April 22nd, 2010

Earth Day Confessions

I’m trying to raise my baby in an greenish manner – cloth diapering, breastfeeding, organic food, local food, homemade food, limited plastic toys, but it has not been prefect. We used disposables from birth to 5 months, then still used disposables at nighttime until about 7 months and it took us until then to cloth diaper exclusively. And I dry them in the dryer, no multi-colored line of fluff swaying in the breeze at my house. Maybe if I get a clothesline… Spencer has had some formula every day since he was 6 weeks old.  In the beginning, I gave him organic formula, but he spit up so much that the physician recommended switching to soy – and they don’t make an organic soy formula, at least not that is sold at Target, where I do my formula buying. He’s back on organic, though, he seems to have outgrown the spitting up. I do make as much baby food as I can, primarily from organic or farmer’s market fruits and veggies, so we are mostly good there. But the baby snacks, oh the baby snacks, which brings me to my biggest green sin of all.

Spencer loves Baby Mum Mums, which are processed rice rusk snacks that they don’t sell in any of my local stores, but I kept hearing about them online. So I ordered them from Amazon. I order tons of stuff from Amazon. It all gets shipped. In cardboard boxes that I then recycle, but still. There is already so much waste in baby packaging, from all the extra cardboard inserts in a package of bodysuits to the very large box for a medium sized toy. And I add in packaging and shipping to all that. Part of the issue is a lack of local stores. We don’t even have a Babies R Us. It is on town over. I am pretty much limited to the two Targets and one small used/new mixed store for stuff. Food is mostly covered between Target, the local health food store and farmer’s market. Clothes I can buy at Old Navy, Target again, any of the department stores or Kohls. I would love to buy  organic cotton clothes and Made in the USA cloth and wooden toys at a local store, but the option isn’t there. So, I buy online and ship. I am going to try and buy more used clothes at one store or thrift stores now that I will have more time. Will that offset some of my non-green shipping? I hope so.

April 8th, 2010

New Foods

I’ve been working on introducing new foods as much as possible. I think we have had enough success and no sort of reactions, so I stopped waiting the three days between new foods. Spencer has now had: potatoes (mashed and a bit of au gratin), salmon, kidney bean, chirimoya, tangelo, olives, zucchini, pears, macaroni, various types of baby snacks and yogurt. Oh my the yogurt. He loves it. All flavors, all kinds. I switched from flavored YoBaby to flavored greek because of the sugar and I am going to try plain greek this week. He seems to prefer the thicker texture of the greek and as an added bonus, he can keep greek yogurt on his spoon a little better. We are working on baby-led-eating (thanks to starrymom I now have a better phrase. Something about baby-led-weaning, bugged me) with some spoon-fed, mushy stuff mixed in. Time permitting, I try to let him feed himself at least half of a serving, once I get the spoon loaded up, but some mornings before work, time is a little tight.  Dinner allows us to be much more focused on baby-led-eating. Zucchini sticks and macaroni have been my favorites so far.  Of the homemade foods, pear and apple pureed together is his new favorite. And why wouldn’t it be? With a little cinnamon on top, we’ve been known to share a bowl for dessert.

March 4th, 2010

Lean, Green Eating Machine

The only thing better than homemade baby food is home grown baby food.

Exploring the new world of avocados

Enjoying the fruits of our trees

February 22nd, 2010

Eating Solid Foods

Our foray in to solid foods has been going pretty well. So far, Doodlebug’s eaten oatmeal, applesauce, sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas and golden beets. Except for one jar of organic carrots, just to what it was like (not impressed), I have made everything from scratch. Oh – not the applesause, that was just unsweetened from the jar. He’s eaten applesauce both plain and with some cinnamon sprinkled on top.  I am really enjoying making my own baby food. I received the Beaba Babycook as a shower gift and it couldn’t be easier to use. It steams, chops and reheats, but I haven’t used the reheat function yet.

Oatmeal!

I am doing the pureed thing, but having looked in to baby-led-weaning am being concious of his cues to stop. So far he hasn’t really given any. Doodle has liked all of the different foods and is practically spoon-feeding himself. Either I load it up and he grabs it and shoves it in or I hold the spoon and he moves his head forward to get the spoon in his mouth. Today, he realized for the first time that he could suck food of his fingers. Very exciting! Foods on deck: avocados (as soon as the ones from the tree ripen), green beans, peas.

Beets!