Baby Girl Name That Begins With An ‘A’: SOS Mom
This week, we had a really cute query on the SOS Mom forum. Mum Devangi Khandelwal is looking for a delightful name for a baby girl starting with ‘A’. Needless to say, our SOS Mom mommies just dived in with joy 
We loved most of the names, especially the ones that also came with a meaning! As Devangi clarified later, the name is for a friend who is expecting a baby girl soon. Devangi’s little princess is called Aadya.
The A-list:
- Avanthika
- Ananya
- Anaswara
- Ayra
- Aayushi
- Aanya (means grace and splendour)
- Arushi
- Anwesha
- Astha
- Aashima
- Aashika
- Aarna
- Aadya
- Aashna
- Anukriti
- Aahana
- Aleeza
- Aisha
- Anushka
- Aarabhi
- Adhaya
- Ajyaa
- Aarya
- Adivtyaa
- Aarohe
- Avika
- Aranya
- Apeksha
- Avenika
- Arpita
- Anshika
- Anshika
- Ayesha
- Arundhati
- Antara
- Anuja
- Anupriya
- Aakira
- Anny
- Aanika
- Aena
- Alia
- Anushree
- Anamika
- Anaisha (name of a Persian princess / goddess of love)
- Akira
- Advaita (means unique)
- Anagha
- Aarna
- Anvi
- Arshiya
- Ambreen
- Amber
- Anoosha
- Alankrita
- Apsara
- Asmi
- Ashraya
- Anmol
- Amanat
- Ankita
- Aaradhna
- Anshu
- Amisha
- Anushmita
- Aarzoo
- Avishi
- Amaira
- Aumrita
- Aansi
- Amita
- Atithi
- Aanchal
- Aakankshi
- Armani
- Adrija (another name for Goddess Durga)
- Aakashi
- Akshaya
- Akshara
- Ambika
- Aarti
- Afsha
- Antima
- Angelina
- Aaniya
- Amulya
- Ashvagandha
- Asamnya
- Anokhi
- Ankahee
- Aasma
- Ami
- Aapti
- Areeha
- Aashita
- Anaaya
- Aabhaa
- Asath
- Ariana (means the holy one in Greek)
- Armaan
- Aashavahaari (filled with high hopes and aspirations)
- Abhipsa
- Abhilashi
- Athira
- Arna
- Angira
- Aninditha (pure, virtuous, without any flaws)
- Ahiliya
- Adah
- Abir (diamond)
- Aaraisha (beautiful face)
- Aishneet
- Aaina
- Amna
- Aliza
- Angi
- Angalina
- Aratrika
- Aashleen
- Alveera
- Anupriya
- Agnita
- Ashlesha
- Ayantika
- Aashee
- Ana
- Aura
- Ashlee
- Aayaas (means blessed baby)
- Aiyat
- Amiran
- Ashley
- Anmadika
- Ashvika
- Alakshana
- Asin
- Aashea
- Aafra
- Anargha (meaning precious)
- Agamya
- Amvi
- Aaraana (goddess Lakshmi)
- Apurvi
- Abhinavya (meaning new each time)
With special thanks to:
Saumya Ramdas, Aisha Farhad, Ankita Sushil Sharma, Deepshikha Sarma Thakur, Manpreet Walia, Pragya Singh, Rajnit Kaur, Jha Banna, Astha Vijayvargjya, Priya Varun Tayur, Pooja Kapoor, Garima Sharma, Arpita Yadav, Heer Garg, Meenakshi Nair, Rain Just Rain, Harsha Singh Maurya, Angel Savii, Vinutha T. Suvarna, Snehasikha Sahu, Nams Bali, Kareena Narwani, Prachi Patankar, Sach Jaz, Roopa Harish, Himani Panda, Anuradha Bhadauria, Poonam Sawla, Susana Ekka, Pooja Joshi, Daniel Tamang, Smita Panwar, Sevitha Sriram, Dalia Sinha Roy, Deepika Gardner, Palak Mashruwala, Arpita Apu Mitra, Mehta Jitendra, Arpana Pinky, Pooja Bhandari, Hema Asnani, Natasha Dias, Rutuparna Patnaik, Aditi J Raura, Palepu Shivani, Vasantha Ayalasomayajula, Aniket Patil, Preeti Jain, Shivali Shukla, Kavitha Hagamilal, Lijj Varghese, Panchali Roy Mukherjee, Sheetal Singh, Ami Thakkar Pamnani, Kripa Vijay, Paromita Ghosh, Monica Paul, Rose Kaur, Aarti Jalan Kedia, Sanjukta Banerjee, Shrawani Bose, Poorva Ranjan, Riddhima Kondabathini, Nalin Ranjan, Krystle Vaz, Anushree Shah Jhaveri, Musarrat Haider, Tina Chowdhury Negi, Deepshikha Nath Hazarika, Inderpreet Kaur, Surbhi Shukla, Athira S Krishna, Shipra Ghosh, Loveena D’Souza Kirtani, Anwesha Bhattacharya, Vijaya Lad, Aarti Vedpathak, Kiran Joshi Juglan, Lakshmi Harikrishnan, Leena Bijoy, Kc Castellano-Anolin, Anee K Naik, Sweta Shree, Nidhi Singhal Sangal, Rohan Mehta, Mohan Kumar, Gareema Burman Sehrawat, Christina Davison, Puja Sood, Chinnu’s Crafts, Puja Sood, Pinky Rai Pradhan, Akshaya Aquarian, Suman Sharma, Pavani Sucharitha Yarra, Dilpreet Parmar, Agarwal Sunita, Vijaya Dudeja Mahlawat, Nayna Sheikh, Safoora Firdausi Mudassir, Roopa Mv, Jyoti Pur, Swati Verma Mathur, Shreya Chakravarty Bhattacharya, Parul Malhotra, Sonam Sarawagi, Honey Bindra, Anamika Chauhan, Sneha Joshi, Annu Das, Kanchan Ahuja, Smitha Srivastava, Arpita Mondal, Sumiti Budhiraja, Preeti Ved, Ashwini Tandale, Amulya Raj Kammili, Tiny Bahri, Basabendu Madhab Sarkar, Meghna Saxena, Preethy Thomas Nazare, Barkha Kataruka, Soneiya Bansal, Supreet Saini, Lipika Sanjay, Cheenu Khural, Brindha Karthikeyan, CapstaMonika Capstar, Sandhya Agarwal, Sita Laxmi, Preeti Jain, Ritu Pri Cath, Anjali Sharma, Rimpi Bhullar Sekhon, Nitu Mallik, Munmun Jain Goel, Shanu Sharma, Navjot Nagi, Pooja Ummat Malik, Dipti Berad, Tarul Lakhani Kaura, Sunny Bakshi, Loshini Nagendiran, Neha Hamirwasia, Mayuri Takke, Gaurita Turme Katre, Happy Singh, Dimple Karia, Divya J Solanki, Adaa Anu, Amruta Gondkar, Padmashree Nagaraj, Smriti Kakkar, Snehal Deherkar, Nidhi Vidhani, Pia Bhau, Babita Rawat Bhanjdeo, Manali Brijesh, Neeraj Manu Singh, Abhinav Mathran, Mahua Khanna
A Few Things To Remember This Winter…
It’s winters….that time of the year when our little ones are again so prone to those bouts of cough and cold and as parents you are running around with that dreaded thermometer in hand, calling up the doc, fixing an appointment, and trying desperately to make the poor little ones drink the medicines….
Sometimes, winters approach so suddenly that we dont really get the chance to keep our woolens in the sun. Of course we all are quite restrained on time these days. What with office and home and many more added responsibilities, it is not always possible to take out time and remember to do each and every chore. If you did not really get the chance to sun-out your woolens before use this winter, try and send it to a good dry-cleaner. Sometimes, children develop allergies, especially rashes and cough and cold from these same woolens that have been in storage for most of the past year.
This winter, let honey be your child’s best friend (not for infants though, and if your baby has had any prior allergies or reaction to honey, make sure you check with the doctor first). A little honey in milk, instead of sugar, will help your child stay away from the regular cough and cold. Also, why not add just the tiniest pinch of ground turmeric in your baby’s milk? Or even jaggery? Not only are these rich sources of nutrition for your little one, they will also help your baby fight the virus.
Green leafy vegetables are back with the season..so let your child enjoy these…of course make sure that you clean them properly before feeding your child. Clean and boil these greens in salt water and then mash it (if your child is too small) or cut into fine pieces and mix in the flour you use for your daily roti and parantha. Use the boiled water of the leaves to make dals or curries. The best part about these leaves are that, if you dont have the time to do this each day, just boil them and keep them in the fridge…once boiled, they can be easily stored for a week to ten days.
Also, make ample use of the lovely vegetables in the market, carrot, beetroot and so many other nourishing foods. Make vegetable soups/stews at home, make vegetable porridge, make custard with fruits….so many natural things for our little ones just waiting for us to bring back home.
Of course it is not always possible to keep cough and cold at bay. But lets try and go a little more natural this season….
Understanding Baby’s Hunger Needs
Many new mums tend to get confused with the amount of varying information they get from family, friends, books and online. While a friend may say you need to feed your baby only when baby is hungry, the book may say you need to feed baby every few hours. While a relative says feeding for so and so time at a stretch is important, another may talk about signs that your baby shows.
All the above holds true in case of a new mum, as different babies have different needs and it takes a while to understand what really works for your little one. But one thing that holds true in case of new babies is that frequently feeding baby is good, and also advisable. Babies are still trying to develop their digestive system, and their tummies are tiny, so while they need feeds at small intervals, its also true that they need smaller quantities and not too much feed at one go.
A few signs that can help you notice baby’s hunger are:
- Crying
- Sucking fingers
- Sucking lips
- Sucking clothes
- Not falling asleep even though you’ve been trying
- Starts puckering lips imitating feed time
For newborns, its advisable that you feed baby every two hours. Once baby gets a little older, and if you are planning to start top feed, keep a regular schedule for feeding, and apart from that, keep your eyes out on baby’s cues for hunger.
Sometimes, you may worry that even though you are feeding baby properly, a lot of it is coming out in spitting. If that’s the case, try giving lesser quantity of feed, and make sure you burp baby properly after every feed, whether breast feed or bottle feed.
All babies are different, and it’s important that you try and understand what’s best for your’s. Give your baby some time to adjust to this ‘new’ life. While you’re there to care and love and do what’s best for your baby, everything will fall into place.
Sleep Or Exhaustion – What’s Your Baby Feeling?
For most moms, the signs of baby feeling sleepy are quite clear:
- Yawning
- Scratching ears and head
- Staring quietly at one spot
- Less active
- Irritated
But sometimes, signs that look like indications of sleep are actually indications of over-exhaustion, like:
- Cranky
- Constant crying
- Rubbing eyes vigorously
- Falling off to sleep while doing something else
If your baby shows any of the signs from the second list, chances are, its way past baby’s sleep time, and baby is now over-exhausted. You may have tried putting baby to sleep earlier, but baby was quite active and didn’t want to sleep, so you allowed a little more play time. Yes, we all do that.
This is actually a good way of making sure that baby is taken to bed when the first signs of sleep start to settle in, rather than waiting too long and letting baby get uncomfortable and cranky in the process. If you see baby yawning and being a little less active than baby usually is, its time to start the bedtime routine.
Here is what you should ideally be doing sometime before bed time and during as well:
- Prepare a warm bath and give baby a bath
- Give a light massage with some soothing baby oils
- Put baby in comfortable sleep clothes – do not cover baby with too many quilts and blankets, instead get baby in sleep onesies.
- Give baby some milk, bottle or mother’s feed
- Dim the lights
- Make sure the voices in the house are low
- Keep the bed comfortable
- Check that the room temperature is comfortable – not too warm and not too cold
- If baby wants, give a comfort toy to hug and sleep
- Sing a soft lullaby, read a story, play some light music
Your baby may not immediately fall off to sleep, though many babies do, but keep this routine regular and very soon your baby will start having a bed-time routine.
Mum’s Cuddle Brings Back Baby To Life: News
We read this incredible piece of ‘miracle’ news in the papers and just had to share it with all you lovely parents out there…..We’re calling it a miracle – though of course its a feat of some form of science – just because the love of the mum and the bond she shared here with her new born is so incredible.
Katie Ogg gave birth to twins in a hospital in Sydney. They were delivered at 27 weeks, weighing just two pounds each. While doctors okayed her baby girl Emily, the little baby boy Jamie was not breathing, as per the doctors. The medical staff battled hard to save the little boy but after 20 minutes of desperate attempts, they declared him ‘dead’.
As per the mum:
“The doctor asked me if we had chosen a name for the baby. I said Jamie. They turned around with my son already wrapped up and said ‘we’ve lost Jamie, he didn’t make it, sorry.’”
As the doctors handed her son’s lifeless body to her, she only wanted to hold her son close to her.
“It was the worst feeling I have ever felt. I unwrapped Jamie from his blanket. He was very limp.”
Katie wanted to hold her son next to her skin. “I took my gown off and arranged him on my chest with his head over my arm and just held him” she recalled.
As the baby was not moving, the grieving parents began talking to their ‘lost’ son. “We told him what his name was and that he has a sister. We told him the things we wanted to do with him throughout his life.”
The parents didn’t realise but they had been talking to their son for two hours when Jamie suddenly began showing signs of life.
“I felt him move as if he was startled, then he started gasping for air more and more regularly.” At first the doctors had claimed the signs of gasping for air was just a reflex action of the body and that the baby was dead. But soon the gasping began to grow more frequent.
“I took some breast milk on my finger, he took it and started regular breathing normally. A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle.”
“Then he held out his hand and grabbed my finger. He opened his eyes and moved his head from side to side. The doctor kept shaking his head and saying I don’t believe it”.”
It is now being thought that the warmth of Ogg’s body acted like an incubator to keep the baby warm and stimulated. It adds weight to the theory of ‘kangaroo care’ named after the way marsupials care for their young in their pouch.
The father later said: “Luckily I have got a very strong, very smart wife. She instinctively did what she did. If she hadn’t done that Jamie probably wouldn’t be here.”
See….we always knew that the best place in the world for a baby is mommy’s arms!
