Erin Sluka - Parenting Healthy

Tips to Keep Your Baby Safe During Their First Year

Having a new baby is an exciting time in any parent’s life. It is also a time of new experiences and a lot of questions and anxiety. Do you worry about keeping your little one safe through it all? Here are a few tips to help you navigate the first year.

Put Them To Sleep in an Empty Crib

When you go to sleep, do you enjoy sinking into a soft mattress, laying back on a fluffy pillow and pulling the covers over your head? As wonderful as this is for you, it is not a good option for your baby because plush objects can easily cover their faces and make it difficult for them to breathe. During the first year, your infant is safest in their crib fitted with a firm mattress, and they shouldn’t sleep with pillows and blankets. If you are concerned that they are too cold, dress them in a long sleeve sleeper, adjust your home’s temperature and opt for a sleep sack.

Watch Them Every Second They Are Near Water

It is very easy for a child to slip in water, and they can be injured in a matter of seconds. Make it your priority to watch them at all times they are in the water. If you bathe your baby, look for special seats that help support them and add a small amount of water to the tub. If you need to leave the room, always take your child with you. These precautions should be followed when you are near a hot tub, swimming pool or open water areas. Your baby cannot swim or float naturally, so consider any body of water a drowning risk.

Install a Rear Facing Car Seat

You know by now that you’re required to keep your baby in a car seat while driving. It’s also important to make sure you buckle them in correctly. Until your child is about a year old and 20 pounds, their head is not supported very well by their neck muscles. Because of this, your baby’s seat should face the back of the car to protect their head and neck from a whiplash injury if your car is rear-ended. If you are concerned about seeing them while you’re driving, look for special mirrors that attach to the back seat and allow you to see their reflection in your rearview mirror.

Block All Staircases

As your child begins to get mobile, new dangers become reachable to them. Stairs are very hazardous to exploring babies. It only takes an inch for them to crawl or scoot too far and fall down a staircase. As they become more confident in moving around, they want to climb up the stairs, which can also lead to falls back down. The best way to protect them from falls is to put gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. These gates are easy to install and allow you to easily walk through them while shutting securely to keep your baby safe.

The first year of your newborn’s life is filled with new experiences. Follow these tips to keep them safe through it all.

Food/Beverage

New Jovē Alkaline Water offers a deep hydration

June 14, 2021June 15, 2021 Erin Sluka

New Jove Alkaline Water offers a deep hydration — Jovē Water image source

I am sure you can relate to feeling sluggish, sleep deprived, irritable and even dry and dull skin. If you can rule out other causes, perhaps the main reason for these symptoms is dehydration. Your Doctors (like mine) may have said something like, “…if we can rule out XYZ, we need to then look at your diet and hydration habits”. I have heard this recently at a Doctors appointment. I am normally healthy, but there was more I could do so I am doing those things, including drinking more water! Jove Water is new and such a better choice over standard water. I still try and get my needed 65 ounces a day (right now my Doctor wants me as high as 100 ounces), but about 34 of my ounces are Jovē hydration!

Why Jovē Deep Hydration Alkaline Water?

But, regular water is so much cheaper? Why Jovē? What your Doctor means by ‘dehydrated’, often means cellular dehydration. More than just, drinking wet stuff, your cells need a healthy hydration to be at their happiest. Just like we may eat healthy, but also take supplements to add the best amounts of nutrients, we can drink water that has added benefits.

Jovē is clinically shown to provide hydration for skin and cellular health. Jovē water gives your cells exactly the added benefits for function such as liquid silica, an essential mineral that increases alkalinity, and charged with electrons, a primary source of energy for our body and cells. Cellular hydration supports our mitochondria (the power plant of our cells), cellular metabolism and the release of cellular waste. This is why you want a deep hydration water like Jovē.

Up to 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated and 2/3 of that hydration is cellular hydration and I am one of those. Jovē water is free of BPA and BPS and is sugar free, flouride free and there are no additives. You get zero calories also.

Unless you live under pure springs and the tap water is of an iceberg source (not the case anywhere in the US), perhaps some bottled water is better than the tap. However, pure H2O water is neutral and has a pH of 7 at room temperature. Deep hydrating water, such as Jovē, contains sources of available energy in the form of electrons that effectively make it to the cells, providing cellular hydration. Because our blood is 90% water, if we are dehydrated then our blood has a difficult time pushing nutrients to our organ systems. Cellular hydration is our body detox! Our organ systems gets nutrients while toxins are flushed and that all comes full circle to having happy cells for a happy body.

I drink 1 bottle of Jovē a day (33.8 ounces) and hydrate more with pure-sourced bottled water to get as close to my goal each day. Drinking more than 1 bottle is fine in a day, but for my wallet I feel 1 bottle of Jovē to start the day and then keep drinking my normal water source is still a healthier form of hydration than just pure H2O all day.

Again, why Jovē at about $2.80 a bottle rather than that .50 cent bottle? A body that gets a boost for all of the vital reasons. Buy Jovē by the case at Amazon. Available now!

Recipes

How to Smoke Sirloin Steaks on the Traeger Step by Step with Images

June 9, 2021July 6, 2023 Erin Sluka

When you have some quality meat, you need to make sure you are cooking it right because along with lumber and gas, meats are not cheap right now. I started with some sirloin steak from a meat pack I recently ordered from our local meat market. Here is how to smoke sirloin steaks on the Traeger and it is so simple!

The night before or a few hours before, I dry brine the meat. Dry brining is done by adding a decent amount of kosher salt to the meat and setting it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. This will benefit you hugely with moisture.

When you are ready to cook, preheat the Traeger to 225˚ and I used some Hickory pellets, but with steaks, it is your preference. While the smoker preheats I grab the steaks and rub gently with some olive oil then add my favorite rub. This Suckle Busters 1836 Beef Rub is my favorite for steaks and burgers. It is a black pepper, Texas rub.

It will take about an hour to get your steaks up to the right temp. In this recipe I reverse sear. Reverse sear means you give the steaks some high heat AFTER smoking/grilling them. Because we reverse sear, you will want to pull your steaks off of the smoker 10 degrees below your final cook temp desire. I included your final temp suggestions below:

Rare 125˚
Medium Rare 135˚
Medium 145˚-what I cooked to
Medium Well 150˚
Well Done 160˚

Once my steaks got to 135˚ on the smoker (I was aiming for 145 after sear), I took them off and had my sear set-up ready. You will want to have a few things ready to go. I have my cast iron pan (the good ‘ole Lodge pan), a good high heat oil such as Avocado Oil, a large sheet of tin foil set beside the stove, a thermometer and tongs.

Heat the oil in the cast iron until hot. Sear each side of the steak for about 1-2 minutes. I sear one side for 1 minute, flip, insert thermometer and sear second side until it gets that extra 10˚ to finish. Remember, I took the meat off of the smoker at 135˚ and then seared to 145˚ to get a medium steak. I prefer mine more of a medium rare, but this was for the kids and the pink terrifies them -lol!

Once you reach that perfect temperature, you do the last and most important step – rest the meat! This is why you had that sheet of foil ready. As you remove the 1 or 2 steaks you can sear at a time, set in the foil, cover and then I unwrap to add the next few steaks until all of my steaks are seared, in the foil and resting. I fold up the foil tight and let it sit 10+ minutes.

Why is resting your meat so important? Look below – those juices up top only exist because of the rest. Meat needs to rest so the juices can redistribute, otherwise it will just flow away, leaving you with a brown, overcooked piece of meat.

Slice against the grain and enjoy! Low and slow is best, this was an average night dinner so I used 225˚ temp, but you can set your Traeger to 180-190˚ and plan on about 90 minutes or longer on the smoker.

My son chose tater tots and fruit for sides, but perhaps that means nothing to you. I am showing you the true finished dinner, anyhow! FYI – the leftover steaks make great fajitas on night 2!

Healthy Living

Washing your produce with Arm & Hammer Fruit & Vegetable Wash

June 4, 2021December 20, 2022 Erin Sluka

Why I Wash my Produce with Arm & Hammer Fruit and Vegetable Wash

Do you wash your produce when you get home from the grocery store? Honestly, I never did for years. Then I became very familiar with food safety within my job and now I always wash my fresh produce. Washing most produce with just water may get rid of pesticide residue, debris, and dirt. However, rinsing this way won’t get rid of all of the nasty bacteria like E.coli, that can adhere to the fruits and vegetables you love to eat. The Arm & Hammer™ Fruit and Vegetable Wash cleans 4x better than just water, it safely eliminates over 90% of pesticide residue.

If you have ever suffered a food-borne illness, you know how uncomfortable and painful the symptoms are. I was just out of high school (many years ago) when I had stopped at a gas station and grabbed a deli turkey and cheese sandwich that had some condiments and lettuce. Within 24 hours, my stomach pains and vomiting was intense. E. Coli is worse than any other illness I have had! You need to wash and handle food properly, especially raw meats and produce.

Every kitchen should have a bottle of Arm & Hammer Fruit and Vegetable Wash just as they do dish soap and towels. It is so easy and effortless to use. Not only do you make your produce safer to consume, you get rid of the wax and build up for a prettier looking food. The wash is vegan and gluten-free and it does not leave any tastes/odors behind. Just spray, give it a rub/scrub and rinse. That’s it. It lessens the dull, cleans and becomes a habit real fast. Visit the Arm & Hammer website and use the slider to see the difference between produce with and without the wash and how it works.