My top tips on Baby-Led Weaning

1. Remember eating is a social activity - so relax, eat together with your baby, talk to him/her, and don't just stare at him/her.

2. Always have a camera beside you to capture the decisive moment.

3. Let your lo offer you food or brush your teeth :wink:

On "Potty Training"

-When did you start?

the 8th or 9th month.


-How did you start? - how did you introduce the potty, how many times a day, etc?

We let DS sit on a potty every morning for a short while so that he is familiar with it and plays with it (DS usually poos in the morning). Now when DS needs to poo his facial expression will become very serious (or even cry for a brief period [just 10 seconds - so we need to be very sensitive]), and we will put him in the potty immediately, and he wil poo brilliantly there then.

We only introduce the potty for pooing but not peeing yet, and at most once a day. Actually we consider ourselves doing part-time elimination communication, not potty "training" - because we concern not about the "control" (though DS does hold on for 15 seconds :D ) but the "release" and responding to the need.


-How do you get them to stay on the potty?

We find that if DS still hasn't "finished" yet (judged by the amount of "output") it is easier to persuade him to stay longer. We usually use two methods:

1. If DW is the main one helping, I will sit on a IKEA little baby chair and pretend that I am also pooing (I make some noises [mmming "Jingle Bells"] and do some hand signs)

2. Or we just give him something (e.g. a book) to read so that he forgets to leave.


-A few of the sites I've just read have suggested that you need the child to be able to communicate verbally more than lo is able to at the moment (we have 'bye', 'hi' and 'woof' at the moment...)

DS is not very interested in hand signs or words. Though he is an early walker (impulsive and motor-driven), apparently he will be a late speaker. Today is the first day he really does "bye bye"! :D

Where are you now?

I am sitting in the reading room in front of a desktop. Beside me there are two DIY bookshelves made of universal angle iron that hold in total 900~1,000 books, but the books are very disorganized so actually only children books are accessible! Behind me is a high wardrobe but the doors are not easily opened, again due to the piles of books on a table. Actually this room is also our storage/garbage room - in but not out. It is a mess because I have no time nor mood (is a bit depression an excuse?) to tidy it up! Books and notes have become my burdens, I hate myself having been stuck too long (though enjoying parenting) but can't give them up at the moment - if the global climate change really gets worse maybe they can be used for keeping warm on the day after tomorrow.

Re: late walking

I also know a boy who started to walk only after 18 months.

IMHO, the timing of walking of a baby very much depends on his or her temperament (besides muscle strength and balancing). Your lo may just have an easy temperament - she is content about her current accomplishments. Or she just approaches walking a bit more cautiously. In either case, this is a blessing in disguise.

So don't worry - when she finally starts to walk, she will walk very well.

Ideas for Sleep

DS is a very intense and sensitive baby and could wake up every 30 minutes at night at worst. He has been a very challenging baby since birth. If on one particular night he can sleep 2 ~2.5 hour stretches we consider that night a victory. STTN to us is a myth.

If your lo wakes frequently at night recently, may I ask you the following questions?


1. Did your lo sleep "better" before? I ask this because frequent night-wakings of a previous "better" sleeper is often due to medical/physical causes (e.g. sickness like infections, food allergies, indigestion, etc. - assuming the physical and social environment is unchanged). Tense babies can't sleep.

In another forum, a mother who initially had attributed frequent night-wakings of her daugther to sole psychological causes (which may lead to the bad conclusion that the baby is "manipulating") later found that she actually was suffering from serious double ear-infections.


2. I always reassure DW that night-time parenting should be a teamwork, and fathering down is an important skill/resource to develop, and to prevent her from burning-out.

Your DH may not be able to make your lo asleep, but perhaps he can make him sleepy before bringing him to you? and you may take a short rest (say 1 hour - an adult's sleep cycle; I know it's short, but it's like a sip of water in desert) when your DH is comforting him. This has been one of our survival techniques when the situation was seemingly unbearable.

He first may better practise this the night before the weekend as he will have a holiday the following day?

If your DH succeeds to comfort him, you have developed a variety of sleep associations for your DS besides nursing him to sleep (though nursing to sleep is one of the world's beautiful great thing to do unless you are exhausted) - in our case, they are DW's patting DS's back instead of nursing, and my wearing DS down to bed using a sling.


3. Can you nap with your lo? Your lo still needs 2 or 3 naps everyday right? Since I am a poor sleeper at night, I always look forward to napping together with DS (while lowering our standards of household tidiness and outsourcing as many tasks as we can). (If you must rock/swing him to nap and cannot put him down I can share a little bit how to deal with this)


4. What is your current sleeping arrangment? For us the core problem is the proximity (i.e. sleeping distance) between the parents and the baby - too far away DS will have nighttime separation anxiety, too close he will be easily triggered. We have experimented alternative sleeping arrangments (given our small living space), our current solution being me sleeping outside the bedroom (i.e. on the sofa - like what my own father had done), and let only DW and DS sleep together but stay wider apart. Balancing the stimulation with proximity maybe the way out for high need babies like DS (and possibly yours).


5. Does you lo nap well? One of the important things I have been striving to do is to protect better naps for DS. If he naps too few (e.g. only 1 when needing 2), too short (e.g. only 30 minutes) or wrong timings (e.g. too early) he suffers from nap deprivation and can't sleep well at night either.

I hope these help.

Re: How to persuade DH to stop smoking?

Symphathy to the situation of wives of smokers. I have no special tricks, but previously I have written to a good friend who used to be a heavy smoker (he smokes considerably less now). You may consider the following points:

@ Do you know any person who died of smoking? My father died at early fifty due to lung cancer. He was a smoker. This is my strongest argument.

@ Does he stink after smoking? Do you hate the smell? Tell him your feeling. Your feeling is irrefutable and hence powerful.

@ Second-hand and even third-hand smoking is harmful to the baby:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1774

@ Has his health deteriorated since smoking?

@ Has your health deteriorated due to second-hand smoking?

@ Challenge him: Does he dare to take a X-ray picture of his lungs? I've heard that this is very effective to deter one from smoking.

Re: Bought Avacado - What now?!?!

Is it ripe? If not, put it in a paper bag with an apple and/or a banana (to accelerate the ripening process) and loosely close the bag, and store the bag at room temperature. When it is ripe (check it every day - you press the shell and feel it starts to become soft) you can cut and spread the content on rice cakes, breads, etc. Or just give your lo a pre-loaded spoon. Store the avocado in the frige for 2 - 5 days after it's ripe. If it is cut, wrap it first with a plastic wrap to keep it fresh.

Avocado is not sweet at all, but is DS's most favourite food. Perhaps DS knows that it's very nutritious (good fats)?

Re: Sandwich Fillings ideas?

Avocado, cream/cottage cheese, baked beans, scramble egg, nut butter, sardine, or hummus?

Go Organic?

We have gone organic for the following:

Rice cakes, cereal, flour, apples, eggs, baby corn, frozen chicken breasts, frozen sweet corn/ broccoli/ spinach, cinamon, sugar, butter, nut butter, yogurt, oatmilk.

We used to buy organic tofu too but we often forgot it and it stank in the fridge!

Yes organic foods are VERY expensive, so we buy only those DS eats most, and reserve them only for him.

No Spanking, please!

Recently in the children playground we often go, there is a kid (around 3 yrs) who SLAPS every other kids's faces whenever they are blocking his way (e.g. when he wants to see what interests them). There are always crying then.

Once when both his parents were also present and the same thing happened, we made a complaint to the parents, and the result was...

...the father rushed to the kid, shouted at him and SLAPPED his face!!!

Violence breeds violence. Isn't it clear?