TAT: "Advice" For Mommies-To-Be

I haven't done a blog hop for a long time. I need a break from Maui & birthday posts, so here is my post for this week's Toddle Along Tuesday.

1. Believe everything that everyone tells you. It is surely true.
2. You're pregnant. Don't even think about drinking alcohol, caffeine, or eating soft cheese, deli meat, shell fish, processed sugars, or anything non-organic.
3. Make a birth plan. The longer and more in detail, the better. If you don't follow it exactly as you have written it. You fail.
4. You want to have a natural childbirth? 90% of people you tell this to will tell you you're crazy so you should probably change your mind and just get that epidural, or heck...try to find a doc who will schedule your c-section on the perfect day and time, whatever works best, ya know.
5. On the other hand, if you do want an epidural, the tables will turn and everyone will tell you that you shouldn't drug up your baby to give birth to it. Epidurals are like...totally dangerous, you know?
6. If you co-sleep you are wrong.
7. If you let that poor little newborn sleep in a crib in a lonely room all by itself, you are also wrong.
8. Breastfeeding? Wrong.
9. Formula feeding? Also wrong.
10. Definitely don't even try to keep up with housework. It's not worth the energy, you should just give up and let that all go to hell and try to recreate the leaning tower of Pisa with dishes piling up in your kitchen sink. (That was my PERSONAL "best" advice that I got as a first time mom-to-be!)
11. You will sleep just perfectly and be so well rested before that baby comes, I promise.
12. You will have to pee every 5 minutes for the rest of your life.
13. Don't even think about giving that baby solid foods until it is 6 months old, or I'll call child services.
14. Make sure you have your hair dresser on call for when you go into labor. Go and get a nice wash, dry, and style and might as well get your make-up done too, you want to look perfect for those first pictures after the baby comes, because really it's not that hard to give birth to a watermelon!
15. Your baby will sleep through the night the first night you come home, if not, there's something wrong with it, or more realistically, there's something wrong with you.
16. Your husband shouldn't have to help out at all, so don't even ask.
17. Do you feed your baby chemicals? Do you feed your baby food from a jar? Is that organic?
18. Don't let them have a soother. But also, don't let them suck their thumbs.
19. As soon as that baby is born, people will ask you when you're going to have another, so you better have a good answer prepared.
20. Do as the celebrities do. Drink a shot of wheatgrass every day, soak your feet in ice water as to prevent swelling, oh. And energy crystals, get you some energy crystals....whatever the heck those are.

I hope you all know me well enough to know that that was 100% complete sarcastic BS. Want to know my real advice for all my mommy-to-be friends?

Do whatever works for YOU and YOU alone. Be confident in the choices you make for you and your family and don't ever feel that you should have to defend them to anyone!

I also firmly believe that a pregnant mama should enjoy all the "me" time she can, especially first time mamas. Your life is never going to be the same. It will change for all the better, but it will still never be the same so enjoy all the YOU time you can get!

Also, get through the first 6 weeks with your newborn, and it gets better after that. That's how it was for me and a lot of my personal friends. Have fun with your pregnancy and newborn and do what works for YOU!

How I Get My Toddler to Eat

Firstly let me state that I do not claim to be an expert. I never have! BUT I am learning a ton. I've just learned with Braden (every toddler is different) that he just goes through phases of eating almost nothing, to eating almost everything. I have to try as I might to remember this when he's in a non-eating phase so that I don't wrack my brain trying to figure out what on God's green earth is wrong with my child! I am also pretty convinced that they are in a state of teething from the time they are about 4 months old until they pop that last baby tooth, which we are seemingly far from.[I also realize that Murphy's Law will probably reinstate after this post is published and none of my tips and tricks will work for Braden anymore. Sigh. Oh well, risk I'm willing to take for the blogging world!]
 

[Eating snacks with cousin Trinity]

Here are some things that work for us:

• Hide those veggies
• Braden really does love his veggies when he's in his good eating phase, but when he's not eating much I am now hiding his veggies, especially in pasta. ZUCCHINI is great. Shred it up really fine and you can't even see it in pasta/casseroles or taste it either. It's great for baking with too and in the fall there's always zucchinis a plenty around here for free as it's often forced upon graciously given to me from friends and my wonderful MIL! :) [It's either take it and say thank you or take the chance that the "zucchini fairy" might leave a pile of zucchini on the passenger seat of your car! It's happened people, it's happened!]
• Speaking of zucchini, I grated it all up and froze it it 1 cup portions to add to future dishes - voila!
• Dairyland has this awesome new yogurt out called "My Fruit & Veggie"! A great way to get a dose of veggies in, in a food product he never turns away. It has that wonderful DHA that's supposed to make children geniuses develop health brain function and it has two flavors: peaches & butternut squash and banana & sweet potato. Sounds kinda gross...but he loves it and therefore so do I.

• Braden will rarely turn down a smoothie, so I've also (unbeknown to him) thrown spinach leaves in and he still drinks it all up.
• Cut out empty-calorie snacks
• You know the ones I'm talking about. The good stuff! Crackers, cookies, dry cereal! The things all of our kids would eat day after day, meal after meal...
• When Braden's not eating well, and actually as a general new rule in our house now, we don't allow crackers as snacks or to graze on anymore [as not per the picture above!]. He fills up on crackers and then has no motivation to eat a relatively healthy full meal. So now he only gets crackers in the afternoon if he has had a good breaky/lunch or if we're out and about cuz let's face it, that's the easiest go to snack for on-the-go snacking! [just call me the Cracker Nazi! - k, that could sound really bad, but you know what I mean in Mom terms!]
• Just ask nicely
• Again, every child is different, but Braden really responds well (especially now that he's getting older)
• "Braden, please have one bite for Mommy?" 
• "Almost done, Braden, please finish your nummies!"   
• Make it fun, give lots of praise
• Braden has always responded really well when we make a big stinkin' deal over any of his accomplishments, so when he's eating well I'll clap and smile and tell him what a good job he did eating all his nummies
• Reward with a small dessert - especially this time of year there is always dessert around, so even though he doesn't fully understand I'll say "Yay! Since Braden at all of his nummies he can have a cookie! Yay!"
• This will inevitably lead to the old "you can't have any dessert until you finish your supper" that I've heard all my family/friends say to their children! :)
• Realize/know that you cannot force feed your toddler
• I've had to remind myself of this many times. I've never tried to "force feed" Braden, it's impossible...but when the eatin's bad...there's really not a heck of a lot I can do to make him eat, so I try to remember not to let it "get" to me.  
• A little distraction is okay...sometimes
• I definitely do not want to get in the habit of having Braden zoned out watching TV Thomas so we can sneak in his meals. This will become very unreliable very fast, I can already tell. BUT when he's in a non-eating phase...if he's zoned out watching Diggers or Thomas...sorry, I'm shoveling in the food as long as he'll let me...I just know for me I can't, nor do I want to, do this forever
• Playing a fun little game like "Braden, will you share with Mommy?" and going in for a bite of his food, often encourages him to eat more to play keep-away. Again - not something I want to do long-term, but for those last few bites of a meal, it works wonders

Well, that's all I got. Please leave comments and share your tricks for getting your toddler/child to eat healthier or eat more of their meals! :)