Water is extremely important to your health, especially if you’re trying to get back into pre-pregnancy shape. The benefits to drinking water are many, but here are just a few.

By drinking the recommended 8 glasses a day, you’re also setting a good example for your kids to drink water as well. In fact, every time I sit down with a glass of water, my daughter asks for one too. I don’t forbid pop or juice, but she actually prefers water.

If you’re not drinking enough water each day, today is the perfect time to start. I’ve done up a handy checklist for you to print to help you get started. It will help you keep track of how many glasses you’re drinking a day, and after a couple weeks, it should be habit.

Did you know that your body doesn’t show signs of thirst until long after your body needs water? A lot of people actually mistake thirst for hunger. Once you start drinking more water, your natural thirst will start to come back quickly and you’ll also find that you’re eating fewer calories each day. Yes, you will have to pee more times a day at first, but that will also get back to normal in a short while.

You can download your water checklist here.

If your baby is 6 months or older but refuses to eat iron-fortified infant cereal, don’t worry. At that age, their tiny tummies can actually tolerate other foods like jarred baby food, or homemade baby food like pureed fruit, vegetables and meat.

If your baby doesn’t like cereal, try adding some slowcooked meat into a blender or food processor with a bit of the meat liquid and serve that to them. They’ll still receive iron from the meat, but the iron in vegetables isn’t absorbed as easily. They’ll need to eat a lot more veggies to get the same amount of iron in one serving of pureed meat.

It wasn’t until recently that we were told to feed our babies solids at 4 months of age. However, new recommendations state that we don’t need to start babies on solids until 6 months of age. Until then, formula or breastmilk provides all the nutrients that they need.

At 4 months, infant cereal would be all a little baby’s stomach could handle, but at 6 months, their digestive system is more developed and can digest more foods. That’s good news for you if they don’t like that yucky cereal.