My Journey of Elimination Communication

In the Chinese culture it is accepted as the norm to attempt to potty train your child early, even though that is kind of also changing now thanks to successful advertising of disposable diapers. So even when my daughter was as young as 3 months old, I had plenty of family and friends that were asking me if I had started to potty train her. Being an ambitious parent, I read up on books about elimination communication and started out my journey at 5 months old. After a couple day of naked time observation, I figured out a rough pattern and her signs. It was a great success the moment I started, my daughter gets it, well, either that or I am just so good at catching her moments, she also fusses right before she wants to pee also. She pees within seconds everytime I put her on the potty chair, even though I had trouble catching the poop, but I was excited, thinking she will be potty trained in no time.

Unfortunately the story doesn’t go on smoothly from here. Soon, I find myself stressed out being obsessed with watching her signals. I know they say you are not suppose to stress out catching every pee, but with her peeing every 20 to 40 minutes after nursing, and nursing every 2-3 hours, plus surprise poop every once a while, and occasionally peeing 10 minutes after nursing instead. I find myself doing absolutely nothing besides staring at her and putting her on the potty. This is definitely not worth it, I could have been reading a story to her, playing with her, or stimulating her brain in some way. I decided to just do the potty in the morning time. Then my laziness kicked in, the morning time started to become shorter and shorter. Soon, I decided to just catch the first pee after waking up from sleep and naps, then just the first one in the morning. My daughter soon got tired of this game, she has long stopped giving me obvious signs before going, and she refuses to sit on the potty at all, arching her back screaming. Not wanting to turn this into a stressful even for her, I finally got so tired and just gave up completely and wrap her back into disposable diapers (yes, I even ditched the cloth diapers, because at this point I did not even want to know that she peed) and decide to take a long break for both of us. Meanwhile, a friend of mine that started elimination communication at the same time as I did is having great success, ironically, she didn’t start out as smoothly as I did in the beginning. After her encouragement, I decided to resume. By this time my daughter is already close to one year old. However, this time, I decided to take a different approach. I didn’t attempt to put my daughter on her potty again, but I did put her into cotton training pants. Every time she wets herself, I would tell her that she peed and immediately change it for her. I did this for a while in order for her to get use to feeling dry. Then I started putting her on the potty with her pants still on and on top of my lap, this is for her to get use to sitting on the potty again. After she is ok with the potty chair again, I took her to the bathroom with me, I would put her on the potty with her training pants still on and I would sit on the toilet and show her how to do it. Funny how that actually worked, she would actually pee with me. Then I started putting her on without pants. Now she actually will go in the potty if I take her in at the correct timing, and she will tell me if she wets herself, but definitely not to the point of telling me before wetting herself. It is still a lot of hit and miss at this point for me, but I do think all this training does work a little bit. At the very least, she definitely knows what the potty is for and is able to go on it. But I think the majority of the work of elimination communication is still very exhausting on me. I often think, will I do this again if I have another child? I think I might try it from birth the next time around and see how that goes, maybe if I did it since birth it would be easier? But I have a feeling it is probably going to be a lot of hard work still. The truth is it is so much easier to just wrap her up in diapers, ignore it and not think about it. I really hope by the time she is potty trained I can look back and say this is all worth it, but for now I really can’t make the call yet, but we shall see in a few months.

Shoes Test Walk Result

After trying on the FiveFingers shoes more I realized that the Sprint style's has a harder piece behind the heels and it rubs on my ankle, the Velcro is also kind of rubbing on top of my feet, and I had to go back to the store to exchange for the KSO style. This style is a much better fit with me, I even had to go down a shoe size, since it has longer toes space, and everything was just comfortable except the painful part of putting it on. My husband is always enthusiastic about new stuff, so even though you are suppose to ease into the exercise routine with these shoes, of course we went all out, and walked a whole day in them. Walking on uneven surfaces like grass, dirt, and even pebble roads were surprisingly comfortable, you can feel everything under your feet, and it actually feels like a little mini feet massage. However, on hard concrete floor, our feet do hurt, but supposedly it should train our feet to walk correctly and strengthen the correct muscles. After walking only a little bit in these, I can feel certain muscles in my thigh and calves soring already, in a good way though. Overall I feel like I had a good workout day, and by the next day, the soreness is all gone and I am good again and ready for more walking.

Super Food Chlorella

This wonderful freshwater green algae is definitely a super food. I am not any medical professional, below are just knowledge that I organized about this super food that I have collected for a while through the internet.

Detox Properties:

Chlorella is comprised of 20% fibrous, indigestible outer shell and 80% inner nutrients. The vitamins, minerals, amino acids, chlorophyll, and other substances that the chlorella contains helps to detox our body. But it is the fibrous outer shell that has been proven to bind with heavy metals and other synthetic chemicals that have accumulated in our bodies. As a matter of fact, chlorella detoxes all known toxins, so this includes mercury and aluminum that we worry so much about in children’s vaccines or our aluminum containing deodorant; lead, PCB, dioxin, etc. that we worry about our children ingesting through toxic products, or even our breastmilk; and even radiation that the recent Japan incident have us worry about. Chlorella is often combined with cilantro for heavy metal detox. Cilantro can better release toxins from our nervous system and bones into our bloodstream so that chlorella can then bind with them and take them out of our system through our digestive track. Chlorella mainly detoxes through the digestive track, so taking it before meals is ideal so that it can get to the toxins before reaching the bloodstream, but as the chlorella takes out the toxins in our digestive tracks, it does also free up more opportunity for the bloodstream to pass the toxins to the digestive tracks.

Chlorella Growth Factor:

CGF is a nucleotide-peptide complex of substances found only in chlorella and is what makes chlorella reproduce very rapidly. It causes children and young animals to grow at a much faster rate and promotes healing of damaged tissues. I remember reading that there were these Japanese studies that found children taking chlorella ended up taller and healthy with no cavities. And another study about dogs having perfect dental arches after taking chlorella.

Boost Immune System:

Research in Japan again showed that mothers who took chlorella during pregnancy had significantly less dioxin in their breast milk, but an added bonus was that the breast milk also contained higher level of IgA, which reduces the risk of infections in nursing infants. Chlorella is a strong antioxidant therefore also has cancer fighting properties.

DHA:

A friend of mine has weaned her daughter and wanted to supplement DHA to her daughter asked me if chlorella has any DHA. I always heard that chlorella was a good brain food, but I didn’t really connected why. Therefore I decided to look up this question and found that chlorella to be an excellent source of DHA. As a matter of fact, the fishes got their DHA from eating chlorella and/or algae in the water. Then I found out many vegetarian source of DHA are also made from algae. DHA is critical for the optimal development and function of the brain, eyes, and central nervous system during infancy and childhood. 

Boost Iron Level:

While chlorella removes the heavy metals, it does not do the same with iron. Quite the contrary, it actually raises your iron level, so it is a good iron supplement. If you have problems with high iron level, this might not be a good idea to supplement more with.

How to Take Chlorella:

I have read various sources with different information on this. The general consensus seems to be to take it before or with food, and start out slowly and reach to 6 grams, but some say you can go higher or to the point that your stool turns green, and it seems like there is no upper limit. I have no idea what is the optimal amount, I don’t really take it every day due to forgetfulness, and never took any high detoxing amount because of the fear that I might detox into my baby through pregnancy and breast milk. If you are taking vitamin C as well, it is recommended to take it as far from chlorella as possible. Vitamin C counters the detoxing effect of chlorella by loosening its bind with toxins. Also, some people’s stomach cannot tolerate chlorella, but I heard that spirulina, another algae might be more tolerable. It is also very important to find chlorella that is not already polluted with heavy metals and toxins. Since chlorella act like sponges with toxins, the ones that are grown in nature no matter where they claim it to be will be polluted. Your best bet will be the ones that are cultivated indoor facility with clean water and tested by third party independent labs.

Conclusion for me:

After reading all these seemingly exaggerated benefit claims about chlorella, I just can’t risk passing it by. It is a food, so I am not that worried about it, since in Asian culture we eat and snack seaweed quite often also. I started supplementing a tiny bit of chlorella to my daughter ever since I started solids with her. She actually likes the taste of it and will drink the powder mix in water straight up; me on the other hand can’t stand the fishy seaweed taste and prefer the tablet form.

I Bought Those Vibram FiveFingers Shoes Today

I can’t believe I went out and bought these, I mean most people’s reaction to this shoe is something like, “ew, disgusting.” But after reading up about the benefit of being barefoot, I just can’t let this little bit of self-consciousness stop me from achieving my health or at least to test it out. My husband suffers from heel pain, and puts those support gel thing in his shoes, which now I learn might not be a good idea. I have had chronic back pain and many sciatica attacks ever since middle school. And believe me that this is no fun. I have been through many chiropractors and even had custom made feet support pieces in my shoes, but none has fixed me yet. I do believe that I probably need to work this problem out by wearing proper footwear and exercising and stretching. Now, reading from Vibram’s website, these FiveFingers shoes are suppose to let your feet move how it is naturally intended to, and it will train those muscles that have long been neglected due to our restrictive shoes, and in turn strengthen and align my spine and improve posture. I read some reviews from Amazon.com that claims some promising results, now I just got to try it. Going to start walking exercise with my husband, since I bought him a pair too, in these and see how they turn out.

Speaking of Growth Spurts

I did not know that this stuff exist when I hit my daughter's first growth spurt, so yes, it really took me by surprise. She was exactly 7 days old and I could not figure out why she was nursing so much and crying so much, I thought she was sick or some mysterious spirit was bothering her (crazy I know) and worried myself to death until I did a quick Google search and learned about it. I seriously think this is something that all first time parents should be told about. Anyway, the first growth spurt tend to be the 7-10 days old mark, then 2-3 weeks, 4-6 weeks, 3, 4, 6, 9 months. But the timing tends to be more individualized as they grow older and older.
Growth spurts are a different issue from the Wonder Weeks, and also different from teething, so with all these going on, you can see that the first couple years of a baby life is definitely not easy.

Why I Don't Believe in CIO

I pretty much covered the three DVD/books that helped me tremendously to get through the infant stage, and also because of these three books, I no longer believe in letting a baby cry it out (CIO). I think it is cruel to let a baby with no speaking ability and no reasoning ability to go through this. Just because they can’t tell us what is bothering them, we go ahead and assume for them that they are just trying to be spoiled and that their feelings of discomfort or fear are not valid or important. From my experience so far with my daughter, I have yet to identify a moment that she cried for the sake of being bad, there is always a need or want, even though I don’t always give in to a want, but I at least let her know that her upset feelings of not getting the things she want is very valid. I don’t tell her not to be upset or that it is no big deal, I don’t think I can make that assumption for anyone and/or control how anyone should or will feel. Plus, there is just so much developmental milestones that are going on in the first couple of years, physically and mentally, nerves in the brains are connecting in tremendous speed, then there are growth spurts, then there is the teething, and different baby/person have different temperament and sensitivity level, it is not fair for us to make assumptions for anyone base our own personal view.

The Wonder Weeks Review

The Wonder Weeks

This is a wonderful thing for parents to know about, however, I feel like buying the book is a big waste of my money. The book basically tells you about the 8 fussy periods of your child in the first 60 or so weeks, there are developmental milestones reached, not ones that you can necessary see physically and these are not growth spurts either. The most important thing in this book is the time chart listing out the 8 fussy periods, which is available for free on their website. Each chapter in the book starts out by telling you what kind of development is going on each time, this information is also available when you sign up for the free email alert on their website. Then it goes into how your child might act during these time frames, reading the first chapter was really amazing, because that was exactly how my child acted, but then you start to realize that this information is repeated every single chapter. Yes, your child might act clingy, fussy, aware of strangers, etc. Finally, each chapter ends with games that you can play with your baby to assist in each developmental phase. This sounds a bit more interesting, but it is really just a list of games that most parents will do with their kids at those times, pee-ka-boo, pat-a-cake, singing, reading, etc. All in all, don’t bother buying this book, but do go to their website to get the chart. I think it is important to know about these time periods, and be mentally prepared, something developmental is going on, and that is why your baby is fussy, without taking these fussy periods into account, I will find myself worrying about things like is my baby sick? Teething? Or plain trying to challenge me? (which is a concept that I no longer believe in now, when your baby is fussy, chances are, there is something going on.) This is a book that helps you, the parent, to relax and not stress out.

Happiest Baby on the Block Review

Happiest Baby on the Block
by Dr. Harvey Karp

Another useful DVD, I notice it has a book too, but I would think that something like this I would like to see live action demonstrating. Dr. Harvey uses what he calls the 5 S's to calm down the crying babies. The 5 S's, which are swaddling, side/stomach position, shushing sound, swinging, and sucking triggers the babies's natural reflexes to calm down. In his DVD he demonstrates how to use the 5 S's. Compared with Dunstan Baby Language, I still rate Dunstan's higher, even though they kind of address different issues, I find the 5 S's to be more of a temporary relief, if there is an underlying problem, you will still need to fix it before your baby will stop crying, unless the issue was the baby was sleepy. So I find using the 5 S's with the combo of Dunstan Baby Language the best. The 5 S's again have an age limit around 9 months max, I think I read this on a forumn before, once you reach around that age, the 5 S's just don't work anymore. With Dunstan Baby Language, it is often very hard for the untrained ears, like ours, to be able to quickly identify the issue before the baby cry escalated to just pure screaming, then at that point, you need the 5 S's.  5 S's calms the baby down enough to give you the second chance of identifying their cries. However, often times I do find the technique to be hard to apply, especially since I don't have enough experience like Dr. Harvey. Swaddling and holding the baby side ways to an exact correct angle is very difficult for me, and yes, it has to be an exact angle for it to work on my daughter. But I often just resort to the shushing, I do worry about my daughter's ear drum though, the shushing does seem really loud to be that close to the ears, but with a screaming baby, I guess I don't have much choice, I did end up just getting a sound track of rain and playing it super loud. It got me through a lot of hard times.

Dunstan Baby Language Review

Dunstan Baby Language
by Priscilla Dunstan

Highly recommended, this DVD was a real life saver for me, so glad I watched it before giving birth. The DVD shows you the five cry sounds that babies make for five different needs. 'Neh' for hunger, ' Eairh' for lower wind gas, 'Eh' for upper wind gas, 'Owh' for sleepy, and 'Heh' for discomfort. There, I pretty much summed up the whole thing, there is really not much content in the DVD, but these sounds are very important, and the DVD shows you bunch of samples of babies crying, to familiarize yourself with the sounds. Note that these sounds only work for from birth to up to about 3-4 months, but by then you should know your baby enough to not rely only on these. For my daughter, truthfully I have only heard her make the first three sounds, or unless I just can't distinguish the other two, but the first three sounds are what bothered her the most. While I was still at the hospital, I was already able to tell these three sounds, a bit surprised about how often the sound for hunger comes out (I know people always say babies nurse a lot, but really ending up nursing that much still surprised me). The sound for lower and upper wind gas was a bit hard to differentiate at first, but I soon learn that upper wind gas is a much shorter vowel cry. Regardless, both of these cries means burping time, I bust out all the moves until she burps, from either end. I often just play the part where it demonstrates how to burp (which at first I thought was just a useless clip to take up space) and burp along with the video just to make sure I am burping long enough and patient enough. My husband is always surprised when my daughter is crying and I make a comment like, "she wants to fart," and then farts immediately after I said that.

Introduction - Hello!

I am a first time mom to my daughter currently 16 months. I consider myself a crunchy health nut and an attachment parent. Ever since I got pregnant, I started to research and read a lot about health for pregnancy and for kids, I also recently started reading a lot about child raising. I feel like I learned a lot and still am learning more as I go, many of which I wish I knew earlier, and would love to share and discuss my thoughts and realizations with you, and hopefully through the process we all find ourselves learning more and more.