Product I love: Dr. Brown's Bottles FTW!

                        For this product-I-love feature, I’d like to talk about the Dr. Brown’s bottles for babies. Prior to giving birth, I was told to use Dr. Brown’s bottles as recommended by other moms. After trying other bottles as well, I found that the Dr. Brown’s bottle was my favorite. Here’s why:

                        When my daughter was barely a month old; she was pretty gassy. She wasn’t exactly colicky, but gassy. And, what is great about these bottles is it eliminates a lot of extra air that may go through so the bottle so your baby is only sucking in milk. When your baby is sucking in too much air, he or she will seemingly be uncomfortable because it causes gassy stomach pains. Other bottles that I used, for example, the Medela bottles that you can pump breast milk right into, allowed way too much air and I was able to see the air bubbles as my daughter was drinking.

                        Another cool thing about the Dr. Brown’s bottles is that you are able to change the flow of the nipple as your baby grows. I'm sure other bottle brands do this too, but for Dr. Brown's there are three different levels: level 1 being the slowest flow, and level 3 being the fastest. Instead of changing the whole bottle, all you have to do is buy the new nipple, which you can find at places like Target for under $5. They also come in multiple different sizes, so however much your child’s milk intake is, you can buy the bottle according to how many ounces it holds.

                        However, here’s the downside: while the Dr. Brown’s bottles are good at eliminating air intake, they tend to be a lot of maintenance when cleaning. They have so many different parts to them, so you always have to take the entire bottle and break the pieces up and clean them one by one. I had to purchase small bottle cleaners in order to get in the little holes of the Dr. Brown bottle parts.  It can get pretty annoying, especially when your baby is eating every 2-3 hours the first few months of life. I had to exclusive breastfeed through the pump, so I was washing bottles all day, every day. Another downside about the Dr. Brown’s bottles, is it does take quite a while for the baby to finish it. I’m assuming due to the restriction of air bubbles, the flow is much slower…so those night time feedings can seem to drag on and on.

                        Did you use Dr. Brown’s bottles for your baby? How did you like it? If not, what types of bottles did you use, and what was your experience?

A quick, easy and delicious quinoa salad!

 Anyone who knows me knows that I love salad. There’s a running joke in my family where I’m known as “more of a salad girl”, because I once said that I would prefer a salad over an ice cream Sundae. And, I truly mean that—not because it’s a healthier choice, but truly because I really love salads. Macaroni salad, potato salad, Greek salad, ranch salad, fattoush, tabbouli—if it’s a salad, add it to my list of favorite things. My most recent salad favorite is a quinoa salad!

 Last year, during my student teaching internship (yes, everything happened during my internship), I was still nursing and had to pack a nutritious lunch every day. One day my sister stopped by and dropped off this Tupperware filled with what she called quinoa salad. I’m not that big on quinoa, I feel it has a bland taste. However, with added lemon, salt and olive oil; it became something I could work with. I began experimenting with this salad and added some veggies and extra seasoning, and now it is probably one of my favorite lunches! It’s super easy to make and if you make a larger amount at the start of your work week; it should last you a good three to four days. I thought I’d share this simple recipe with you, and I hope you find it as delicious as I do!

Ingredients:

1 C Quinoa

1 or 1 ½ small lemon (for freshly squeezed lemon juice)

2 tsp of Tuscan house Italian dressing

½ tsp of salt

½ tsp of sumac

1 tsp of zaatar

About (maybe even less) ¼ C of olive oil

1 tomato (chopped)

1 small red onion (chopped)

Some crumbled feta cheese

curled parsley (chopped)

Directions:

1. Cook the quinoa as directed (usually it’s 2 cups of water per 1 cup quinoa) and let cool in a large bowl.

2. Add feta, tomato, parsley, red onion to the cooked quinoa.

3. Add salt, sumac, zaatar.

4. Combine olive oil, lemon juice, and Italian dressing in a small bowl and mix well.

5. Pour dressing over the quinoa salad and mix well.

You can add more salt, olive oil or lemon as desired. This salad is colorful, healthy and can be served for a picnic, a park day, a pool party or lunch time at work!

Let me know what your thoughts in the comment section! Enjoy!