On The Menu: Sweet Potato Sticks

All you need to make Sweet Potato Sticks is one small-medium sweet potato, a cutting knife, a peeler, a small or medium saucepan and something to stir the cooking potato pieces with!



I started by peeling the sweet potato and chopping it into little sticks while waiting for some water to come to a boil on the stove.



Once the water came to a rolling boil I placed the pieces into the water and cooked them for approx 15-20 minutes. You want to keep an eye on them and stir frequently. We are looking for VERY soft potatoes that still keep the stick-shape. Tricky! To test them, I pulled out the thickest piece and would "bite" into it with my lips. If I could easily remove a chunk this way, I knew my babies wouldn't have trouble squishing it with their gums.



The finished product... that's a lot of sticks!



Storing it all. This stuff came in my Baby Bullet kit (except for the couple of leftover Beech Nut jars on the right). Each Baby Bullet "Happy Face" gets two sticks, one for each baby per feeding is quite enough for the time being. Each of the compartments in the yellow container holds 4-5 sticks for freezing. And I put the leftover, not-very-stick-like pieces in the Beech Nut jars as treats for my pets. I ate quite a few pieces myself while storing everything away... ha!

There you have it! Perfect for grasping and squishing to feel the texture and play a little... but soft enough that baby can mush it in her mouth and swallow a bit if she likes. Super tasty, highly nutritious!

Whoops! Maybe we aren't ready...

So after a week of feeding brown rice cereal to the girls, I have come to the conclusion that they aren't ready for solids. I felt that maybe since Squishie wasn't sleeping well at night any more, she was ready. But two things have made me reconsider... first of all, she seemed to be sleeping better for a couple of nights (and by better I mean still waking twice a night instead of 3-4 times, after they had been sleeping through the night for a couple of weeks) but went right back to waking just as often. Secondly, I came across some research on baby sleeping patterns that has convinced me she's just going through a big change with that, and needs me more often because of it.

We've had our bad days and our good ones with the rice cereal, but I think overall they may benefit from waiting a bit longer. In the meantime, since I'm already on this food making kick (haha), I've decided it certainly can't hurt to install some baby-led weaning techniques and see where that takes us.

Instead of making sweet potato puree, I switched it up a bit and made sweet potato sticks instead. Soft enough for mashing between fingers and gums, but easy to grab and wave around. This way the babies can enjoy the texture of it in their hands and put it in their mouths when they want.

Since they are both just a tad behind in motor skills for their age, I'll still be using a spoon to help out here and there, or help place food in their hands rather than waiting for them to grab it all the time.

On The Menu: Sweet Potato Puree

We have been giving the babies their homemade brown rice cereal for the past week, usually once a day but sometimes twice! As expected, most of it comes right back out. They do have better sittings where I feel like a lot of it is going down the hatch.

It's important to remember: "FOOD IS FUN UNTIL THEY'RE ONE!"

I have received some pressure (mostly just "comments" really) that I need to feed the babies when they're hungry instead of right after breastfeeding... but my personal plan is NOT to wean them at this time. An infant's main nutrition needs to come from breastmilk or formula until they are approximately 1 year old. Anything else is considered extra. This is why I only feed them solids immediately after breastfeeding. This way, my supply isn't hurt, and there is no pressure to get in a "full meal" of solids. My kids are only almost 5 months old for crying out loud and don't even have teeth. How can I expect them to get any kind of proper nutrition from solids? I can't.

I am going to be "test-driving" new foods for an entire week before introducing a new one. This way their bellies have time to adjust and if any kind of allergic reaction happens, we'll know exactly what caused it.

This week I'll be making...

Sweet Potato Puree

1 sweet potato (I went with a smallish one) - will yield approx 20 oz of baby food
1 cup of water

Boil or steam the sweet potato until very soft. Blend the sweet potato with the water until desired consistency is achieved. You can always add more water to thin it out, whether to the blender or when serving.

I wanted to try bananas but I realized I had none... however I did have that sweet potato, haha! It's all about working with what you have sometimes. Bananas will probably come next week.

By the way, Squishie and Tiny are getting better at grasping stuff and bringing it to their mouths. I might just try some baby-led weaning techniques soon!

Reading up on "Baby Signs"

The kiddos are almost 5 months old and Papa and I have decided that we will attempt signing with them. We think this will be a good way to communicate with our babies until they can talk.

For those worried that signing with their young ones will hurt their development, take these points into consideration.

1) All babies sign naturally... we just don't always realize it.
2) When you wave goodbye or hello, or shake your head when saying yes or no... you're signing!
3) It is important to SPEAK to your child while signing.
4) To say you are afraid that your child will not speak after learning to sign is like saying you are afraid your child will not walk after learning to crawl. It is a natural transition.

The babies may not understand signs or begin to sign back until they are around 9-12 months old or so, but I have begun signing now because I need to develop the habit and learn the vocabulary.

Here are my resources:

1) The book "Baby Signs" by Linda Acredolo PhD and Susan Goodwyn PhD.
2) A set of flash cards called "Sign Language for Babies" from the publishers of Parenting Magazine.
2) An iPhone application called "My Smart Hands". Read more about it here: http://www.mysmarthands.com/Site/Baby_Sign_Language.html

I hope our journey with signing is both fun and rewarding.

On The Menu: Homemade Brown Rice Cereal (First Solid Food!)

It can be hard to figure out just where to start, so why not just jump right in and begin blogging about my experiences as we go. Today, Squishie and Tiny had their very first solid food.

Let me start by saying I was hoping we'd be able to make it to 6 months before solids for a couple of reasons.

1) I read that when breastfeeding (which I am doing exclusively), many mothers have a better success rate of meeting their breastfeeding goals of a year or longer when solids have not been introduced until 6 months of age.
2) I am afraid that it will affect my milk supply but I can throw in a couple pumps during the day to help support that.
3) I really, really like exclusively breast-fed cloth diaper laundry. No scraping before washing and less stinky poo.
4) I am nervous that their digestive systems aren't ready, especially being 5 weeks premature.

However both babies have been undoubtedly exhibiting signs that they are ready. I watch their body language like a hawk. I can plan things however I want, but it is Squishie and Tiny who ultimately decide what happens.

I hoped to baby-led wean, but they are slightly behind in motor skills for their age (again with the prematurity) and I did not want that to dictate whether or not they'd be able to eat. In a nutshell, baby-led weaning excludes the use of a spoon and relies solely on baby bringing food to his mouth on his own. This method makes perfect sense to me but I will have to tailor it to fit my babies' needs. I will not be excluding the use of a spoon but later on I will be letting them pick and choose a healthy selection of finger foods on their own.

I do still want the very best for them as far as first foods go (and beyond of course) so I chose brown rice cereal to start with. Brown rice is much more nutritional, and tasty in my personal opinion, than white rice. It is good to start with because it's bland and will be easy on their tummies. It's also very easy to make!

I bought a Magic Bullet Baby Bullet food processor with all the bells n' whistles to help me in my baby food making journey. I purchased it for 20% off at Bed Bath and Beyond.

Homemade Brown Rice Cereal

1/4 cup uncooked brown rice
2 cups water

Grind the rice into a fine powder. Add to the water in a small/medium pan and bring to a boil. Once boiling, cover and let simmer for approx 20 minutes. Stir frequently to keep it from getting too chunky or boiling over. For me this yielded 12 "spoonful" servings (I froze 6 and put 6 in the fridge).

Remember, fresh food stored in the fridge is good for 3 days and in the freezer for 30, so you don't really want to make too much ahead of time. If the cereal servings thicken too much you can always add a bit of water or expressed breastmilk to thin it out right before feeding.

Squishie and Tiny did well. I don't think they actually ate much but it was a fun experience regardless, and of course they'll get the hang of it soon.

Welcome to Mama Papa Baby Baby!

Welcome to Mama Papa Baby Baby -- an outlet for my journey and trials as a first time mother of twins. I will be sharing information on simple and intuitive parenting, for all of our experiences are unique and fun to discuss.

My approach to parenting can be summed up to this: I love taking many different methods and making them "my own". Overall I am more keen to a "natural" type of parenting although I am not extreme by any means. I much prefer to use the word intuitive - I do not follow any particular set of rules and I go with the flow.

There are many labels out there that define how you raise your children. Breastfeeding, bottle feeding, cry it out, baby-led weaning, co-sleeping, attachment parenting, baby signing, cloth diapering... I could go on. However I like to see things as not all-or-nothing. I fall somewhere in between and I feel that a lot of parents do. I simply pick my favorite elements out of everything and form my own style. No pressure, no judgements... that is how I like it!

Furthermore, I love to read and absorb information through the experiences of others. That is why I have decided to take the time to form Mama Papa Baby Baby and share what I learn.

Meet the family -- I am Mama :) My dear husband is Papa. We were blessed with identical twin girls, Squishie and Tiny. As of the beginning of my blogging project, Squishie and Tiny are 4 1/2 months old. I am at but the very start of my parenting journey and have already learned very well that no matter how we plan things, Squishie and Tiny dictate the show. I'm following their lead!

I hope to cover many topics and blog for a very long time... and learn a few things in the process!