Co-Sleeping With Your Baby

You probably have encountered the term co-sleeping while you were finding more ways to get your kids to sleep better. I know I did! I never realized it would be too difficult to make children sleep until I had Ella!

I learn so much from parenting sites on the Internet, especially from Dr. Sears and Elizabeth Pantley. From them I found out that sleep for babies is not only their way of reviving their energy but a whole lot more. In fact, it's almost everything! It contributes to babies appetite, health, intelligence, information retention and most of all, to their happiness!

Ella and I: breastfeeding days

Knowing that sleep is VERY IMPORTANT to babies, I incorporated a sleep schedule for Ella according to Elizabeth Pantley's "No Cry Sleep Solution" book. This includes a 1-2 hour nap in the morning and another one in the afternoon. This was very successful that Ella slept through the night since she was 3 months! I just had to make sure that when she is not in her usual still sleep state (...approximately every 3 hours), I should give her a milk bottle.

I had problems when Ella turned 1. It was easy to make her nap at 10 in the morning but was very difficult to get her to nap again at 4:00 in the afternoon. I turned to Ms. Pantley again. And from "No Cry Nap Solution", I found out that I needed to switch from 2 naps to only 1 nap. AND IT DID WORK!!! I just tailored the nap to start a little later than her previous 1st nap...around 12nn. She now sleeps for 2-3 hours during her nap and sleeps the whole night again!

This whole time that I was sleep training my daughter, she was sleeping in our bed: Co-sleeping, Bed-Sharing and Sleep-Sharing in more popular terms. She'd usually take the side nearest the wall, followed by me and then my hubby. I know this is something common for people here in the Philippines as a way of life (small house, few rooms, few beds, etc...). But we may have overlooked that this has a lot of benefits.

Here the benefits we personally experienced with co-sleeping:

1. Easier Night-Time Feeding, therefore...
2. A Longer and Better Quality of Sleep for Both Parents and Baby, and...
3. A Longer, Well Rested and Happier State of Awakeness.
4. Better Memory Retention for the Baby.
5. Tight Parent-Child Bond.
6. Easy Coping with Separation Anxiety for the Baby.

I am a call center agent who has an ever changing schedule but I still get to rest a lot. Sometimes, I schedule my rests/sleep to go with Ella's naptimes/sleeptimes. If I cannot join Ella in her sleep, I instruct the nanny to still maintain Ella's sleep schedules and sleep with her. Also, I don't know if it's just us, but there are times when Ella would stick out a hand or a foot out of her bed space just to find out if there's anybody beside her while she's sleeping. If she doesn't feel anyone, she'd wake up right away.

I'm planning to keep this style of sleeping until Ella finds out what's going on while she's asleep. *winkwink*

Love lots,

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Protecting Yourself from Holiday Crimes

It's Christmas season and as we all know, crime rates, especially theft rises when we're nearing Christmas. I feel it's kind of ironic, because we are supposed to celebrate the coming of our Savior but some people just forget the idea. Well anyway, how do we make sure that our hard earned money will be kept safely until the time we need them? Here are a few tips:

1. Bring credit cards, instead of cash, when making big purchases such as appliances and gadgets.

2. When you ride a cab, always text someone you trust/love with the cab name and plate number. If you have a lot of time, you can also ask for the driver's name, the operator's name/company, and the carbarn address and text those information too. Whether the driver is thinking of doing anything harmful to you or not, asking him these questions would make him think twice, even a couple more times. And just in case the driver is really a criminal (God forbid), at least your loved one has records.

3. Avoid being in very crowded places. If you must, remove/keep your jewellry and expensive accessories which is eye candy for thieves. Walk fast and stay away from people who look suspicious.

4. When waiting for transportation however, or anything else for that matter, stay in places that are well lit and with lots of people.

5. I know you've heard about people pretending to have a domestic fight with anyone, only to kidnap, rape, or mug them right? I'm sure it would be a difficult situation to be in, especially here in the Philippines because the majority wouldn't want to meddle with domestic issues. Haven't experienced this, but I received an email about one lady just grabbing a random seller and tried to convince him that she is with someone she doesn't know and who's trying to do harm to her. I suggest that we do everything we can in our willpower to make a scene and shout out what's truly going on.

5. Don't look at people in the eye, especially strangers. There's a modus operandi wherein the thief would make use of hypnotism to bring you somewhere and make you follow instructions even without your consent.

6. Never post too much information about yourself, you family and whereabouts on the Internet. If you must blog about events, do it after the event had already taken place and not before. Or else bad people may come up with a plan to stalk you or your family members.

7. Travel with a companion.

8. Don't bring too much cash if unnecessary.

9. Have emergency numbers ready on speed dial.

10. Never ask for a stranger's help when using the ATM. And never count your money after a withdrawal. Your bank will have means of returning your money if you don't get the correct amount but they wouldn't be able to help you if you were mugged.

11.Buy gifts one at a time as early as possible. Avoid the holiday rush and buying everything at one time. If it wouldn't be too much, buy gifts online ---FROM TRUSTED SELLERS!

12. If you are already in that creepy situation of being held up, don't fight it (unless you're a really good martial artist or something...) . It would really help if you can humble yourself and just beg, beg, beg them to take your valuables and not your life. Don't look at the perpetrators in the face. Never give them the impression that you're going to turn them in to the cops if they release you alive. Instead, keep on saying comforting words that you understand they may be needing the money and you just want to come back to your dear family alive...stuff like that. Make them empathize with you while empathizing with them as well.

13. Pray to the Lord too keep you safe from harm...really works!

Love lots,

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How To Prevent Wound Scarring + IlogMaria

I've mentioned in a previous post that one parenting hand-me-downs that I don't follow is leaving wounds to dry up in the open. Being a hyper child myself, I've suffered from terrible leg scars and I definitely, DEFINITELY wouldn't want Ella to have the same problems.


One day, Denise, Drew's sister, asked permission from the nanny to take Ella outside the house. Just after a few steps, Denise decided to drink water and left Ella inside the stoller. It was the calm after a storm at the time, so the wind was blowing tremendously strong. Needless to say, the stroller stumbled and Ella's forehead was severely wounded.

I know Ella's still young and the scar would probably just fade away...but it's the forehead! I don't want to take my chances! I also have a noticeable scar on my forehead that I got when I was a year old and it's not flattering! So I researched how to prevent scarring and tailored everything I learned for my daughter. Here's what we did:

1.I realized, based on a lot of interesting reads, that the reason scars/keloids develop is because the first few layers of skin heal first and dry up before the last few layers do. Applying this principle, we now understand that to prevent scarring, we must make sure that our wounds get to heal from the inside out.

2.Following my first principle, I looked for hydrating/disinfecting agent available locally that would be gentle for my daughter's skin. Good thing I found just the thing I needed from IlogMaria... HONEY!!!

Accidental wounds, lacerations, sutured wounds. Apply honey immediately on fresh wound. If possible, apply honey before closure of sutures. This will sterilize the inside of the wound and accelerate healing. Honey will make the wound self irrigate, accelerate blood clotting and healing. Scar tissue will not form.

And it did! We can actually see water coming out of the wound. Much like the how the nanomytes expelled the cobra venom in the GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra movie!!!

3.Ella wouldn't be able to keep the gooey honey on her wound so I had to find a way to protect it. I used breathable gauze bandage and micropore tape. But then the next day I gave Ella a bath and removed the bandage, she cried because parts of the bandage absorbed the honey and dried up on her skin. Poor thing! wanted to bandage to have s sort of balm on the bandage that would prevent the honey from being absorbed by the gauze. Found it from IlogMaria again...

Propolis Ointment: For skin irritations and infections. Good for relief of persistent skin rashes, skin itches, insect bites, infected wounds & burns.Made from Propolis Gold & Beeswax in an Olive Oil base.

wound: week 1

wound: week 2

wound: week 3

4. We kept this routine everytime anyone gives Ella a bath for 2 weeks. We noticed that the if any bit of outer skin gets to dry out, they easily get washed off by bath water. And guess what? NO SCAR!!! And it's not like we waited long after the wound had been healed for Ella's young skin to regenarate new cells. There was really NO SCAR AFTER WE DECIDED TO STOP THE BANDAGE PROCESS ---AND THAT WAS 2 WEEKS!

Everything boils down to the main principle on number 1. I just decided to go natural with the honey and propolis. But you can use any product you're convinced about as long as you keep the wound clean, moisturized and protected. I remember my OB Gyne applying the same principles on my CS and it worked. We used antibacterial ointment and hydrogen peroxide though.

Hope this helps!

Love lots,

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Recipe of the Day: Adobong Tagalog

I didn't really know there's such a thing as adobong tagalog until my hubby made an Ilonggo version! Anyway, here's how I cook my adobo:

Ingredients:

1/2 kg pork cut in cubes
1 whole garlic minced
1 1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 whole garlic minced
1 cup vinegar
2 laurel leaves
1/2 tsp ground pepper or
5 pcs pepper corns

1. Marinade pork cubes overnight in soy sauce, sugar and 1 whole garlic.
2. Get a 1/2 tsp of the 2nd minced garlic and saute the pork cubes on it.
3. Add the remaining soy sauce from the marinade, vinegar, laurel leaves and pepper.
4. Cover the sauce pan and let adobo boil, then simmer for 15 minutes in low fire.
5. Check back on adobo every 5 minutes. You'll know it's ready if the oil from the pork and sauce already separated.
6. Fry remaining garlic and add to adobo, let it cook for 5 more minutes.

You can also do this on chicken! Or better yet make chicken-pork adobo! Chicken would take lesser time to cook though. So make sure you cook pork first before adding chicken on a CPA!

Love lots,

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Lovin' Leyende's A Place In The Sun SPF30 Sunblock

Since riding the organic bandwagon, I thought it would be lovely to replace all the products my family uses with an organic counterpart and I was really really blessed to find this.

...click on picture to view products description

The product has a watery consistency, pretty much like Celeteque's facial moisturizer. In fact, if you're used to applying moisturizer using your fingers, this product will run through your hands if you're not too quick.



Applied on the face, it gives a smooth and weightless matte finish. There's a likelihood of getting white overcast if you don't get to spread the product well. So be sure to just get a pea sized amount of sunblock and add up if necessary because it dries up quickly too.



I also noticed that my face doesn't get too greasy in the afternoon (except for oils in my t-zone as I have combination skin) if I applied this as make-up base. Gifted people can even wear it alone if they're not looking into covering a few dark spots or correcting uneven skin tone. If my wish would come true, that Leyende would come up with a tinted version of this, it would be heaven!

Product didn't give me breakouts. I even used it on my 23 month old daughter and it didn't cause even a single rash. If you check the ingredients, all of them are guilt-free indeed!

The scent may need a bit of getting used to. It smells like a non-flavored, no mint toothpaste...not that strong though. It's water resistant to some extent.

Not recommended to block UV rays when you're out swimming, but lasts through sweat.

Overall, I give this product a 5 out of 5. I love how this product measures up to some commercial sunblocks out there. And for just P400 for 50ml, it's definitely a steal! Perfect for everyday use, with or without make up! You can get it through Leyende's Online Store, or check their resellers!

Love lots,

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