breastfeeding

Baby Food and Intuition: A Tale of Baby Led Weaning

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babyfood
Who knew pureed fruit and veggies could be so pretty! Strawberry, carrot, sweet potato, mango, apple, pear, melon, peas, broccoli, and spinach.

I used to roll my eyes and guffaw at the very idea of making my own baby food. I knew friends who did it for their little ones, saw books and gadgets for the homemade stuff in their baby registries, and plenty of mom blogs proclaiming the benefits of doing it yourself. It always seemed like a Martha Stewartesque waste of precious energy and time when the jarred stuff existed and was readily available on supermarket shelves. When Hazel started longingly gazing at food and smacking her lips hungrily, my perspective shifted a bit. So did the overwhelming sense of, “I can’t bullocks this up; if I do, she’ll forever be screwed up.”

Spoilers: she won’t be, and it’s okay to mess up a bit – pretty much the definition of parenting, in a nutshell. Continue reading →

Adventures in Fitness While Breastfeeding, Part 2

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Day #1 of 21 Day Fix, June 2019
Day #21 of 21 Day Fix Extreme (second program)

In my previous fitness post over a year ago, Adventures in Fitness While Breastfeeding, I explained how challenging it can be in our society to be kind to ourselves after having a baby. Instagram is full of celebrity moms snapping glamorously posed shots of breastfeeding and holding their babies oh-so lovingly, making motherhood and the fabled “bouncing back” seems like a breeze to achieve. For some extraordinarily fortunate souls, this may be the case, but for the rest of us normies, it is beyond challenging and sometimes absolutely soul-crushing. We can feel judged and like we are an embarrassment to our friends and family when we gain weight and aren’t as good shape as we once were. We can view ourselves in a warped, distorted manner as if we are standing in front of a fun-house mirror. It won’t matter how many compliments and praises we may get, how we feel about our own bodies is ultimately what matters. Everything else will feel like a lie. What does matter is how we feel inside our own minds and bodies.  Continue reading →