Coconut Woman

Long before Malanga Baby was born, I had a CD with the song "Coconut Woman." The lyrics have been going through my head this week, especially the part that says,

Get your coconut water,

Man it's good for your daughter,

Coco got a lotta iron,

Make you strong like a lion!

This is because I gave Malanga Baby her first taste of coconut water a couple of days ago and she has been drinking a couple of ounces of it every day since. The thing about Malanga Baby is that at nearly nine months, she still hasn't gotten the hang of drinking water. Her sippy cup is pretty fascinating to her, but not any liquid we put inside it besides milk. When she came down with a stomach virus recently, I started despairing over ways to hydrate her sufficiently. I was reduced to mixing pedialyte in with her pureed food, not an ideal long-term solution.

So, I took a cue from a Brazilian woman in NYC who told me that Brazilians start giving babies coconut water at 6 months. I did my research, too. Coconut water is high in electrolytes and potassium. Plus, according to homemade babyfood recipes.com, it's "high in lauric acid, which also happens to be the main fatty acid found in breast milk. Lauric acid is what makes breast milk so digestible and is believed to protect the body from infection and boost the immune system."

Fresh coconuts are hard to come by in New York this time of year, so I bought the Vita Coco brand, which has no additives or preservatives. A box of delicious, nutritious Vita Coco is pictured above with the trilingual Señor Dragón, one of Malanga Baby's favorite toys.