The first step is more of a mental step than anything.  You have to determine your comfort level with having a bare-bottomed baby who could “go” at anytime, anywhere.  You will be catching a lot of pees and poops, but you’ll still miss some and you need to be OK with that.  The main reason babies are diapered is so that the messes are contained and relatively easy to clean up.  This means that the baby often sits in the mess for a while and that does seem unfair to the baby.  However, if you’re good at changing baby right away, that’s preferable in the long run to being nervous about baby’s elimination.  If you are the sort who gets neurotic about every spot, you may not be comfortable with going completely diaper-less.  You can still do Elimination Communication with diapers.

You have to consider your home and the ramifications of baby eliminating on the floor, the furniture, or you.  There may be limited areas in your home that are easier to clean up than others.  The easiest is a lawn-grass yard, which involves no cleanup for pees and limited cleanup for poops.  Next is a tile or linoleum floor that only needs to be wiped with a rag.  For that kind of floor, immediate cleanup is important for a walking baby so he or she doesn’t slip in a puddle of pee.  A carpeted floor is harder to clean up but it can be done with a rag and a natural cleaner.  Regular mild cleaners work pretty well, though you’ll need to use elbow grease for poop.  Pet cleaners work well, though they’re not the most natural choice.  Considering and being prepared for the inevitable cleanup will go a long way towards making you more comfortable.  Even if you’re going the traditional toddler potty learning route, there will come a point where it’s time to take off the diaper.

Once you have accepted the worst case scenario, the next step is to simply take your baby’s diaper off and go about your business.  It’s important to be as relaxed as you would be with the diaper on.  If you find yourself getting too nervous, it’s time to back off and maybe put the diaper back on.  You should pay attention to your baby’s cues and take him or her to the potty when he or she indicates a need to go.  Or, you can just take them regularly and see if they will go on cue.  As you keep working with your baby, you will catch more pees and poops and miss fewer.  However, it will vary greatly from day to day.  It takes patience.

As your baby gets older and learns new skills he or she will be more distracted and may forget to signal the need to eliminate.  Who wants to take the time to go to the bathroom when toys are waiting?  You should take those days in stride and keep at it.  There may also be times when baby has a potty strike.  When that happens, you can back off of Elimination Communication (EC) and use diapers for a few days, before trying again.  If you like to sign with your older baby, you can teach him a sign for going potty.

With a lot of patience and persistence you may be able to have your baby out of diapers early and eliminating in the potty most of the time.  It’s important to always keep in mind that EC is a journey, and it should be fun for you and your baby.  If at any time it’s not fun for either one of you, it’s best to back off for a while, then try it again when you’re both more relaxed.  Stick to it!

Typically if you are nursing your baby you should produce anywhere from 23 to 27 ounces of milk a day. In order to do this, you need to increase your calorie intake by about 500 more a day.

You also have to increase your water consumption to at least 2 1/2 to 3 quarts of water a day.  You may notice that you are thirstier during nursing session.  This is because the water you drink goes right to milk production.    Try not to drink more than 3 quarts of water a day.  Anything more than 3 quarts can reduce the amount of milk your body produces.

As stated earlier, you need to up your calorie intake. Plan to take in about 2500 calories a day or more if you are planning to nurse for longer than three months. These extra calories should not come from junk food. Junk food and sweets are just empty calories and offer no nutritional value to you or your baby. Eat more protein.  A good rule of thumb is to eat 1 gram of protein each day for every pound you weigh. If you weigh 150, aim to eat 150grams of protein a day.

If you were not doing so during pregnancy, adopt the six meals a day program. Eat breakfast, a midday snack, lunch, a mid afternoon snack, dinner and a night time snack. Your body is going to be making milk continually so it is a good idea to keep it charged with calories through out the day.

There are some foods you might want to avoid during pregnancy. Pretty much everything passes through breast milk and to the baby. This is why the first thing pediatricians advise nursing moms to do when their baby has colic is to look at what they are eating. Chocolate has been blamed in many cases of colic and can cause an upset tummy for most babies.  If you have a baby with a tummy ache think back to see if you had a candy bar or even a cookie in the hours before you nursed. The best advice is to stay away from chocolate while you are nursing.

Stay away from greasy and spicy foods while you are breastfeeding. Greasy foods sometimes upset adults stomachs, imagine what it would do to your baby’s immature stomach?  Wait until your baby is older and no longer nursing before you start making trips back to McDonalds.

You may also want to stay away from garlic and onions while you are breast feeding. Both of these can flavor the breast milk and you may find that your little one will not nurse if you have eaten these. Your little one may be just a tad too young to appreciate the taste of garlic and onions anyway. Remember it takes a few hours for the food you eat to make its way into your breast milk. You may have eaten one of these foods right before you nurse and see your baby is fine but by either the following nursing session or the one after you might find your baby having a reaction then.

Your breast milk does not only taste like what you eat, but also what you drink. Just as with pregnancy, you should stay away from a lot of caffeine while you are breastfeeding.  You might need some coffee or caffeine filled soda to keep you functioning and a cup or two will not hurt you or your baby, but too much could have disastrous effects. Just as we experience the jitters and shakes from too much caffeine, your baby does also. Keep your caffeine down to a minimum.

You have made an excellent choice breastfeeding your baby.  Keep it up by making good choices as to what you eat.

Our mothers and grandmothers will probably tell us that they drank the same amount of caffeine pregnant as they did when they were not pregnant and their children turned out fine.  However a lot more research has been done since their time and studies are showing that too much caffeine can cause some complications such as preterm labor and/or low birth weight.

So how much caffeine is too much caffeine? Doctors are telling their patients that a moderate amount of caffeine will not harm their babies.  Even though caffeine does cross the placenta, anything less than 300 milligrams a day (an 8 ounce cup of strong coffee) will not do any harm.  Anything over 300 milligrams puts your baby at risk and studies have also shown that women who drink more than 300 milligrams of caffeine a day during their first trimester have a slightly higher risk of a miscarriage.

Studies have also shown that women who had over 500 milligrams of caffeine a day had babies who had faster heart rates and faster breathing rates.  These babies also spent more time awake in their first few days of life rather than peacefully sleeping after their long journey.

There are a number of other reasons why we women might want to cut back on the amount of caffeine we drink during pregnancy.  For starters, it has no nutritional value.  If there is ever a time for us to be aware of our nutritional needs it is when we are pregnant.  Second, caffeine is a stimulant which will increase your heart rate and can cause insomnia and headaches which can put some stress on your growing little one.  Third, caffeine can cause heartburn.  If you have been pregnant before you know that heartburn can be a burden to begin with, and caffeine just makes it worse.  Lastly it is a diuretic which means it can cause you to lose fluids which can put you at a risk of becoming dehydrated.

While it is not necessary for you to give up all caffeine through out the duration of your pregnancy, you should learn how to drink it in moderation or don’t drink it at all.  If you can not handle having only one cup of coffee a day, then you might be better off drinking no coffee at all.  Stick with caffeine free sodas and even decaf coffee.  Remember though that decaf coffee still contains small traces of caffeine so make sure you take that into consideration.

People are usually either for or against the use of natural insecticides.  Whether or not your particular choice is a benefit depends on the circumstances.  How advanced is the insect infestation?  What are you allergic to?  What will harm your plants?  What will be safe to use around your pets or livestock?  What is available and accessible to you and how fast can you get it when you need it?  Do you need to use more than one method of control and removal?  What is cost effective?

To get the most benefit from natural insecticides, you’ll need to understand the best way to use them.  You should know what works best for the type of insect you’re trying to control or eradicate.  Be careful what you mix.  Even natural insecticides can interact badly with the wrong combination of substances.

One of the biggest benefits of a natural insecticide is that it comes from nature in some form.  You’ll be using something made from the earth.  That doesn’t mean it’s problem-free.  It just means you’re benefiting the environment and actively participating in the recycling efforts.

An example is liquid garlic. Garlic is a natural plant that is grown around the world.  It can be used to keep insects off garden or farm plants.

Another example is boric acid.  Boric acid is defined as a white crystalline weak acid that contains boron.  Boron is a mineral substance, and minerals are of the earth.

If you use things made with what the earth provides, you benefit and so does the earth and other humans and life-forms.  Using natural insecticide is a choice.  It’s not always the quickest way to solve your insect problem.  It’s not always less harmful.  That’s why education on your choices will be a big benefit!

Our beloved earth suffers a lot of abuse, often by well-meaning inhabitants; as the earth suffers, so does its creatures and plant life.  If you take away, you should give back in a positive way.  Using natural insecticides is one way to participate in a positive way.

Natural insecticides have increased in sales over the past few years and so have the vegetables and fruits made insect-free because of their use.  When the mosquitoes scared us with the West Nile Virus, the citronella plant and its derivatives and products made with citronella increased dramatically in sales.  Natural insecticides have always been around, but people had to wise up about their use and effectiveness.  Some people just don’t have the patience to use them or don’t want to take the time to learn.  Just like anything else, you don’t know if you will like them until you try them.