It is natural to feel tired and overwhelmed when you have a baby around. You may be feeling that there are so many things to do but you are unable to complete any of the tasks.

Prioritize

Do what is immediately important first. Forget about mopping the floors or ironing the clothes. Learn to live in an “imperfect” situation or environment temporarily until everything is more settled down. The most important thing is to take care of the baby and yourself.

Establish a routine

It is easy to organize your work once you have a set routine. Establish a feeding and sleeping pattern for your baby. It helps to keep a baby log and to write down what your baby is doing on a notebook. Help your baby to have a set time for feeding, sleeping, bathing and playing. You will be better organize once you know the pattern.

Do not refuse an offer of help

If someone offers to help you with taking care of the baby or in doing the household chores, do not refuse. In addition, get your partner to help out when he is around. You can take the opportunity to have enough rest or sleep.

If you have friends planning to visit you, it is fine to refuse or postpone their visit. They will understand your situation and would not be offended.

For your grocery shopping, your partner can do it alone or you can request help from your parents, parents-in-law, relatives or friends.

Baby crying

All babies cry and yours is no exception. Some babies cry more and it is important to find out the reason. Try to find out if your baby is crying due to a wet nappy, he is feeling hungry or tired or he is having a tummy-ache, etc. Some babies may cry without a reason or they are colicky. Knowing the reason will help you to handle the situation better. Hence, if you recognize that your baby is in one of his continuous crying bout due to colic, it helps to leave the room for a few minutes or to call someone close to you.

Lastly, get in touch with other friends who are mothers or get to know other moms on the internet. Talking or chatting and exchanging experiences help to keep things in perspective and make motherhood more enjoyable for you.

photo credit: ephotography

Do you know that babies as young as 7 months old know how to pull the wool over their parents’ eyes? Believe it or not, young kids already learn to lie for various reasons.

The 5 common lies are:

• Bluffing – This is common especially when you threatened your kids with a punishment and they say that they do not care.

• Denying something – Your kids may deny something has happened especially when they are one of the culprits.

• Lying about someone else – Your kids may lie for the purpose of getting someone else into trouble, for example another sibling.

• Hiding a forbidden activity – Children are smart and they know when their parents disapprove of a certain activity. Hence, they will lie to conceal what they have done or to distract their parents’ attention.

• “It wasn’t me….” – Every parents in the world would have heard this one for every possible scenarios.

The reasons for your kids to lie:

Babies – Babies normally want to get attention and may fake a cry to get what they want.

Toddlers – At this age, your children are still unable to differentiate between reality and fantasy and they lie to avoid mummy or daddy from being angry with them.

Pre-schoolers – At this age, children are smart enough to know certain lies will not work. They are also adept at making up stories to suit their situation. What you can do as a parent is to teach them to understand that lying to prevent from getting into trouble is not an acceptable behavior.

As a parent, you have to judge the different situations that your kids lie and the best action to take. For example, telling your toddler that you saw through the lie is fine but it is best not to make a big issue out of it. Sometimes it works to praise and focus on good behaviors and play down the bad to get the desired effect.

With my three kids, I notice that my daughter tends to be truthful and not prone to hiding the truth, for now. She will readily admit making a mistake when asked. For my two boys, “It wasn’t me…”, is a commonly used lie to protect themselves.

photo credit: nyki_m

The title above is a tricky question, as every couple will have their own reasons and methods for planning when to have the next child. I planned for my second child after waiting for about 18 months after I had my first. This is going by the book that says the optimal gap is about 18 months. A short gap of less than 12 months to 18 months carries a higher risk of encountering prematurity, pre-eclampsia and a less healthy fetus. However waiting too long, for example 5 years also carries the same risks.

What is your driving factor?

Some parents may plan for their next child when the first one is slightly older and needs less care. For example, when the first child has reached school going age and will be spending part of his day in school. Therefore, it depends very much on the individual parent. Some parents may not mind to have the next baby sooner whereas others prefer bigger age gaps.

photo credit: Saad.Akhtar

If you are a practical person, you may consider having the next child sooner instead of later. Hence, you have completed your family planning and gone through the difficult time of taking care of babies and toddlers within a short period of time. In addition, the small age gap means your children can actually play together.

Another factor that may worry you is on whether your kids can get along with each other or not. Research shows that the age gap of more than 2 and less than 4 years causes the worst sibling rivalry. A smaller age gap means your kids will get more or less the same treatment. Whereas a larger age gap may present a problem as the kids will notice differences in treatment. Hence, you get sibling rivalry.

Other factors to consider

Other important factors to consider are the mother’s health, the family’s financial situation or career growth may also affect your decision on planning for the next child.

My own decision and planning was very much influence by financial considerations as well as child care issues.

photo credit: Hammer51012

Shaken baby syndrome (SBS) is caused by a serious form of head injury resulting from violent shaking. It has been proven that even five seconds of violent shaking is enough to produce serious damage. I admit that I have never heard about SBS before. I knew that you should never shake a baby but I did not know there is a name for it.

How does it happen?

Shaken baby syndrome is normally reported in kids under the age of two. In babies or very young children, their neck muscles have not fully developed yet. Shaking the baby will cause his head to rotate uncontrollably. As a consequence, his brain will bounce back and forth within the skull causing the rupturing of blood vessels and nerves as well as tearing of the brain tissue. As a result, the child may suffer from severe or permanent brain damage and even death.

What are the symptoms or signs of shaken baby syndrome?

It can be difficult to diagnose as they are similar to a fall or seizure. Some of the signs are:

• Difficulty in breathing
• Seizures
• Vomiting
• Cardiopulmonary arrest
• Retinal hemorrhages (bleeding in the eyes)

What are the preventive actions?

The most important thing is that the caregiver must understand that shaking should not be done under any circumstances. An incessantly crying baby can drive anyone up the wall and below are some suggestions on how to cope:

• Hug the baby closely and do gentle massages
• Dancing, rocking or walking with the baby
• Distract the baby
• Offer the a baby a pacifier
• Play a favorite tune or music
• If you find yourself getting impatient, put the baby down in his crib and leave the room for awhile to calm yourself

If you require more information on SBS, you can refer to the following websites:

www.dontshake.org
aboutshakenbaby.com
www.kidshealth.org

photo credit: The Jamoker

When you decided to become a parent, you most probably tried to prepare yourself by reading and learning as much as possible about this parenting role. For every parent, it is the start of a life-long journey that gets more and more interesting, not to mention complicated.

When you become a parent, you strive to be a wise, good and successful one. Who wants to be a bad parent anyway? In order to help you get started, below is a compilation of some of the best parenting websites and resources.

These websites are chosen based on the criteria below:

• It provides beneficial and useful information.
• It features a lot of diverse topics essential to parenting.
• It has been around for at least three years and has amassed lots of useful contents.

Below are the recommended sites in no particular order:

1. http://www.babiesonline.com/
Here, you will find quite a comprehensive site having been established since 1997 covering everything about baby, pregnancy, parenting and even offers free baby stuffs.

2. http://www.parents.com/
This is a one-stop website which is also the home of two other sites, namely http://americanbaby.com/ (an American Baby Magazine) and http://www.familycircle.com/. There are categories on family life, getting pregnant, babies, etc.

3. http://www.parenting.com/
This site covers subjects on fertility, pregnancy, being a mom, recipes, activities, etc. There are especially a lot of inputs on parenting and child. Don’t forget to check some of the provided tools like the ‘Child Symptom Checker’ and the ‘Guide: Ages & Stages’.

4. http://www.kinderstart.com/
This is an index directory and search engine specifically targeting on resources relating to young children. There are various categories available such as child development, pregnancy & birth, food & nutrition, adoption and so on. There are also resources useful for teachers. Therefore, if you are stumped looking for answers, you may want to check out this directory.

5. http://www.surfnetkids.com/
I like this site especially because I can access to educational games for my kids instead of leaving them to play on other ‘brain-wasting’ games on the computer. There are math games, picture games, word games, science games, simulation games, etc. If you are a teacher, there are a variety of educational activities available for your students or pupils.

6. http://babyzone.com/
This is an ‘all-in-one’ site on babies starting from preconception. Everything you want to know about pregnancy can be found here and there is a category for adoption as well. Take your time to browse this site especially if you are planning to start a family soon.

7. http://www.familyeducation.com/
There are separate categories for moms, kids 0 – 6, kids 7 – 11 and kids 12 – 18. Hence, if you have questions that are specific to a certain age, this site is easy to navigate and search for the answers.

8. http://parenting.ivillage.com/
I would describe this site as very useful for all moms. There are categories for health, home & garden, beauty & style, pregnancy & parenting, etc. There is a section on “Ask the Experts” where you get your questions answered by real experts. For example, questions relating to pediatric health, child care, child psychology, fitness and even stepparenting. I believe you will find this section useful.

9. http://positiveparenting.com/
This website is easy to navigate and very straightforward. It has been around since 1995 and has accumulated a great deal of information as well as useful resources for parents. To keep updated on parenting issues, subscribe to their informative newsletter. If you wish to enhance your parenting knowledge on a specific area, check out their online bookstore for the great choices provided.

10. http://www.parentstalk.com/
This site offers you parenting tips, advice from parenting experts, ideas on family activities and also craft ideas. There are also two other related sites, i.e. http://kidscomjr.com/ (for kids ages 3 to 7) and http://kidscom.com/ (for kids ages 8 to 15).

There are really a lot of other good parenting websites and below is a list of other notable sites to visit if you crave for more information.

• http://www.babycenter.com/
• http://www.kidshealth.org/
• http://family.go.com/
• http://www.theideabox.com/
• http://www.parentingteens.com/
• http://www.iparenting.com/
• http://www.familycorner.com/
• http://www.todaysparents.com/
• http://www.thelaboroflove.com/
• http://www.parenthood.com/
• http://www.familydoctor.org/
• http://www.parent.net/