Blog Posts by LilSugar

Nursing is painful for most mothers. Thanks to tips from lactation consultants and other mothers, I was able to get through the harsh beginning and make it through many months of breastfeeding. Here are my five top recommendations for nursing mamas.

• Lansinoh Nipple Cream - There are hundreds of creams on the market, but Lansinoh ($13) is one of my favorites.
• Cabbage leaves - Some women swear that chilled cabbage leaves help with engorgement and swelling.
• Washcloths - In the old days, expecting women used to take a wet washcloth and rub their nipples nearly raw so they would be tough when the baby came along.
• Bags of frozen peas - When I suffered through mastitis, bags of frozen peas helped to cool down the infected areas.
• Nipple shields - Some of my friends have relied on nipple shields to get them from one feeding to the next. They work wonders for nipple challenged mothers.

What was your go-to cure? Share it in comments

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Would you pop a squat just anywhere to take a home pregnancy test? The privacy of your home bathroom may seem like the ideal place to pee on a stick - or the not-so-private home bathroom in the case of Bethenny Frankel - but many women can't wait that long to see their pregnancy results. A new study by First Response found that one in 20 women headed to the restroom at work to see if their test showed two little lines. We've also seen women on both the small and large screen sneaking into hotel bathrooms (Friends), convenience stores (Juno), and airports (What I Like About You) to take the tests. Where did you take yours?

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If you've got a lil couch potato on your hands, Sneaky Fitness has the cure! Little ones can be resistant to exercise, especially when it feels forced, but authors Missy Chase Lapine and fitness expert, Larysa DiDio have a few sneaky-fun solutions to get your kids in gear. Rather than force kids to be active, this creative team authored a book of tips that harness your kids' natural fidgeting impulses to get them moving - and having fun - with simple, everyday, at home activities that require little more than what's at your house or around the yard and help strengthen coordination, flexibility, and overall physical fitness. Click through to get my favorite five activities and how-tos from Sneaky Fitness!

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Since having my second child, I've been on a mission to green our home and provide my kids with the most eco-friendly options available. At the same time, I'm a bit of a clean freak who has been known to develop a nervous twitch when things start to feel dirty. So moving to eco-friendly household cleansers has been a slow migration. With the help of our friends at Babies R Us, we gathered a handful of green cleansers and put them to the test - attempting to clean off an infant's dirty high chair tray after a messy dinner of pureed butternut squash and apricots. Click through the following slides to see which cleaning agents made the grade in our home.

• Activeion Ionator HOM
  Through our work with Healthy Child Healthy Home, we were sent an Activeion Ionator HOM for testing purposes. Unlike traditional household cleansers, the Hom simply ionizes regular tap water, converting it into a solution that is said to kill 99.9 percent of all germs.
  How well did it work? According to

It's a modern world, but has chivalry died? Eighty-seven percent of LilSugar readers said it isn't so and that they are teaching their sons to be well-mannered men. We asked Lisa Gaché, the founder of Beverly Hills Manners, a company that makes learning fun for children, her thoughts. She said: Chivalry never goes out of style, so moms take note! In fact, it is perhaps more vital than ever to teach these skills to today's young men. With technology making it easy to text an invitation to dinner rather than picking up the phone or emailing a thank you note in favor of mailing a handwritten one, good old-fashioned manners have been slowly slipping by the wayside, much to our detriment. To combat this downward spiral, here are 10 ways to instill the importance of chivalrous behavior and turn these impressionable boys into true gentlemen.

Look the Part - First impressions mean everything and there is no better way to communicate confidence than through a young man's overall

What's in a baby name? Everything. Naming baby is the first big decision a parent makes for their child and there are endless elements to consider. Once you have finally settled on the right signature, you want to sing it from the rooftops and coo it over the cradle. If you can't be with baby every second of the day keep her name close to your heart with a trendy trinket necklace that spells out your favorite letters of the alphabet.

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Long bangs for boys are about to get trimmed! Summer's hottest hair - Justin Bieber's shaggy 'do and Apple Martin's beachy tresses - are being tidied up as kids head back to school. Joe Jonas's clean cut and Vanessa Hudgens's curly locks are what students will be sporting. We spoke with Cozy Friedman of New York's Cozy's Cuts for Kids to find out about the latest trends.

BabySugar: What type of hair is hot for Fall?
Cozy Friedman: Long hair for boys is still the direction that boys are going in, but it's not quite as . . . messy looking as the Bieber, or as brushed onto the face. It's now a little bit neater -more like a Joe Jonas kind of look. As far as girls, there is definitely a trend for chunky waves. We do a lot of updos and styles in the salon and we are doing a lot more work with curling irons than ever before. Not curling tight curls, [but] thick-barrel curling irons for long chunky waves. We're also seeing, for quick and easy style, a lot of girls are wearing long braids like

Michelle Duggar has given birth 17 times, but mothering a preemie has been a new experience for her. I recently had the chance to chat with the mom of 19 and her husband Jim Bob about Josie and how their family dynamic has changed since the baby's December arrival.

LilSugar: You mentioned taking health precautions, but what are some of the other adjustments parents have to make in tending to a preemie?
Michelle Duggar: Initially, her (Josie's) feeds were so different than those of a full-term baby. At first, it was just a few drops and then it was a continuous feed because they had her on a feeding tube. We had to start feeding from a bottle so I would pump my breast milk and put it in the bottle and she had to learn how to suck, swallow, and breathe and that was a whole new experience because I had to learn how to hold the bottle and help her as she started to choke and until she was able to learn that process. Of course, she's learned it really well! We're probably doing the same