Six Things You Should Do When Feeding Your Child

I started giving solid food to Alisha when she was 1 year old. But she had soft food like rice porridge and other cereals in a box when she was 5 months.

For parents, complementary feeding is about ensuring that your baby gets adequate nutrition to grow and develop well whereas, for Alisha and your baby, it is an incredible adventure of new tastes, textures and smells (not to mention the amazing discovery of what happens when food is thrown onto the floor and spit out from her mouth!). However, continue to offer your baby a well-balanced variety of foods as you prepare her to one day join the rest of the family at the dining table:

Here are 6 basic things you should when you feed your child:

1. Mess de-stress Be realistic

You cannot expect your baby to eat without making a huge mess, can you? After all, her motor and chewing skills are not fully developed yet. Simply line the floor with newspapers or an old bed sheet. The sheet can be washed and used again for the next mealtime.

2.Spoons & fingers

Encourage your child to eat with a spoon. However, if she is not too keen, let her use her fingers. Just be sure her fingers are clean. Alternatively, you can offer her finger foods from about 8 months onwards in addition to her cereal meal. When your child reaches 1 year old, he/she always wants to try to feed herself with the spoon. You should allow this otherwise she would be screaming.

3. Colourful plates, bowls & cutlery

A colourful, non-breakable plastic spoon will be more appealing to your baby than a plain one. So use attractive, baby-friendly bowls, plates, spoons and cups to make mealtimes more interesting.

4. Serve foods creatively

Foods that look the same can be boring.
Present them in different ways: you can cut bread, fruits or vegetables into various shapes and sizes, or serve fresh fruits as juices.

5. The high chair

Use a baby high chair with a rim around the edge of the tray so that food does not fall onto the floor. It should also have a restraining strap or bar to keep your baby from slipping down between the tray and the seat. Whenever you go to shopping center, she will always love to sit in the baby chair while eating.

6. Keep calm at all times

If your baby does not seem to be enjoying her food, do not worry and do not force her. Learning to eat takes time and practice, so be patient. Do not expect her to be able to eat like older children. Alisha is fussy sometimes, so we have to divert her attention and try to feed her while she is entertained.

You may wonder if your baby is getting enough food since most of it ends up on the floor. You need not be overly concerned if she is still being breastfed as breast milk provides her with most of the nutrients she needs. However, do be persistent in getting some food into your baby – while allowing baby to feed herself, you can ensure she gets some food into her little tummy by spooning food into her mouth yourself. Though we, mothers suffer breast sore sometimes.

Here are some products for your baby:

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How Babies Learn To Talk?

My daughter, Alisha, is already 1 year and 6 months old and she only utter a word "ad", "mi","hi", and the rest of the words she said are her own language. I am a bit worried cause Nanay, my mother, said my niece are already talking few straight words. My niece, Bella is 1 month older than Alisha.

They said that if parents want their infant to grow up speaking like an adult they should talk to them like they are adults. So that's what me and my husband are doing. But new research from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Wisconsin confirms that talking to babies in baby talk, as mothers have been doing for centuries, is pretty effective and helps them learn language faster. It is clear that infants like listening to baby talk better than adult speech. So i better change my style.

He said further that babies in the study were able to identify specific words from nonsense sentences more quickly when the sentences were delivered in baby talk than when they were delivered in the more monotone cadence characteristic of adult speech.

Lead researcher Erik D. Thiessen, PhD, of Carnegie Mellon University says the infants learned words about 25% faster when exposed to baby talk.

What is baby talk?

Known in language development circles as infant-directed speech, baby talk is characterized by short, simple sentences delivered in a high-pitched, sing-song voice. Vowels are also dragged out, and each word of a sentence tends to be clearly spoken.

Thiessen says baby talk and the exaggerated body language that goes along with it tends to grab an infant's attention. And the simple sentence structure and slow word delivery make it easier for infants to learn.

"It isn't that babies can't learn from adult-directed speech," he tells WebMD. "They will figure it out eventually no matter how they are talked to. They just tend to learn a little faster with infant-directed speech."

The findings may also help explain why adults have so much trouble learning a second language, even though they are able to speak their own language effortlessly, Thiessen says. Adults tend to learn individual words of a new language easily. But they often have trouble understanding the language when it is spoken by native speakers because words tend to run together and no longer make sense.

"There may be something about the simplified way that people talk to infants that makes it easier to break into a new language and figure out what is going on," he says.

Talk Silly to Baby

The new research should help calm the fears of parents who have heard that baby talk could slow their child's verbal learning, says researcher Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, PhD. Michnick Golinkoff directs the Infant Language Project at the University of Delaware and is co-author of the books How Babies Talk and Einstein Never Used Flash Cards.

"We know that infant-directed speech really helps babies break up the speech stream to find the individual words," she tells WebMD.

"Parents should feel comfortable talking silly to their babies. Babies love it and it helps them learn."

Another findings:

"According to research conducted by Janellen Huttenlocher, the actual size of a toddler's vocabularly is strongly correlated with how much her mother talks to her. Dr. Huttenlocher found at twenty months old, the children of chatty mothers averaged 131 more words than the children of mothers who didn't speak much. At two years of age, the gap more than doubled to 295 words.

"Other researchers have found that talking to children a lot not only affects their vocabularly, but also their intelligence. Betty Hart, PhD, and Todd R. Risley, PhD, observed how parents interacted with their one- and two-year-old children. At age three, the ones who scored the highest on intelligence quotient (IQ) and language tests were the ones who had heard the greatest number of words at one and two.

"Even though your baby may be surrounded by conversation from birth on, it is important that you talk directly to her before she can talk back to you. You don't need to ask her a lot of questions or require her to respond. Your purpose is to build her understanding of language to help enhance her expression of language."

"A good enough reasons to start having silly conversations to my daughter!"

What about you? What are your ways in helping your children talk faster? Do you mind to share?

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Don't Ignore the Signs: How Emotional Infidelity Can Ruin Your Relationship

Emotional infidelity can start with a simple hi or a wink. It begins in a boardroom or a chatroom. One spouse says, "What's the problem? We're only friends."

The other spouse can't believe the reassurances. So the jealousy builds and a wedge is driven between partners. Sometimes nothing really is going on, and sometimes an affair is in progress. It's only a matter of time.

So how can you tell if your spouse is a potential cheater? How can you stop a relationship from becoming romantic outside of your marriage? Here are five topics to think about before determining if your marriage is in the danger zone.

1. Secrecy: Do you feel as though your partner could be telling you more about his or her new friend? Or do you hide the details of your platonic relationship from your spouse? If so, why? It's best not to keep secrets from your partner, even if you think he or she will be hurt, angry or jealous. If you want a successful relationship, trust and honesty is the one factor for marriage that should not be compromised.

2. Displaced Trust: Is information that should only be shared between husband and a wife, shared outside of the relationship? Topics like sexual intimacy, irreconcilable differences, personal finances, and detailed accounts of your partner's shortcomings are best left within the constructs of your marriage relationship.

3. Comparing: Does your spouse compare you to friend(s) of the opposite sex often? Or do YOU feel as though your spouse could improve in the areas that your special friend excels? Comparing once or twice may not be a problem, but habitual comparison is a warning sign.

4. Time Management: What type of time do you spend together as a married couple? Is it mainly dutiful, like paying bills or going to conferences for the kids? Or do you actually date-- one-on-one, no kids, family or friends around? If not, and you find yourself, or your partner, engaged in date like activities outside of your relationship, stop it. Either invite your spouse or don't do it anymore. Coffee talk can turn to pillow talk in the blink of an eye.

5. Attraction: Do you feel as though your spouse like the way his/her special friend looks? Are you attracted to the way your friend looks or the way he/she does something? If so, address this issue with your partner and then try to refocus your attention on each other, rather than the outside party.

If three to five of these topics need to be addressed in your marriage, I urge you to get professional help either from your religious leader or from a professional counselor.

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5 Tips For Successful Relationships!

"Love conquers all, right?" Well----it's suppose to. But most marriages will end in divorce. Most of their problems are about the children, money, or in-laws. When couples commit to a long relationship, there are specific personality traits they should have in common.

1. Similar physical texture (thick skinned/thin skinned)
2. Similar emotional stability
3. Similar degree of tolerance
4. Similar intelligence/understanding of situations
5. Similar Interests

Without these five traits, the couple live on difference planes, different worlds. They are inclined to drift apart.

Couples grow by adjusting to their differences, but some times, the amount of the difference may be too much.

Love provides the reason for being willing to adjust to the other person's difference from yours.

A frequent question is; "How do I know it's real love?" The answer may be that when you are enjoying something special - ex: a movie, a sunset, flower, song, and you long to have your partner to share it with. The degree of longing will determine how much in love you are.

Growth in a relationship should come from; doing things together, allowing things to happen, accepting them as is, and changing what you can. It involves sharing and caring.

Couples usually don't mind working at their relationship as long as they have a closeness to each other. They don't want divorce, they want understanding. Divorce is usually a rebellion at not being able to get through to each other. The couple are still in love, that's why it hurts so much to part.

There is a story of a couple who had been engaged for seven years. The young lady didn't have the courage to commit. They had their personalities profiled and learned to adjust to each other's personalities. They understood each other as individuals and their relationship flourished.

To perfect your relationships "Secrets For A Happier Love Life" is now available to help you. Get your FREE e-course at; http://www.faceuptoit-youcan.com/ssale.html. Contact Kathy at; success4u@faceuptoit-youcan.com.

This article is free for republishing with 8 years of teaching and 15 years in Toastmasters, Kathy Thompson really enjoys writing and speaking. She has a B. S. in Business Communications and has taught her programs around the country at various businesses and Adult Education Centers.

She writes and speaks about Health, Personal Communications (writing & speaking), and her unique specialty of "Face Reading" has brought her plenty of media attention.

Kathy's goal is to help you be all you can be and reach your potential.

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Uncover The Truth About Coconut Oil Versus Olive Oil

by Dr. Hotze

As a mother of 1 child and having a husband with a heart problem and diabetes, all i wanted is the best for them especially in terms of food. My sister-in-law will always tells me to be careful with foods with coconut milk because it is high in cholesterol and that when ever possible use olive oil or at least use it when frying for my husband's food.

When i was still single it never occurred to me or heard from my folks about the bad side of coconut milk on your health. Recalling from the past, our great, great people are mainly using coconut milk and oil whether cooking, shampoo or apply on their skin as lotion.

So, to make my confusion clear, i decided to research online on the above mentioned oils and i chose the article of Dr. Hotze. Here it is:

For the past few years, there has been a lot of media attention placed on the great health benefits of the Mediterranean diet with olive oil. During that same period, a lot of negative attention was placed on coconut oil stating that it is unsuitable in a healthy diet.

Coconut oil comes from pressing the flesh of the coconut, yielding a fresh coconut milk emulsion that is approximately 40% oil. Coconut oil received negative attention because it is one of the few vegetable oils that are saturated. A large majority of nutritionists and doctors advise that saturated fats raise cholesterol levels and therefore should be avoided.

Olive oil comes from pressing tree ripened olives. It has a distinctive fruity, olive flavour and comes in various levels of purity. Olive oil is a monounsaturated fat.

There have been studies showing the positive heart health benefits of olive oil. Typically, coconut oil has been taken to task as having an unhealthy impact on the heart. However, one study contradicts this theory. When coconut oil was fed as 7% of the energy to patients recovering from heart attacks, the patients had greater improvement compared to the untreated controls.-1 In addition, populations that consume coconut oil regularly versus other oils have lower rates of heart disease:

“Coconut oil is a saturated fat that is of the medium-chain fatty acid variety. Thus making it actually GOOD for YOU. Medium chained fatty acids are absorbed directly for quick energy, and contribute to the health of the immune system. They are not stored in the bodies cells, therefore, are not stored as fat. Coconut oil actually speeds up the body’s metabolism, making it an excellent partner in weight loss.” (Vibrant Healthy Living Now!)

Some researchers postulate that coconut oil may be one of the most useful oils to prevent heart disease because of its antiviral and antimicrobial characteristics.-2 It has also become a favorite among athletes and those serious about fitness:

“One health benefit of coconut oil that many health buffs and fitness enthusiasts wish to reap from its use is that it promotes faster metabolism of the human body. This means faster burning of body fats.” (From Organic Coconut Oil)

Both olive oil and coconut oil are great choices for your cooking needs. They can provide distinctive health benefits and coconut oil may not be the terrible oil it was once thought to be.

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The Wonders of Grapes and Grape Seed Extract On Your Health

Are you a grape eater or a red wine drinker? Are you aware the health benefits of grapes onto your body? Well me not that fully aware. What i know of grapes is just a fruit full of vitamins C, E and good for the heart, that is why i like it. But recently, i heard from people out there talking about the great benefits not only from eating grapes but from the seeds extract itself. I was curious then and want to find out through available resources from internet and just in time am having a blog related to health. So, i wanted to share this all with you especially those who don't know yet.

Nutrients Contents

1 cup serving of grapes yields:

57 calories 6 grams of protein 16 grams of carbohydrates 2 mg of sodium

1 gram of dietary fiber and vitamins A and C.

Grape seeds, grape skin, and grape juice contain several types of:

polyphenols, including resveratrol, phenolic acids, anthocyanins, and flavonoids

Flavonoids is an amazing array of over 6,000 different substances found in virtually all plants, are responsible for many of the plant color, the stronger the color, the higher the concentration of flavonoids.

Health Benefits of Grapes Seeds

Grape Seeds are rich in chemicals called proanthocyanidins or procyanidolic oligomers that exhibit antioxidant properties. Antioxidants have the ability to neutralise harmful chemicals called free radicals, which can contribute to premature ageing and are involved in the development of many diseases, including arthritis, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and cancer.

Proanthocyanidins may also help atherosclerosis, gastric ulcer, large bowel cancer, cataracts and diabetes. thus, grape seed and its extract may benefit people with heart disease and cancer.

One clinical trial demonstrated that the antioxidant action of Grape Seed Extract is 20 times more powerful than the effect of vitamins E and 50 times greater that vitamins C; and beta-carotene.

Because of its polyphenol content, purple grape juice provides a far greater antioxidant effect than orange juice.

What Are Other Benefits You Can Get From Seed Extract?

Some people call these polyphenols “nature’s biological response modifiers” because of their ability to help the body fight viruses, allergens, and carcinogens. That means that among their many talents, they exhibit anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, anti-cancerous and anti-microbial activity.

Not bad for a “waste product”!

Procyanadin: The secret anti aging vitamin for a younger looking skin
One particular type of phenol found in grape seed is called procyanidin. It is thought to protect the body from premature ageing. Scientists think they do this by increasing vitamin C levels in the cells and scavenging for toxins so the organs can get rid of them.

Procyanidins also bond with collagen, the most abundant protein in the body and a key component of skin, gums, bones, teeth, hair and body tissues. The bonding promotes cell health and skin elasticity, making it seem more youthful, in a process that works almost like a natural face-lift. Procyanidins additionally help protect the body from sun damage, which can also cause premature ageing of the skin.

Great help inside your body
Aside from the benefits mentioned above, procyanidins can improve your vision, the flexibility of your joints, the health of your arteries and body tissues (such as the heart) and also strengthen capilliaries and veins to improve your circulatory system.

This is important because the health of your circulatory system affects the health of your heart. It seems that grape seed extract delays the oxidation of low density lipoproteins, the fats that are responsible for “bad cholesterol”.

The longer it takes for LDL to oxidize, the less likely it is to start clogging up your veins and arteries.

People who drink purple grape juice can show an increase in oxidation lag time of 27%. So, procyanidins present in grape seeds are known to exert anti-inflammatory, anti-arthritic and anti-allergic activities, to prevent skin aging, to scavenge oxygen free radicals and to inhibit the damaging effects of UV radiation from sunlight.

Since most of these processes are linked to cancer, it follows that grape seeds are probably strong anti-carcinogenic and/or anti-tumor-promoting agents.

Studies show they may have particular use against colorectal cancer, and scientists are devoting a fair amount of new research to grape seed because they’re pretty confident about its abilities.

The other "secret ingredient" of grape seed extract.
One other of the grape’s hidden health weapons is also worth a mention: it’s called resveratrol. This chemical is found primarily in the skin and seeds, particularly in muscadine grapes, and it confers a number of beneficial effects to the body.

They include all those mentioned above, but also an ability to help the brain and its processes work efficiently i.e. they have neuroprotective capabilities. In rats, this has life-prolonging effects, so it’s reasonable to assume it may do the same for other animals, humans included.

Whats the best way to get grape seed extract into your body?
With the help of modern technology, we now have high-quality grape seed extract in the form of supplements available for you in store.

Tips for consumption

1. Use scissors to separate small clusters of grapes from the stem instead of removing individual grapes. This will help keep the remaining grapes fresher by preventing the stem from drying out.

2. If you are drinking grape juice for health benefits, avoid products labeled as grape “drinks.” This is often an imitation high-sugar product with little real grape juice.

3. Research conducted at the in Austria suggests that as fruits fully ripen, almost to the point of spoilage, their antioxidant levels actually increase hence their health value.

4. Since grapes tend to spoil and ferment at room temperature, they should always be stored in the refrigerator.

5. Loosely wrap unwashed grapes in a paper towel and place them in a plastic bag. This way, they’ll keep fresh in the refrigerator for several days.

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Women's Hair Trends in 2009 : Cuts, Style and Color

Throughout 2008, women's hair cuts did one thing: they got shorter. There was the bob hair trend, the pixie-crop hair trend, and a plethora of others in between. And unlike the length of women's hair, their popularity grew. Which leaves us with an interesting predicament for 2009's hair trends: the fashion forward, short hair styles of 2008 are no longer fashion forward. They're no longer unique.

So in 2009, fashion forward girls have a choice to make: keep the bobs and blend into the crowd or, to stand out, cut their hair shorter or let it grow.

1. Hair Cut Trends

• Cropped bob

To put it bluntly: the cropped bob is extreme. It's not quite a pixie crop nor a bob. Short all over, even with a heavily shortened blunt cut fringe, it's can only be worn by those who ooze confidence. Just look at Agyness Deyn's cropped, fringed bob. Attention grabbing, it's even far less subtle with peroxide blonde hair which I'm tipping as the best colour to wear it with.

• Pixie Crop

The pixie crop started as a hair trend in 2008 but, as a natural progression from the bob hair cut, expect to see plenty of it in 2009.

For those fashionisers who are willing to really take scissors to their hair, the pixie crop offers a bold look far less subtle than the cropped bob, and one that is both young and funky when done right. And doing it right has everything to do with the styling: as we learnt from Katie Holme's pixie crop a lack of styling and product and you can look suddenly middle-aged.

You can visit this site for more cute pixie cut

• The Bob

Perhaps both the cropped bob and pixie crop are too extreme for you? Or perhaps you've just got a bob and are eager to keep it. Never fear, the bob hair cut is still in fashion in 2009. It's just not as unique, but paired with the right clothes and hair style you can still own this look.

What hair styles should you pair a bob with in 2009? If you're bob is chin length, look at sexing it up with the bed hair style, or if your bob is shoulder length also consider an adaptation of the mermaid / 1940s wave style as well as bed hair.

• Long Hair

You got short hair trends in the form of the pixie crop and the cropped bob, and in the middle is ye old simple bob; so what does that leave us with? Long hair in 2009. And it's what I'm imploring all girls grow.

2. Hair Style Trends

• Flowing Long Hair

Add a bit of oomph to a long hair style by wearing it in a heavily voluminous fashion, a look perfect for pairing back with 2009's Bohemian Luxury Autumn (Fall)/Winter fashion trend.

• Straight and Sleek

• Mermaid/1940s Wave with Side-Part

• Milkmaid Braids

3. Hair Color Trends

• Peroxide Blond Hair Colour

When she wore a peroxide blonde, blunt-cut fringed hair style in 2007, hypermodel Kate Moss set two 2008 hair trends at once. And at the tail end of 2008, she may have done it again. In a photo shoot for Interview magazine, you'll find a peroxide blonde Kate Moss; one likely to make peroxide blonde a key hair color trend in 2009.

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