Table of Contents

1. Interview with RookieMoms.com
Peekaboo Picks Editor, Megan Grady, interviews Whitney Moss from the always enjoyable RookieMoms.com.

2. Leaving Lullaby Land: Bedtime CDs for the Choosy Listener
Staff Writer, Mamie Cosentino, shares her daughter’s top picks for bedtime tunes.

3. Feeding Your New Baby
Contributing Writer, Natalie Geary, M.D., offers invaluable tips for introducing baby to solid foods.

4. Chew on This
Staff Writer, Jala Smith, gives us a great selection of products and ideas to help ease the pain of teething.

Peekaboo Picks Editor, Megan Grady, had a chance to chat with one of the brilliant moms behind the ever popular, RookieMoms.com. If you haven’t checked out this site yet, especially if you’re a mom in your rookie year of motherhood, then you really must click over and see what all the buzz is about. The site is jam packed with some fabulous ideas and creative ways to embrace motherhood. Here, Whitney Moss, co-founder of RookieMoms.com shares a little more about the site and the fun moms behind it.

MG: A large percentage of Peekaboo Picks readers are in their rookie year of motherhood. Tell us a little bit about your website, RookieMoms.com, who you are, and what you and your website can provide for us rookie mamas.

WM: RookieMoms.com is a huge brainstorm of more than 300 activities for moms to do with their babies. Many of the activities are what we call “outings” or excuses to leave the house with your baby, but some are crafts, meal-planning tips, or date-night ideas.

I think that whether you are home all day with your baby or only seeing him after work and on the weekends, sometimes it’s hard to know what to do with this little person who doesn’t talk or walk. The baby’s not going to say, “Hey mom, let’s go to the coffee shop and get you a treat!”

RookieMoms.com is a site where moms can browse by age of baby to get some ideas for how to spend their days.

MG: What a super idea! What inspired you and Heather to create this site?

WM: I had a fantastic mom’s group facilitator when my son, Julian, was a newborn. She taught us that we needed to get out of the house and take ourselves on outings. Part of the benefit is that babies seem to be less fussy outside the house, especially outdoors. The other major benefit is for the mom to socialize and gain confidence in her ability to do the things she likes to do—with her baby in tow.

Heather joined the ranks of motherhood about six months after I did. When her son, Holden, was a couple of weeks old, I could see the terror in her eyes when I suggested she walk ten blocks to meet me at a nearby shopping area. This outing was one of my staples, and I had forgotten that when you are a newbie, it seems really hard. I passed along my perspective that getting that baby out of the house was her new job, and that she should pick one outing each day to get the two of them out into the world. A few months later, we challenged ourselves to come up with a huge list of activities we like, and then decided to publish them on a web site, hoping to share our coping mechanism with other frightened new moms.

MG: RookieMoms.com offers so many awesome activities to try. Where do you get all of your ideas from?

WM: Many of the ideas are from our initial list of things we did with our babies, but ever since we started the site, we certainly keep our eyes open for new things to do. Even with Julian and Holden, our now two-year old boys, there’s a post-nap, pre-dinner chunk of time that needs to be filled, and we both try to take them different places throughout the week. It’s as much to entertain ourselves as it is to keep them busy.

Sometimes our readers send in ideas. And some of the best ideas come from talking to a new mom friend who triumphantly announces that she accomplished some outing and enjoyed herself. We love adding those stories to the web site.

We really want our activities to be about the mom *having more fun*. Our primary themes are for Mom to be hands-free, keep her romance alive, connect with her friends, and maintain a sense of individuality.

MG: That is so great. Do you and Heather actually try every activity that appears on your site? What is one of the wackiest activities you’ve done since starting this fabulous site?

WM: We have done most of the activities ourselves. If a reader sends in an activity, we attribute it to her. If the owner of a business or service sends in a pitch for their product, we never post it until we’ve tried it ourselves.

One of my favorites is an idea we got from another parent blogger, Sweet Juniper. He lived in San Francisco and would photograph his baby daughter in front of large pieces of graffiti. We decided to try this out and made an outing of it, driving around to scout out graffiti and then trying to get the boys to stand against the wall. The irony of putting our clean, precious one-year olds in this dirty lot that was littered with scrap-metal was hilarious.

Another fun activity we tested together was taking the babies to a pub where we could each order a beer. The pub served food, and therefore had high chairs. Unfortunately, as soon as we sat down, Julian threw up, and I had to yank him out of the high chair and hold his head over the gutter on the street. It was a baby version of a frat boy moment.

MG: (Laughing) I love it! Okay, so what if we are a mom with an amazing idea that we would love to see featured on Rookie Moms- how do we let you know?

WM: We love to hear from other rookie moms. Send a description of your activity to moms@rookiemoms.com. Include a picture of yourself and/or your baby, too!

MG: I know from personal experience that running a website and being a full-time mom certainly has its challenges. Is there any advice you can give us busy moms on balancing it all?

WM: Full-time mom, stay at home mom, I know there can be controversy over these terms, so I’ll be clear and honest. I have about 25 hours per week of child care so that I can work on my writing and the web site. For me, this goes back to the objective of keeping myself happy and maintaining that sense of individuality. It’s working very well for my family right now. So, I do feel like I’ve carved out time for the work required to maintain the web site without going crazy and working late at night. I can also do the household chores more easily with Julian being cared for somewhere else, and that makes me not mind them as much. My advice? I guess it would be to get a few extra hours of childcare per week, so you can be less rushed, and enjoy your days a little more whether you choose to spend that time by yourself, doing an errand, or going for a bike ride with your partner on the weekend.

MG: We know you have a lot of fans over at RookieMoms.com (including myself!) Are there any other projects in the works that we die-hards should know about?

WM: The die-hards probably already know about our most important latest projects: Heather had a second baby about 8 weeks ago, and I’ve got one coming in July.

MG: Well, big congrats are in order for both of you! I guess the only real question I have left is how do you know when you’re no longer a rookie? Is it after the 1st year? The second child? It seems to me we’re always sort of rookies at this motherhood thing. Would you agree?

WM: I do think everyone always feels like a rookie. I am frequently at a loss with some of the toddler behavior I’m dealing with right now, and I question my competency and dedication. I am also anxious about adding our second child to the mix, and feel like I’ll be learning something brand new when that happens. So, yes, I continue to feel untrained and novice at what I’m currently going through. However, I think the real rookie year, that first year, includes an identity shift of going from not-a-mom to a mom, that has a significant impact on women. You walk around and think all the other women pushing strollers are real moms and you’re some kind of imposter. I think it’s that group that needs some words of encouragement, some inspiration, and some humor. I hope RookieMoms.com is providing that support for our readers.

Leaving Lullaby Land: Bedtime CDs for the Choosy Listener
By Mamie Cosentino

My daughter comes from a musical family. Her grandfather is a musician, her uncle writes songs and plays in a band, and she’s even got a great-great aunt, thriving in her eighties, who was a chorus girl in the golden age of cinema. As for me, though accomplished in nothing more than a handful of piano lessons and the ability to hammer out a pretty convincing version of “Mickey Mouse Club March” on a rainbow-colored xylophone, I love a good melody, and had a pretty strong inkling that my daughter would, too.

That’s why my idea of the perfect nursery was never complete without its own satiny soundtrack. When I tip-toed out of baby’s room after tucking her in to her rose-covered bedding, I always left a lullaby behind. To me, it was the very picture of a charmed infancy—peeking in to see my honeybee’s chest rising and falling in rhythm with the soft, sweet melody played gently on piano, the blue glow of her nightlight shining like the moon.

WAKE UP! Honeybee’s two, and she’ll have me know that lullabies are sad music, and no longer welcome in her nursery. That’s right—harp strings and high notes, twinkling stars and pretty little horses—my girl’s having none of it, and her mama’s wondering just what to do. I see her point: the sensitive child may easily get misty instead of drowsy while listening to some of the more tender tracks on a lullaby CD. Two bars of Brahms, and I’ve got myself one melancholy baby, tears and all. I don’t know if she’s a musician-in-the-making or just a temperamental toddler, but my sleepyhead has some serious ideas about what she’ll be listening to at bedtime, and they don’t include the lilting lullabies of her babyhood .

Lucky for us both, we’ve discovered some bedtime CDs that are perfect for winding down to without causing the least bit of weeping. Whether you’ve got a choosy listener on your hands or a sensitive soul in your lap, these selections are toddler tested and approved, and a wonderful addition to any baby’s bedtime routine.

“Happy Music!” It’s what my daughter exclaims every time I slip Little Golden Treasury into the CD player at bedtime. She’s right—the opening melody is decidedly jaunty, and I’m quick to smile and nod in agreement. An audio book just perfect for toddlers, this CD includes cheerful readings of “Scuffy the Tugboat,” “Tawny Scrawny Lion,” “The Saggy Baggy Elephant” and Honeybee’s personal favorite, “The Poky Little Puppy.” These simple tales are enhanced by charming sound effects and brief musical interludes, and each repeats once at the end of the disc, just in case your sleepyhead needs one more story.

Catch the Moon is a board book with a bonus—a 13-track CD featuring the talents of singer-songwriters Lisa Loeb and Elizabeth Mitchell, who harmonize beautifully and infuse their lyrics with a soft and breathy dream-like quality. Traditional songs like “Big Rock Candy Mountain” and “Oh Susana” sound fresh and upbeat with guitar accompaniment, and the French “Fais Do Do” and Spanish “La Manita” are universally appealing and gorgeously rendered. Gentle and graceful with folkie overtones, Catch the Moon is a rare find in the realm of children’s music and an album the whole family will love.

A collection of “retro” lullabies recorded by legendary jazz performers and compiled with baby’s bedtime in mind, Nicky’s Jazz Lullabies is one dreamy album. From Nat King Cole’s “There’s A Train Out For Dreamland” to Peggy Lee’s “This Little Piggy,” these renditions are more sophisticated than your average lullaby, but no less soothing. There’s a reason melodies like “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” stay with us generation after generation—they’re beautiful, timeless, and memorable. Just ask Grandma, who probably grew up with a number of these songs, and who will love listening to them again every bit as much as baby will.

I discovered When We Were Very Young & Now We Are Six at the time of my daughter’s first birthday, and have yet to find anything that rivals them since. A two-disc CD with more than 70 verses written by Winnie the Pooh creator A.A. Milne, this collection has become a noon-time, nap-time, and night-time staple in our home. Don Davis provides the gentle piano accompaniment, and British actor Peter Dennis does the rest with his friendly, funny, wonderfully warm recitations of Milne’s classic poetry. Rhythmic and relaxing, each CD delivers more than fifty minutes of music and verse that just may be the loveliest hour of baby’s day (or night).

Feeding Your New Baby: Introducing Solid Foods
by Natalie Geary, M.D.

Most parents look forward to the day when they, or their doctor, decide it is time to start introducing their baby to solid foods. But the process can seem daunting, and there is a lot of conflicting advice out there. The truth is that your baby has a lifetime to eat, and a lifetime to try new foods, so the best advice of all is to go slow and be patient. Below is a list of tips and guidelines I tell parents in my practice as they start on the food journey.

First: TIMING
It is important to consider your child’s history, and family history. Was your child born early? Does she have reflux? Are there family members with significant allergies, eczema or asthma? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, then I usually recommend delaying the start of solid food until the baby is at least 6 months. While many doctors urge the start of solid food at four months, I believe, as I said, that a baby has a lot of time ahead to try new things and rushing can be a big challenge to the developing digestive and immune system.

Second: WHAT GOES FIRST
Please be sure to introduce your baby to food ONE ingredient at a time- most store-bought baby foods are listed as ‘stage one” meaning that they are single ingredient foods. I recommend starting with a fruit such as bananas or prunes or pears, and alternating fruit and vegetable as you go (see below). Cereals are iron-fortified and can be very constipating as a result so if you start with rice cereal as many doctors suggest, do not give too much at once.

Third: HOW DO I MOVE FORWARD
If there is one critical piece of information that you need to hold onto, its that you should start with single-ingredient foods, one at a time, separated by 5 days- some doctors believe you only need wait 3 days, but I have seen food allergies and reactions occur up to 5 days later. This sometimes confuses parents: what this means is that on day 1 you give, for example, bananas, then you give bananas on day 2, 3, 4 and 5 assuming no reaction before that. If on the 6th day, the baby is tolerating bananas without a reaction, you may then introduce a second single ingredient food such as sweet potatoes. For day 6,7,8,9 and 10 you may give your baby bananas AND sweet potatoes. If on day 11 there has been no reaction you can introduce single ingredient food number three, such as prunes. For days 11,12,13,14,15 you may give your baby bananas, sweet potatoes and prunes- and so you go forward.

Fourth: HOW MUCH
You must remember that a baby need to LEARN to eat solid food- the mechanisms for swallowing boluses of food rather than a liquid are different and use a different coordination of muscles,. Therefore, in the early days of feeding the primary goal is DEVELOPMENTAL, not nutritional: you are teaching your baby to swallow food first. The baby will tongue thrust and make silly faces but eventually will learn to swallow the food- you should not interpret his grimaces as a negative reaction- usually it just means the baby is saying “ what is this that you put on my tongue and what do I do now?”

Only after the baby really starts to open his mouth for food and swallow it efficiently should you start to consider the food you serve him as a source of nutrition. Start with small amounts, and let the baby hold her own spoon while you feed her with a different spoon. Remember too that a baby’s appetite can vary just as yours can- and one day he may seem ravenous, the next day only mildly interested. You should not worry about these variations unless your baby is consistently refusing to eat or drink.

Fifth: MAKE MEAL TIME WORK
It is important for your baby to realize that eating is a task to be completed and not a game. Try to feed your baby in a high chair, preferably at the table, preferably with the family for at least one of the meals a day. Avoid feeding your baby on the run whenever possible- the sooner she learns to sit and eat calmly, the easier it will be on all of you-and she will start to feel like part of the family!

Dr. Natalie Geary is a pediatrician in private practice in Manhattan. She writes extensively on pediatric issues and has a special interest in nutrition, allergy and healthier natural medicine for children. For questions or further advice, please go to www.oncall4kids.com and pose your question to Dr. Geary.

Chew On This
By Jala Smith

Crankiness…crying…biting…chewing, and our favorite…lots of drooling. If you’re the parent of a 1-year-old you’ve lived through these signs — baby is teething. It’s a painful time for little ones, and an equally painful time for parents as we’d do just about anything imaginable to soothe those sore and tender gums. Your doctor may recommend a numbing or prescription medicine to tame the tears, but we’ve found some fun, and even tasty, alternatives that may help turn those sobs to smiles.

Teething Veggies
www.egiggle.com

Bring new meaning to the phrase “eat your vegetables.” Soft, simple, healthy and made from 100% organic cotton. Choose from a carrot, green bean, tomato or mushroom. Sweet and smart with absolutely no pesticides or chemicals used in the production process.
Activity Strappers
www.oompa.com

Colorful, soft, and filled-with-fun! Attach to a crib, changing table, stroller or grocery cart. Squeak the bunny, crinkle the flower, and watch the mouse jiggle and vibrate. Equipped with a teething ring for grabbing and chewing.

Sonajero Rojo Clutching Toy from Kathe Kruse
www.oompa.com

We love this one because the fun goes on and on. The center handle squeaks, and the orange heart crinkles, beads in the pink heart add texture for grabbing, and the soft smile on the orange flower just makes anyone feel good. Add in a ring for teething and a loop for attaching a pacifier and you’ve got hours of entertainment and chewing pleasure.

Teething Apparel
www.cafepress.com

It’s easy for adults to let people know why we’re cranky. But what “out” do babies have? How about a shirt that explains it all? Add some humor to your baby’s teething stage with apparel that let’s the cat out of the bag long enough for those little chompers to make their grand appearance.

Teething toys may bring relief to aching gums, but we highly doubt they temp tiny taste buds. Mix up your remedies by trying one of these teething biscuit recipes. We’ve chosen two that are egg-free since a common baby allergy happens to be eggs. These are really easy to make and don’t taste all that bad — to a baby.

Teething Biscuits

8 fl oz pure apple juice
4 oz flour
3-4 oz baby rice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Place all ingredients into a bowl and mix well.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out and cut into shapes.
Bake for 20-30 minutes on a greased baking sheet/cookie sheet until golden brown.

Cookies with Maple Syrup style

7 oz teff flour
2 oz arrowroot starch
2 tsp egg-free baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
4 oz ground flaxseed
2 fl oz maple syrup
2 fl oz unrefined oil
4 fl oz pureed apple
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Combine the liquid ingredients in a separate bowl.
Mix the dry and liquid ingredients together, stirring thoroughly.
Using a tablespoon, place spoonfuls of the mixture onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for about 10-15 minutes.

Find these recipes and others here.

Not enough time? Try Earth’s Best Wheat Teething Biscuits. They’re perfectly shaped for baby’s small hands and mouth and wrapped in packages of two so you can throw a couple in your purse or diaper bag for traveling. Don’t leave home without them! Find out where you can buy these tasty treats by visiting www.earthsbest.com.

Welcome the arrival of your little one’s premiere pearly whites. Keep them strong, healthy, and occupied.