what food to avoid during breastfeeding?

First of all, all babies are unique. Their reaction to what food their mothers consume may be different. Therefore, the information here can only serve as a guideline.

During breastfeeding, nursing mother may want to avoid certain food such as fried food or those from fast food restaurant as these food in general are not healthy.

Not only mothers need to avoid these spam food, there are two more major categories of food that nursing mothers may want to avoid.

First, food that may be gassy. As these food may cause tummy trouble in the small babies. Gassy vegetable includes garlic, onion, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumber and peppers.

Gassy vegetable may cause colic or spitting up in babies. These vegetable includes garlic, onion, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumber and peppers.

Second category of food is food that may add taste to the breast milk. For some babies, they may be very sensitive to certain taste. If they do not like it, they may end up rejecting the breast milk which is a problem to nursing mothers. Food that may cause this problem include garlic.

There are also food like coffee, tea, chocolate that may cause irritation in baby.

Furthermore, nursing mother should also avoid alcohol as alcohol is definitely bad for the healthy development of children as study shows it can delay gross motor development of baby.

Food that is high in mercury level such as tuna should also be avoided as mercury can cause a child's brain. 

Source: what food to avoid during breastfeeding?

No water for newborns

When i first officially became a father in 2012, i was told by a nurse who assisted the doctor in the birth delivery of my son that I can give my child water 30 minutes later. I gave my newborn the water exactly 30 minutes as I was a new parents without much knowledge in raising children. But I learnt. 

Now, I know I should not give newborn water when I first learn it from one article (source below). I then confirmed it after checking WHO website. Yes, i really checked it out as it sounds weired to me at the begining and it means what the nurse told me was completely wrong and many people out there are repeating my mistake. 

To be precise, WHO advises no water for newborn until solid food is introduced to the baby. For most babies, solid food should be introduced at the age of 6 months.

Reason for this is because breast milk or formula milk can provide all necessary nutrition that a baby needs. If you use formula milk, do not need to dilute the formula milk also. You just need to follow the recommended practice given by the manufacturer of the formula milk.

Water can actually harm your baby. Water interfere with baby’s ability to absorb nutrition from the breast milk or formula milk.

Water can also cause water intoxicification. Although it is very rare, it can be serious once it occurs. It can cause tissue to swell, potentially causing seisure or even a coma. For my case, it did not cause any harm to my baby, in my opinion. 

You can read the original articles at: no water for newborn

No salt for baby

Without salt, food may taste like disaster to you. This is why you are wondering whether you should add salt to your baby’s food.

Babies are different from adult. Without salt, food will not be tasteless to them.

Baby will need salt, they just need 1 gram of salt. All these sodium can be obtained from formula milk or breast milk, and hence, it is not necessary for you to add any salt to your baby’s food.

First, a high salt intake has been shown to increase blood pressure and this increases the risk of heart related diseases.

When you add salt to your baby’s food, your baby may develop a dependency on salt. Once you stop adding salt, they may find it the food tasteless. This will make feeding harder as time goes by.

Other harmful effects of high salt intake include childhood obesity, higher risk of stomach cancer later in life, higher risk of kidney disease and asthma.

Source: why no salt for baby

Baby walkers:advantages and disadvantages

Baby walker, as its name implied, has been claimed by manufacturers that it helps baby to walk. However, in Canada, baby walker is banned. Obviously, authorities in Canada think baby walkers do more harm than good.

Many health expert or organisation also believe that baby walker is not necessary, this is the opinion of KK hospital in Singapore.

First, baby walker does not help baby to walk, it actually slows down this development milestone. Most baby will be able to walk at the age of 10 months to 15 months. Using baby walker too often can delay this by one month, as some studies suggest.

Second, there is a danger of using baby walker. This is because baby walker enable baby to move around faster and reach a greater height. For example, with help of baby walker, he can reach items that he cannot reach without baby walker.

Baby walker may tip, this can cause the baby to be thrown downstairs which is extremely dangerous.

In some studies, researchers also found that baby walker can cause atypical walking pattern. Reasons given is that baby cannot see his or her leg while walking due to baby walker. 

But this does not mean the baby walker does not have any advantage.

In my opinion, it temporarily give mothers some free time to do other things. While carrying baby or watching him walk with the help of chair, mothers really do not have any free time to do other stuff. With the help of baby walker, they are able to perform some simple and quick task.

With proper planning, danger of using baby walker can be minimized. At least for me, it does not show any danger. Whether it delays the development milestone, it is hard to tell.

Source: baby walker: is it necessary

Popular baby names in Singapore

The most popular baby boy name and baby girl name in Singapore all start with E.

Emma has been chosen as the most popular baby girl name in Singapore and Ethan is the top pick for baby boy name.

Emma means universal in Latin.

Ethan means firm and strong in Hesbrew, a good choice for boy who grows up to serve national service in Singapore.

Top ten baby girl names, according to Babyment.com is Emma, Olivia, Charlotte, Hannah, Alyssa, Scarlett, Chloe, Mikayla, Leia and Meredith.

Top ten baby boy names, is Ethan, Aiden, Lucas, Caleb, Javier, Zayven, Ivan, Jayden, Ryan and Enzo.

Among all these names, Emma, Olivia, Charlotte, Hannha, Chloe has been the popular choices among parents with baby girl for many years.

For parents with baby boy, Ethan, Lucas, Caleb, Javier has also been top picks.

It is a bit surprise to see one created name Zayven to be in the top ten for baby boy name.

Meaning of the name is always the top consideration for many parents as reflected from meaning of the popular names such as Ethan, Ryan, Charlotte, Chloe.

It is believed that religion affect parents in naming their children. Many the names picked is related to regiion. These include Mikayla, Jayden and Ivan.

You can refer to popular baby names in Singapore for a list of top 20 baby girl names or baby boy girls name in 2017.

Infant care centre in Singapore

As of end of 2016, there are 471 child care centres offering infant care service. This means that more than 1 out of 3 child care centres offering service to cater children that ages between 2 months and 18 months. Sengkang is the only housing estate with more than 30 infant care centre.It is believed that more and more infant care centres will be set up in Punggol-a booming new town with many young parents.

Infant care services is not cheap because it is labor intensive as these children will probably need attention as long as they are awake.

Of course, most of the time, they sleep as that is the only job that most babies will need to do. One parent even say that my child is just sleeping in the infant care centre and play with us at home.

This does not mean the child care teachers do not need to do anything. In fact, they need to feed these children often as the tiny stomach cannot store a lot of nutrition and therefore need to be fed more often. 

Furthermore, they are unable to use toilet. Hence, teachers will also be busy changing diaper each day. 

Most of the time, infant care service will cost parents more than 1,300 a month. However, this is far less than the average income that many mummies can earn now. According to latest data by the government authority, the median fee for infant care service is 1357 and the average is 1477. It should be noted that these fee is still high as some mummies may not earn more than 2000 a month.

For details, you can check infant care centres in Singapore to find more information about infant care centres in Singapore such as contact, details of fee and map.

Buy cheap baby milk powder in Singapore

There is no cheap baby milk powder in Singapore, milk powder here are good quality, but it is sold at a much higher price compared to other countries in the world. I can only help you to buy cheaper than normal selling in supermarket or online.

First, it is not a good idea to go to baby fair to buy baby milk powder. It is not a good investment of time and transportation cost as the saving is not significant compared to your time spent and the transportation cost. 

Second, you should buy online only when there is significant discount like more than 10%. This is because you have to buy large quantity in order to enjoy free delivery. You usually have 2% to 4% discount for members when you buy it at supermarket, provide that you have the membership. Online stores usually do not provide time-independent discount.

Third, you may not need to wait for any promotion for stage 1 formula as retailers, distributors and manufacturers are not allowed to promote or market stage 1 formula milk as instructed by the Health Promotion Board under the Ministry of Health.

Fourth, you should consider buy from Malaysia, Products sold in Malaysia are similar to those sold in Singapore, but at a much cheaper price. If you buy from Malaysia, you can enjoy at least 30% discount. Please note that AVA has a restriction on the amount of processed food that you can bring into Singapore.

Furthermore, you should visit baby milk powder promotion to check the latest baby milk powder promotion from all supermarkets or online stores in Singapore.

Also, you should join the membership club of the manufacturer, you can get the free sample of 400g in some cases. You can visit free sample baby milk powder to request sample. You can also enjoy very good discount on some special occasion like birthday of your baby, national day of Singapore. The manufacturer may also inform you when there is a promotion through newsletter.  

Lastly, you should try to practice breastfeeding. If your baby is fully on breast milk, the saving can be more than 2000 a year.

Cheap baby milk powder