(That's the official title so no judgement from me).

Um...I think it's silly to suggest that the child's biggest risk is HIV or other cooties. I just fail to see the point of all this. Why not continue to feed him breast milk (he isn't even a year old) and then mashed avocado and banana?

I looked up the article, that's not bizarre at all, it's quite common in fact.
I chewed up many things for my littles, nuts, hard veggies, etc. Digestion begins in the mouth so that's a benefit for littles with not many teeth.
The relationship between mothers and small children is so incredibly intimate, they drink from your breasts, you wipe their bottoms several times a day, very well know every inch of their tiny bodies, hold them most of their lives, wipe their snot, puke, earwax, clean the goo from their eyes, lol, feeding them something you've pre-chewed first scores very low on the ick factor. I mean, if you've got HIV or a herpes outbreak don't do it but aside from that I personally feel any objection is just paranoid squeamishness. Might as well stop kissing them if we're going to go that far.

I have to wash the p00py bum of my cousin's youngest right now, oh joy. There are 5 disgusting, smelly, noisy little children here today while another is being born (a gooey, smelly, colourful process itself). Right now the oldest two are making up imaginary scenarios of overflowing diapers, accidentally stepping in one, etc etc. Nothing grosses me out any more .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2012 07:31PM by coco.

That's nice, Coco. I wish I was a lot more like that. It's the IDEA of it. I just think that Alicia doesn't even need to be giving her kid food that requires chewing but I am just being a nosy, santamonious busybody as usual

I was a little more particular before I had kids, for Sure. You get desensitized real quick when you have a baby, they are absolute ick factories right from the get go. All gooey and slimey and stinky and unfreaking pleasant wrapped up with a ton of adorable helpless cuteness, lol. Nature makes them cute like that so you won't abandon them for the other stuff. I didn't even read about chewing stuff up anywhere, it happened so naturally. He wanted to try things I knew he could choke on and it wasn't worth having him cry over having to wait while I was trying to grind teensy amounts up in the baby food mill, chewing was expedient. Necessity, the mother of invention .

Oh, those crazy celebrities...

Eating The Placenta: January Jones Does It, But Not All Moms On Board

[www.huffingtonpost.com]

This skives me more than drinking one's own urine.

ivac Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Oh, those crazy celebrities...
>
> Eating The Placenta: January Jones Does It, But
> Not All Moms On Board
>
> [www.huffingtonpost.com]
> e-placenta_n_1383046.html
>
> This skives me more than drinking one's own urine.

What in bloody hell?! That is just nasty! I don't know what is the fascination with the placenta anyhow. Ugh.

No, no, no, January! You're supposed to have the baby's father bury your placenta under the hibiscus tree you have purchased for your child as his animist spirit guide! Don't you know anything, January? Tsk-tsk!

Tamukha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No, no, no, January! You're supposed to have the
> baby's father bury your placenta under the
> hibiscus tree you have purchased for your child as
> his animist spirit guide! Don't you know
> anything, January? Tsk-tsk!


LOL! Of course, after it'si preserved in Celtic sea salt

Well... it is full of nutrients, etc. But I wouldn't want to eat any. If I'm going to have a steak (barf) it's not going to be one that slid out of my bajingo thankyouverymuch. And DUH, you'd have to eat it raw to make it worthwhile anyhow.
Ours are buried under a tree at the cottage. A tree that fell down in the freaky tornado that blew through here a couple of years ago but meh, back to the earth anyhow.

What is the idea of burying it? That is one of those things I don't get. The whole ritual and emphasis on the placenta is a mystery to me.

Well, I don't know what else could be done with it. In hospital it's whisked away and tossed in with the hazardous waste which they incinerate. Since I give birth at home, well, it's hardly something I'd put into the trash or regular compost (meat doesn't go in the compost). Burying it is a good way to have the nutrients recycled back into the earth, it seems a respectful means of dealing with it. I suppose if I had dogs I could have fed it to them but, erm, that seems so wrong somehow. I'm sure they'd have loved it and been nourished by it though so perhaps that's my personal bias making it into something it's not.
It truly is a beautiful work of nature, it looks like the tree of life, the little mother. Did you know that entirely half of the dividing embrionic cells turn into the placenta?

Yeah, we may find the tought of eating the contents of our bajingoes[so stealing that term!] repulsive, but to a tree or shrub it's tasty vittles

"Bajingo" is from the site regretsy, look that up for a giant laugh. The Easter offering in particular is something else (pls note, NOT for the faint of heart!).

OMG, coco, I just got back from there and am still choking!

Maybe you'd have to be raised this way for it to be normal. I've known since I was little that my dad used to chew up sunflower seeds for me to eat when I was a baby. I also chewed certain foods for my own children. My oldest needed more chewing than most kids (she's developmentally delayed). My youngest? After her initial introduction to solid foods at 5 months (green smoothies and avocado/banana/carob pudding), she didn't need any things chewed or blended - just went straight from breast to table food. I thought most kids did it this way?

Chewing for your kids does not seem weird to me. It does, however, seem a little excessive to keep doing it after the kid can chew for himself.

It was my understanding that children don't even need anything but breastmilk until after their first year. And then why not avocado/banana pudding and other pureed foods? If they don't have teeth, why even have solid foods when it's not necessary? I cringe when I see very young children gnawing on a bagel when all their teeth aren't in. I just don't see how it is healthy for them to consume such hard foods that either don't get broken down enough or require a parent to pre-chew.

Children need nothing but breastmilk for the first year from a nutritional stand point but from an experiential stance it's an odd thing to deny them something so fundamental as the experience of eating the foods that they see their parents eating. They are so curious and constantly learning, their brains are simply exploding along with their bodies in the first year. I can't see one good reason to avoid letting them try food after 6 months of age if they are exhibiting signs of readiness (ablity to sit unassisted, loss of tongue-thrust reaction, reaching for food). I don't mean cereal, bagels, etc, those things I don't even consider food, I mean fruits and veggies and after the first year nuts and seeds, sprouts etc.
Also, the early introduction of non-sweet foods has been shown in studies to encourage a later taste for them, veggies and such. Babies would rather eat only sweet foods, it's the first taste to develop, but it needs to be tempered with green stuff or the possiblity of a child who craves only sugary foods may very well result. Fruit is great but vegetables are where the minerals for healthy bone development etc are.

Did you know that children simply do not learn to walk on their own, it's only from seeing others walking that they even try it? It's MUCH faster to get around crawling or scooting than the beginning stages of walking. And children who survive in the wild (there have been very few cases but each of them exhibited this) never master walking even when reintroduced to human culture. It's a difficulty for them forever, never becomes second nature. There are many things babies learn only through observation, humans have ZERO natural instincts aside from the rooting instinct in very new babes. Interesting.

I love how informative your posts are, solon coco. Please consider starting a "practical ecomom" lecture series on a blog or something. The breadth of your knowledge is profound, but the way you deliver it is so sensible and matter-of-fact, it would appeal to even the people that don't eat or bury their placentas

Oh, dude, totally blushing. Thank you. Gee...

I do have a file on weird baby secrets some place. They are the most fascinating creatures.

"Weird Baby Secrets: A New Parent's Guide to the Mysteries of the Most Fascinating Person You'll Ever Meet"

I can so see this as a book title on Amazon! Write it! Write it! Write it!

Really? I don't think I'm actually all that eloquent. I mean, it's interesting and all, and I do know an awful lot of moms, but... I make stuff with fabric, words haven't ever really been my thing. I have friends who are word crafters, they always blow me away with their writing. Intimidating.

Ooooh, now you're just being coy!