How to introduce bottle step by step and solid food to a baby?

Every ending is a new beginning.

Summer ended and with this ended my maternity leave, kids holidays and taugh moments of motherhood. I know that a lot of new things has to happen, still, in our life, but right now we have to pass through new challenges.

1st of September was Marc's first day in the nursery and I had to make some changes in his diet because of this. We began to introduce him the bottle insted of breastfeeding during day-time and we continued with breastfeeding during the night-time. Because, he is already 4 months, I began to introduce solids in his diet. Below I want to share with you steps I have followed to make these changes easier for me and for my baby:

# Sunday, 28th of August - was his first day when I proposed him the bottle. I prepared only 90ml and gave him only one bottle during the first day, rest of the day was breastfeeding.

# Monday, 29th of August - I gave him 120ml of formula and rest of the day breastfeeding.

# Tuesday, 30th of August - I gave him 120 ml twice and in the evening solid food (banana in the oven with fresh orange juice), breastfeeding during the rest of the day

# Wednesday, 31th of August - 150ml of formula twice a day, apple in the oven for the evening and rest of the day breastfeeding

# Thursday, 1st of September- Marc's first day in the nursery, he took only 20ml of formula in the nursery and 150ml of formula at home, pear and banana in the oven and breastfeeding rest of the time

# Friday, 2nd of September- 120ml of formula in the nursery, 150ml at home and breastfeeding

# Saturday, 3rd of September - twice 150 ml of formula and boiled carrot in the evening.

# Sunday, 4th of September - once 150 ml and boiled potato.

Next week, I want to introduce him cereals. I wanted to give him 3 times formula a day, but it was a challenging change for my body and my baby.

Damian was at home all week long and I haven't had enough time to make too many activities with him.  Our daily routine was going to the park and reading books rest of the time.

Tomorrow is my first day at work after 4 months of maternity leave and 3rd day in the nursery for Marc. Kids are growing too fast.

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7 Inside and outside activities with a preschooler.

If you have another baby in the house and your preschooler is already on holidays, like I am, then I have some fun activities you can do to survive and make happy both of your kids.

1. I used to go walking a lot with my baby while my first son was in the nursery. Now, I had to think that my kid won't walk as much as I do. So my daily walking routine, changed on going to different kids' parks to uncharge somehow his battery.

2. Outside activity - Feeding pigeons, this activity is always a good idea, every time we fed pigeons our kid enjoyed. He loves to run after them. What is great as well.

3. Read books, great inside activity. Here I would like to mention that I have observed that if my preschooler is not watching any video or TV, he is keen to listen while I am reading. As well it is great activity for a not sleeping baby.

4. Playing with montessori toys or not so montessori, leaving him play alone, while baby need your attention.

5. Inside activity - scissors. Help to develop his fine motor skills on cutting paper. By the way, it is montessori activity as well.

6. Inside activity - painting. If till now, painting was more for developing his skills on discovering colors and create new things. Now this activity is to develop his ability to write with pencil.

7. Outside activity - zoo, discover the greatness of nature that exists in the World. Here you need help. Daddy is always with us on such complex activities.

Now, our kid is with his grandparents, my parents-in-law, and I understand how much free time I have for me. If you have somebody who can help you, just leave them to help you. I was too tired after such a full activities week. And yes, my preschooler didn't have any screen activity during these days.

P.S. You can follow us on socials. I began to upload little videos with our daily routine. Come and enjoy them.

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Second pregnancy: what have changed?

I have written already a post about my first pregnancy and you can find it here. Even though I have lived the experience of being a mum, second pregnancy made me to ask questions as well. There is no pregnancy the same.

Disorders - same or not

There are disorders that will be the same as queasiness or back pain, because these disorders are related to the changes that we have in our body. For example queasiness I had less on my first pregnancy, but back pain was felt more in my second pregnancy.

Feel baby's movements

I was reading that for sure in my second pregnancy I will feel baby's movements before that in my first pregnancy, I would say that both babies I have noticed on my 20th week of pregnancy.

Food

On both pregnancies I felt like I am 24h hungry, this feeling hasn't changed. The only thing that was different was the kind of food that I was keen to eat more. On my first pregnancy I ate chocolates, and a lot of sweet things. While with my second pregnancy I ate a lot of salt things and I didn't like sweets.

Duration of delivery

Oooh yes, here is so big difference on its duration. With first baby it last almost 12 hours, and with second 3,5 hours. Researches say that on the second delivery, our muscles are more elastic and our body maintain something like "memory" about what have happened once in our body. Our body is marvelous and it can do miracles.

Breast feeding

With second baby breast feeding is much easier, because it is prepared for the suction, while with first baby almost one month I needed to get customized with the process. Very first days of breast feeding with our first son, was painful, while with second son there was no pain. And breast feeding is a pleasant process.

                                Aren't they cute?

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Create your kids a good habit to travel. Collect them great memories.

Our toddler loves traveling and we always try him to have a good experience and to remain with great memories from each of our getaway or holiday. He loves planes, trains, cars and even public transport, as every toddler he gets bored if our trips last more than an hour, but we to take some toys for him, or sing songs with him, and always have fun.

Now, we have a baby who is just 2 months and he doesn't have such experience as his brother, so we thought, it is good to begin one day. Our first getaway of the last weekend were Tossa (Tossa del Mar) in Costa Brava. Our baby boy, I think, will be a great traveller, as he stayed very quiet all the way from Barcelona to Tossa, I was impressed as I didn't expect him to be as quiet as he was.

We have been at the beaches of Tossa, enjoyed great weather and not as cold water as I have expected there to be. We have visited the castle and other lovely places of this amazing place in Costa Brava.

Our family, for sure, got another great traveller to the board, and we will share with you our experience as traveling family of 4.

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Baby nose cleaner

In this article I want to share a little story from the first days being a mother, and about an advice that was given to me that till now I am very grateful to that doctor.

In Spain, there is a program that on first 10 days after you gave birth, a doctor form Doctors College is calling you and asks you about your feelings as a mum, new experience, what problems you have found, what questions do you have, and teach you some new util things. I don´t really know if they called me by social security program, or it was any other program that I have asked previously when I was pregnant.

The fact is, that this call changed my perception about the flue on babies. I was lucky as my child was born at the end of may and it was a good weather outside and I didn´t know what is flue till he went to the nursery :D.

It was done a study about baby nose cleaner, and was found that more you use it more snot forms in the nose of your baby. I listened the advice not to use it and evit to use it till once my baby was breathing through the mouth. The result, my baby didn´t breathe better, he was crying as he was afraid of the strange thing that I used for his nose, and it was true that more snot came later.

Dear mums, my advice to you, do not use this baby nose cleaner. The best way from all the times is the onion in the room while baby sleeps.

Cheers, love you!

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Nappy Rash Creams

Today I would like to make some comments about ointments for babies bottom. This article comes to my mind once I have seen a comment about a baby that goes to nursery and sometimes comes home with a red bottom. I really like my nursery and this doesn´t mean that it hasn´t happened to me to see in the evening a red bottom of my son, and sometimes it looks really bad, that I was thinking there is no way to make it looks better. Believe me, every time there is a solution.

1. Wash the bottom regularly, especially at the moment of changing the diaper... really... I didn´t do that, but I know a lot of mums that are doing in that way. It is great when you have this time and patience, I didn´t have.

2. Change the diaper regularly, I was/am changing it at every 3-4 hours.

3. Use a good dippers, change in case you see the baby is allergic to the one you use.

4. If your baby is on nursery or even better has a babysitter, please don´t be shy to tell to the babysitter to be more careful with changing the diaper and change it on time, and to ask them to use an ointment.

BUT, here I would like to mention, that even with doing all this routine, you can find that sometimes your babies bottom will be irritated. This can be caused by various symptoms: fever, teething (when a child is teething his excrements are acid, and this cause an irritation, that´s why is so important when you baby is teething to change the diaper even more times), or simply his/her skin is so soft that doesn´t accept the dippers you use.

Below I want to share with you some ointments that I have used, and really helped me. (Bepanthol, Lutsine, Mustela, Nutracel, Nutraisdin ZN40, SebaMed)

The best one, but it is not for everyday use is Nutraisdin ZN40, this is perfect if any other cream doesn´t help.

If you have some more things to complete for this article, please do not hesitate to do this. Every comment is welcome.

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In a fairy tale - Andorra

This week I think I´ll manage to change the format of the blog, as there is so many things to say as I cannot just keep the same format of the blog. One of the page will be dedicated to travel. Because before I thought to share just things about how Damian is growing, but now I understand that one of the part of our life is travelling.

As we had a long weekend, we decided to go somewere around and to visit new places. We haven´t bought any flight, we thought that it will be a good idea to go by car. We choose Andorra, not just the city Andorra la Vella, but as well some other towns like Encamp (here we stayed for night), La Solana, Pas de la Casa and other little villages.

I filled up our luggage with a lot of unuseful things, like ´if, I´ll need it´, and then when we´ve got there I found that I forgot the most important thing - THE BALL. I was so afraid that my child won´t have enough clothes, that made me totally forget his ball. The ball is one of the toys that keeps him busy much longer than any other toy.

Andorra is about 3 hours by car, from Barcelona to Andorra, if trust Google of course :). But in case you get in a traffic jam as we did, it takes you at least 5 hours. Nothing bad, if you don´t have a child in his chair, that is bored to sit so long way there. To make him fill better, we were singing a lot, playing with hands, telling stories...but at the end we made a stop and 15 minutes we took him up from his chair just to play with him. The best thing is that he didn´t cry and when he was bored he was just trying to get out from his chair.

This getaway was planned mostly for sightseeing, as well we thought that it would be a good idea to go sleigh, but at the end it was snowing and so cold that we decided to see other towns by car and walking or playing with Damian.

It was a great weekend, but now we have to cure Damian´s cold :(.

So here are some marvelous pictures from the fairy tale Andorra.

  
In these pictures is not Andorra, is Puigcerdá, a city from Catalonia, where we stoped for half an hour, as Damian was really tired to stay just in the car. There we find a great parc with a big lake and with wonderful sightseeing.

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Tips for going to the beach

It is summer and all of us are thinking how to make an escape to the beach, where you can breathe the smell of the sea and to relax on the hot sand with a cold drink.... mmm just amazing.

Everytime we took towel, cream and some food to eat, and a ball to play. Yes... this was 2 years ago, but now I have to think on 3 of us and not just 2. I don´t want to say that it is too difficult, but as well it is not as easy as when you go without children. Here I would like to share from my own experience what you really need to go to the beach, because first time I was thinking that I need to take all our apartment with us :D.

I prefer not to mention which one is more important and which one less, because each mum has to decide for herself what her child really needs.

1. Suncream 50SPF, are you or aren´t you agree, without this thing you just don´t have to go to the beach. Their skin is very delicate and it needs a lot of protection.

2. Towel, I think that even you won´t go without this to the beach.

3. Cap.

4. Swimsuite.

5. Food, water... a lot of water. Here you decide which food do you need. In my case I used to buy already prepared children food from the supermarket, as it is under vacuum and it lasts more, and here I ´m sure that after 3-4 hours he can eat this. You can take as well prepared food from home, but I don´t try as I don´t want to get disappointed at the time when he needs to eat this.

6. Inflatable bath.

7. Toys. My advice here is take just few toys, and little ones, so you won´t have a lot to cary on. In our case always Damian is playing with a plastic bottle, things that found there and very few times use his toys.

8. Parasol.

9. Dipers, wipes, and changing clothes. (I think that this is a kit, that you always have to take with you, not just at the beach)

10. Camera. You just want to save these great moments from his childhood :)

11. And last but not least... a lot... a lot of energy, your child would never get you bored. :)

Wish you´ll have a lot of fun with your baby.

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First haircut experience

I know that I´m not too active on my blog, but no worries I have a lot of things to share with you my dear readers. Damian is growing up and a lot of interesting things are happening in our little family. I will try to share with you these moments as quickly as I can.

Today I want to share our first experience at hairdressing salon... here I would like to mention that the images below were taken almost 1 month ago when we were preparing our sunshine for his  first birthday.

As all things that you are doing for the first time, makes you feel nervous, this moment as well created ourselves a lot of emotions. We were looking for some time the place where to make the haircut, and we have chosen one that is special for children. The one that we´ve chosen has a lot of stuff that your child doesn´t get bored and enjoys the process. Maybe for a grown-up child it is just perfect, but not all of the children are similar, someone are crying more somone less. When we have chosen  this hairdress we´ve seen a lot of little children crying as they didn´t understand what was happening. So, we were prepared for the worse... but, I think in our case we were very lucky. I  want to say that it wasn´t just perfect, and Damian wasn´t staying at the same place, and of course, he got nervous... but as a brave man he didn´t cry.

The good thing is that in  these hairdressing salonsm specialized on children, they know how to make the haircut quickly and how to  make feel your child better. In our case they prepaired a special chair, that looks like an automobile, they have put cartoons and less than 5 minutes our child  was ready to go. It was so quickly as we were surprised of a good and quick service.

I want to mention as bigger gets your child as more he enjoys sitting in a specialized hairdressing salon. I´ve seen girls and boys who were very happy to spend time in there.

How was your first haircut experience?

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Toys everywhere.

I know that people who have babies know how it is to clean your house and in less that an hour all the toys are everywhere in the house and like you haven't cleaned before. In our case is the same, nothing special :), they are babies and they want to play.
Till this week we had no toys for playing with them in the bath. We were looking for perfect ones some days, actually we were thinking to buy these kind of toys some time before, but with our super busy life we were postponing this and also we were thinking that he is little and won't know how to play with them. But after having these toys I can firmly tell you that you have to buy to your child these toys earlier than we've done.
The advantages of buying these toys are: the ones that we bought are small enough and he can hold in his little hands, there is a lot of fun while bathing (I advice you to buy bathe toys in case that your child doesn't like bathing), these toys are very colourful and you like to look at them and help to develop motor skills. Damian likes bathing, but with toys it is somethig special, and he is so amuzed that he is smiling and shouting all the time we are bathing him.
Disadvantage: in case that you bathe your child in the room (as we do) be prepared that all the room will be full of water, because he is playing with toys and drizzle almost all the water that you prepared for him. We are thinking to prepare the bathroom (to heat bathroom specialy for Damian) and to bathe him there.
Below you can see some pictures of these lovely toys.
   

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First steps...

When did your child begin to walk?

I would not say that Damian begins walking at his 8 and a half, but as I know there are children who are walking at this age...he is just trying to do this. All the evenings we help his muscles to be prepared to walk alone, with helping him go with us or with a baby-walker, as well helping him staying on his feet alone by keeping by a chair or sofa. And for sure, massage his feet before sleeping.

He is not crawling on all fours, and at the seven months I was a little bit worried, as I have heard and read that almost all the children at this age are crawling on all fours and in case they are not crawling they are staying on two feet. Damian liked to stay on feet almost from 5 months and a half, but he wasn´t walking... till grandpa showed him how to do this :). From 7 months and a half he began to do his first steps, little ones, but for us it was a really big success. Now he is performing and he is walking quicklier and you have to run after him, and in case we leave him in a baby-walker he is walking by himself. The bad thing is that we cannot leave him for a long time in a baby-walker, as he becomes bored and sometimes even begins to cry... but I would like to mention that baby-walker is a great invention as it can save 10-15 min for you, and for things you have to do.

It is hard to mantaint his walking pace, but we try to enjoy this, as each moment of his growth is priceless, and never it will be repeated.

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Constipation or diaree? What is worse?

Thanks God, during 8 months that will have Damian on Monday, I didn´t have the problem with diaree, but I know a mum who suffered a lot because of diaree on her baby. When this mum told me that her son had diaree, I was thinking that how good is that, because at that moment I was trying all things possible that my son wouldn´t be constipated. Now, looking to the past I´m gratefull that my son didn´t have this problem, as this affects theirs growing and this affects you a lot when you see that your son is putting just 500g when it is normally to put 1000g or 1500g, or worse when your child is not growing at all and this is worse.

But not having one problem, I had another, constipation. My problem was that Damian was constipated, and not just when were intorduced solid food, but also when he was eating exclusively my breast. I was trying a lot of things: glicerine (the worse thing that you can do to your baby), enema (special for babys), eupeptina powder (powder to drink with water) and giving him right food.

I know that a lot of you when is reading that I tried glicerine or enema on my baby is thinking that I´m a crazy mum, but nope, I don´t think so, just because my baby at that time was crying a lot and couldn´t have the power to do his poops. I was really disperate as it is my first baby and when you are not giving nothing more, just your breast and you cannot do anything else to help your baby. I am accepting that maybe I don´t know what to do, but there is a solution.

As all of you know babies are growing fast, mine as well :D. Pediatrician told us, that is the worse thing that I have done was glicerine, because even if he is crying he must do his poops alone without any external help and that it is normal that a breast feeding baby is not doing poops for 7 days. What??? Really??? Is there any mum that will leave her baby more than 3 days crying and trying? I´m not one of these...sorry.

My next trying was eupeptina powder, sorry I don´t know how it is in English, it is a powder that is mixed with water...YESSSSS, this helps, if only your baby will permit you to put this into his mouth, and this is very difficult. And as well you have to give Eupeptina till he is doing regularly his poops. We were giving when it was possible, and this didn´t help a lot.

So, our last trying was giving him right food like plums, apples, pears, pods. Later I will share with you some porridges with these ingredients. Now, we have more than 2 months that we don´t know what is constipation, and we are very very happy.

This was our way to find a solution for constipation. Hope you didn´t have these problems, but in case you had, please share your experience.

Love you, see you on the next post. xoxo

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I LOVE Barcelona !!!

We moved from Chisinau (Moldova) to Barcelona for almost 3 years ago... young, freshly graduated with a lot of hopes and dreams looking for new opportunities and new adventures. From first day I felt in love in this big city and this love didn´t change during this time... more than that this feeling is growing each time I found a new place to go. I hope that Damian will love this city as much as we do and that he will be proud that he was born here.

Why I am talking now and not early about this wonderful city on my blog... you will ask... just because I didn´t have the opportunity to see this city with Damian and all the photos that we have were without him. Now, my parents were on holidays here and as it was theirs first time when they came to Barcelona I was trying to show a lot of places that tourists won´t go, or won´t have time to go.

Enjoy the photos !!!

In almost all of the images Damian was sleeping... as all kids do on fresh air :D
P.S. A lot of our dreams come true during these 3 years, one of our big wish was Damian, and now he is growing so fast that sometimes I feel like living in a dream.

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