Never leave the house without pickle juice....

My sister in-law gave me a bottle of this at my baby shower and I soon learned that this stuff is like liquid gold!! We never go anywhere without it. It’s called Colic-Ease and you can only find it online. . It’s made up of dill weed seed oil (hence the smell and taste of pickle juice ;) ), caraway seed oil, cinnamon bark oil, clover bud oil, and cardamom seed oil. It’s all natural and calms Clover down the second it touches her mouth...as though she knows relief is near :)

At first I had trouble trying to spoon feed it to her so I went to PCC and bought a couple of empty tincture bottles. I keep one in my diaper bag and one at home. I measured out that 4 dropper fulls equals 1/2 teaspoons, which is the dosage for newborns.

I give it to her for every feeding as a precautionary and in between feedings as needed. If I'm nursing her I just give it to her at the beginning and if we feed her a bottle we just mix it right in! This is a MUST HAVE for all new parents!

Cradle cap be gone!

Like every other Mother I was seriously dreading when Clover developed cradle cap. It's just yucky and if you're anything like me, it takes a lot of self control to restrain myself from picking at it. Picking at it makes it worse too because it causes the oils to spread. I asked around to all of my girlfriends and spent an entire afternoon googleing remedies for this. I tried a few things I came across, but nothing really seemed to work very well. It was finally the nurse at Clovers Pediatrician that suggested using the little funny brush that we came home from the hospital with to scrub her scalp with when we shampoo. I thought, Oh! That's what that things for? HA! I had no idea what it was when we got home and unpacked, but for some reason I held on it it.
The nurse was totally right. I started using it just as she suggested every time I shampooed Clovers hair. Ta Da, cadle cap be gone!

Baby acne is not teenage acne...DUH!

Clover is getting some pretty bad baby acne. A friend of mine told me that her doctor prescribed some cream when her baby’s acne got bad so I thought I’d give that a try. Unfortunately our regular doctor was out of the office so our appointment was with some guy who looked like he hadn’t handled a baby in years. He also looked like Kernel Sanders, HA! He thought it was important to inform us that Clovers acne was different then teenage acne. Thanks buddy, because I was concerned I gave birth to a 13 year old until you just told me that. *eyes roll*
Maybe that’s not obvious though; so for those of you who don’t know what baby acne is let me enlighten you. During the final moments of pregnancy, a mothers hormones cross the placenta into the baby stimulating the oil glands in their skin and eventually causing baby acne.
Anyway, we left the office with a prescription for Hydrocortisone cream, which in my opinion was a waste of time.
Since then I’ve been doing research on line for different home remedies that might help clear her acne up. Most of what I found was to wash her face with mild soap twice a day and to wipe her face with a wet cloth after each feeding.
I have a friend from India who always seems to have home remedies for these types of things so I thought I’d see what she had to say. She recommends Chickpea Flour (also called Basen). You mix it with a bit of water to form a paste and then wash her face with that once or twice a day. I’m off to Mayuri our local Indian market to purchase some. I’ll let you know how it goes!