Headbath

A year ago, I was sitting at home in hot, pregnant leisure idly writing or not writing, depending on how I felt. I didn't have much of a routine and life was splendidly spent planning the arrival of baby E. This year, not so much. E is an active, inquisitive, and wilful (but relatively calm ) 9-month old who makes the adage, 'babies thrive on routine' seem like the truth ( that Fox Mulder and Dana Scully wasted 9 seasons looking for ). At  3-months  and  6-months , I couldn't really follow clock time with her; her routine was more fluid and consisted of watching her for signs of tiredness or hunger and responding accordingly. At 9-months of age, E eats solids three times a day eliminating the need for nearly 5 daytime milk feeds  and has dropped her evening nap. Dr. Weissbluth ( the not-so-benign guru of infant sleep ) predicted the end of baby's evening nap by 9-months. As is evident, our routine is still heavily influenced by Dr. Weissbluth's recommend

Pregnancy was among the most exciting times of my life. Not only was my body  doing the most amazing things  hacked, but suddenly, I was thinking about things I didn't know could be thought. While researching  and buying  things to get before baby arrives, I came across the various methods of diapering. All my life I assumed that babies use disposable diapers till they're old enough to be potty trained  I don't even want to think about how I'm going to get E to use the lavatory . But then a friend told me about how his sister used little muslin squares folded Furoshiki-style around her newborn's bum because this was better to prevent diaper rash. Plans altered, my mother procured the muslin squares and was learning how to fold them into diapers when I discovered the reinvented and reimagined cloth diaper. A diaper with options - unlike any other! *creepy mustachioed salesman does thumbs up* As soon as I read about these, I wanted to know if they were avai

On every packet of infant food and formula, there's a "note" that says mother's milk is best for an infant for at least 6 months. A month ago, I had (rather imperiously ) written about the benefits of delaying solids and starting E with something called Baby-Led Weaning or BLW. The central tenet of BLW is to allow the child to decide what to eat and how much of it to eat. I was completely convinced of its benefits when we started E on solids. For her first meal, she was given a tray of steamed carrots, beans, and apples. She gnawed on everything for a bit, and then dropped it on the ground to our very grateful dog. E's first meal Since E doesn't have a genetic history of food allergies, I was introducing a new fruit or vegetable every 24 to 48 hours. As such, she tasted pear, beetroot, broccoli, and potato. The warning that the book by Gill Rapley contains about BLW being messy should have been in red lettering; all caps; in bold; underlined; in

Sleep is crucial to a baby's developing temperament. Come to think of it, sleep is crucial to anyone's temperament. Every evening around 6, my three-month old would stare at me with sleepy yet alert eyes, willing me to do something. I had no idea what. But I knew that the fussiness would start in 15 minutes and go on for two hours until she wore herself out after an evening of crying and making me cry. One evening, the proverbial straw had broken my literal (upper) back. Supine, I googled infant sleep and got pages and pages of self-proclaimed experts unable to reach a consensus about how often infants need to be asleep. Some comments on these websites led me to bunch of books, all of which I bought. Of them, I found the following three books to the most helpful. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, by Dr. Marc Weissbluth  ( ₹454.50 ) . Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems, by Dr. Richard Ferber  ( ₹773) ; and The No-Cry Nap Solution, by Elizabeth Pantley ( ₹475 ).

Since my last post, I thought it might be a good idea to log E's routine at 6-months just so I can see how much it changes over the coming months. Her routine is based on recommendations made by Dr. Marc Weissbluth in his book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child . Morning E wakes up between 6 and 7 AM in the morning. She has dropped her morning mini-catnap so sad for slumbering me . She spends time literally frolicking with her dad till 8 AM after which I wrap her in our Flo carrier and take the fuzzball out for a walk. We're back by 8:30 AM and we start the naptime routine for her morning nap. I draw the curtains, change her diapers, nurse her, and then set her down in her crib by 8:45 AM.  She wakes up from this nap by 10 AM. I use her nap time to steam some fruit or veg so that it's the right temperature by the time she wakes up Pro-tip: freeze a porcelain plate and chuck the steamed produce on it to get it to the right temperature for baby . She gnaws on h

It's hard watching your baby cry when she's getting vaccinated. For the most part, the doctors seem sad to do it too but our general attitude is that it must be done and baby will cry.  Unless your paediatrician is like this guy: E doesn't like it when I use the nasal aspirator on her. So I took a tip from this doctor and turned it into a game (minus the flinging tissues a tree died so that a baby could laugh. Fair trade ).  Yeah, turn stuff into games. Babies like that. Now to show this to our paediatrician.

As we celebrate 6 months of E  the one E I haven't dropped ba-dum-tss  here at Headbath, I'd like to revisit the topic of her sleep. I jokingly refer to our efforts at training her to fall asleep (see here , here , and here , in chronological order) as our life's greatest achievement.  But babies are drunk little monkeys anyway. What Works In the three months since we started sleep training with E, I've found the following tricks to be very helpful in getting her to sleep and stay asleep. An  unchanging place to nap  - same room and same surface. She still sleeps in our bedroom but I shifted her napping spot from the family bed to the crib after she turned 5-months old. We took a trip to Kerala and when we got back, I wanted to see if she'd accept the crib and she did - no fuss! For a while she napped in her crib but slept at night in the family bed. However, since she turned 6-months old, she sleeps in her crib even at night. We had no transition

Starting a baby on solids is a momentous occasion in any parent's life. Among Keralites, this is marked by a special ceremony where the baby is fed a few grains of rice with some salt and jaggery  by every overzealous member of the family . A taste of foods to come, as it were. Look at the moisture on Shobana's forehead. While we have decided to forego this 'choroonu' ceremony, we still need to introduce solids to our exclusively breastfed baby. As E approaches the 6-month milestone, I've noticed that she now looks at me hungrily when I eat something, and sometimes, even mimics my chewing action. Our relatives started inquiring about her solid intake when she was around 4-months old, which is when, traditionally, babies are fed a strained paste of ragi or millets. This was generally given to babies whose mothers had an insufficient or nonexistent milk supply  American babies were fed donkey's milk. Imagine that!  but over the years, it has now become

Since this was our first time travelling with baby E, we were quite nervous. Understandably. I had everything planned out - from the time we were to leave home to the time spent completing airport formalities to when and how many feeds E would have prior to boarding. Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL Fortunately, the extended BIAL is supremely comfortable. It's like someone with an actual brain designed it - from the tables provided at security check (to rest your bag while you pull out electronics or a baby) to the heavenly little feeding room that I visited. Yes. Those are actual dispensers of baby wash, lotion, and cream. I was beyond touched. I had, like, tears in my eyes when I saw how these feeding rooms were designed with care - two lock-able stalls each featuring a soft pleather couch, a tiny crib (pictured) and an outlet with a tiny holder to hold your phone while it charges. Common to both stalls is a sink with a surface next to it (that I'm

E took her first plane ride from Bangalore to Cochin on August 30, 2014! We visited both sets of grandparents, one set of great-grandparents, a great-grandmother and lots of grand uncles and aunties. The trip went by smoothly as far as the baby was concerned . So much so that I'm actually quite confident about our next trip.  Not if you plan for the plane. If all else fails, put a boob in it. (The baby. Not the plane.) Here are my learnings from travelling with E at the age of 5 months.  #1 - Match Nap Time with Flight Time Our flight took off from Bangalore at 9 AM, which is when E goes down for her first nap. Although we had to leave at 6:30 AM to make sure we got to the airport on time, I was counting on the car ride putting her to sleep for at least half an hour. Refreshed from a car nap, E was indoor sunshine all through check-in and security check. We even managed to grab breakfast! By the time we were in the plane, E was quite tired and dozed off just

I had this lovely post reviewing feeding rooms in Bangalore. However, Blogger decided to eat it up. Shattered, I am attempting to rewrite it but I doubt it will ever be as good as the original one. But then again, it's a review of feeding rooms, how good does it need to be? We shall see. The existence of feeding rooms is not something I ever thought about. I figured they must exist because I've come across a few at airports and malls. The euphemistic symbol of a woman changing a baby signals that there is a room nearby that affords some measure of privacy such that a baby's diaper may be changed. Conveniently, there's a chair in said room presumably, to recover from diaper-tastic shock. Alternatively, a mother may use this chair to feed her baby. Not in image: Chair I wasn't sure if these rooms existed in Bangalore but since E was born in March, I've been pleasantly surprised to find them at the following places: Phoenix Marketcity, Whitefield Forum