April 2011
2 posts
Moving the blog over...
to mamanuggets.blogspot.com! Over in blogspot land, you’ll be able to comment directly to my posts (politely, of course), and it’s prettier. :)
See you there!
2 tags
Et tu, M&Ms?
Being preggo, I downed nearly an entire jumbo sized bag of peanut M&Ms…after which I read this post on huffingtonpost (my source for all things raging liberal and WTH?):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-david/post_1891_b_843577.html
Do food dyes cause ADHD and cancers? I’ve been following the debate, but the bottom line is, who knows? Maybe it’s all the sugar in our...
March 2011
15 posts
5 tags
Babies in cabs
Okay, New Yorkers. One thing I’ve seen now a couple of times that just makes me sick to my stomach is a parent without a car seat getting into a cab with a baby strapped onto him/her via Ergo or Baby Bjorn. I know, I get it. It’s a pain in the a** to lug around a car seat, and very often, you don’t plan the cab trip in advance. Maybe the buses aren’t running that day,...
2 tags
Update on the Heimlich Clear Cream
So after applying the cream on C’s legs and ear for around a week, all of here eczema patches are gone. Yippee!!! If they dare to resurface, I know now that I have an incredibly effective weapon at my disposal.
5 tags
Taking photos of your kids with cell phones...
So color me paranoid, perhaps, but due to a recent brush with what I thought was a potential stalker (and actually may be, though I haven’t heard from him in a while), I feel somewhat justified. I’ve gone through all of my Facebook privacy settings and set them to “Friends Only”, I’ve de-friended people I don’t know, I’ve removed as much information from...
3 tags
Follow-up to "Car Seat: rear- or forward-facing?"
So The NY Times has entered the fray.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/health/policy/22carseat.html
My only issue with this is that I think that 2 is still too young…Heck, maybe we should all be facing backwards (driver excepted)!
(I’ve cut and pasted the article here.)
Rear-Facing Car Seats Advised at Least to Age of 2
Toddlers are usually switched from rear-facing to...
3 tags
Vaccines
I normally try to stay out of the vaccine fray, since I respect both sides of the debate. I will leave it to the experts to debate the whole vaccine/autism connection, since a) I’m no expert, and 2) I’m pretty much an agnostic when it comes to that particular issue. But as someone who subscribes to a more holistic approach to health, I have been increasingly disturbed by the sheer...
7 tags
Miracle cure for eczema
So I always felt badly for kids I saw with eczema. Looked painful and unpleasant, and I always thanked God that C never had to deal with it. Little did I know. Sure enough, around two months ago, I noticed that there was a rough dry patch behind her knees. It soon spread and started turning red and raw. Then scabby. I also noticed that where the earlobe met her jawline, she had what looked...
3 tags
Car seat: rear- or forward-facing?
As an urban mommy, I don’t often have to transport my kid in a car — mercifully. And as an urban kid, C just barely tolerates sitting in a car seat. (Wonder if suburban kids feel differently, since they’re more habituated to it?) Up until now, C has been rear-facing, but given how boring it must be for C to sit facing the back of the car for long stretches of time, I had often...
7 tags
Stroller Madness
With this post, I’m hoping to spare some city parents out there from the same stroller purchase mistakes that I made. Maybe not so applicable to suburbanites…
We started out so promisingly. When C was an infant, we used the Graco SnugRide 32 Infant Car Seat, which doubles as a stroller if you buy the corresponding stroller frame. Efficient! Besides, I never understood the idea of...
4 tags
The arduous mama task of getting back in shape...
I’m not normally a Gwyneth-hater (and, gasp!, I think she’s actually quite talented — though she should probably draw the line at acting), but I was somewhat exasperated by her “every woman can make time” comment about working out. She can apparently work out with her “kids crawling all over the place”. That’s a nifty trick, and I wish I could do...
3 tags
Educational videos?
So Dr. Berman, the author of Superbaby, claims that all videos and TV of any sort are detrimental to kids and their development and recommends that we ban kids from watching them until they’re at least 3 years old. Agreed that plopping your toddler in front of “SpongeBob SquarePants” for hours every day may not be the best idea in the world, but I have to wonder if all videos,...
3 tags
Foam mat brouhaha
So this one just slayed me. For C’s play area, I had bought those cool interlocking foam mats, and she practically lived on it for the first year of her life. Then comes news from Europe that Belgium and France had banned them because of toxic formamide emissions.
http://www.papalogic.com/fail-foam-puzzle-floor-mats-pulled-from-the-market-in-france-belgium/
Reluctantly, we threw our...
4 tags
Baby Bjorn v. Ergo
For any new or soon-to-be moms on the market for carriers, hands down: Ergo. When I was doing research for carriers, I came across a lot of evidence that the Bjorns — at least the older models — were just bad for babies and their spines. Here’s a pro-Ergo discussion, that references the issue of baby’s health.
...
11 tags
Alternatives to conventional diapers
If you’re reading this post, I’m going to assume that you agree with me that conventional diapers are incredibly toxic (not to mention murder on the environment). Or if you don’t agree with me, the links below explain why I feel that way.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2010/05/28/f-disposable-diapers.html
...
7 tags
Diaper rashes...
Around a year ago, C had a diaper rash that was so bad, our ped recommended Lotrimin. While I was a bit hesitant about applying a chemical cocktail on my baby’s bum, I figured it was a necessary evil. So a week into the “treatment”, I realize that she is not getting any better. And I’m getting more and more panicked about applying this toxic cream on C’s poor, red...
6 tags
Milk
Why I don’t let C drink cow milk. Oh, milk, you had me at cow pus…
http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/dangers-of-cows-milk/
http://www.rense.com/general26/milk.htm
http://www.organichealthandbeauty.com/Dangers-of-Milk_ep_62-1.html
I could keep posting link after link. No doubt, my pediatrician would roll her eyes at me, but I’m cynical enough — and...
February 2011
2 posts
2 tags
SuperBaby →
While I’ve been more of a hands-on learner when it comes to this crazy job of parenting, a friend of mind bought this book for me as a gift…and I couldn’t put it down. It’s chock full of really useful information, and it has definitely changed the way I interact with my daughter. I’m not saying that all of the information is on target, and the author sometimes...
Introductions
My name is Suzy H, and I’m based in NYC. I’m a former corporate attorney turned fashion designer and the mother of a beautiful 20-month old girl, whom I will refer to as C, expecting my second (girl or boy). I remember being pregnant with C, busy with school and being completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information out there about parenting as well as the mind-numbing...