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Nurturing Instincts Lactation Care, Arthurs Creek (2025)

03/08/2024

Celebrating world breastfeeding week!

06/05/2024

National Mothering Week is held each year in the lead up to Mother's Day. It is a special week to recognise all that mothers do and to celebrate the contribution that mothers make to their children, families and society.

🩷 Thank you Mums for all the love you give and all the work you do 🩷

25/04/2024

Most mothers start out breastfeeding their baby, but by the time babies are five months old, exclusive breastfeeding drops to 15 per cent. Valuing breastfeeding as work could help change that.

03/04/2024

Baby Food Idea #5: Nut spread french toast

👨‍🍳 Ingredients:
Slice of bread
Egg
Milk (or milk alternative)
Nut spread (e.g. peanut butter, almond butter etc)
Butter or oil for cooking

👩‍🍳 Method:
1. Cut the slice of bread in half, spread 1 piece with nut spread and stick together to create a sandwich
2. whisk the egg with a dash of milk in a bowl until combined
3. dip the sandwich in the egg mixture
4. heat a frying pan with a small amount of butter (or oil) cook the sandwich until golden on both sides
5. slice into fingers and allow to cool before offering to your baby

You could use the left over egg mixture to make one for you too!

Remember these simple tips for feeding your baby too:
🥝 Always supervise your baby while eating
🥕 Babies find it easier to eat while sitting up with their feet supported such as in a highchair or your lap
🥑 Completing a baby first aid course is a great way to ensure you are equipped to help your child in the event of choking
🧀 It is common for babies to gag on food if it moves too far back in their mouth - don't panic, gagging is a baby's way of protecting their airway and moving the food forward in their mouth again.
🍎 Remember to look for signs that your baby has had enough. Teaching them to listen to their body's cues helps them to create lifelong healthy eating habits.

02/04/2024

Baby Food Idea #4: Frozen Watermelon Wedges

☀️ This one is great for a hot day!

Method:
🍉 Slice the watermelon into wedges leaving the rind on.
Place in the freezer.
Beware they will stick during freezing, it often works well to spread them in a single layer on baking paper. Once they are frozen you can stack them and they won't stick.

Give them to your baby to munch on, on a hot day. You might like to wrap the bottom in a wash cloth to give them something to grip that isn't freezing cold.

👶 What's your baby's favourite hot weather treat?

01/04/2024

Baby Food Idea #3: Banana and Oat Pancakes

🥞 This is a simple variation on pancakes that increases the nutritional value and avoids refined sugars - perfect for big and little people.

👨‍🍳 Ingredients:
2 bananas
2 eggs
1.5 cups oats
enough milk (or milk alternative) to get the right consistency

👨‍🍳 Method:
1. Blitz the ingredients together in a blender. It should have the consistency of pancake batter.
2. Allow to stand for a while (5-10mins) as it will thicken up and you may need to add more milk.

Don't forget these important basics when feeding a baby/toddler:
🥝 Remember to supervise your baby while eating
🥕 Babies find it easier to eat while sitting up with their feet supported such as in a highchair or your lap
🥑 Completing a baby first aid course is a great way to ensure you are equipped to help your child in the event of choking
🧀 It is common for babies to gag on food if it moves too far back in their mouth - don't panic, gagging is a baby's way of protecting their airway and moving the food forward in their mouth again.
🍎 Remember to look for signs that your baby has had enough. Teaching them to listen to their body's cues helps them to create lifelong healthy eating habits.

30/03/2024

Baby Food Idea #2

🥙 Quesadillas 🥙

1. Fill half a tortilla with your choice of filling
2. Fold over the tortilla and cook in either a sandwich press or the oven
3. Allow to cool

Filling ideas:
🥑 Corn and cheese
🥕 Avocado and mashed beans
🌽 leftover minced meat with veggies

This recipe also doubles as a great grown up lunch too!

29/03/2024

🐣 Happy Easter! 🐰

I hope you are having a wonderful time with your family over this Easter break.

🍹 have you been wondering whether it would be ok to have an alcoholic drink while breastfeeding? There is no evidence that having an occasional alcoholic drink will harm your baby, however we also have no scientific evidence that shows it is 100% safe (who would volunteer to participate in that study?)

🍷 This article explains some of the details to consider:
https://laleche.org.uk/alcohol-and-breastfeeding/

🍺 You might also like to use the feed safe app
http://www.feedsafe.net/

29/03/2024

Over the next few days I'm going to be sharing some recipes for simple foods for babies and toddlers.

🥝 Remember to supervise your baby while eating
🥕 Babies find it easier to eat while sitting up with their feet supported such as in a highchair or your lap
🥑 Completing a baby first aid course is a great way to ensure you are equipped to help your child in the event of choking
🧀 It is common for babies to gag on food if it moves too far back in their mouth - don't panic, gagging is a baby's way of protecting their airway and moving the food forward in their mouth again.

🥚 Soft boiled Egg with toast soldiers 🥚
1. Put a pot of water on to boil
2. toast your bread and spread with butter, cut into soldiers approximately 1cm wide
3. once the water is boiling gently place an egg in the pot and cook for around 5 mins (time may vary depending on the size of the egg)
4. cut the top off the egg and let it cool before feeding to your baby

👶 You might like to dip the ends of the toast and let your baby feed themselves, then help them to spoon the leftover egg afterwards.

🍎 Remember to look for signs that your baby has had enough. Teaching them to listen to their body's cues helps them to create lifelong healthy eating habits.

24/03/2024

🎉 Yay your baby is ready for solids!! .....❓ but what do you actually feed them?

A short walk down the baby aisle of the supermarket will have you thinking you need to buy a lot of single serve, packaged, highly processed foods:
🔴 purees in pouches
🟠 purees in jars
🟡 snack biscuits
🟢 yogurt topped rice cakes
🔵 kids yogurt
🟣 baby cereals

Now, don't get me wrong, all of these foods CAN be incredibly convenient and make life easy for parents. When used occasionally there really isn't anything wrong with them but, before you stock up your pantry and make these products your main strategy for introducing solids here are some things to consider....

🍎 these processed products have an overwhelmingly sweet flavour profile. Sure they might not contain added sugar but how much of the product is made of fruit concentrate, fruit puree and fruit juice?
🥦 Is your baby seeing what food really looks like and feels like in their mouth? Sure purees can be really useful in the early days of introducing solids (although not essential) but its important to move onto real textures
🍉 The eat for health guidelines stress the importance of iron rich foods. most of these products are not giving your child foods that naturally contain iron
🥑 Added sugars (kids yogurt I'm looking at you 👀) our babies are only consuming small quantities of food. they just don't NEED sugar yet. Also there is no reason why children can't eat 'adult' yogurt
🧀 You want your children to like the foods you usually feed your family. Exposing them to the flavour combinations and textures of your family's foods sets them up to enjoy family meals as they get older

❓ what was your baby's first food ❓

21/03/2024

🍏 The National Health and Medical Research Council recommends that Australian children are introduced to solids around 6 months of age.
🍓 Breastmilk, formula or a combination of the two will continue to be baby's main sources of nutrition until around 12 months of age
🫐 To reduce the risk of developing allergies expose your baby to wide variety of foods including common allergens from the beginning (*if you have a significant family history of allergies - speak to your GP/MCHN)
🍒Initially meals look more like painting than eating. Expect food to go everywhere except into your baby's tummy!
🥑 Baby will learn the motor skills needed to feed themselves if you given them opportunities to practice
🥦 Watch your baby for cues that they have had enough. Children are capable of knowing when their body feels like it's had enough food. Teaching children to listen to their cues of hunger and satiety (fullness) is a gift that will help them develop a healthy relationship with food for the rest of their lives.
🍉 Offer your baby opportunities to try a wide variety of foods including plenty of unprocessed foods including fruits, vegetables and animal proteins.
🌽 Don't worry about 'fussy eating' keep offering small volumes of lots of different foods. It can take 10+ exposures to a food for a child to learn to like it. It's ok to offer them a portion of food that they don't touch or maybe only lick - this is part of learning.

❓ What have you found the most challenging about introducing solids ❓

20/03/2024

🤱 Did you know the World Health Organisation recommends breastfeeding to 2 years and beyond?

❓ Why ❓
💙 It is impossible to know the 'normal' age of weaning in humans. Culture and society have a really big impact on the ways in which we breastfeed so there is huge variation between cultural groups and time periods. Scientists estimate that the 'normal age' is somewhere between 2 and 7 years old.
💚 Breastfeeding in the 2nd (and subsequent) years of life gives significant nutritional value
💛 As long as breastfeeding continues it gives baby immune protection that is individualised to their needs and to the bugs that mum and baby are exposed to
🧡 Breastfeeding provides mothers with life long health benefits including a reduced risk of some cancers and cardiovascular disease
❤️ Breastfeeding continues to provide connection and comfort
🩷 There are no risks to continued breastfeeding for a well woman and well baby

❓ So why doesn't this apply to formula ❓
🍼 Formula gives a toddler nothing that they can't get from food.
🍼 At about 1 year of age a baby is capable of eating enough food to meet all their nutritional needs
🍼 Formula is a highly processed food and there are benefits to receiving nutrition from their natural source
🍼 It is quite hard for babies to control how much milk they get from a bottle. The fast flow of bottle teats and the ease of bottle feeding make it quite easy to accidentally over feed a baby. It is important for all children to develop an understanding of eating to need and understanding when they feel full.

Nurturing Instincts Lactation Care

03/08/2024

06/05/2024

25/04/2024

03/04/2024

02/04/2024

01/04/2024

30/03/2024

29/03/2024

29/03/2024

24/03/2024

21/03/2024

20/03/2024

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