5 tips for transitioning to bottle feedings

Some of you mamas out there might be lucky enough to never have to use a bottle (or maybe you'd consider yourselves unlucky?  But I would qualify it as lucky).  If you've got the opportunity to stay home with baby long enough to do 100% breast feeding (EBF or exclusively breastfed) until you're ready to move toward water in a cup, then this post probably doesn't apply to you.  But for moms in the world who need their kid to take a bottle, read on!

You mind find yourself wanting/needing to bottle feed your infant because you have to/want to go back to work.  Or maybe you want a date night with the hubby.  Or maybe you want daddy to feed baby while you sleep a little longer.  Whatever the reason, there's often a lot of anxiety around the transition.  Someone could (and people do!) write whole books about this process.  And I'm not gonna bother going into that much detail.  But here's my 5 quick tips... from the mouth of a feeding-therapist-turned-mommy... about bottle feeding.  Take it for what it's worth.

  1) Don't start too soon/too late - If your goal is to breast feed full time as much as possible, then in the first 2-3 weeks of life you really want the breast to be the only sucking experience baby has.  I don't believe in "nipple confusion" (the term often used to scare moms/dads into thinking that once baby does bottle, they'll be terrible at breastfeeding) in a typical, healthy infant.  But you do want to establish a good milk supply and a good comfort base with breast feeding before you add in other methods.  So if possible, breast feed only for the first several weeks.  If you find that being difficult, PLEASE consult a lactation specialist.  They're awesome.  And they'll help you figure out why it's hard.

On the other hand, if you know that returning to work is looming at 12 weeks, please don't wait until 11.5 weeks to try the first bottle!  In fact, if you wait too long, baby may be so used to breast feeding that you have a really tough time getting them to figure out or be happy with bottle feeding.  And then you have a whole different set of fights on your hands.  I'd say that ideally, you're doing at least 3-4 bottles spread out per week by 8-10 weeks old.  That way you know that baby will be able to take a bottle when/if you need him to when you return to work a few weeks later.

2) Don't do it just a few times and then stop if you need to continue at a later date- Sometimes I hear stories that people tried a bottle at 4 weeks old, it went well, so they didn't try it again until 11.5 weeks old... and the return to work was a nightmare!  All of a sudden, baby wouldn't take the bottle and we couldn't figure out why!!!  Your 4 week old infant is in one developmental stage and your 11 week old infant is in a different developmental stage.  So while it might have been easy at 4 weeks, please don't stop.  You don't have to do it every day, but you should keep going often enough that baby is gaining a skill set (and comfort level) with the bottle.  Again, 3-4 bottles a week (approx 1 every other day) worked nicely for us.

3) Don't stop pumping (yet...) - This will make more sense to current moms.  But if you're reading this pre-parenthood and thinking "oh yes, if the baby sitter can give a bottle, then I'll be FREE!!!  YAY!!!," sadly, you're wrong.  For each time your baby bottle feeds, you'll want to pump the same volume within a 24 hour period.  For example, little Ms. O takes 12 oz while she's at daycare, so I have to pump 12 oz while I'm at work.  If I'm short at work, then I need to pump extra when I get home.  The thing is, if you don't pump, then you're telling your body that your little one didn't need that extra 2 oz that day.  So the next day, your body produces 2 ounces less.  Please don't think that having a huge freezer stash gets you off the hook for feeding for a few days... you'll regret the changes to your milk supply when you try to go back to the previous volume you were doing.

(**CAVEAT** - I typed that last paragraph assuming that your goal is to keep your milk supply up.  Of course, if you've decided to replace breast milk with formula for any reason, then that might not apply to you.)

4) Have daddy (or another familiar caregiver) give the bottle - I heard this advice a lot before we started bottles.  And let me say, as a feeding therapist, it was hard.  I get so much benefit out of watching a baby feed WHILE i'm holding the baby.  I can feel how it's going.  I can see the swallows.  I can feel the way it feels as they breathe.  But I do think that for the average mom, choosing NOT to be the bottle feeder (if possible) reduces the pressure on you a little.  It also makes it a different task than nursing for baby-- they don't smell you or feel you while they're trying to bottle feed, so they won't be hunting around for the breast.  They can focus more on the bottle.  And no, it won't be perfect on the first try, but try not to tell dad it's his fault.  He's doing great-- he's on his first time too!

5) Brand is probably irrelevant - "What brand do you recommend???" is a question I hear a lot at work.  And let me tell you, for 99% of normally developing children, the brand of bottle/nipple is completely irrelevant, especially for the first bottle.  Yes, your baby will become accustom to one certain type of bottle and might, therefore, fuss with other types.  But a typically developing baby should be able to feed from any brand that you put in their mouth, given time to adjust to it.  So please don't spend a million dollars on the expensive one that "prevents colic."  And please don't spend a ton of time bringing home 20 different brands.  Just buy one.  One that you like the colors or shape of.  One that's priced right.  One that's BPA free or glass or made from recycled materials-- whatever works for you is great.  Heck, get used bottles from a friend and just buy new nipples!

What about you other moms... what tips would you add to my list?

5 Things I didn't Expect to Like about Day Care

So I always assumed that my child would go to daycare.  I fell firmly in the "it's good for socialization" camp.  I knew that since Ben and I are on the Financial Peace University/Total Money Makeover track, I'd want to keep working for financial reasons.  I also like my job.  And since I married a freelance artist, I knew I'd need to keep our benefits.  So daycare was never a question for me, even before I was pregnant with Miss O.

But once she was born, I'll admit I felt a little sad about it.  I wished I could stay home with her, 'cause I felt like it was "better."  I also started looking into all that Attachment Parenting jazz and I really thought that Ben and I being the sole caregiver(s) for our child would be a good idea.  Buuuut, the fact is, everything that was true before I got pregnant was still true.  So at 12 weeks, we trooped off to daycare with the other working moms.  And it's not bad!  In fact, there are things about it that I like that I hadn't really expected to like.  Such as...

1. I emotionally benefit from a break from my baby.  I'm only working 20 hours a week right now.  Occasionally I pick up extra hours (the max I'll have in 1 week this fall is 48 hours, but by "extra" I typically mean 4-8 hours extra per week) if Ben's schedule is light.  But 20 hours is the name of the game usually.  And having that 20 hours to not be attached at the hip to Miss O means that I'm more excited about the other 148 hours per week that I *do* spend with her.  As much as being at work for a long, hard 8 hour day can be grueling for me, being at home for those same 8 hours is also grueling.  And I'm counting myself lucky right now that I have the fortune to be able to take a break from it sometimes.  Kudos to the full time moms with no work outside the home who do without this 20 hour break.  I salute you!

2. I can see many other kids maturing/growing/changing at the same time.   It gives me a good sense of comparison.  So I do have a background in all sorts of child-development-y-type-things, given that I have worked in education, worked as a pediatric speech therapist, worked as a pediatric feeding therapist... but applying all of that in real time to your own kiddo can sometimes be overwhelming.  Dropping O off at daycare and picking her up each day gives me a chance to SPY on other families!  What are THEY bringing for their kid to eat?  How early does that little one walk or crawl?  Who's crying at drop off and who's happily playing with toys?  I know each kid is different, but having a cohort of other kids to look at over the weeks and months has been fun, especially now that younger kids are joining the class and O isn't the tiniest one in the bunch anymore.

3. I get several other people's opinions about Baby O's development. Full disclosure?  This is a blessing and a curse.  But I'll choose to appreciate the teacher's opinions about how O does with her bottles, her feeding, her crawling, her social skills, etc.  Sometimes the unsolicited opinions or advice can be trying at the end of a day.  But I know these ladies know her well and love her lots, so if I'm looking for the advice, I've got a good source!

4. They have strengths where I am finding weaknesses in myself.  This one has been huge.  I wasn't thrilled to spend a ton of time in "assisted sitting" positions, hoping that one day she'd sit on her own.  But I mentioned sitting to the teacher and BAM, we were "working on sitting" every day!  More recently, I caved on my ideas of baby led weaning (see another upcoming post for that one) and decided to send purees to daycare.  I hadn't really wanted to do purees at home, but I had made some in advance just to have a little to try.  But then when I gave them to O, I really hated the process of spoon feeding.  I mean... a feeding therapist should love feeding her kid, right?  But no.  I hated it.  But daycare asked me to bring food, "you know... the kind with a spoon?"  :-)  So I brought it.  And now my little one is getting tastes and flavors of whatever veggies I want her to-- carrots, broccoli, rutabega, etc-- and I don't have to be the one trying to get it in and trying to wipe it off her hands afterwards.  It's a bit of a compromise that I've been really happy with!

5. The consistency works with my routined/scheduled personality.  At a large daycare center like the one we attend, I know what to expect.  I know who will be at the front desk when we come in.  I know all the teachers who might interact with O during the day.  I know that at the end of the day, I'll know all of the essentials... timing of naps, diaper changes, feedings.  And I don't have to worry about any of these things!  On the rare occasion that I've left O home with a friend from church or even with Ben, I find myself thinking about it all day... Did they give her a bottle yet?  How did the diaper change go?  Was there a blow out?  Are they okay?  Because I know that the system is tightly regimented at daycare, I really do let myself forget about O during the day... which leads me back to number 1 at the top of the list! :-)

What other benefits of occasional, part time, or even full time daycare services have you guys liked???

half a year? Where did it go???

Today my sweet girl is 6 months old.  And other than the fact that she's been refusing to fall asleep (or stay asleep once she finally gets there) for the last 3 hours, I really couldn't be happier.

Communication wise, I feel like O found her voice just within the last couple days.  She grunts and growls when she's sleepy or hungry.  She squeals with delight when something is funny, she knows that if she cries, someone will come pick her up and she stops crying immediately after she's gotten us to perform this task.  And she blows raspberries at herself while playing on the floor with her toys.  She's awesome at looking when someone calls to her, no matter where the person is in the room.   But most exciting is the communicative intent of her movements.  The other day at day care, she was laying on her belly on the floor behind her teacher.  When she heard me come in the room, she peered around the teacher and just smiled.  When I said hello and started talking to her, she army crawled toward me SUPER fast!  Way to make a mama smile.

And yes, I did say army crawl.  This girl can really zoom!  No matter where you set her down in the room and how many toys you put in her reach, this girl will be holding a plastic trash bag, a power cable, or a piece of cat food faster than you can blink.  There's absolutely no leaving her alone for more than about 30 seconds unless she's in a completely baby-proofed area.  Thus, we've added a baby gate to the nursery doorway (which overlooks our kitchen).  Each morning that we're at home, she gets a little bit of alone time in the nursery with her toys with the gate closed.  I'm really hoping that by teaching her now that the nursery is a fun place to be, we can save ourselves some trouble down the line when we NEED her to be in a separate space.  Don't get me wrong-- we're talking 5-10 minutes max and it really only works at certain times.  She tells me when she's done being alone by fussing/crying or by coming to the gate and squealing at me.  Of course, right now it doesn't work at the times I need it too-- when I want to cook dinner or run down to the laundry room in the basement.  But it's a process and I'm happy with it thus far.

Oh!  And the exciting news is that she can sit up unassisted!!!  She did it for a few seconds at a time around a week or two ago.  But last weekend (with ALL FOUR GRANDPARENTS present) she sat on the table top for a good minute or longer.  Since then, she's been capable of several minutes at a time.  The issue is that a) she can't figure out how to get out of it and b) if she gets too spastic/crazy with the toy she's playing with, she falls over.  hehehe...

Miss O is regularly eating pureed foods at day care, but we're still sticking essentially with baby led weaning at home.  Be on the look out for a couple of book reviews in the coming weeks about baby led weaning resources...

Love from Boston!

5 Things You Need to Know about Co-Sleeping

We're co-sleepers.

There.  I've said it.  And I'm saying it enough in public these days that I'm not feeling bad about it any more.  And I've communicated with enough other moms in my neighborhood that I've learned I'm BY FAR not the only one.  So there it is, we're doing it.

I feel strongly that just like teaching parents to safely travel in a car with their baby, it's our responsibility as a community to teach parents to sleep safely in a bed with baby.  As such, I wanted to let you know 5 things I think you should all know about co-sleeping.

1) Put your bed low to the ground - As baby gets old enough to roll, crawl, and move on her own, she WILL attempt to get out of bed.  Both while you're there and while you're not.  As such, the safest place for your bed is as close to the ground as possible.  We were already planning on sizing up to a queen soon (see #4 for why we haven't yet), so we just threw out our frame and box spring and put the mattress straight on the ground.  For those of you who have a bed you love, you might rather put that frame and box spring in storage, the basement, at grandmas for a while until baby gets a lot older.  I know it seems totally un-cool to have a mattress straight on the ground.  But I promise you, you'll get used to it.  I also promise you that you'll appreciate it the first time you hear "THUNK, WAAAAH!" while you're in the shower while you thought baby was asleep.

2) Use a barrier of some kind when you're not in the bed - I've recently learned that there are many options for this.  The cheapest option is to simply re-arrange your pillows in a square/circle around baby when you walk out of the room (e.g., when she's napping during the day, when she goes to sleep at 7pm but you're not going to bed until later).  Even amongst co-sleepers putting pillows near your child under a certain age will garner some raised eyebrows due to SIDS risk.  So if you do this, make sure they're nice, firm pillows that can't suffocate your little one.

Another option is foam bumpers.  Here's just one example of them, but there are lots of companies that make 'em.  They seem like a nice, firm, sturdy option.  And I like that you can put them under the fitted sheet, so that they're less of a suffocation risk.  Of course, that means you're leaving them there while YOU sleep in the bed too.  So make sure your bed is wide enough for all 3 of you AND the bumper before you commit to this option.

A third option is inflatable bumpers.  The benefit here is that you can pack 'em up and go to grandmas and your sleeping situation doesn't change much.  Ben seems to think that the inflatable option is less safe (I think it's the idea of sleeping next to a balloon).  But under the sheets, I don't see why this isn't just as safe as a foam bumper.






3) You have to be creative to stay warm - I used to be a curl-up-under-the-covers-bring-'em-all-the-way-to-my-neck kinda girl.  But oh, no more.  When you co-sleep, it's important to keep your adult blankets out of baby's way so that she doesn't get covered by/tangled in them and suffocate.  If baby's head is about at chest height, that means, her legs/toesies are about at my waist, which is really just about as high as our blankets go anymore.  During the summer, this wasn't a big deal, as we don't have air conditioning and the house is fairly warm.

But as the fall coolness comes on, Ben and I have to be a bit more creative about ways to keep warm.  Some moms I've talked two simply use two blankets, one for mom and one for dad, leaving a chasm in the middle.  Others use a blanket that is larger than their bed (e.g., king for a queen sized mattress) and leave a loose spot in the middle that gets pulled down for baby.  And some people just wear more layers themselves so that they don't rely on blankets as much.  Honestly, Ben and I are still figuring it out.  We leave a loose spot, leave the blankets down a little lower, and have used our space heater a little sooner than we usually do-- that way we can heat the bedroom a little warmer at night without heating the whole house.  I think I might make my first million dollars by creating a co-sleeping blanket-- connected at the bottom but divided at the top.  Why not, right?

Oh, and incidentally, invest in sleep sacks for your little one-- they're a great way to keep baby warm while she stays away from your adult blanket.  Our day care prefers them too, even though they're not co-sleeping. :-)

4) It's gonna get messy - If I haven't mentioned other places or you haven't read in other places yet... infancy is WET.  I expected O to be the wet one... wet diapers and wet spit ups.  And we do have some of that.  But there's so much other wetness I wasn't expecting.  Immediately post partum, my milk supply was out. of. control.  That was wet during feeds and between feeds.  There's recovery and wetness in other areas of your new mommy body too.  That's wet.  And even now, after those wetness things have settled down, Olivia has the STRANGEST head sweat!  She can leave a puddle in about 5 minutes while she's sleeping!  Oh, and now that we're working toward teething, the new wetness is drool.  Drool coming out of the mouth, dripping off the fingers... even on her toes.  Yes, she puts her toes in her mouth.  Bottom line - Messy.  Wet and messy.  Get used to it.

Thus, you should be prepared to do laundry more often.  Sometimes we can space out the laundry a bit by putting a receiving blanket UNDER baby O.  That way if all we have is a little head sweat, we only have to wash the receiving blanket, not all of the sheets.  But even the receiving blanket won't catch all of the wet every time.  So be prepared for more laundry.  Either that or adjusting your definition of "clean" when it comes to sheets.

It's this messiness that has kept us in the smaller bed thus far.  I know that new beds come with mattress pads to keep wetness off the mattress and thus in cleaner, longer lasting condition.  But Ben and I agree that the older O gets, the less messes we're gonna have.  Less diaper blow outs, less drool, etc.  Thus, we're trying to stretch our current old mattress for as many weeks/months as we can tolerate before we get a new one.  At some point, O's size and space she takes up in the bed will outweigh the mess, and we'll size up to a queen.  But for now, we cuddle nicely in our full sized bed.

5) Some nights will go better than others. - If you're a mom reading this and have tried co-sleeping with result of a horrible, sleepless, cold, wet night, you might be thinking "UGH!  Why does it go well for them and not me??!?!?!"  Please don't.  Yes, most nights, we sleep comfortably, sleep deeply, and sleep warmly.  But this process, just like all other parts of parenthood, has it's ups and downs.  Some nights, O tosses and turns way more than usual, smacking us in the face with each wiggle.  Some nights, she cries more or is just more awake and wants to play.  Some nights, I just can't get warm enough and I whimper all night while Ben tries to toss more blankets on me.  But I promise you, once we got used to the systems and routines, these things are the exception, not the rule.  Each family needs to figure out what works best for them.  And you'll figure it out for your family too!

Who else out there has advice for snuggling with little ones?

5 months old

So I'm a little late in getting this post up.  Baby O was 5 months old on 9/25/12.  The pictures are from that day, but it took me a little while to actually get the post written.  Size wise, Baby O has slowed down with growth.  But that just means that her developmental growth is even more amazing to watch.  I worry every day (okay, maybe just once or twice a week) that I'm not soaking it in enough, not enjoying it enough... that I'll look back and barely remember and regret.  But I do what I can and I'll at least have these blog posts to remind me of the little details when I'm old and gray.

Communication wise, O is definitely in a period of soaking every little thing she sees and hears in.  She is IN LOVE with the cat.  When the cat comes into view, she gets very still and just stares.  When kitty moves or wiggles, it makes O laugh and smile.  She's easily distracted by noises in her environment, even if she can't figure out exactly where they're coming from.  The other day on the train track, you should have seen how wide her eyes got when she heard the squealing of the train!  She's definitely turning towards us when we talk to her-- she can tell when we're talking to her versus talking to each other.  She's got a good variety of vowels now-- "ah's, eee's" are common, "oohs" come out occasionally.  Every once in a while I hear a consonant - a /b/ or an /f/ or a /g/, but I know it's just sorta happenstance about where her articulators were when she vocalized.  She also blows raspberries at me once in a while, which I love.

Fine motor is so awesome.  I need to write another Montessori post about the toys that are best for her now.  She can pick a toy up (or her pacifier) and bring it straight to her mouth.  She also really has a good sense of "I see it and I want it" and can reach and grab for things with her open palm grasp.  She doesn't quite know how to release one item in order to make space in her hand for the next.  That brings us joy and laughter occasionally. :-)

Baby O has moved from "rolling only" to really moving around on the ground.  She rolls several times in one direction to get from place to place-- usually to get within reach of a toy she wants, but occasionally to try to get to Ben and me.  This leaves us aware that we REALLY need to continue to baby proof the home.  She's fallen/rolled off the bed several times in the past week.  Thank goodness, we'd gotten rid of our box spring and frame, so it's just the 10/11 inch mattress on the ground.  But she still can konk her head pretty hard if we're not paying attention.  We might be seeing the beginnings of army crawling, but I have a feeling next month I'll have more to say about that.

And in general, we're still sleeping well, eating well, and have been healthy other than the near constant runny nose that I blame on day care.  Oh!  Eating!  I've tried some pureed carrots this month.  She doesn't mind the flavor, but she really wants NOTHING to do with me spoon feeding her.  We've begun a little bit here and there of "baby led weaning" where we're just giving her whole real foods like a half of an apple.  But technically you're not supposed to do that until 6 months.  So it's just sparse and intermittent for now.  We'll get more serious about it next month I guess.  The hard thing is, I just don't see time in the day to focus on feeding!  When the heck am I gonna fit that into our routine?!?!?

Love from Boston!

 

8 Weeks to a Less Cluttered Home cop-out

Hey all,

So for those of you who were (either anxiously or dreadingly) following my decluttering, I've officially decided I'm finished.  I'm not finished decluttering, but I'm finished blogging about it.  I have a few "days" that I never did and am dreading and a few "days" that I did and never posted about... And the idea of finishing the project on the blog has been keeping me from posting!  I think of something fun to post about and then think, "ugh, but I can't until I'm done with the decluttering posts!"  So, I'm done.  I'm just not gonna finish the post series and that's gonna be okay.

Right?  Right.

:-)

Now you can all look forward to the post tomorrow about Baby O turning 5 months!  Wowie Wowie!

Hugs from Boston...

Feeding Baby Green by Dr. Alan Greene

Today I finished Feeding Baby Green by Alan Greene, MD.  I REALLY enjoyed this book.  I checked it out from the library (yay!  Free is within my budget!) and I'll be honest, I only skimmed the last couple chapters, which are more about older toddlers and kids.  I figure I'll check it out again in the future if I want more advice at that point in time.

But the first few chapters are great for new moms!  You might even want to read it if your trying to conceive or still pregnant, as it's got whole sections dedicated to what you should eat when pregnant, decision making about breast feeding, etc.  Here are, in my own words, a few take away points that were most relevant to my life given my personal background knowledge...

1) When a baby is breast fed exclusively (or fed pumped bottles), they will have exposure to a wide variety of tastes and flavors, even before they're eating solids.  Thus, for breast fed babies, Dr. Greene recommends starting solid foods at 6 months.  However, with formula fed babies, who typically are only exposed to one flavor for the first several months (e.g., whatever brand of formula you choose), it is more reasonable to start small tastes/flavors of pureed solids earlier (as early as 4 months) so as not to miss out on the window of opportunity for exploring new flavors.  I guess I found this especially relevant because as a feeding therapist, I've worked with so many kids who are failure to thrive and we want them on solids ASAP (e.g., 4 months), but there's a decent argument for waiting until 6 months in this that I hadn't thought of.  (Note: for all you medical folks out there, there are millions of other decent arguments for waiting until 6 months that I know, but I'm just not going to address them all here.)

2) Just as toddlers reach a developmentally appropriate "stranger danger" stage where they don't want to go with new people (this is biologically an AWESOME safety method!), they reach the same phase (around the same time) with flavors... at that point, new flavors will be registered by their brain as unfamiliar, unsafe, essentially poison!  So while you can teach an older toddler or child (or adult) to eat new foods, life is a lot easier if the foods are exposed to the infant/toddler early... BEFORE the food-stranger-danger hits!  Brilliant!

3) Especially if you're starting flavor tasting/solid foods on the early side (but even if you're not), it's a good idea to focus on feeding baby flavors that you don't particularly like.  Think about it.  Throughout their infant, toddler, and childhood stages, they'll have TONS of experience watching you eat your favorite fruit, bananas.  But if you don't particularly like beets, if you don't go out of your way to expose kiddo to them early, then you'll miss them all together... (see #2 for what happens then)!

Finally, I really liked that Dr. Greene included a biodiversity checklist in the back to encourage you to provide varied-enough foods in the early stages. I'd never seen such a complete list. I really liked it, so I copied it here for you (and for my reference after I return the book to the library!):

1. Mushrooms: crimini mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, portobello mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms
2. Amaranths: beet, buckwheat, quinoa, spinach, swiss chard
3. Umbrellifers: anise, arracha, caraway, carrot, celery, chervil, cilantro, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, lovage, parsley, parsnip
4. Cruciferous vegetables: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chinese cabbage, collard greens, cress, horseradish, mustard, mustard greens, radish, rapeseed, turnip, turnip greens, watercress
5. Bromeliad: pineapple
6. Composites: artichoke, chicory, edible flowers, jerusalem artichoke, lettuces, safflower, sunflower seeds, yacon
7. Bindweeds: sweet potato, water spinach
8. Gourds: cantaloupe, casaba, crenshaw, cucumber, honeydew, muskmelon, pumpkin, watermelon, zucchini
9. Heath: blueberry, cranberry, huckleberry
10. Legumes: azuki, beans, black beans, carob, chickpeas, dried peas, green peas, kidney beans, lentils, lupins, navy beans, peanuts, pinto beans, snap peas, snow peas, soybeans, tamarind
11. Lilies: asparagus, chive, garlic, leeks, onion, shallots
12. Woody: bananas, plantains
13. Sesames: benne, black sesame, gomashio, sesame oil, sesame potherb, sesame seeds, tahini
14. True grasses: barley, brown rice, corn, millet, oats, rye, spelt, wheat
15. Rosy plants: almond, apple, apricot, blackberry, cherry, loquat, medlar, peach, pear, plum, quince, raspberry, strawberry
16. Citrus: grapefruit, lemon, orange, kumquat, kim, mandarin orange, tangerine
17. Nightshades: chili powder, chipotle, fingerling potato, green bell pepper, jalapeno, paprika, red bell pepper, red potato, russet otato, tomatillo, tomatoes, uchuva, yellow bell pepper, yukon gold potato
18. Grapes: currants, grapes, raisins
19. Laurels: avocados, cinnamon, bay leaves, cassia, sassafras
20. Myrtles: allspice, cloves, guava, feijoa
21. Loosestifes: pomegranate