My Natural Parenting to my baby

Amruta Khemkalyani
A big hello to all my readers after a very long break and Happy New Year 2014! Past few months while I was missing (virtually) from my blog, we (me and baby Ruhaan) together learnt a lot about surrounding nature.

During summer, stuck at home and indoors in Dubai, I was trying to introduce Baby Ruhaan to many animals through ‘Old Mcdonald’s farm’. But on our big holiday in India he saw dogs and cows first time on street. Instantly doggie became his favorite street animal :). India is very stimulating place for babies, lot of colours, lot of people, lot of natural greenery and of course lot of animals too.
Till we came back to Dubai, awesome weather awaiting us so we started our outdoor and park days.

Safa park has been our favorite park so far, mainly because of the lake and birdies around it.  Kids love birds, Ruhaan was entertained mostly by noisy ducks. They don’t fly away quickly and they run behind food making quack-quack all the time.
Very funnily Ruhaan prefers to touch the grass only in Safa as compared most of other parks ;). Still he tries to avoid to touch grass by hand taking lot of efforts, making funny face. He crawls and inspects grass and tastes the dry leaves (yuk). They say if you allow the touch of different textures on your baby’s feet, they develop their balance better.

So I removed his booties and let him explore the surfaces right from slab flooring near entrance of our building, grass in park up to the sand. And I must say I can see the result.

On my Green Living front, I am trying different natural teethers for my baby, as it’s his teething time. I include raw carrot, dried dates, celery, but always have to keep watch to avoid chocking. These teethers not only help babies for teething but also add some nutrition instead of polymer teethers. Thankfully Ruhaan’s first tooth came out without much trouble !!! I hope same goes with rest, fingers crossed.

Another things I specifically do with Ruhaan is, let him smell different things. Vegies, fruits, plants, trees everything. Most of time I smell the food myself, before feeding him and then let him smell it. Unfortunately that does not create his interest in eating more than a spoon or two, but it helps him to learn new odours. He recognizes good smells, if he smells flowers (kept in flower shops in mall), he smiles. He likes the smell of carrot/celery/apple/mint too. But I always have to be carful that things are not entering his nose.

It is an amazing experience as mum to explore the environment, nature surrounding us. Taking all that in through our senses again with baby and teach him to do the same! If we make our babies aware of the nature from early on, it will be simpler to teach them how to live with nature in unison. They will definite develop caring for their surrounding!