For N we used MailBaby. The meal registry really did make things easier. The registrants got an email asking them to sign up for a day and choose a meal. We could see what others were bringing – it really did up the competitive factor – plus it meant N didn’t get four spaghetti dinners. Her address, contact info and likes and dislikes were all laid out. N got an email each day saying who was bringing what, and we got reminder emails that we’d promised a meal too. It meant P, who arranged it all, just spent about 20 minutes organizing the info and hey presto, it was done.

For H her friend C arranged everything. Because I recently had to go without my computer for a few weeks while it was in the shop some of the emails went AWOL. I had to ask her twice to send their likes and dislikes, plus I didn’t have their address or phone # and the dates were all up in the air. I’m guessing organizing it has taken C a lot more time and backing and forthing with people.

The thing is, when you already have kids, it’s actually quite hard to make a meal for another family in the sense of finding time to make it, to take it by etc.  So anything that makes that easier has got to be good.

MealBaby probably had added appeal to me because I suggest a “food shower” in Healthy Mum, Happy Baby, so I’m already on that train anyhow. Plus I’m all for anything that saves time.

Now if they could just combine MealBaby’s registry with SpringPad’s organizational and menu tools that would be something special!

I heard this on the news last night and wanted to follow up and then I saw it on Treehugger, so wanted to share: Debate Over Seafood and Pregnancy Rages On .

A well-respected coalition of scientists from private groups and federal agencies are saying that  pregnant and breast-feeding women should eat at least 12 oz of fish and seafood weekly for their baby’s optimal brain development.

However, the US government still recommends that pregnant and breastfeeding women eat no more than 12 oz per week as mercury contamination is an issue. Health Canada’s recommendations seem to revolve more around tinned tuna than fish in general, but all in all I’m stumped. Between conflicting info on Vitamin D and Seafoood who’s to know what to do? All I know for sure is I didn’t take enough Vitamin  D or eat enough Seafood (given these new recommendations) while pregnant and nursing, so for those of us past the stage of being able to help our babies develop it’s a bit depressing. Mind you, all you can do is what you know that the time.  I’m going to see if I can track down a dietitian and see if I can get more info…

Here’s more info: www.brainybabieshealthykids.org/press-release-100407/

It’s the kind of site that’ll entrap you when you start drilling down and jumping from link to link.

It was three in the morning.

New mom Annemarie Tempelman-Kluit found herself wandering around the house, ravenously hungry, wondering if she could stand to eat another container of yogurt or another healthy cookie or bowl of cereal. Again.

“It’s awful!” she says. “People tell you a lot of stuff about having a baby, but nobody tells you what to do after you have the baby. Nobody told me I’d be that hungry, or that thirsty. You don’t realize how little time you’re going to have. I thought there had to be a better way.”

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Hands up anyone who’s breast-feeding. Something of a challenge when one arm is around the little one and the other is propping open your eyelids. Local author Annemarie Tempelman-Kluit has been there and done that, which is why she penned the enormously practical Healthy Mum, Happy Baby: How to Feed Yourself When You’re Breastfeeding Your Baby (Random House Canada, $25) for the real–rather than the mythical–yummy mummy. Mother of two youngsters, Tempelman-Kluit brings honesty and humour to a neglected topic: how to keep you and your family well – fed when you’re starving and sleep deprived. Breakfast smoothies to almost-instant pizzas–it’s all here, along with reassurance from other moms and even light-reading lists. Skip the hand-embroidered diaper bag and give this to new parents, along with the URL of Tempelman-Kluit’s hip new, locally focused and reality-based newsletter and Web site, Yoyomama.ca, aimed at those who don’t plan to put their two-year-old in a designer bikini.

The bundle includes Healthy Mum, Happy Baby, Nipple Cream from Bug & Pickle and a Parent Posture DVD which I’m itching to get my hands on, my posture not being what it could. All the details on are their site.

And speaking of local resources don’t forget yoyomama (if you sign up in June you could win Bug & Pickle’s Head-to-Toe Baby Wash & Baby Lotion – are you seeing a B&P theme here at all?).

There’s an excerpt from Healthy Mum, Happy Baby with the lowdown on what nutrients you need, which vices you can indulge in – at least a little bit – how to order the healthiest take out, and more.

Enjoy!

A few Healthy Mum, Happy Baby links I found while trolling online today:

• This site has tonnes of good breastfeeding info & links plus a hitherto unknown hmhb plug
• Amazon.ca has a list of recommended books for Mother’s Day & hmhb made line two! Yeah!
• My mum also sent a link to an article in the Globe with Dr. Jack Newman answering your breastfeeding questions, and the article links to another article called Breast Friends – which would have been on my alternate title list had I been clever enough to think of it – but which is actually about a growing trend in wetnursing and co-nursing…I always wondered how it would feel to nurse someone else’s child but never went there myself.

This morning I didn’t even try and she seemed fine with it. Since this is almost certainly our last baby this means I will never breastfeed again, ever. And that makes me sad, even if I sometimes found being a milk bar frustrating.

The upside? I may lose (some of) my blubby tummy that my body holds onto no matter what I do while I’m nursing (or at least that’s how it worked with Madeleine). Another plus? My “boo boos” (as M so charmingly calls them) may shrink, ’cause I don’t think I can live with an “F” cup for much longer!