are spending hours and hours reading about a sweet topic of poop and baby bottom care, and when it comes to choosing a diaper we are covered by lots of positive and negative advertising for each of the brands.

Let me put it this way, media made it clear to some group of mommies what is the good brand ! While another group wouldn't feel happy till they make sure that they got the best fit for their baby. 

Well I am in the  second group, that's why I tried what ever brand I could find in the supermarkets. 

In my next post I'm gonna share with you what is my expectation from a diaper, what is a good diaper from my point of view, and also I'm gonna go through the details of each brand that I have used for my baby.

Love you all 

Sahar.H 

❤️❤️❤️

About Me

I am going to share about myself, since this is my first post on this blog I thought it's better to have some introduction on myself.

I am a mother, wife and I work as a freelance researcher on business matters. I always wanted to be a mother, I mean since I was a little girl. I had no clue that having a baby needs so much of works, even to the level that mother can totally forget about herself.

I live far away from my homeland country so I have no family to help me, and my hubby's family are not gonna lend a hand  even for a simple thing ! 

I love my family, and that's a reason I learnt how to stay positive and happy always.

I'm gonna share my secrets with you on my future posts. I'll write the ways I could stay happy, and I hope you enjoy them too. 

I say :

"Happy babies have Happy mommies" 

"Time is passing,let's notice and catch the small moments of life to celebrate a Happy Life"

Cheers to all of you gorgeous moms.

Sahar.H