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Training the Fussy Eater
Toddlers can be fussy eaters who refuses to try a new food at least half of the time. Approximately half of all toddlers fit this description, so it is no wonder that food issues are a source of stress for parents.
Establishing healthy eating patterns is important to avoid problems such as obesity and eating disorders later in life. Various strategies can help your child accept a wider range of foods. It may be necessary to offer a food to your child as many as 10 different times before they choose to eat it. The problem is, many parents get frustrated and give up before the fourth or fifth try.
Try to make foods fun. Colorful foods like carrot sticks, raisins, apples, grapes, cheese sticks and crackers can all be fun and healthy choices for your growing toddler. Explain to them that eating good food is important so they’ll grow big and strong, and how it will help them run faster and play longer.

Children learn behaviors from their parents. If you restrict yourself to a narrow range of foods, your child will take notice and mimic your caution. Don’t limit your child’s food variety to only those foods you prefer. It may be that your child’s tastes are different to yours, and perhaps you are simply serving them foods they don’t happen to like. Try to set a good example and try a variety of foods in front of your child. It could motivate them to do the same.

If your child seems healthy and energetic, then they are eating enough. If you are still concerned, keep an eye on how much food they actually eat over the day. Children tend to graze constantly, rather than restrict their eating to three meals per day like adults. You may be surprised how those little handfuls and snacks add up. For further reassurance, check your child’s growth and weight charts, or check with your child’s pediatrician.
Try not to worry, and remember, that unless a child is ill, they will eat. Children are very good at judging their hunger and fullness signals. Try to stay relaxed about mealtime and offer your child a wide variety of foods, and most importantly, remember to set a good example by trying a wide variety of foods yourself. You may discover you and your toddler share a new found favorite food!

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Disciplining a young child using the time out method can be very effective, and will work with children as young as 18-24 months old. By using this method of discipline parents are giving the child time to sit quietly and alone after misbehaving, without becoming angry or agitated with the child.

Designate an appropriate area in the house where the child is isolated from interacting with others. It can be a corner in their bedroom, a space on the kitchen floor or a special chair that’s labeled specifically for time outs. The length should be age appropriate. A good rule of thumb is generally one minute per year of age. A kitchen timer is helpful in counting down your child’s punishment time.
Time out for toddlers is used to give them a chance to regroup and calm down. It’s doubtful they will sit completely still, and they should not be forced to try.
All children should be asked in a firm but pleasant tone to complete a designated task or stop an undesired behavior. If their behavior persists, they should be verbally directed to behave once again, with eye contact being made and the time out spot pointed out. If after this warning the behavior still persists, they should be escorted to the time out location and told exactly why they are being sent there. Maintain a calm but firm tone with them. Once they’ve quietly served their time in the time out location it’s important to discuss with the child why they were sent there and that if the behavior occurs again, they will again be sent to time out. Older children should then agree to do what you told him to do or cease misbehaving. Children who leave their time out location before their time is up must be made aware that privileges will be lost as a result.

It’s likely that your time out method will have to be modified to fit the temperament of your child and your own parenting style. And remember to reinforce positive behavior with praises, hugs and smiles. Time out can successfully be used outside the home such a grocery stores, restaurants, or shopping centers. It’s important to emphasize to the child that time out will be enforced should they misbehave while there. Be consistent and place the child in time out should they misbehave in the store. If you don’t, they’ll get the message early on that you’re inconsistent and will be more likely to test your boundaries.

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Tired Of The Mess? Tips To Keep Your Child’s Room Neat

Wanting your child to be organized and stay safe is an innate desire for parents. But sometimes, your kids dont see it that way. All your kids want to do is play, play and play some more! If youre having a hard time keeping your childs room clean and organized, read on for some tips to help you achieve your goal.

Make the room efficient. Make use of small drawers and cabinets where you can put your childs belongings. Utilize anything that fits the design or budget. The easier it to access, the better chance that it will be used.

For toddlers, hanging their clothes on small hangers on a low hung rod can help them choose their outfit and help them to feel like they are making their own decisions. These feelings help them to start to like how things work, and as they grow they will like having their clothes hung.

Organizing a babys room is mostly for the benefit of the parent. Grouping the essential things you need in one area will help you find things quicker and make the job of caring for your baby much easier and safer. For example, put all the items you need for changing your baby on or near your changing table. You never want to leave your baby on the table to move across the room to pick up something thats out of place, and having to pick him up to do that is quite a pain as well. Likewise, arrange babys bath basics together including towels and washcloths. Keep them within easy reach when you are bathing your baby. After all, you cannot leave your baby in her tub while you look for the baby shampoo.

Place shelves at reaching height for your child in his or her room. Shelves can be used to put toys on and when your child wants to play, she can easily reach them without having to drag out all the other toys.

Place a limit on the toys that are used at one time. Teach your child to play with one toy at a time. Then before she can play with another toy, she must put the first one away. If its on a shelf thats at a level where she can easily access it, this job should be an easy one, she just may have to be reminded that the first toy has to be put back before the second one can be taken out.

Make organizing and keeping the room clean fun. Make using special containers for toys with small pieces a fun part of playing with that toy. For example, use an old shoebox as a toy car garage. Another example of making organization fun would be to place a basketball hoop on top of your little boys laundry hamper. Hell be able to practice some basketball moves every time he changes his clothes.

Teach your child how to clean his room. Ask your child to join you when you are cleaning his room. Point out that there is a place for everything and keeping the room clean is as easy as putting every item back in its place. As long as you dont let the room get too out of hand, cleaning will be easy. Eventually, you can transition to sitting on the bed and telling your child what needs to be done. Then later, he will know what to do without you being there.

Keeping a childs room clean can truly be a daunting task, but cleaning as you go and keeping organized makes it a lot easier. Follow the tips above and start to get in a habit, it takes practice and some time before you see results but its well worth the effort.

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For a parent, it is a big shock when their young toddler starts to stutter. What to do next is hard to decide, whether to seek help from a stutter specialist or to hope it is just a phase.

I met a lady who was thirty and her little boy aged four had had a stutter for quite a while. She had taken him to speech therapy and was extremely anxious as to why he had started to stutter. It had possibly started because the toddlers father had quite a severe stutter, the boy may of picked up his stutter this way.

Many other people contact me asking why their toddler has developed a stutter and asking what forms of stutter treatments are available.

I always suggest that they keep as patient as they can and try to play games, speech games with their child. They can challenge the child to say the word fluently, they show their child how it should be said and then challenge them to do the same. When they do manage to say that particular word fluently they then heap lots of praise onto the child, telling them how clever they are and how proud mommy and daddy are of them. I even advise giving them a reward like a small chocolate bar.

If instead of being patient, parents or relatives are aggressive, saying things like:

“Get your words out boy”

“Spit it out!”

These types of comments can have a very negative effect and make that child withdraw into their shell. This may to some people seem very obvious to say, however you would not believe the amount of people who have told me this is what they were told as an infant.

I had a stutter myself from the age of four. I went to see many speech therapists who offered me advice which basically consisted of slowing down my rate of speech and to take a deep breath before I spoke. This did not really work for me and I have to admit my attitude was not what it should have been as I believed that it was impossible for the therapist to understand what I was going through as they had never had a stutter.

After coping with the speech impediment for eighteen years I had had enough and went about trying to find my own stuttering solution.

It took me nearly a year to beat the stutter and as a career I now help other people to achieve fluency.

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Some parents have the shock of hearing their young child start stammering as a toddler. I am somebody who runs a speech centre in Birmingham, England, I now help people to achieve fluency.

I met a lady who was thirty and her little boy aged four had been stammering for quite a while. She had taken him to speech therapy and was extremely anxious as to why he was stammering. It had possibly started because the toddlers father had quite a severe stammer, the boy may of picked up the bad habits this way.

Many other people contact me asking why their toddler has developed a stammer and asking what forms of stammering treatments are available.

I always suggest that they keep as patient as they can and try to play games, speech games with their child. They can challenge the child to say the word fluently, they show their child how it should be said and then bet them that they can’t do it themselves. When they do manage to say that particular word fluently they then heap lots of praise onto the child, telling them how clever they are and how proud mommy and daddy are of them. I even advise giving them an award like a small chocolate bar.

If instead of being patient parents or relatives are aggressive, saying things like: “Get your words boy” “Spit it out!” These types of comments can have a very negative effect and make that child withdraw into their shell. This may to some people seem very obvious to say, however you would not believe the amount of people who have told me this is what they were told as an infant.

Stephen Hill

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A recent National Sleep Foundation poll on children’s sleep habits revealed what many sleep experts have suspected for years: Children aren’t getting enough sleep.

For example, children under 10 do not get the minimum amount of sleep recommended for them. The study also showed that many parents are not aware of how much sleep is enough for their children.

“It is clear from the poll results that we need to focus as much on the sleeping half of children’s lives as we do on the waking half,” said Jodi A. Mindell, chair of the poll’s task force. “Children are clearly not getting enough sleep.”

According to Arthur Grehan, executive director of American Innerspring Manufacturers, a nonprofit trade group, it’s a long-standing problem that is finally coming into the spotlight.

“For years, we’ve focused many of our industry’s educational resources on home and classroom materials aimed at teaching families about the importance of sleep for their children,” Grehan said.

So what can parents do? The first step is to become aware of how much sleep their children should get. According to the National Sleep Foundation, pre-schoolers should average 11 to 13 hours of sleep a day, and school-age children (first- through fifth-graders) should be getting 10 to 11 hours.

According to Grehan, the bed itself sometimes contributes to a child’s lack of sleep. AIM recommends that children sleep on regular innerspring mattresses that are no more than eight years old.

“Many toddlers and pre-schoolers graduate from the crib to the thin foam mattresses that came with a piece of youth furniture, and some of the youth who are on full-size beds are sleeping on hand-me-down mattresses that are more than 10 years old,” he said. “In the end, a good night’s sleep for a child means that the parents can rest easy, too.”

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Tactics for Tackling a Toddler’s Temper Tantrum
Even the best behaved toddler has an occasional temper tantrum. A tantrum can range from whining and crying to screaming, kicking, hitting, and breath holding. They’re equally common in boys and girls and usually occur from age 1 to age 3. Some children may experience regular tantrums, whereas for other children, tantrums may be rare. Some kids are more prone to throwing a temper tantrum than others.
Toddlers are trying to master the world and when they aren’t able to accomplish a task, they often use one of the only tools at their disposal for venting frustration – a tantrum. There are several basic causes of tantrums that are familiar to parents everywhere: The child is seeking attention or is tired, hungry, or uncomfortable. In addition, tantrums are often the result of children’s frustration with the world. Frustration is an unavoidable part of kids’ lives as they learn how people, objects, and their own bodies work.
Tantrums are common during the second year of life, a time when children are acquiring language. Toddlers generally understand more than they can express. As language skills improve, tantrums tend to decrease.
Keep off-limits objects out of sight and out of reach, which will make struggles less likely to develop over them. Distract your child. Take advantage of your little one’s short attention span by offering a replacement for the coveted object or beginning a new activity to replace the frustrating or forbidden one. And choose your battles: consider the request carefully when your child wants something. Is it outrageous? Maybe it isn’t. Accommodate when possible to avoid an outburst.
Make sure your child isn’t acting up simply because he or she isn’t getting enough attention. To a child, negative attention (a parent’s response to a tantrum) is better than no attention at all. Try to establish a habit of catching your child being good (”time in”), which means rewarding your little one with attention and praise for positive behavior. This will teach them that acting appropriately makes mommy and daddy happy and proud, and they’ll be anxious to do it again and again.
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clothes. When your baby is not capable to move on her own, it is desirable to buy clothes which wrap her body properly as their is always a danger of her getting cold even in summers. The few difficulties faced by new mothers in choosing clothes are:

What is trendy?
Where to search for these clothes?
How much to invest in baby clothes?

Toddlers could require 3 clothing changes in a day so buy clothes accordingly. Buy clothes which could be easily washed and are comfortable to wear and remove. The clothes should not be too tight or well fitting but should be a bit towards loose side. This will give your baby plenty of room for movement.

Baby clothes have to be made of soft material or cotton cloths as these do not irritate the skin of your child. Make it a point to choose soft or cotton made cloths for the one which comes in direct contact with your baby skin.

Well, the best place to buy baby clothes is buying it online. The other places are your neighborhood departmental store or specialty toddler stores. You could make a call to departmental stores in your area to find if they are offering any types of discounts or if there is any sale going on for toddler clothes.

Try to get hold of catalogues which most departmental stores provide. This catalogues will help you to compare and shortlist toddler clothes you wish to buy. Try to figure out the reputation of the store, prices of the product and discounts if any. Specialty baby stores could give you a wide range of options to choose from. However the prices could be somewhat towards higher side.

Best buys for toddler clothes could be performed online. There are many ways you could choose an online store for buying toddler clothes. Try to enquire about good and reliable online stores in your area from the people you know. Big sites with great reputation are always a safe bet. Since toddler clothes are a very niche product it is always better to go for specialized online stores. Do a bit of research on forums and search engines to find perfect online store for your next purchase.

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Are you ready for some summer fun with your baby? Doctors and health professionals agree that there is no reason that even newborns as young as one month old cant go in the pool (the old school thought that parents should wait until babies have at least had their two-month immunizations no longer holds water) and say that introducing children to water early on can be conducive to teaching them to swim. Taking a baby into the pool means providing the baby with the appropriate swimwear.

Swimwear for newborns younger than three months is rather hard to come by. Most manufacturers start their swimwear sizes anywhere between three and twelve months, which is okay because babies younger than that are better off swimming au natural. For the older babies and toddlers there are a good number of swimwear choices available.

Swim Diapers

One potential issue that used to keep parents from bringing babies into the swimming pool was the worry about what would happen if the child had an accident in the water. While it was really never that much of an issue (pool chlorination is intended to combat exactly this sort of problem), parents would refrain from bringing their babies to public pools for fear of the embarrassment this would cause and were reluctant to bring them into their own pools if they did not know what steps would need to be taken in the event of a solid waste accident. With the advent of swim diapers, those fears no longer need to prevent a child from going in the water.

Swim diapers are polyurethane lined with cotton cloth. Machine washable and dryable, they are the perfect answer for parents who are concerned that their babies may relieve themselves while in the pool. Available from many stores and online retailers, swim diapers typically cost anywhere from ten to fifteen dollars.

Flotation Devices

The most popular and effective childrens floatation devices are the water wings that slide over the arms and keep the child afloat and free to splash and play in the water. These are, unfortunately, not suitable for children under twelve months. There are floatation devices designed for younger babies, but the general recommendation is that babies that age stay with the parents unless being taught to swim (swim classes for babies can start as early as twelve weeks).

Swimsuits and Trunks

Baby swimwear comes in various styles, mostly in full body tanks and trunks similar to those worn by older children and men. For girls there are one and two piece styles, as one would expect. Because babys skin is very sensitive it is important to use the appropriate sunscreen to prevent your little Ethel or Mark from getting a nasty sunburn while at the pool.

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Once you have decided that it is time to move your child to a toddler bed how you go about doing it is very important. This is a big change for a child and can be very stressful. Here are some ideas and tips that will hopefully help you to make it as painless as possible for your toddler.

If at all possible allow your child to be involved in the decision to move into the new bed and to help pick it out. If you already have the bed and purchasing a new one is not an option then consider letting your child pick out new sheets and covers for it. This will make it more their bed in their mind and make the change more positive for them.

Once you have the toddler bed set it up in the child’s room for several weeks before you actually move them into it. This will give them an opportunity to get used to it so it will not seem so new. If you need to you can even start having the child get into the toddler bed each night as part of the bed time routine and lay in it for a little while. Maybe while you read them a story, and then move into their crib when to actually sleep. Move everything possible from the crib into the toddler bed to reduce the actual amount of change. You can try having them take their day time naps in the bed but still sleep in their crib at night. When you are actually ready to start using the toddler bed full time you should take down the crib and move the toddler bed into the same location in the room to ease the transition.

Patience is the order of the day especially if your child is reluctant to give up their crib. Some children take to their new big boy or big girl bed without any qualms but for many it is a very trying change. Try to avoid doing it at the same time there are any other changes happening in your toddlers life. If they are just starting potty training, changing day cares or the addition of a new family member.

No matter what you do your child may just not be ready for this change in which case you just need to be patient and wait a few months and try it again.

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