Trends for Trendy Mamas

Everyday you hear about a new trend in child care and you think, damn it, how did I miss that? I wanted to share with you, adventurous new mothers and mother-to-be's, a couple of things you may not heard of but may want to consider...

1. Teaching your baby sign language
Babies cry, whine and get frustrated and as parents most of the time you really don't know what's going on. Is he hungry? Does he have pain? Does he need to be changed? The idea behind sign language is that you teach your baby the sign for simple and useful words and and they start communicating with you in sign language before they start talking....


Here's a very well-done website. They even have a dictionary and a video clip that goes with every word.
http://www.babysignlanguage.com/

Photo from www.guardian.co.uk

Did I do it? I felt like he was already telling me what he wanted with his own gestures and sounds it was up to me to decipher them. But yeah, did I decipher? No...but I'm working on it. I know of some friends who have successfully done the sign language. If you don't believe, here's a cute video of a 6 month-old using the sign language.

2. Potty training your baby
The idea behind potty training your baby is that instinctually no baby wants to pee or poop on himself, just like other animals. And unfortunately we kind of force them to do that by using diapers. So you train your babies from very early on to pee and poop in the potty.

Here are two interesting links for brave mamas:

http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/

http://www.bornpottytrained.com/

And also for Turkish speakers only, a wonderful blog, and the entry of a mother who uses this technique:
http://yavrusu.blogspot.be/2012/12/tuvalet-iletisimi.html

Photo from http://www.infobarrel.com

As the mother of a social pooper (i.e., won't poop unless you talk him into it), I believe this is true...What did people do before Pampers, right?? I would have liked to try this if he was not going to daycare.

3. Baby led weaning
The idea behind baby led weaning is that children can feed themselves proper food if you just hand them the food. So you don't do mashed anything...Here's the link: http://www.babyledweaning.com/

Photo from http://jesshilton.blogspot.be/2012/04/baby-led-weaning.html

I believe it's important for babies to know what they are eating looks like and smells like. But since I have a strong chocking anxiety, I was not very motivated to hand him things.  Plus he doesn't naturally put things in his mouth (I know, weird!). What I did though was to hand him whatever he was going to eat. For instance, I handed him a whole carrot to play with, before he was eating carrots. But again, I have friends who love this. I don't blame them, this would have saved so much of my time.

4. Baby classes
There are classes out there for both babies and mothers like mom and baby yoga or fitness classes, and also only for babies like bébé nageur (swimmer babies) or Pekip (thanks Mai-Ni), naked babies in a hot room, playing around. It's a good way to get out of the house, do a fun activity together and socialize with other mothers.

Did I do any? I really wanted but no! Should you do it? Yes and let me know how it goes....