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Optimal Living

5 Things I Learned from 90 Days of Meditating

December 22, 2018 By Janine Ganska

I’ve always wanted to “learn” to meditate.  I mean, I watched Eat, Pray, Love, I read the book and I couldn’t help but think that her level of achieving Zen and just being calm in the moment would be a priceless skill to acquire.

I’m a person who is consistently in her head, lots of balls up in the air, a master at multitasking.  I set a goal for myself to meditate for 90 days straight. Here is what I discovered in the process.

  1. All meditation you should consider a success. You thought of your to do list the whole time? Your kids? Great, there is no wrong way to meditate. One thing to consider is to try different types of meditations. YouTube is a great place for this. I’ve found guided meditations and visualizing meditations work best for me as they take me on the journey I enjoy going on. As I got further in my journey I did get better at keeping the spontaneous thoughts to a minimum
  2. One size does not fit all. In the beginning I wanted to go deeper and improve on my concentration. I found that meditations with visualization really helped me. I had to focus on what they were telling me to focus on so when my mind wandered it was much easier to get back on course. I find power in the spoken word so most of my meditations contain speaking of some sort. It isn’t wrong that your mind wanders.
  3. Seeing your thoughts as fluid. What this means for me is that during my meditation I had to see my thoughts as they were, acknowledge them and send them on their way. For me, again with the visualization, I would see a midnight black train that was continually moving horizontally in front of me in a sea of black space. When a thought comes in, I recognize it then “put it on the train” to be taken away.
  4. When should you meditate? I meditate at all times of the days but I find it most powerful to meditate in the morning, preferably with sun shining on my closed eyes. I meditate sitting up, leaning against a wall, sometimes laying down. The biggest impact of success for me with meditating was there not being interruptions and committing to no less than 10 minutes a session. Its helpful to increase the time as well as change up what you meditate to. I’ve gained new perspective each time I’ve changed my normal routine.
  5. What are the benefits? I have found the most powerful benefit of my meditations is that I can pause, in my day, in my thoughts, in my to do list and let the Universe in. Sometimes, staying motivated is hard (read about how I stay motivated Here). This may mean it’s a slap upside the head about a situation I’ve been avoiding and I just get this insight whilst meditating or shortly after of what my next steps should be. Sometimes its an overwhelming sense of love that I hadn’t been focusing on prior as the thoughts of my to do lists run through my mind. When you let in what lies beneath the surface you are bound to be led where you will find benefits.

You truly do not have to know anything about meditating to start. Find one on YouTube (or an app- I use Insight Timer) that appeals to you,  get comfortable, close your eyes let the Universe guide you.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Optimal Living, Slider

5 Things to Consider When Night Weaning a Toddler

August 6, 2017 By Janine Ganska

Are you ready to night wean your toddler? Have you scoured every source to learn the best way to do this and not cause irreparable damage (spoiler alert- you won’t damage them!)? Read the books, got the t-shirts, hashtagged about not getting good sleep for so long you don’t know if you could sleep the night through even if you do get your little bundle of joy to sleep through the night? Have you tried before and been unable to truly get them to wean? Me too! To all of the above.

My son was 2.5 (and I had a 6 month old nursling) when I FINALLY was able to get him to night wean. My son was and is a boob baby. Hands down he nursed around the clock since the day he was born.  Would still nurse all day if I let him.

This isn’t to say we didn’t have our challenges in the beginning. We were unable to figure out how to latch and for the first 6 weeks.  We ended up having to use a nipple shield to help us. I had massive oversupply that due to some misinformation took forever to straighten out. My son also turned out to be very sensitive to dairy. Even once I removed all that, he spit up until about 9 months old. Constantly. (An apparent affliction my second son shared as well- oh joy).

Here is a list of 5 things to consider when night weaning a toddler:

  1. Is your child able to tell the difference between night and day? This was huge for us, as I would tell him he could nurse when the sun came up. When I attempted prior to explain daytime he didn’t understand. He would think it was daytime even when we were nursing to go down at night. At 2.5 he fully grasped daytime versus nighttime.
  2. Can your child understand concepts in books? We got the book “Nursies when the Sunshines” and when we read it he understood it. So we casually read it in the 3 weeks leading up to the big day. Then every morning and night I would reiterate “look its daytime” right when he woke up. Then “its night time and time for bed” just to help drill home this concept of night and day.
  3. Pick the parent that will be the comforter. Some people say it’s easiest if the dad takes over since we have the ultimate source of upset (aka the boobs) but I personally say you know your child. I knew that my son would only want me and taking the boob and myself away would be a double whammy. So I just wore clothes he couldn’t get access to me in.
  4. Pick a day and include your child in the time frame. We chose a Saturday when I would be off work Sunday/Monday. Leading up to the event I would say at different times “next week we are going to stop nursing in the middle of the night” or “on Saturday we won’t nurse anymore in the middle of the night”. I could tell it was sinking in even though when I said these things sometimes he would just stare at me. There were random other times he would bring it up with no prompting and say something like “we don’t nurse anymore in the middle of the night” he also attempted to explain this new change to his grandma “grandma mama says no more nursing in the middle of the night”. It was sinking in at least conceptually.
  5. Be prepared for him to be upset. This is a huge change for him and change is hard for everyone-adults included. We may not cry with all changes but we certainly do for some of them! Have compassion that though they understand they are still upset about the change. There is absolutely a difference between being upset with a transition and losing their mind over the change. In my opinion this is not cry it out- I was with my son for his entire upset, however long that took.  He always calmed back down and went back to sleep.

For us it looked like this: Day 1 he woke up 2 times and each time I stayed calm and when he asked can he nurse I would say in a calm voice “no baby, remember no nursing in the middle of the night.” He cried for a few minutes and I offered to rub his back instead.  He declined the first night but did go back to sleep each of the two times after some tears and me holding him. He did cry a bit while I held him and said “I want to nurse” I just continued to stay calm and quiet and empathize. “I know you do baby but no more nursing in the middle of the night”.

Day 2 he woke up 2 times cried for about ½ the time as he did the first night and did allow me to rub his back to get back to sleep.  Day 3 he woke up one time fussed for a minute and let me rub his back to go back down. Since then he has slept through the night except for a handful of times.  For a couple months after he would randomly bring up not nursing in the middle of night anymore. I would reaffirm for him that that was true.

One note on your mama intuition, if it doesn’t feel like it’s the right time take a step back and review. If you are in the beginning stages of just introducing the topic and it doesn’t feel like the right time. It might not be. Can this wait a few more months? At these young ages a few months can drastically change their capacity to understand.

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Filed Under: Blog, Optimal Living Tagged With: Optimal Living

Baby Sign Language: 5 Useful Signs to Teach Your Baby

August 6, 2017 By Janine Ganska

I was very interested in teaching my baby sign language. I mean what could be better than a little baby being able to communicate before they could actually talk? Sounded too good to be true! I read some concerns that by teaching them sign language they won’t talk as quickly but in my house this was not true at all. There is also, of course, research that says it helps them speak quicker. We used sign language as a segue to words. My then 3 year old could not stop talking and what’s even cuter is having watched him teach my 1 year old different signs.

I will say that I did not fully invest in teaching my children signs for every word. This is not to say you shouldn’t, I just chose to focus on the ones that would impact us the most. Below are 5 useful signs to teach your baby.

The 5 signs that Changed my Communication with My Baby

Nurse

First and foremost I wanted my baby to learn to sign “nurse”. I was a first time mom nursing my son when none of my family had nursed. I was used to a regimen of feed bottle then 4 hours later feed another. Well any breastfeeding mom can tell you that is NOT how breastfeeding goes. I was desperate for him to sign nurse instead of the guessing game of what’s wrong with my son? Whip out boob, thenbaby latches- 10 seconds later unlatches because it isn’t what he wanted then to fussing again to find out he really wanted be held and walked around or he was just teething and miserable.

I’m not sure I can adequately express the stress of just constantly whipping out the boob hoping that it would make them stop crying. I began signing “milk” which for us I called “nurse” at about 4 months old. The sign is very simply opening and closing of the fists while your hands are vertical. When he fussed I would sign nurse them stick him on the boob hoping for the association. At 9 months he got it! And it was smooth sailing after that. Can I also just say, watching him walk/run towards you opening and closing his little fists as fast as he can to get to your boobs about made my heart erupt with love.

More

It seemed to go easier once they learned one sign to learn another. The association that they could communicate made my boys just as excited as I was.  So the next sign we taught was “more.” This was not only adorable but it increased our efficiency in helping our son before epic meltdowns. He would take a bit of food then sign more. This is just putting all your fingertips together as close as they can from each hand and tapping your fingers of each hand together at the tips. We tended to do it repeatedly so both of my boys tapped their fingers together furiously when they were really excited.

They even transferred it to activities. We would read a book then they would sign more for us to read it again. All we did was every time they wanted more food or us to read it again we would sign and say the words “do you want more” until he made the association and would sign himself.

Eat

Eat. Once we dived into Baby Led Weaning-BLW at 6 months (which you can read about our journey HERE) we needed a sign for eat and nurse so we could tell the difference. He picked up on this one very quickly. Every time he would get frustrated and we would go through the laundry list of what he could possibly want we would sign and say “eat.” This sign for us was your fingertips together and brought to your mouth, and we would tap our lips with our fingertips.

All Done

Another very helpful sign was “all done” we actually taught him this a little incorrectly but the concept is the same. Our sons open their hands and spread their fingers, hold them up and do a waving motion with both simultaneously. It’s close to the actual sign.

We were VERY happy with this one as my son had a tendency to drop all food on the ground when he was done. Oh so joyful. So each time we said and signed “all done” until he would sign all done and not just throw his food. This took a good 3-4 months to fully solidify around 15 months.

Help

Lastly, my son struggled (and still does) in situations that he doesn’t have full control over or when things don’t go the way he wants them to. So to avoid the screaming toddler (well as much as possible) we taught him the sign for help. This one we taught correctly but ultimately led him to just putting his hand in a fist, thumb up in the air and quickly raising his hand in the air. This sign was the shortest lived one as he got older and his basic gross and fine motor skills improved.

All kids are different

My son’s first words were both at around 6 months (both were Mama!) For my first son even after he learned his signs he developed new words and sounds consistently. He said nurse since about 1 year old (initially just sounded like nuh nuh) but would also sign. He gradually stopped using signs at about 2 years old.

My second son (13 months at the moment) learned eat, more and nurse but has decided for nurse he will just open and close his mouth repeatedly. Honestly he looks like an adorable fish but he refuses to sign it.  It gets the job done- he doesn’t scream or cry and we have effectively communicated which is the whole point! He currently signs eat and more most of the time.

I think the key to remember is the point is to just help bridge that gap of non verbal communication until they can communicate. It doesn’t really matter if you teach “nurse” to be a head bob or the traditional sign for “milk”. Just be consistent and before you give them what they are asking for you make the sign and say the word. They’ll get it.

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Filed Under: Blog, Optimal Living Tagged With: Optimal Living

Top 3 Baby Carriers to use from birth to Toddler-hood

August 6, 2017 By Janine Ganska

When I became pregnant and started to dip into the crunchier side of life one thing that came up was babywearing (read about my journey with Baby Led Weaning HERE or Baby Sign Language HERE)I did not grow up knowing anyone that used a carrier or “wore his or her baby”. You either held your baby or they were in a stroller when on the move. Those were the options. I am so excited to see more and more mamas wearing their babies! #wearallthebabies When I discovered baby carriers I realized how much sense it made and why your baby would want to be close to your heart plus the added benefit you had free hands to do other things while you wore them. Read more about the top 3 carriers to use from birth to toddler-hood.

My actual experience with carriers

My first son was what Dr. Sear’s defined “high needs” there was very little that made him happy or kept him happy. He wouldn’t nap without being held by me, he wouldn’t sleep in general without me. Babywearing became my saving grace. I even mastered nursing in some of my carriers!

I have had vastly different experiences with my 2 sons and carriers. My first one really only liked to be worn if sleeping or if we were moving. I was unable to simply wear him and maybe do any light tasks around the house. He wouldn’t have it. By 4 months he would only be worn if I wore him on my back. By about 12 months old he simply wanted to walk around by himself or just be held. He disliked all carriers and strollers at that point.

My second son at 13 months still loves all carriers. He will be worn on my front or my back and will also happily ride in a stroller. At 13 months we have moved to only using our Tula and a water ring sling for when we are at the local water park.

I will also state that though you are able to have your hands free you still have a child on your front or back and not every activity is open to you. Maybe my kids were both light sleepers but the bending up and down jostled them too much. I had to stick to fairly light activities to keep them asleep.  But the feeling of bending your head down to kiss your squishy little one while they were snuggled up on your chest? Amazing.

How do you weed through all the information?

I am a big proponent of local support so I joined a local Facebook group for babywearing that had meet ups twice a month. They had monthly meetings that I went to to get advice and see the carriers in action. I joined multiple buy/sell/trade Facebook groups for different types of carriers so that I could trend different prices and compare and contrast different types of carriers. I purchased multiple carriers some gently used and some new. Babywearing, like cloth diapering, has a great resale value and the carriers tend to stay in good shape.

I ended up with a ring sling, a couple soft structured carriers (SSCs), a wrap, a k’tan, and a mei tai carrier. Though most say they are good from birth to about 35 pounds, I found that some were better when they were littler and less comfortable as they got bigger.

So what carriers should you get?

My favorites for when they were just born were the ring sling and the k’tan- both were super easy to put on myself as well as get baby in and out. When you are running errands these two were the most efficient for us. The ring sling was big enough that my husband could use it as well.  The k’tan is most comfortable until baby was about 15-20lbs. I am able to still use my ring sling on my 13 month old today though as he’s become bigger it’s better for short trips.

Optimal Oil Life

The Baby Hawk Mei Tai Carrier was great from about 1 month old to 4 or 5 for us. Once he hit about 20 lbs he didn’t like it as much. It is kind of like a hybrid between a wrap and an SSC. It has a pouch for them then ties to tighten up your hold.

Optimal Oil LIfe

For soft structured carries (SSCs) I have both an Ergo and a Tula and I can say for us the Tula was much better. My husband is a big guy- over 6 feet tall 200lbs-and we can both use the Tula because it has more areas to adjust straps etc so the fit feels better overall. This is by far the most used carrier in our household. My son likes it for both front facing and on our backs. Below is My squishy youngest in our Tula!

Optimal Oil LIfe

I do have one wrap, a Didymos size 6, and though I did learn some different ways to wrap and wrapped my first son for the first few months I simply just never reached for this type of carrier. Perhaps because I did not spend enough time learning about all the ways to wrap this one always seemed the most difficult to use.

Optimal Oil Life

Don’t forget grandparent wearing! Though my parents have never worn babies before they have been happy to jump on board!

Optimal Oil LIfe

My recommendations:

Get a ring sling OR a K’tan for when they are little and oh so squishy. They can’t froggy leg (spread legs open) at that age and tend to keep balled up as close to the shape they were inside you. You can buy infant inserts inside most SSCs but I still preferred with both my boys the ring sling and K’tan.

As they get bigger (about 20lbs) my recommendation is the Tula. It has the most areas to adjust for the best fit for you and if you hold them for any amount of time having it fit with the most support is key to long term success with the carrier. The Tula also has a toddler version for when they get bigger. I’m excited to use that with my second son once he outgrows this one.

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Filed Under: Blog, Optimal Living Tagged With: Optimal Living, Slider

Why We Chose Baby Led Weaning

August 6, 2017 By Janine Ganska

Like many first time parents I was eager to learn healthy and natural alternative ways to feed my child (Read about Essential Oils HERE or BabyWearing HERE). I ran out and bought a Baby Bullet thinking I would puree all my own foods etc. Then I was introduced to a concept I had never heard of before- Baby Led Weaning (BLW).  This concept, once I read up on it, seemed more natural and intuitive than pureeing, certainly easier for us on the preparation side. I have 2 sons now and at the time of this blog they are 3 years and 1 years old. They actually both reacted to baby led weaning differently but ultimately baby led weaning has been our sole source of food for our toddlers.

Where to Find Resources:

I joined a few Facebook groups for supporting baby led weaning and the sharing of recipes. I tend to like to immerse myself in a subject before I jump in so I lurked in these groups for a couple months. I also found a Baby Led Weaning book by Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett and read that.

When do you start?

A big question I had was when to start baby led weaning. After some research the magic number seemed to be 6 months or older. A few things I read referenced leaky gut syndrome with the possibility that their guts aren’t ready to handle anything but breast milk or formula for the first 6 months.

Here is a quick list we referenced after they hit 6 months:

  • Can they sit up by themselves with no support?
  • Have they started to learn that pincer grasp? This is the pointer finger and thumb grasp where prior you would have seen them grab things with their whole hands.
  • The tongue thrust! Does your child still reflexively push out whatever goes in the mouth?

Once those are all yes’s which on average is about 6 months that’s when we started BLW.

Baby Led Weaning

What do you feed them in the beginning?

Another big question I had was what exactly can they eat? I mean it seems so simple right? But my experience was only with formula fed babies and jars of food combinations I wouldn’t think to ever eat together. As a personal preference in our family based on my husband’s research we did not do any grains until their molars came in (and even then very limited).

We ultimately offered one food and waited 1-2 days before introducing another one so that if an allergic reaction occurred we could better isolate what food may have caused it.

Here were our first 10 foods:

Baby Led Weaning

  • Avocado
  • Sweet potato lightly cooked- meaning not mush but not hard.
  • Banana (my 1st sons second word after mama!)
  • Oranges (we did cuties and my sons loved to suck the juice out spit out the outside skin)
  • Carrots
  • Steak- this one may be controversial but we speared it into about 2 inch slices and he would just suck and gum it.
  • Eggs ; we did scrambled and hard boiled
  • Apples (you can softly cook but our son just like to suck on them)
  • 2 ingredient pancakes (equal parts egg and ripe banana)
  • Broccoli, lightly cooked

Baby Led Weaning

What can’t they eat?

Some of what they can’t eat is a preference (for us no grains, only natural sugars) and some is based on guidance from the book and other mom’s experiences. We now know that keeping allergenic foods away can actually create those allergies in your child. The current recommendation from our pediatrician was unless there was a family history of an allergy, no foods were off limits for the purposes of allergies, like no peanuts etc. Honey was the only limit to not have any until after 1 year old due to botulism fears.

There were, however, some cautions with foods:

  • Be cautious of salt, and any foods with added salt. They really don’t need extra salt at this age
  • Foods that are easy to choke on like grapes and hot dogs are either not recommended until a little older or, for us, we just cut them in super small pieces.

How much will they really eat?

In the beginning for us, the answer was… like none. Haha. But really- it appears as though not much is being consumed so much as it’s being smeared on the high chair and all over their face and body.

But some great skills are being learned.

  • They are learning to refine that pincer grasp and other fine motor skills
  • They are naturally learning their hunger cues and when they are done
  • They are a part of the family dinner at the table
  • In our experience doing BLW has led to both of my sons choosing healthy foods most of the time

Baby Led Weaning

Does BLW replace breast milk or formula?

No. It is still the recommendation that Breast milk or formula is primary until one. To help keep that as the primary source it is helpful to offer the breast (or bottle) first then a selection of foods. Like I said earlier, in those first few months of BLW they are consuming little. My sons are both boob boys and there is no food that takes the place of that. For my first son he didn’t really start eating any actual amounts of food until about 15 months. My second son has been very interested in food since right at 6 months (he’s currently 13 months).

Baby Led Weaning

Can your child eat both via BLW and some purees?

Sure. I’m all for- FED IS BEST.  I can say that between my 2 sons I had vastly different outcomes. My 1st son wanted literally NOTHING to do with us helping him eat. Ever. My second son happily lets you spoon-feed him yogurt and applesauce etc. Sometimes he takes the spoon and does it himself and sometimes he doesn’t. Kids are all very different and I find it best to take their lead.

Baby Led Weaning

Won’t they choke??

This was probably my biggest fear. It’s scary to think of your child choking. In my experience we did not have any scary choking incidences. There were a couple of coughs while they learned to chew THEN swallow but on the whole we were lucky in this regard. To make me feel more prepared I did take an infant CPR class that included choking training.

All in all, baby led weaning has been great for our family. We don’t have to have special jars of food with us or on the go. At any restaurant you can get one of the top 10 foods as a side dish or pull parts of your meal to give them.  My sons both eat a very healthy diet of fruits, veggies and meats. We do have some treats of dark chocolate, some frozen banana-strawberry and coconut milk ice cream and gluten free pancakes. But on the whole they all eat very well! We don’t keep processed foods or sugars in our house so they simply aren’t an option.

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Filed Under: Blog, Optimal Living Tagged With: Optimal Living

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