Yesterday I led our Columbus Attachment Parents Meeting. The topic was food and nutrition, one that I take quite a bit of interest in, even though both of my children are very good eaters. There are so many factors that go into helping kids learn good eating habits, though, it’s a long journey, one with many outside factors including grandparents, culture and the always changing nutrition research.

Much of what we discussed I took from Dr. Sears’ ABC’s of Nutrition. There’s a lot of great information on that page covering many different concerns and challenges when it comes to feeding our kids.

One of the things we discussed is how to head-off the crankies with food. No, this isn’t teach your kid to drown their sorrows in chocolate cake! We all have those times of day when our kids get fussy, whiny, or otherwise unreasonable. Did you know that many times this could be related to hunger? Making sure your child gets a good snack, something with protein, regulates blood sugar levels which in turn can prevent mood swings and the dreaded whiny-ness.

This is something that I need to make sure I remember! Sometimes I don’t realize that my kids haven’t had a good snack until they’re cranky or fighting with each other.

Here’s some good snack tips from Pauline Lupercio at Babygooroo.com.

Snacks
If you have it in the house, it is going to get eaten. Well, that’s at least true for snacks like chips, cookies, and other unhealthy options.

“If you keep candy bars and fruit in the home, most children are going to pick the candy bar,” Kraus says. “So just keep it out of the house.”

Instead of pre-packaged sugar and empty calories, kids can snack healthy with:

* Combinations of lean protein with a high fiber carbohydrate, like string cheese or peanut butter with whole grain crackers.
* Homemade smoothies with yogurt and whole fruit.

What kinds of snacks do you and your kids like?

Household chores and how they relate to children is an age old struggle. It’s quite common for parents, especially moms to whom the bulk of keeping house usually falls, to be frustrated with their children over picking up toys, keeping rooms clean or general day-to-day messes. I feel pretty strongly on this issue, so I thought I would type out some of my thoughts regarding household chores and how they relate to children.

Young children, up until around age 3, don’t notice if their environment is clean or dirty. They don’t care if their toys are organized or if they have to step over fifty things to cross the room. For the most part kids at this age only care about disorganization when they can’t find something they want.

As kids get older they are better equipped to understand organization. They can also do a decent job helping with some household maintenance.

Super Mom Aurelia Williams has this to say about kids chores:

Preschoolers can perform the basic chores. They can learn to pick up after themselves. Take care of their toys, make their beds and this kind of chore is ideal.

Older from 6 to 9 children can do all this plus learn to take care of the pets, fold and take care of laundry and even learn to vacuum and sweep floors.

Children for 10 to 13 can take on even more responsibility. They can do dishes, clean the bathrooms and even learn to cook simple meals with supervision.

Once they have reached the age of 14 consider more responsibility. Laundry can be done by older children as well as car care, preparing meals or any other chore that parents feel they are capable of doing.

This gives you some great ideas of where to start with your children, but I want to be very clear about this next point. Children should not be expected to complete chores on their own. They need guidance, especially in the first years, and mom standing and barking orders is a surefire way to set yourselves up for a power struggle.

Instead, suggest to your children that the kitchen should be cleaned, or toys should be put away, or laundry should be done. Invite your child to help you. Unless you are already dealing with years of chore wars, likely they will want to help. They will love learning how to run the washing machine, pushing the buttons, measuring the soap.

Work with their short attention spans. Don’t expect children to stick with you and clean a room top to bottom. Break it up into little chunks. Maybe set a goal to clean the room top to bottom during the day, but take 10 minutes out of each hour to do the work, play with the kids for the other 50 minutes. Or change chores every 10 minutes. We have cleaned our whole house by moving to a new room every 10 or 15 minutes, coming back to the rooms that needed it for another 10 or 15 minutes.

Make keeping house fun. Turn on music. Play a game. We have let the kids roll dice and the number showing on the dice is the number of items the child must pick up and put away. Of course the parents participate as well.

Make staying organized easy. One of my favorite sayings is “Set kids up for success.” This means do what you can to make succeeding easy, without doing it for them. And this is a great thing to note when it comes to kids staying organized, make it easy for them. Use open containers or bins to store their things. Find what works for keeping their clothes organized, some might like to hang things in a closet, others may prefer drawers, or even a set of baskets. When it comes time to clean, it’s much easier and faster to toss items into open baskets instead of needing to open drawers and cupboards.

Along with chores many parents (and kids!) start to think allowance. How chores and allowance work together is something that will be unique to each family. Be careful not to make money the motivation for all chores and household jobs, children need to find their own need and level off organization and cleanliness that will carry through to the time when they won’t get paid for making their bed. Should you decide that money is a good motivating factor for getting work done around your house, the Chore Time Cards on the Happy to Be @ Home website are an interesting idea to try. You may be stuck having to pay the kids to do every little chore from now on.

Hopefully you now have some ideas on how you and your children can work together to get chores done!

My youngest son is a bit over 2. He follows oder brother (almost 5) around and of course thinks he can do everything older brother can do. Older brother is very into climbing trees. He’s climbed some at a park we go to and gone quite high. However he complains about the trees in our yard. We have mostly mature trees that aren’t good for climbing because there are no limbs close to the ground. There is one tree in the front yard near the driveway that he climbs, it has 2 or 3 trunks coming out from the bottom so he can wedge himself between them and climb up.

This morning Older Brother was climbing the tree and Youngest Son of course followed. Somehow Youngest Son got up in the tree a bit, then slipped and one of his chubby legs got caught between the two trunks of the tree! He was stuck!

I didn’t know what to do, poor kid was hysterical and I couldn’t get his leg to budge. Fortunately he did finally get free and he is fine now. Even asking to go back outside.

I was scared, images of having to call the Fire Department racing through my mind, but it all turned out okay. So what scary things have your kids done? What makes your heart drop?

Summer is here, or at least summer weather has arrived. Here in Ohio we’ve hit 90 the past few days. It’s HOT. So with the sun and warm weather our thoughts start turning toward getting away. Time to take a family vacation!

Getting away is grand! Seeing the sights, playing with your kids all day, a temporary hiatus from your responsibilities. Sometimes, though, getting to your destination can cause stress and dampen the excitement. Here’s a couple ideas of games to play in the car or on a plane that can help keep your children occupied and looking forward to the trip.

Children ages 4 and up will enjoy keeping a scrapbook of their trip. While the younger ones may not have the ability to keep the book organized or neat, they will still enjoy making a book all their own. We found a small photo book with blank pages for our son to use on a trip we took last year. We gave it to him at the airport and explained what it was for. I also packed glue, safety scissors and colored pencils for him to use. He had a great time searching for things to add to his book, like pamphlets from the places we saw, ticket stubs and fliers. In the evening we helped him write down what he remembered from the places we visited.

Pack your bags with fun things to do in the car or on the plane. Older kids will enjoy writing and coloring, doing activity books or reading. Younger children might need something a bit more entertaining, but if traveling by plane, realize your fellow travelers may not appreciate noisy toys.

Magnetic mazes are great for kids over 2. The Colorback Sea Turtle Magnetic Maze from HaPe has multiple uses for kids of all ages.

Next time you go to the toy store or shop online pay attention to how many toys require batteries. Even board games that really shouldn’t require them have batteries.

Why is it so difficult to find toys that are battery-free? It seems that the battery industry got together with the toy industry and worked out a deal that 90% of all toys made should require batteries to operate.

I decided that for me and my kids I was going to strive to provide high quality batter-free toys. I have found that for the most part you are not going to find these at Target or Walmart. Luckily I have been able to find several sites online.

Feeding Baby On the Go, Hands Free

There’s never enough hands to go around, especially when there’s a new baby in the family. And today’s parents are on the go so much that babies have to be portable. Hands free baby feeding devices have hit the market running. Bottle propers and adjustable “hands” that hold things for baby while he’s in the car seat are hot items.But hands free baby feeding does not have to mean hands off. It’s possible for mom to meet baby’s needs on the go, easily and discretely. A baby sling is an invaluable tool for the mother who needs her hands free. It’s not too hard to learn how to get baby positioned at the breast so you can be off and chasing your toddler or meeting baby’s needs while out and about. If you are bottle feeding your baby, doing so in a sling can provide the much needed cuddle time while still allowing you to move around while feeding baby.

Breastfeeding in Your Sling

To nurse in the standard cradle position, first, put the sling on loosely and place baby inside while you continue to support her with your arms. Sit down and get into a comfortable nursing position. Latch baby on and then adjust the sling on both sides and in the middle until it is supporting baby’s weight and holding her cradling her head while she nurses.

One of the keys to properly supporting a nursing newborn is to pull on the center of the sling to bring her entire body up to proper height. Keep her tummy against you while arranging the sling so she is nice and snug and unable to “roll away” from the breast. It is also possible to nurse in a sling using the “football” or clutch hold. In this position, baby is wraps around the side and nurses from the closer breast. Learning this position can also allow you to nurse your baby from both sides by simply sliding him from the cradle hold to the clutch hold.

While hands free nursing in a sling can be acheived, most women do not experience “arms free” nursing. For most women, the forearm is used to support baby’s head. This still leaves both hands free, but only one arm has the full range of motion. One of the best benefits of an open-tailed ring sling is that you can use the tail of the sling to cover your nursing babe for a little extra privacy.

Bottle Feeding in Your Sling

Bottle feeding can be done in the sling as well. While you may not be able to go completely hands free until your baby is able to hold his own bottle, feeding while in the sling allows you to move about and keep at least one hand free. The sling is also useful for babies with reflux who need to be fed semi-inclined.

The cradle hold will allow you to hold your baby much like you would if he were in the crook of your arm while holding the bottle with your other hand. Babies who like to snuggle or those who need to eat upright may like the tummy to tummy hold. While this will take a little maneuvering on your part to get the bottle in the correct place, it also affords the most options for feeding completely hands free. You may be able to rest the bottle on your shoulder, or tuck it into the fabric on the shoulder of the sling to hold it in place while you go about your tasks.

Wearing your baby while feeding him can also help calm the fussy eater. The gentle and familiar motion of your walk may help him drift off to sleep.

Hands Free Feeding in a Pouch Sling

It is not as easy to master hands free breastfeeding in a pouch sling compared to a ring sling. The infinite adjustability of a ring sling is helpful in getting the correct position and support. This is not to say that breastfeeding in a pouch sling is impossible, but much depends on the fit of the pouch, the amount of head control that baby has, and mom’s shape. If you have an adjustable pouch, you may be able to nurse more comfortably with it set on a larger size.

Bottle feeding in a pouch sling is no different than bottle feeding while using a ring sling.You may, however, find that the fold of fabric on the shoulder makes an ideal bottle holder when feeding in the upright tummy to tummy position.

Comments on Hands Free Feeding Devices

Feeding is more than just physical nourishment for your baby. Holding baby while he eats provides important physical contact and an emotional connection that is so important in the early months. While baby is eating his eyes are moving, focusing, and developing. He is making strong connections between food and emotion that some researchers believe will last into adulthood and impact a person’s relationship with eating.

For these reasons, we believe every baby should be held while being fed. We don’t recommend hands free baby feeding devices that will leave a baby alone with his bottle. We think that wearing your baby while you feed him is the best way to meet everyone’s needs.

Shop Sprout Soup for pouch slings or ring slings.

Here we are now, entertain us

I was sitting with my family on Christmas morning watching my 3 year old tear open packages and I looked around at the pile of ‘loot’ he had acquired and I couldn’t help but think of how much has changed since I was a kid. I would guess that about 75% of his toys required batteries. Most were plastic. Most would be broken/lost/forgotten within a year.

As I started thinking about this I noticed how many of the toys were ‘passive’ toys. Passive toys are toys that expect the child to sit back and be entertained where active toys are toys that use and develop your child’s imagination. Passive toys crush creativity and stifle intellectual development. I cringe every time I see a Baby Einstein video that is marketing itself as educational. The TV is the ultimate passive toy. Today’s kids park themselves in front of the the TV for hours on end watching commercials for other passive toys.

Where does this need to be entertained come from? It is not an inbred response – it is learned. As parents we often joke about how our child opens a toy and tosses it to the side and spends hours playing with the box it came in. How many times as parents have we taken the box away and handed our child back the toy? We should nurture their imagination and do everything we can to help their minds grow.

So what can we do about this? It is surprisingly difficult to find quality toys that stimulate the imagination rather than stifle it. That is why I decided to start writing about toys. I wanted to pass on my thoughts and experiences in hopes that others will find it useful.

My Baby Cries All the Time! What Can I Do?

A newborn baby’s cries can be overwhelming. When my son was an infant, I remember wondering what was wrong with him. Why did he cry so much? Why didn’t he want to lay in his bassinette and watch his mobile until he drifted off to sleep? I wanted to pick up the phone and call the doctor to say "My baby cries all the time! Help!"

Babies cry for many different reasons. Their cries are all they have to communicate with us. As adults, we become so focused on verbal language, we have a hard time looking past that to try and understand the meaning behind our baby’s cries.

So what can we do about a baby that cries all the time? First, pay close attention to when and how your baby cries. It may even be helpful to keep a log to see if there is a pattern to your baby’s crying. Babies who have food sensitivities might have bouts of crying after mom eats a trigger food.

Do not automatically assume that your baby has a food allergy, though. The most common allergic reactions come from cow’s milk or dairy products, but a reaction in baby is usually accompanied by signs of the allergy in their stool. Even though many people are quick to blame fruits and vegetables for the fussiness in their babies, it’s unlikely that foods that give you gas will also give your baby gas. Gas forms during digestion of the culprit food, but breastmilk is produced by the nutrients in your blood stream. Breastfeeding mothers need not stay away from garlic, onion, or other spicy foods, as the flavor of these things are broken down during mom’s digestion process and the irritating acids that result are not likely to pass through the breastmilk to baby.

Reflux is a very common problem in babies. If your baby is most fussy immediately after eating, and especially if he spits up a lot, talk to your doctor about reflux. Some things you can do to help minimize reflux is to feed your baby slowly and keep him as vertical as possible while eating and keep him upright after eating, to give his system time to digest. If your baby is breastfed, do not be concerned about what may seem like large amounts of spit-up if it only happens some of the time. Breastmilk is so easily digested, that even though it may seem baby has spit up his entire meal, this is not the case.

Another reason babies cry all the time is because they are tired but do not know how to go to sleep. This was the problem I had with my son. If you find that your child is happy upon awakening but will suddenly start crying an hour or so later, it is likely that he is tired. Try nursing him, walking or rocking him or singing to him to help him drift off to sleep.

Finally, if your baby is not hungry, is not suffering from a physical ailment, and is not crying because she is tired, it might be time to just show her some sympathy while she airs her frustration. Do not leave your baby to cry alone. The best thing you can do when you feel like you have tried everything but she is still crying is just hold her and tell her it is okay. Let her know that you are there to listen to her. Many parents feel it is their responsibility to stop the crying. Try to retrain your mind to allow your child to have feelings of frustration and sadness. Expressing these feelings is healthy, and for babies, crying may be the only expression they have. Lend a sympathetic ear.

Parenting a baby that cries all the time is an exhasting job. Remember that you need to take care of yourself, too. A crying baby can be very irritating, especially if you do not know what is wrong. Call on your friends and relatives to help you through this rough time. Ask someone to hold your baby while you take some time to recharge.

Remember that this early stage of crying all the time will pass. For us, when my son started noticing the world around him and started reaching for objects, his crying dramatically decreased. He could now focus on something else besides crying, and that was a welcome relief.