Monthly Archives: March 2015

Child CPR (Age 1 to Puberty) and Relief of Choking

Blog Post 3.28.15 Child CPR Cover newThis post is to address choking and unresponsiveness in CHILDREN 1 YEAR AND UP only. If your infant is unresponsive or you need instruction to relieve choking in infants, please review Infant CPR and Choking.

Click to Immediately Jump to Instructions For:

Basic Life Support Terms for Children

IF YOUR CHILD IS UNRESPONSIVE

IF YOUR CHILD IS CHOKING


These types of posts are the most important ones I will ever write.

I choose to write posts like these (Infant CPR/Choking & Child CPR/Choking) because it is so important that we have the necessary skills for our kids thrive in a safe and healthy environment. That means being prepared for the worst.

You can do your best to read up on how to install your carseat properly and learn what shouldn’t be allowed with the carseat (aftermarket pillows/strap covers/body supports/seat protectors), how to properly check your baby’s temperature in event of a fever, feeding organic whenever possible, using eco-friendly products, fully vaccinate them so they are equipped with the best possible immune system to ward off threatening illnesses, or even buy the coolest stroller with all the bells and whistles. But what’s most important? Keeping them alive. Continue reading “Child CPR (Age 1 to Puberty) and Relief of Choking” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: And She’s Off!

Taylor Inception 2015-24

Update on Jia: 

  • FIRST STEPS! This just in! As of 3/24/15, she is walking! Slowly but surely, it took our little sprout 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, and 1 day to get her first steps in! She took a total of about 6 steps on 3/24 and then this morning (3/25/15) she took about 7 steps in a row! Our video quality isn’t so great, so we’ll document again later. Recall, she did take 10.5 months to crawl but was crawling like a speed demon, so pretty soon I imagine she’ll be walking confidently! 
  • I read from a BabyCenter newsletter that if your toddler isn’t yet walking, what you can do to encourage them is to pretend to trip over your feet while you walk – showing that even adults have trouble with it. So I did this. And fell over. Many times, and she belly laughs a LOT! This was good for when I actually fell down the stairs trying to step OVER the baby gate (instead of opening it, since Jia was standing at the gate), she laughed while I gripped hurt parts of me in pain. 
  • Sprouting a left bottom molar and a bottom right tooth, for soon to be a total of 8 teeth. This means she’s temperamental! She really had no distress through the first 6 teeth, so this is the first time she’s just a crabby unpredictable mess hah…
  • Because of the above, her naps are unpredictable. It’s a few days of 1 hour and 30 min naps and then a day of 30 minute napping after rolling around flailing her limbs and chattering to herself for almost an hour. Or even 1 hour and 15 minutes of blabbering and rolling around. That day we had no nap until 4 PM that afternoon.
  • She loves Happy Family Brand’s Happy Creamies! While at my weekly run to Target, I picked these up from the baby aisle, along with teething crackers. Gave them to her after she picked through all the peas in her macaroni and cheese and ate an orange and she scarfed them down. 
  • She’s also back to her Happy Baby Puffs, yay! I like to put this in a snack cup for her to nosh on while she and I go jogging.
  • I hate to admit this, but LittleBabyBum nursery rhymes (on YouTube) make her so happy. After jogging with her and I need a quick shower – I play this on my phone and she is just quiet and happy. I don’t like to show her screens, since The Academy says not til after 2 years, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I also handed her my iPhone when she for some reason is screaming and upset in the car (babies and toddlers are not fans of traffic and mine in particular dislikes car rides IN GENERAL) with the video playing. It works like magic. Only to be used in dire times of need. (To view Little Baby Bum’s YouTube Channel click here
  • Scavenging Around: My friend (and one of Jia’s godmothers) Megan was here the other day and Jia was digging through her purse. She pulled out her car keys and then crawled over to her princess mobile and tried to use her keys with the car. She also did a cute thing where she took an item out of Megan’s purse, looked at it, then placed it back in (versus throwing it aside). 
  • MyPhone… She took Megan’s iPhone and put it up to her ear and said “bababababa!” Apparently Jeff has been teaching her how to use the phone on her learning farm toy that has a pretend phone, quick little learner!

    I made these baked sweet potato bites a week or so ago and she seemed to really dislike them. But then I tried again a while after and it turns out, she really likes them 1) cold; and 2) sitting in their foil pouch (not on her plate). So I ripped off a square of foil to put on her plate and housed the sweet potatoes in there and it was just about the only thing she ate for dinner.

    Steam a sweet potato for about 15 minutes. Remove.

    Cut into small finger-sized pieces

    Place on non-stick foil (or spray with cooking spray or drizzle with olive oil)

    Cut pieces of unsalted butter and arrange over sweet potatoes. I used a cheese grater and grated a cold stick of butter over them. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

    Place in oven at 350 deg for about 15 minutes. Watch them, because I really didn’t pay attention to how long I really baked them! Allow to cool and serve! 

  • Pasta! Whole wheat noodles and these spinach/garlic noodles from Trader Joe’s, cooked then mixed with some butter then organic marinara sauce is something she apparently likes! 
  • Claps and bounces when music is playing, a LOT of clapping!

Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: And She’s Off!” »

You, Preeclampsia, and Your Sprout

Blog Post 3.21.15 PreeclampsiaSince this is my first pregnancy post on Little Sproutings, I wanted to write about something relevant that I went through during mine. (You can skip ahead to the “So What’s Preeclampsia?” part if you don’t want to read about my experience.)

My “Pre”-Preeclampsia Experience

For the last month and a half of my pregnancy, I was on “pre-eclampsia watch.” It was hard for me to distinguish between pre-eclampsia symptoms and being stressed out at a busy job as an ICU nurse. My heart rate would go up, sure, but whose wouldn’t when one of your two patients is crashing? My feet were ridiculously swollen, but I was pregnant! And on my feet all day! Sick patients don’t take a break so a swollen busy nurse can elevate her feet! Sure, my charge nurses and manager had no problem (as far as I know) with my frequent trips to the bathroom, needing to sit down more often as I lugged around my planet-sized mid-section, or taking lots of mini-breaks to eat a snack. They were great in assigning me with patients that didn’t require super heavy lifting and avoided putting me with patients that were on contact/droplet/airborne isolation (and we had quite a few during my last trimester). The nurses I worked with were so sweet and helped grab supplies for me, would turn my patients for me so I didn’t have to strain; they really were the best nurses and coworkers I could ask for.  Continue reading “You, Preeclampsia, and Your Sprout” »

The Best Lactation Cookies You’ll Ever Eat

Blog Post 3.19.15 Best Lactation CookiesSo I was inspired to post this cookie recipe that I deemed on the Little Sproutings Facebook Page as “the best cookies I’ve ever had – even better than DoubleTree Hotel cookies!” after my friend asked for the recipe for her friend who delivered her babies 2.5 months early. I’m not even exaggerating, not even a little bit. They are THE BEST cookies I’ve ever had. They’re the kind that are a little crisp on the outside but soft and gooey on the inside. 

If you are a nursing mom, you more than likely have some intense cravings for goodies in almost all forms – burgers, croissants, huge sandwiches, and let’s be honest – cakes, brownies, cookies, chocolate… So why not make those goodies count toward your milk supply? 

Filled with milk supply-supportive brewer’s yeast, flaxseed, and rolled oats, these cookies pack a good punch of lactation power. There are other supplements you can take to increase your supply, but those (like fenugreek) aren’t evaluated by the FDA and the effects on babies – especially fragile NICU babies – are unknown. However, brewer’s yeast, flaxseed, and rolled oats are safe and I’d been given the OK in the past to donate my pumped milk while having consumed these ingredients. 

(A little on low supply: A lot of new moms think they have a low milk supply, but usually they don’t. If your baby is gaining weight appropriately and on breastmilk alone, you don’t have an issue with supply. For more on that, read KellyMom’s post here. It is not common for moms to have issues with milk supply – nature intended on moms to breastfeed.  There is a lot of propaganda and false information out there about moms having issues with supply – this is purely a money-making tactics of formula companies. Most often it is a latch or supplementation problem, where moms supplement breastfeeding with formula, which tells the body it doesn’t have to make more milk since baby isn’t taking it. 

I have never had an issue with my supply and was patient from the get-go knowing what to expect (only teaspoons amounts of colostrum to start, milk kicking in around 3-4 days postpartum), but I do like my sweets. Why not make them count? Continue reading “The Best Lactation Cookies You’ll Ever Eat” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: Jogging Buddy

WSDW 3.18.15 Jogging Buddy CoverSo this is what Jia’s been up to:

  • Very very talkative, blabbers every chance she can get! She’s communicating really well, pointing to what she wants, happy-vocalizing about 90% of the time. 
  • Climbs as much as she can on as many things as possible.
  • Still doesn’t want to walk yet, but doesn’t mind walking one-handed with us. 
  • She’s been sleeping in until about 8:30 AM clocking in about 12.75-13 hours of sleep per night. Usually goes down at 7:30 PM. That nap is still somewhat unreliable. (Now I’m going to jinx myself)
  • Task mimicry: putting clothes in her drawers, trying to help put dishes away from the dishwasher, wiping the kitchen table with a paper towel or baby wipes after her meals, putting toys away into the diaper bag. 
  • Deli turkey is back on the table! She’ll eat it again, not as eagerly as she did before, but she’ll eat it. Thankfully.
  • It feels like she’s becoming a pickier eater. I don’t know why I say it “feels like,” because she definitely is. 
  • She’s not scared of the slide anymore. Not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but when I took her to MyGym back in January (?) she started crying when I put her on the slide (while holding her). Tuesday we took the jogging stroller to the outlets (up a precarious hill) and Jia and I played at the playground. There were two kids already climbing around (an 18 month old and a 3 year old). After watching the two of them happily go down the slide, I put her in my lap and we went down a few times and she was smiling once we got to the bottom. After that, I put her on the slide (while I was on the ground) and held her torso as I slid her down and she had the biggest smile! Wish Jeff were with us so we could get some good pictures! 
  • Easily gets thrown into tantrums, especially if she wants my phone and I don’t give it to her. She yells at me (as other toddlers do) hah
  • Swept off her feet. Most of the time she wants me to still carry her everywhere. I’ll take this as a cherished moment that is soon to end once she learns to walk. 
  • Peekaboo Pro. During bath time Tuesday 3/17, she was standing in the tub and grabbed the shower curtain and hid behind it. I said “Where’s Jia?!!!” and she yanked it open laughing! She went on to keep doing this over and over and over! So so funny!

My Thoughts: Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: Jogging Buddy” »

Nutrition in a Nutshell for Your Sprout: Children (5 Years+)

Blog Post 3.14.15 Nutrition Nutshell ChildChild Nutrition (5 Years and Up)

So back in my public health days, I worked for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s department of Child and Adolescent Health. Much of my work was dedicated to creating an educational program that supported healthy diets and physical activity of pre-school and school-aged children. I spent hundreds of hours designing a program and performing bill analyses that were written to improve overweight and obesity in the LA Unified School District. So, for a portion of my early adulthood, this topic was my jam


The diet of a 5-year old (and up) is very similar to what our diets, as adults, should resemble: healthy and lean meats, half of the plate consisting of a variety of brightly colored fruits and vegetables, whole grains (not refined white flour that has been stripped of its healthy fiber), etc. It’s hard enough for us to follow, but it is of paramount importance for us to get our kids off on the right foot in these early years. 

If you missed previous Nutrition in a Nutshell posts, click the links below

Nutrition in a Nutshell For Your Sprout: Infancy

Nutrition in a Nutshell For Your Sprout: Toddler & Pre-schooler

So, what should be the focus for these (still) growing sprouts? Here’s a summary:1-9 Continue reading “Nutrition in a Nutshell for Your Sprout: Children (5 Years+)” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: Earning Her Keep

WSDW Tell Me a Story

Here’s what she’s up to!

  • I asked her to get in her infant car seat and she did! Too bad it’s just in time to make the switch to the new big convertible seat. We did end up going for the Graco Milestone for $200 after a 20% off coupon from Buy Buy Baby. It’ll go rear facing til 40 lbs and then forward harnessed and as a high back belt positioning booster. I really like it, it’s sturdy, seems much more comfortable, and it was really easy to install. 
  • She climbs into our laps for mid-afternoon story time. If she’s playing with toys and she sees a book, she’ll take the book and hand it to us and then climb into our laps.
  • She’s getting unbelievably difficult at mealtimes! She’s very defiant and really won’t eat much of anything now! Man, I thought it was hard before, whew, this new phase I’m eager to pass on!
  • Understands how to fill up cups with water and drinking from it. Especially if this is in the bath tub. Ew. 
  • Loves her new big girl car seat! So far. I mean, she hasn’t complained and pulled at the straps or hit it or anything. She seems content in it, I think the strap cushions at the shoulders help the comfort, and I imagine it’s much more padded and structured more comfortably than the curve of that infant car seat. 
  • Daylight Savings Time wasn’t a breeze. Her whole Sunday was thrown off, starting from Saturday night only sleeping 10.5 hours after tirelessly rolling around for an hour, and then on Sunday night crying for a half an hour and rolling around restless for 2 hours after being put down by Grandma (Jeff and I were out celebrating my 31st birthday).
  • She understands what diapers are and how we put her wet (cloth) diapers in a diaper pail next to her changing table. When I was unloading her Honest order (we use their disposables overnight) and Jia was “helping.” I was mixing up patterns of diapers into our storage basket and she took a disposable diaper and put it in the cloth diaper pail. 
  • Tries to put her shoes on my feet.
  • She pretends to wash dishes and her high chair. She grabbed a napkin off the living room table and brought it into the kitchen and started “scrubbing” the dog dishes (video below). Later she crawled over to her booster seat at the dining table and started wiping it down, haha. I think she’s sending a message that all mommy does is chores ha! 

Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: Earning Her Keep” »