Conference Call

We apologize for our little hiatus. We just got back from a wonderful vacation to the more francophone part of our beautiful country. We thoroughly enjoyed Quebec as we got to learn more about Canada’s earlier history and of course, we couldn’t resist and had to sample Quebecois cuisine: poutine, mussels, crepes and smoked meat. Yum! Now that we’ve returned, and somewhat recovered from the jet-lag, we hope to get back into the swing of things.

One thing that I did notice is a conference happening next Saturday that might be of interest. It is put together by Baby Purity, a resource for parents who are interested in more natural and healthier options for their children. The Baby Purity Mother’s Conference is a one day affair held in downtown Vancouver on October 25, 2008 from 9am to 5pm. Topics that will be covered are nutrition for the entire family, healthy first baby foods, and safe household products. What I’m most excited about are the guest speakers: Christopher Gavigan, author of Healthy Child Healthy World, and Lisa Frack from the Environmental Working Group.

I just registered so there still is some spaces available. Cost is $38.99. Sounds a bit pricey, but I figure that lunch is included, I will be in the company of great resourceful and informative speakers, and I’ll come home with a loot bag.

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Making Deposits

My mom always claimed that my siblings and I were potty trained before we could even walk. I used to just roll my eyes and say, “Yeah right Mom, I think your memory’s a bit hazy there! Kids can’t be potty trained until they’re near preschool age.” Well, little did I know that what my mom said was true but more importantly, that it was possible.

My sister introduced me to a concept called EC, as in Elimination Communication. Basically, it is about you being aware of potty signs communicated from your baby and then using them to help your baby “eliminate” in a potty rather than in their diaper.

To tell you the truth, when I first heard about it, I was very skeptical. When I was pregnant with my third, my sister lent me the book, “The Diaper Free Baby” (by Christine Gross-Loh). Though it made it sound doable and I told myself I would give it a try when the baby arrived, I didn’t. I was too bombarded with sleep-deprived nights, breastfeeding fiascoes, spit ups, blow outs, gassy tummies, and colic to have to time to even consider EC.

But by around the time my little one was about 7 months, when she was sturdy enough to sit up on her own and we were settling into a routine of sorts, I thought about it. I paid more attention to my baby and realized that she had a distinct facial expression and emitted a little grunt just before having to “go”. The first several attempts to rush her to the potty and whip off her diaper initially startled her so much that she balked whenever I placed her on the potty seat. However, surprisingly only after a week or so, as she got used to sitting on the potty, we had our first deposit in the toilet.

It has been a couple months now, and I can proudly boast that I catch about 80% of her poops. And I swear she does purposefully communicate to me that she needs to go: she gives me a grunt, looks at me, and gives me another grunt.

Though the pee part has not been as successful, I have been working on it. All in all, I am grateful for less messy bums to clean and less diapers used. I am hopeful that we are on our way to becoming a diaper free house in the near future.

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Going Ga-Ga Over Bottles

What bottles are you using?

We started looking into this several months ago when our youngest were starting the bottle. At that time, the big manufacturers (Avent, Gerber, Playtex, etc) were still commenting on the fact that #7 plastics, which most likely contained bisphenol-A (BPA), did not pose any ill-effects to babies. However, after doing much searching online, there were a handful of other experts that said otherwise. Wanting to eliminate the possibility of BPA leaching from plastic baby bottles and being ingested by our little ones, we found other alternatives.

There are a number of BPA-free plastic bottles around (BornFree, Thinkbaby, Green To Grow, to name a few), but we decided to avoid plastic bottles in general when we discovered some glass options. The most economical ones are Evenflo classic glass bottles, about $2-$4 for one depending where you get them — the States vs. Canada. Those were the ones we started off with until we discovered that our babies did not like the small-necked bottles which required a “smaller” nipple.

We settled with BornFree’s glass bottles which were wide-necked and used a similar nipple shape as Avent’s. Of course, there was a wait list for them and plus they cost about $15 each. However, deciding to use glass dispelled any doubts about the safety of plastic bottles. And I think our hubbies were elated when we finally decided on which one to use and stopped all this talk about what bottles to buy, and what bottles to try.

You can find Evenflo glass bottles in the Lower Mainland at places like TJ’s Kids and Babies-R-Us or for those who venture south of the border to shop, at Along Comes A Baby in Bellingham.

As for the BornFree glass bottles, we’ve seen them locally at Pinky Blue, Baby On Board, and Capers/Whole Foods Market.

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Baby Safe Guide to Bottlefeeding

With BPA being such a hot topic, it’s hard to know nowadays what is safe and not safe when it comes to bottle feeding your little ones. For those in doubt, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has demystified it by creating a guide to infant formulas and bottles. It simply goes through what to look for in nipples & bottles, and which formulas are better choices. If you prefer, there’s a simple print out version that can be used for a quick reference.

For those who want to know more about BPA in baby formulas, the EWG has a summary of their findings.

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Massive Recall: Avent, Nalgene,…..

Because of Health Canada’s recent bulletin on BPA , many manufacturers are recalling their BPA products. So if you have some Nalgene, Avent and/or Gerber bottles, places like London Drugs, Zellers, Toys-R-Us, MEC and Canadian Tires are giving you store credit for bringing them back. Each store varies in what they’ll take back and in what condition. We just took ours to London Drugs and got over $100 worth in a gift card. They didn’t require a receipt or original packaging (I think Toys-R-Us is stricter and requires that), but the items brought back had to be on their computer system (meaning they had carried it in their store). Just call the stores to double check what their stipulations are. Oh, BTW, it didn’t seem to matter how old or used they were (cuz some of our stuff was over 3 years old and well-used).

So pull out all those stored Avent and Nalgene bottles and get some $$ back!

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