Surfingmama carnival #5: Huge breasts, autistics, umbilical cord and more

YOU GET BIG, HUGE BREASTS… now that I’ve your attention, welcome to Surfingmama’s Carnival #5. What happens to a mum after she delivers? Babylune presents a list of the most common postpartum issues and how to deal with them.

Being a parent is a fulltime job, and you just can’t outsource this job to a nanny. Sadly, in today’s world where both mum and dad have to work to bring home the dough, many kids are left to the care of nannies. It is indeed distressing to see another woman raise your child while you sit on the sidelines and watch. Read all about it in Kimberly Webb’s What a sad existence…

Jon Schnaars writes about More Autistic Students Sharing in the College Experience: In this blog post, my co-blogger Patrick Coffee examines the trend of autistic young adults increasingly moving on to higher education. This is important especially for mothers with children on the spectrum, but also for anyone with a child who has any learning disability or scholastic problems. There is hope and there are programs that can help children succeed at every level.

Sherry has a well-written post on Hanging out and bonding, where she had fun spending some quality time with her second child, while the first child was away: … it’s sort of obvious that people are different, that siblings are their own people but it’s still so strange sometimes to know that the same two people could produce two different children. They have many things in common but they are definitely each their own person and I love seeing their personalities grow… I’m glad I got to see Breanna’s personality up close this weekend.

Banking your child’s umbilical cord blood is perhaps one of the best gifts you can give your child. I see parents putting away money in various investment schemes for their child’s education or marriage, or college admissions abroad. And yet no one thinks this is worth their time and money. Do read about The Mad Momma’s decision to bank her child’s cord blood in Call to action - The gift of life.

Mommy Babble puts forward Help for Busy Mommies - 5 Ways to Help Balance Your Day. In summary, what works for Mommy Babble is 1) spend a little time praying in the morning, 2) use a personal online coach to gain control of the home, 3) start a “kid swap”, 4) have a support system of friends and community, and 5) make your own personal time each day. Great tips!

It’s that time of the year again, where you need to figure out what items to fill your family’s Christmas stockings with. Lil Duck Duck has come up with some Toddler stocking stuffer ideas.

It’s Dr. Kovokin again, and this time he’s back with a topic (and a quiz, as usual) on low birth weight: Why the weight was always considered an important indicator of the infant health? The reason is that low birth weight is associated with numerous problems of the baby’s development.

And I personally love this last article by BackpackerMom, How I Can Take My Son to a Toystore and Not Worry About Him Wanting to Buy Something! Talk about being a smart mum: One of the biggest problems my girlfriends face is going to a toy store with their kids and ending up with some silly toy that nobody will ever look at again simply because they couldn’t say no! So, not having the luxury of affording to leave a toy store with a new item each time, I’ve taught my son that we can play while we’re inside, but when we leave the toy stays.

The Surfingmama carnival is on every 2 weeks. We invite you to continue showcasing your blog articles to millions of internet-surfing mums! Surfingmama Carnival #6 will be up on December 4, 2006. The URL to post: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_506.html

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How to curb a hitting child

A child can hit out at you or anyone else for a variety of reasons. Tantrums. Frustrated at not getting what they want. Anger toward siblings. Or simply hitting out of habit because you, as a parent, didn’t do anything to stop it in the first place. If your child is still young, it’s not too late to stop this bad hitting habit and prevent it from blowing up into something dreadful later.

1. Figure out a message to your child that hitting is never acceptable. The best message is to grab hold of her hand and use an authoritative voice to warn her.

2. Or make them sit on a “thinking chair”. When I was a kid, my dad made me stand in the corner for a few minutes to think about my bad behavior. Having a “thinking chair” and making your child sit there for a couple of minutes after they’ve hit someone is probably a good idea. After he has done his time, explain why he had to sit there.

3. Or remove luxuries. Tell your child that if they continue to hit, there will be no ice-cream after dinner, or any luxury he or she has been taking for granted.

4. Hitting back won’t solve the problem. I’ve known parents who use the cane or bare hands or even belts to hit back at their child for bad behavior. Did it work? Usually no. The children these parents hit grew up to be more violent!

5. Be patient. It’ll take time for the child to learn or readjust to a new behavior (of no hitting).

** Surfingmama Invitation: Showcase your blog articles to millions of internet-surfing mums through the Surfingmama Blog Carnival. Make a difference to mums all over the world. Submit practical, humorous & informative articles that mums would appreciate!

Related links:

Secrets to child discipline

11 tips for talking to your child

Parenting: 5 tricks for child tantrums

Parenting: 8 ways to avoid conflict with your child

Parenting: Top 10 rules for child-taming

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Do and Don’t - Safe Sleep Environment for your baby

We have 7 Steps to Get Your Baby to Sleep Through The Night. What’s next after you get your baby to sleep through the night? A safe sleep environment is important for your baby to prevent injuries or sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). SIDS is when a baby dies unexpectedly while sleeping.

Some DOs and DON’Ts excerpt from BabyCare:

Do

- put your baby’s bed in your room until she’s six months old

- put her to sleep on her back rather than her front or side

- If you use baby sheets and blankets, tuck them securely under her arms

- Place her feet against the foot of her cot so that she can’t wriggle down under her covers

Don’t

- let your baby get too hot or too cold. Keep her face and head uncovered

- use pillows or cot bumpers in her cot

- fall asleep on a sofa or armchair with her

- sleep with your baby if she is under eight weeks, or if you are very overweight, or if you or your partner have been smoking, drinking or taking medication

- let anyone smoke in the same room as your baby – ever.

There are more information about baby sleep safe on Safe Sleep. Evie Maddox is blogging on preventing SIDS.

** Surfingmama Invitation: Showcase your blog articles to millions of internet-surfing mums through the Surfingmama Blog Carnival. Make a difference to mums all over the world. Submit practical, humorous & informative articles that mums would appreciate!

Related Articles:

Preventing SIDS
Safe Sleep
7 Steps to Get Your Baby to Sleep Through The Night

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Bed bugs, bed monsters, go away!

My daughter used to fear bed bugs or any kind of imaginable monsters lurking under her bed. This sounds like the typical Calvin and Hobbes comic strip where Calvin has a morbid fear of bed bugs and monsters, but it’s not really funny in truth. It got tiring especially when I was jolted awake in the middle of the night by my daughter’s screams and cries. So I had to think of a solution fast. Luckily my mum was around one night when the child feared going up to her room, and what she suggested made me smack my head. Why didn’t I think of these before:

Tell her you’re sprinkling some fairy dust onto her bed, and that the fairy dust would prevent any bed bugs, any monsters from getting into the bed while she’s asleep. Fairy dust? Now where would you get that? It’s actually good ol’ scented baby powder.

The magic circle. Take a long piece of rope and circle it around their bed. Tell them the magic rope will prevent anything from getting near the bed. Don’t forget to chant Acadabra!

It’s great to be able to come up with simple and creative ways to alleviate your child’s fear. Of course, the above solutions work as long as they still believe in fairytales. Taking them to a specialist should be a last resort or when fairytales don’t work for them anymore. Thanks mum!

** Surfingmama Invitation: Showcase your blog articles to millions of internet-surfing mums through the Surfingmama Blog Carnival. Make a difference to mums all over the world. Submit practical, humorous & informative articles that mums would appreciate!

Related links:

Why does your baby cry?

9 Rules for Sleeping Problems

7 Steps to Get Your Baby to Sleep Through The Night

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Baby sex: To find out or not?

Some mothers just can’t wait to find out the sex of her baby as soon as it becomes apparent. But other mums love the mounting excitement and thrill of discovering whether the baby is male or female upon giving birth. So what kind of mother are you? It depends on how you handle the following:

- Childbirth is very exhausting, so you may be too tired to enjoy the doctor telling you if your baby was male or female.

- If you know your baby’s sex beforehand, you can at least enjoy the last couple of weeks of pregnancy, bond with your unborn child, instead of wishing your baby was already born.

- You may want to find out the sex ahead of time, but keep it to yourself and hubby, just to keep everyone else excited about it.

- You may want to find out your baby’s sex early because you want to be prepared: name, toys, color of clothes. In other words, you are a shopaholic!

- Some mums do get a little more attached to their unborn child if they found out the sex early. You can even call him/her by name!

- You don’t like surprises. Or you enjoy them.

- It makes baby showers easier if you know the sex in advance so that friends and family know what gifts to buy.

By the way, check out this Baby Gender Predictor site. It predicts your baby’s sex based on some ancient Chinese Statistic Chart. Has anyone used it before and is it accurate?

** Surfingmama Invitation: Showcase your blog articles to millions of internet-surfing mums through the Surfingmama Blog Carnival. Make a difference to mums all over the world. Submit practical, humorous & informative articles that mums would appreciate!

Related links:

An online baby shower? Yes!!

Benefits of prenatal classes

12 ways to cope with pregnancy stress

Surfingmama carnival #3: Deceit, Prowling Women, Stirrup Queens and more

Understanding fetal development during pregnancy

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