Edamame. Your toddler make like it. Really.

I have to say that edamame (steamed young soybeans) was not one of the first things (or even first dozen things) I thought of as healthy finger foods to feed my toddler. The word edamame conjures up images in my mind of furry bean pods, vegetarian cafes, and women who wear long skirts with little bells on them and burn incense. I know people who love eating edamame, but I've never really gotten into it.

We were stuck in a finger food rut with our daughter, and I didn't want to add any more high carb offerings. My husband and I brainstormed other ideas, and edamame made the list. Our grocery store (Publix) had shelled ready-to-eat edamame, so into my cart it went.

I easily popped a handful little beans out of their translucent skins and set them on Samantha's high chair tray like I was giving her some Cheerios and not an unusual vegetable. One went into her mouth, then two, then six. She gobbled up all the edamame on her plate and asked for more.

Steamed young soybeans as a great toddler snack? Who knew.

Plus, they're super-healthy. The United States Department of Agriculture states that edamame are "a soybean that can be eaten fresh and is best known as a snack with a nutritional punch". Edamame contains protein, which further helps stabilize blood sugar, antioxidants, and omega-3 fatty acids. They also contain a high source of vitamin A, vitamin B and calcium.

Convenient, healthy, and soft enough for an older baby or toddler to chew. They're worth a try; your child might like them too.

Cuddles at the end of the day

Especially as my daughter has been running headlong, giggling and squealing into full-fledged toddlerhood, I've been treasuring the few quiet, cuddly moments we get in her full-steam-ahead days. Sam's not one to sit in your lap for long periods of time or cuddle up to you more than a minute or so because there's so much that she wants to see and do.

As a mommy who has a higher desire for snuggling than our daughter does at this point in time, I really love the end part of our bedtime routine. Here's a little window into this precious time of my day.

After the tooth brushing, bath, jammies, book and prayer with Daddy, I carry Sam upstairs and cuddle her into my lap for one last story. She's already calmed by the familiarity of the beginning of her routine and listens intently to my soft reading voice. Sometimes if I'm lucky, she even leans into my cheek and lets out a sweet little girl sigh.

"Samantha, it's time for bed." I give her a little affectionate squeeze, scoop her up into my arms, then turn on her ocean sounds machine and close the blinds and curtains. Gently I sway back and forth with Sam leaning her head on my shoulder and start singing our bedtime song, the first verse of an old hymn that I love, "Great is Thy Faithfulness". I love holding my warm sweet-smelling girl when she's so still at the end of the day, and with my song thanking God for another day with her. It's a tender mommy-moment for me.

While the sound of Samantha chewing on her bunny in my ear while I sing isn't so appealing, and often right after I lie Sam tranquilly down in her crib she's standing up and jabbering away, I'll take these precious minutes at the end of the day just as they are, thanks.

What moments of your day with your child(ren) do you treasure and store up memories about?

It's Baby Signing Time!

I have a song stuck in my head. You know how it goes; you either hear a song or are reminded of it, and it replays in your thoughts until something else (sometimes another song) finally kicks it out. I've had some pretty useless songs caught in my head, but I'm glad to have the one up there now. It's the theme song to the Baby Signing Time Vol. 1 DVD where all the songs help you and your baby learn signs in American Sign Language (ASL) that a young child would be most likely to use.

I'd wanted to teach my daughter Samantha how to sign because I'd heard how much it helped child/parent communication and lessened frustration on both sides, but I felt intimidated by how to actually learn ASL myself and how to help a baby learn it too. Plus I wondered if it really did work.

Enter the Baby Signing Time DVDs. My library had them, and once Sam and I started watching, I was hooked. Watching the teacher, Rachel, we saw how to do the signs for words like eat, drink, milk, water, cracker, mommy, daddy, dog, cat, diaper and more demonstrated in easy and memorable ways. Each song that taught the signs showed several toddlers signing each word and showed kids doing something having to do with the sign, and adorable cartoon intros to each song made my daughter giggle. Sam's not a girl to get into videos, but she liked these.

Here's an example of how the sign for 'bird' is taught:

Baby Signing Time Vol. 1: It's Baby Signing Time - Preview from Signing Time on Vimeo.

Baby Signing Time made the signs so easy for me to remember, I was pleased at how quickly I could integrate them in how I talked with Samantha. When it was mealtime, I would tell her that it was time to eat and sign 'eat' at the same time, or ask her verbally 'would you like to eat?' while doing the 'eat' sign. As I'd give her bites of food, I'd say things like 'you're eating!' and sign 'eat', and 'yes, we eat cereal' (of course signing 'eat'). At first, this was a very deliberate action on my part to help reinforce my memory too, but after awhile I started signing 'eat' more naturally as I talked with my daughter. After awhile, she caught on, and she started signing 'eat' when she was hungry or in response to my questions of if she'd like to eat.

When she learns each sign, Samantha smiles and seems very happy with herself for learning how to do it, and that mommy and daddy understand her. Of course, sometimes she's happy because the sign gets her food or a toy more quickly, but who can blame her? ;)

Want to learn more about signing? I created a website about teaching your baby/toddler to sign that also includes more info about the Baby Signing Time and Signing Time series and other helpful resources.

Just have to show how my little cutie pie signs. Here she is signing 'more' to ask her grandpa to keep bouncing her in the water:

Fisher Price Little People Animals

Meet some of my new best friends. These cute little critters keep my daughter entertain in quite a wide variety of ways. While a 16-month old doesn't have the pretending ability that an older toddler has to play with Little People animals in the context of their plastic farm, zoo or Noah's ark, she certainly knows how to get the most fun out of them that she can.

Fisher Price did a great job making these animals adorable and sturdy enough to take a beating from a little kid's teeth, being run over by plastic vehicles and from being projectiles. Samantha loves lining up her animals on the coffee table and knocking them off with glee. Lest you think she's only out to give them hard knocks, her polar bear and elephant often have Cheerios and water 'shared' with them. Ever the faithful zookeeper, Sam often busies herself 'feeding' her animals from the plastic bucket of fish that came with her Fisher Price zoo set.

For a child beginning to talk, the Little People animals are a great springboard for learning the names of animals as well as their sounds. One other delightful pastime we found for parent-child play is spinning several animals together, which results in an eruption of giggles from Samantha.
You should try it sometime. The video is a sample of what I mean. She'd already been laughing for several minutes before I got out the camera to record it.



Thank you, Fisher Price for creating Little People animals. I'm sure we'll find even more fun to be had with them as our daughter grows.

Getting Sleep

There's nothing like waking up after the perfect amount of sleep that your body needs and having the energy to sail through your day. There's also nothing like having your child wake up well-rested and happy, taking great naps (if they're at an age to need naps) and not fall prey to early evening fussiness.

While neither my daughter Samantha nor I have great sleep every night, the vast majority of the time we do. It didn't start out that way. I think the biggest help in giving Sam (and therefore me) the gift of good sleep at each stage in her life has been the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Mark Weissbluth.

When I was a first-time mom with a newborn, I had no idea what was good for my daughter's sleep. All I knew was that she slept on and off during the day and it took us seemingly forever to get her to fall asleep at night. The process of getting her to fall asleep was a long session of rocking, swaddling and shushing that wore us both out. I was getting severely sleep-deprived, and started looking for resources to help. A good friend recommended Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (HSHHC) and I was thrilled to see there was a 'how to use this book' section at the beginning that pointed a half-awake mommy in the right direction.

HSHHC guided me in putting my good intentions for my child's well-being into practice, and has been my main resource for sleep training. One key concept to internalize, though, for this and any other child sleep book is to remember that you and your child are not a book; you're real people for whom not everything may be the best fit. You know your child, so carefully determine where there are places that would be more beneficial to deviate from 'the program.' In my case, my wise pediatrician offered some other suggestions that were key in molding my sleep training process even more specifically to my daughter Samantha's very alert and determined personality.

Like Dr. Weissbluth suggests, I started paying attention to Samantha's 'drowsy signals' and started soothing her to sleep at appropriate times where she'd be most likely to fall asleep easily. At three months old, I put her down in her crib drowsy but awake for about ten minutes or so. If she didn't fall asleep or was really upset, I picked her up and soothed her all the way to sleep. By the time she was 5 months old, Samantha would fall asleep in her crib on her own the vast majority of the time. She usually played or cooed for a little while then drifted off to her naps or bedtime.

While some children start sleeping through the night on their own, Samantha did not. At 8 months old, she was still waking up once or twice a night to nurse, sleeping for 6 hours in a row maximum. (for the sake of this story, 'sleeping through the night' will mean sleeping at least 10 hours in a row) After careful consideration, my husband and I decided to try the method Dr. Weissbluth describes as 'extinction,' the one that has some of the least amount of crying overall. When Samantha woke up in the middle of the night, we let her cry, and she finally put herself back to sleep. It was so hard to listen to her in there, but the next night she just fussed for a short time before going back to sleep. The third night, she slept through the night. She wakes up happy most every morning, and bedtimes are not a battle.

At first I thought that putting my child down for bed later would equal her sleeping later, but as HSHHC mentions, this really is not the case. Earlier bedtimes usually equal more sleep, and that proved itself in our experience. In protecting Samantha's early bedtime of 7:15PM, I've run into a lot of people who ask why we don't take her out to more evening activities, commenting that keeping her up will just make her sleep later. We've tried that, and all we get is a crabby, tired child the next day. In talking with other parents, I've found more and more of them have the same experience as we've had, and understand why we protect Samantha's early bedtime for the vast majority of nights. We make sure that we're home for her to take a good nap unless it's a really, really special occasion.

Sometimes Samantha wakes up really early, and when that happens for several mornings in a row, we've found the suggestions from HSHHC very helpful....not going in to get Sam before 6AM, and trying a slightly earlier bedtime for the next few nights. It takes patience to help get her sleeping in longer, but it's worth it.

This book addresses all sorts of sleep problems and solutions and gives research-backed advice for each stage of a child's life from birth through high school age. I've got a lot more info about the book, including a list of contents, reviews, soothing tips and links to purchase the book on my website about helping your baby have great naps and nighttime sleep.

Here's to great sleep. I'm going to grab a quick snooze while Samantha's napping. zzzzzz