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For the past two years, there are days when I feel like I'm a walking zombie. When other mums tells me of how their baby sleeps or their bad days, i wonder when I would ever remember how it feels to sleep through the night again. A few months a go, I went through a semi weaning journey where my lil boy stopped feeding through the night and progressively since then, he seems to be sleeping better and better. One of the pitfalls though was that I still regularly woke up out of habit and could not for the life of me get back to sleep.

Tonight, after a feed, cuddle, my boy has just rolled over and put himself to sleep. The emotion I'm going through is one of total awe. Whoa, finally my boy has learnt to put himself to sleep. No music, no patting, no wiggles, and no feeding, for the first time ever, I can see light. And I can see sleep! Perhaps soon, maybe not tomorrow, we can both sleep through the night together as he will be able to self soothe himself to sleep. All that information about him needing to teach himself to sleep to be able to resettle himself, well, now he's done it! Albeit abit late but still. He's done it.

Sleep is so important and for my son, he has always slept well. He sleeps in, he sleeps longer than other babies or he naps longer when he hasn't had enough sleep. For me, this was much harder. Mums don't have the luxury of sleeping when their baby sleep all the time. During the early days, this was sometimes possible but when you return from maternity leave, have household chores and just living to simply get through, you just learn to survive on lack of sleep. You even forget that you need sleep to function better. I'm generally quite a cheerful optimistic person and yet, if I spent time to reflect, I think my patience and stress levels has taken a hit. Not on my son and hence I always think it's fine but definitely more with the ones surrounding me. I always have patience for my son. But there is a time when it's not just about me and my lil boy but the rest of the family and surrounding people too. Sleep. It will do me a world of good. And soon, I will be able to remember what it feels like to not feel tired all the time. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for reading.
 

My baby is turning two soon and part of organising his party is thinking of some nice goody bags for his lil friends.

Last year, I've already chosen organic sultanas to be added to the bags but this year, we have a large array of healthy goodies to choose from! I'm throwing in some Organix sultanas, definitely some Goodies ABC or gingerbread biscuit packs, organic lollipops (yum and I convince myself its not that bad to load him with sugar cos it's organic, hehe) and contemplating on the wholekids organic airpopped popcorns or Bellamy's fruit pinkies....  Hmm... What else in our stock that comes in minature size... Oh yes, the wholekids organic corn chips and sultana bars are easy to pop in party bags too.

Getting peckish just thinking about the snacks, i think it's time to raid our stock stash! Yum yum. Last but not least, just need to pop down to the local $2 shops for some cool kids book! I already have my eyes on a particular one, Toot toot chugga chugga! That's right, Wiggles board books for $2.50, can't complain about that!

Feeding. So cute, so messy and sometimes sooo difficult!

When our baby turned five months, I was ready for the solid journey. At the supermarket, I picked up a gorgeous aeroplane spoon and thought 'how cute!' But then I stopped myself and thought, this would be useful to save for later for when he becomes a more fussy eater. Surely enough, that time came soon enough and no aeroplane spoon was going to help that. These are some of the ideas we have tried so far, it's not foolproof but always worth a try.

1. Cupcakes!! Make healthy ones with fruits and savoury ones with vegetables such as pumpkin or potato. They seem to love the novelty of eating from the cupcakes and being able to hold them in their little fingers.

2. Pancakes. For some reason our little one stopped enjoying his morning fruit so I sneaked it into the pancake mixture instead.

3. Straws. Such a novelty especially when they haven't used one before. Straws can be used not just for drinks but for healthy smoothies, weetbix smoothies and even soup!

4. Lamb racks or ribs. Those lil pieces of meats are easy to hold and for them to munch on. Even better when they are teething as it gives them something to bite rather than you.

5. Corn on the cob. My son's favourite. This keeps him quiet and busy as well!

6. Fruit sticks. Our favourites are rockmelon and honeydew.

7. Food from the 'adult' bowl or plate. I even tried giving it to him in a measuring cup once because it looked different!

8. Food from an icecream cone. Yes, desperate times calls for desperate measures.

9. Little party pies. Haven't been able to perfect these yet and they look quite imperfect but he eats it filled with apples or savoury vegies and meat so least it works.

10. Last but not least, let him eat by himself. Give him dips to play with. Ours love playing with dips and you can sneak in some spoonfuls in between!

Good luck on your feeding journey! And please share any tips and advice you may have to. We always need new ideas!
 

Some people travel backpacker style, I travel ERGO style.

We just got back from a trip to Sydney and my baby has been spending most of his time in my arms. He's now 18 months so quite the curious lil fella and loves exploring but come time to nap or when he get's overexcited running around, into the ERGO baby carrier he goes. I do love carrying him and I am super amazed at how long I was able to last this trip.

For someone who hasn't always been really fit at all, I could carry him for some really long distance and time, for me anyways. I carried him for about 2 hours at a time, first either to rock him to sleep and then continuing around while he slept. I travelled from Queen Victoria Shops to the Darling Harbour strip. On another day I took him for a walk along Paddington and then walked back practically into the city! He slept as we explored Chinatown, the shopping malls and while I snuck in some lunch or dinner. I do wonder if it is the ERGO or that I've become super strong and healthy as a mum. :) While we were there, we took him to see the fishies in the Aquarium. The lil words, whoaaaa, from his mouth was just adorable! He tiptoed over the glass floor and held my hand as he hesitantly walked across. Then proceeded running and charging around again. Kids have so much energy. My legs are aching abit but my back feels pleasantly good.

I'm not sure how much longer before I won't be able to carry him around anymore, he's approx 10.5kg now but while I still have the energy, I guess I'll just enjoy it. The great thing about him being in a sling is we get to see things and explore things together. It's so much easier pointing things out to him, jumping around with him and seeing him giggle and laugh. Then I can sneak in the odd kiss and cuddle too. Oh, he also learnt how to hug on this trip. He would wrap his lil arm around me when I say 'Hug' and then give me a lil squeeze and then followed by two or three pats on my back, all while he is in the sling.

My lil boy is allergic to dairy and egg.

I found out the hard way, when I gave him his first teaspoon of full cream milk with his cereal at 8 months. From cheerfully opening his mouth to shaking his head furiously, scratching and then his eyes started swelling up and he broke into hives. I whipped him into the car and rushed him to the private hospital across the block just to find there were no docs available for consultation so I went across to the GP instead. They thought he was fine even though he looked nothing like fine to me! I've had allergies before and was terrified that his throat was swelling up and his breathing might be affected. But the doctor calmly strolled along, saw another patient and then came to consult with me. After telling me yes he seems to have an allergy and come back if he looks worse in a few hours, he sent me away. I got in my car and took him to the Royal Children's hospital instead.

I don't care if he told me that my baby was okay, I felt so anxious and if it meant getting a second opinion was being silly, so be it. I sat at the Royal Children for another 3 hours but I felt better, just being there and close by to medical help. I know the GP was probably right but I was worried. My baby actually did get better while we were there, he wasn't so limp as when I saw him at home. I got some Aerius for his hives and the doctor referred me to see a specialist there in the next few weeks for allergy tests. It's tough being a mum, you worry so much!

So over the following months, I was super super careful with his food and yes, labels were scrutinise carefully. These are my son's top faves, for any mums also needing dairy and egg free alternatives for their baby and looking at what we have in store.

1. Organix Goodies Alphabet Cookies

2. Organix Apple Rice Cakes

3. Bellamy's Fruit Pinkies

4. Soy Yoghurt (No, we don't stock these :) Too hard to deliver cold!)

5. So Good Soy Icecream!

6. Raisins (We stock the Organix mini packs that are in lil kid's hands size boxes, great for lil fingers and to save you from picking up the ones that got away in the car!)

7.Bellamy's Fruit Snacks Apple

8. Happy Puffs - My son loves the sweet potato ones

9. Organic bubs Organic Apple and Berry Birchler Muesli

10. Sorbet icecreams (who doesn't like these?!)

And for cupcake recipes that are dairy and egg free, my dear friend from Boo Boo Designs - designer of beautiful colourful bibs (http://www.madeit.com.au/storecatalog.asp?userid=43260), sent and made delicious cupcakes from here for my son. Just so he could share in some birthday cake too. Xo

http://sweetrosie.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/egg-free-nut-free-dairy-free-vanilla-cupcakes/

These cupcakes are positively delicious!!

I wasn't that organic conscious until I became pregnant.

My own mum actually insisted on me eating more organic food while I was pregnant to make sure I was getting enough nutrients for my baby and myself.  She also insisted that since I was pregnant, it was especially important as my baby was going to eat whatever I ate!  So no takeaway and junk food for me while I was pregnant, well that was mum’s advice anyways! The funny thing was, when I had the craving and had them, I used to puke and feel really sick. It was so strange and after I while, I didn’t even bother eating junk food because I felt so sick instead. I felt like steamed vegies and steamed fish. That was my pregnancy cravings. Added seasoning and marinades felt sickening to me. The worse was cheesy carbonara, yum!! I couldn’t digest that either! Found out later that my lil boy has a dairy allergy and probably that’s why he made me threw it all back up. So began my healthy journey! When I began breastfeeding, it became a matter of what I ate would be passed onto him so it was natural that when he started his solids, organic of course it was!

The Internet and Google became my best friend. I searched up food ideas for 5 months, 6 months, 7 months, different recipes and the like and also about people’s opinions and facts about why I should feed him organic. What are the benefits of keeping his diet organic I wondered? I found that it was a common agreement that young bodies absorbed more nasties based on a weight to ratio measure. Since they are so small and their brains are developing, it was good to be able to keep any nasties away from their system. So off to the organic shop I went to every week. I started visiting lots of organic shops! Depending where I was during the day and how low my supplies were, I could know the best spot to grab them before going home. I noticed that different shops stocked different dry food and snacks and eagerly strolled the aisles to see what healthy alternatives I could offer my food loving bub.  Only made it harder with his dairy and egg allergies so any available organic snack without them was an exciting treat for me to find. And so this is where our organic journey all began...

I've mentioned before, that lots of the products we stock are the products our son loves. But we also stock some of the products we love!

My number one favourite and something I could never leave the house without was my Hugabub sling! I love it to bits and don't know how I would have survived without it.

My very first outing as a new mum, on my own, was to go visit the hubby for lunch on a Friday. In between finishing lunch and waiting for him to finish work to go home together, I thought I'll stroll to the city, a nice 15 minute walk along the banks of the Yarra river. It was a lovely stroll and I thought how lovely and relaxing it was, pushing my pram along and watching my little baby slowly falling asleep to the rhythmic push of the stroller.

Unfortunately, it didn't end up all nice and happy and I ended the day being quite upset and distressed! My lil baby wasn't happy when he woke in his pram and demanded to be carried. In between pushing a pram, trying to cover the rain with an umbrella and trying to carry him in my arms, my hands were very full! To top it off, I had people looking at me and I could only muster a meek smile as they walked past. The worse experience of all came when a lady walked next to me and started talking to me in a foreign language frowning and shaking her head at me. I finally gathered from all the sign and body language that she said I wasn't properly supporting my baby's head while he shook and bawled. I felt like a terrible mum.

I went home that day determined to find a sling and I wasn't going to go out on my own again unless I had one! I googled and googled and saw rave reviews about the Hugabub. I found out that they stocked it at Baby Bunting and went to check it out. Ever since, it always leaves the house with me and when it doesn't, I turn the pram or car around to make sure I do have it! My baby hates the pram but can stay happily in the sling all day. Hubby and I fight over who gets to wear it. It's awkward to tie initially but even hubby got the hang of it. We love the feeling of being able to hold him so close and he looks so snug in it.

Nowadays, my baby is not so tiny anymore so we have switched over to an ERGOcarrier. It's quicker to get on and off but I have washed and carefully put away my Hugabub, ready for no 2 one day. :) Love my Hugabub.

Hello and welcome to another post by Little Organics!

We must admit, we never really tried the organic skin care range for our baby and now we wish we had started earlier. Our little boy always had ezcema and we've tried a lot of mainstream ezcema creams of the shelves including QV Bath oil, Hamiltons before we setlled on Dermaveen. Since then, he has cleared up heaps and we just have the occasional ezcema bout. We just hoped that maybe it just got better with age!

Recently however, researching into and trying out the products we stock, we've fallen in love with the smell more than anything of these natural organic baby skin care range, knowing that they are made naturally and are so good for our baby's skin is a super added bonus. At the end of the day, the products actually aren't too pricey as we originally thought as we tend to need less quantity. But really, you can be the judge. Try it and see for yourself. We have so many different wonderful products, no doubt it might get confusing on where to start but I guess you have to start somewhere. A good way to try is if you still have all those little samples you blindly collected at the expos, they'll be in there. I know I found mine recently and thought, jackpot? Well, not really, but it did give me a chance to try some out! Ask us for free samples of any particular skin care range you are interested in and we'll try see if we can source some. Little Organics offer you choices, selecting the right one for you and your baby will totally be up to you.

Which smell will you like most? What is your favourite range? 

Welcome to our Little Organics Blog!

It's a new beginning for us and if you are reading this, chances are, there is a bigger new beginning happening in your life, the birth of your child!

As parents, we are proud to be launching a site that can benefit other parents like us. Our children are so precious and we always try to provide them the best where we possibly can. We love the products we stock and most of the range we sourced were based on the food in our son's cupboard!

Our little munchkin loves eating and it's about the only thing that keeps him from crying when we strap him up in his car seat or pram! Solids are an exciting journey and it's all about experimenting. They might enjoy something one day and absolutely dislike it another! And boy, can they get fussy. It's all about trying and trying, and trying some more. We hope you'll love our store, hopefully it will give you a chance to easily try out lots and lots of different brands and flavours to see which one your little one will become a fan of?

What will be your bub's favourite?