When your little one has mastered baby food, you can start with small pieces of finger foods. Basically, any foods that are cut up small enough to be picked up and eaten by baby are classified as finger foods. This is an important step toward independent eating and also allows baby new tastes and textures. Around 7 to 9 months is when most babies are ready to make this step, and they generally show their desire to eat on their own by grabbing the spoon you’re feeding them from.

So what are some of the best finger foods you can give your little one?

- Bananas are soft and easy to eat, plus packed with plenty of vitamins.

- Avocados are filled with good fat and super soft for little fingers.

- Sweet potatoes can be cut up in small chunks or sliced into fries. They’re sweet and power packed with nutrients.

- Cooked peas are easy to eat and even more fun to play with!

- Shredded, cooked chicken is a lean protein.

- Cheerios contain whole grains and serve as the perfect snack for little fingers. Instead of adding sugar, try the flavored varieties as a treat.

- Cooked lentils are soft and easy to pick up. They contain lots of protein and get baby used to eating beans.

- Garbanzo beans are also easy for baby to grasp and have a sweet taste that kids love! Serve them cold or hot.

- Whole wheat macaroni is filled with whole grains and tastes delicious with a bit of sauce or butter.

- Cubes of tofu are fun and easy to eat, plus absorb flavor. They can also be added to dishes such as macaroni and cheese.

- Pieces of low-mercury fish such as salmon or tilapia are tender and tasty. Cook these filets of fish in a small amount of butter or oil and season lightly for a delicious alternative to meat.

- Small chunks of cheese are tasty for baby and offer good fat and plenty of calcium.

Image c/o: thebabycorner.com

There has been much written on how to have a healthy pregnancy, and there are many opinions about what to eat and what not to eat while you are a pregnant. Here is a quick overview about nutrition during these nine months.

1.      Do eat lots of spinach, as it is rich in folate

2.      Do eat whole grains, fruits, and vegetables daily. These foods contain fiber to aid digestion and the vitamins and minerals you need to be healthy.

3.      Do drink lots of water. It will help with constipation and provide fluid as your blood volume increases and your body creates amniotic fluid for the baby.

4.      Do take a prenatal vitamin.

5.      Do drink milk for calcium and vitamin needs.

6.      Do eat a varied diet. This is the best way to ensure that you are getting a variety of nutrients and not too much of anything that may be harmful.

7.      Don’t eat unpasteurized dairy products such as soft cheeses as they may contain listeria, a bacteria that can cause illness in the baby and possibly lead to miscarriage

8.      Don’t eat raw smoked fish, as they can also contain listeria

9.      Don’t eat deli meats that contain listeria

10.  Don’t take a Vitamin A supplement or consume more than the daily recommended allowance of Vitamin A

11.  Don’t eat fish high in mercury, including shark and swordfish

12.  Don’t consume too much caffeine or artificial sweeteners. Limit yourself to 300mg a day and remember that caffeine is in coffee, tea, some soft drinks, and chocolate.

Almost every mother is concerned about having a healthy pregnancy, even if she was never concerned about being healthy before she became pregnant. Here are five tips to having a healthier pregnancy that will help both you and your growing baby during this exciting time.

5 tips for a healthy pregnancy

1. Get started before you get pregnant. The best way to have a healthy pregnancy is to plan ahead, whether it is starting an exercise regimen or eating a more balanced diet.
2. Take a prenatal vitamin with folic acid. Your normal vitamin probably doesn’t have all the vitamins you and your baby will need while your pregnant, so starting on a prenatal vitamin as soon as you start trying to conceive will ensure that your baby has all those nutrients from the first day of development. Plus, these vitamins may help with fertility.
3. Rest up. Get at least eight hours of sleep each day. If you are having trouble sleeping at night, take afternoon naps to get the rest you need.
4. Exercise daily. If not daily, then as many days a week as you can manage. The workouts should not be intense or exhausting – try a workout class aimed at pregnant women or just walk for 20-30 minutes a day.
5. Avoid dangerous toxins. Don’t drink while you’re pregnant and if you are a smoker, this is a great time to quit. Avoid areas where others are smoking as second hand smoke is also detrimental to both mother and child.

What every mother wants

Healthy moms and healthy pregnancies are the best way to get a healthy baby, so having a healthy pregnancy is something that is important to everyone during this incredibly exciting time in your life. Here are some ideas to help you have the healthiest pregnancy possible!

Educate yourself

The best thing you can do is to learn as much as possible about what is happening and what to expect during your pregnancy, childbirth, and infancy. Once you have this information, you will be able to discern between normal changes and ones that should be discussed with your health care professional. You can read books, check out websites (being careful to stick to reliable sources), and ask your doctor for advice and information to add to your knowledge base.

Good habits

Another way to stay healthy during this time is to establish habits that will help you be healthy and safe after your pregnancy as well. Remember to wear your seat belt and exercise regularly – these are things you know you should have been doing anyway, but with the baby growing inside of you, you have a better reason than ever to take especially good care of yourself.

Better diet

Eat a varied diet while you are expecting with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. This will help you get the nutrients both you and the baby need and the fiber in these foods will alleviate constipation issues that are common among pregnant women. Also, drink 6 to 8 glasses of water daily.

Every woman wants to know when!

When a woman is trying to get pregnant, it can be tempting to want to take a pregnancy test as soon as you think it might give a positive response. However, although today’s pregnancy tests are incredibly sensitive and can, in some cases, indicate a pregnancy several days before you miss a period, it is hard to know when you should take a pregnancy test.

The 5 main factors that influence when a test will give an accurate response:

1. Test sensitivity. Some of the tests on the market are more sensitive than others, and a more sensitive test will be able to detect pregnancy at an earlier stage than one that is less sensitive. Both are highly accurate, so a positive reading on one is just as reliable as a positive reading on another, but more sensitive tests can be done sooner.
2. Liquid Consumption. If you have had more fluids than normal when you take the pregnancy test, it will be harder for the test to detect the hormone that indicates pregnancy (hCG).
3. Time of day. Tests taken in the morning are less likely to be influenced by factors such as liquid consumption, but if you wait until later in the day the fetus may be producing more hCG as it grows.
4. Rate of hCG production. Some fetuses produce more hCG than others. If yours is a little slower, it will take longer to get a positive result on a pregnancy test.
5. Ovulation timing. Unless you know exactly when you ovulate each month, counting the days since your last ovulation can be an uncertain calculation.

Diet “Do’s” while breastfeeding

You know that you had to watch what you ate while you were pregnant – certain foods could make you feel nauseated, while others were off-limits because they contained certain ingredients or chemicals that could hurt the developing baby.

However, now that you have gone through childbirth and are preparing to breastfeed your little one, you may be uncertain about the dietary rules for this new phase with your little one.

As with most things in life, moderation is the key

The good news is that there are not a ton of rules about what you have to eat in order to successfully breastfeed. Your body will produce a consistent quantity of high quality milk as long as you eat a varied, nutritious diet. However, certain things can be beneficial to your health and to your baby, so it is a good idea to incorporate them into your diet.

The following list is a few things you may want to keep in mind while breastfeeding:

-         Whole grains are a great source of fiber which can help with constipation

-         Hydration is essential. Breast milk is up to 87% water, so it is easy to get dehydrated when breastfeeding. Try to avoid carbonated drinks because they contain sodium – stick to plain water instead.

-         Fruit is always a good choice. Fruit contains water and fiber along with vitamins and minerals, helping a new mom get many of the things she needs in a single food source.

-         Don’t forget about milk for yourself as well. Both pregnancy and breastfeeding can take calcium from your bones, so be sure to give your body plenty of extra during this time in your life.

Stay tuned for more

In our next blog post – we’ll discuss foods you should avoid while nursing a baby.

If your baby has colic, you are probably searching everywhere you can think of for suggestions and ideas about how to relieve his or her colic. While all parents of newborns struggle to adapt to sleepless nights and waking each time they hear the cries of their little ones, parents of colicky babies have a particularly difficult challenge before them as they learn to live with a screaming, crying child that they cannot soothe.

No definite right or wrong way

It is difficult to say that one specific technique or practice will be the right or best way of relieving colic in your infant because the causes of this difficult condition are so hazy and unknown. However, there are several ways that are often found helpful by parents when attempting to calm the cries of their colicky child, including the following tips.

Parent tested tips for relieving infant colic:

-        Swaddling. Wrapping the baby snugly in a soothing swaddling blanket such as the one offered by Luna Lullaby can be an enjoyable way to sleep more soundly for your little one.

-        Changing the baby’s feeding schedule. Instead of a few larger meals, consider trying more frequent, smaller meals to see if this aids in digestion.

-        Changing your own diet. If you are breastfeeding, some of the foods you consume may be irritating to your infant when he or she receives your breast milk. Re-evaluate your own diet and see if that makes a difference.

-        Adjust the position of the baby while feeding. If they are positioned correctly, feeding and digestion will be easier for the infant, making irritation less of an issue.