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Sure Shot Ways to Help Your Child Overcome Separation Anxiety

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Separation AnxietyPicture these scenarios:

Scenario 1:

Your child is playing with a favourite toy and you are in the same room. The phone rings and you duck out to get it. You hear your child screaming for you the moment you pick up the phone.

Scenario 2:

You are getting your child in the car seat for the school, or you could be taking her to the bus stop. Everything is fine until the point of separation arrives. You child clings to you and cries woefully making your heart bleed, as you turn away and hoping she will be fine soon.

Both the scenarios are classic examples of separation anxiety. Your little one is struggling between his need for independence and his eternal bond with you, his mother, who was his very lifeline for 9 months. While children at this age are curious about new experiences and things around them, they want to experience all that from the warmth and safety of their mother’s embrace or presence.

So what can you do to help your child ease out of separation anxiety? Here are a few pointers that will help you along the way:

1. Start out small. Let them play in the living room as you go to the next room (which needs to be visible to the child) to do a certain task like folding clothes. Make sure you keep eye-contact with your child and keep reassuring that mom is right here. Speak in positive, upbeat words. The first time may not work, but just keep repeating yourself and do it over and over until they are fine with you being in the next room.

2. Remember, this may not work till over a month. The key is to be consistent and to always come back to the child after a short time. Start with 30 seconds. If your child starts crying count to 10 and then show your presence to the baby. Hug her and let her know you missed her, but that you will always return. Gradually you can increase the time if the child seems to sense your absence after longer intervals. If you live alone, this will take longer to achieve. But when there is dad or another caregiver present, it will help you increase the absences faster as the child is taken care of and can be distracted. Eventually you should be able to go the grocery store and be back after half an hour to 40 minutes with the child having not missed your absence.

3. By taking things slowing, it will help you and your child overcome separation anxiety with much less tears, heartbreak and stress. The baby will continue to grow her independence from you and will soon love her new found freedom of having playtime with dad, grandma or grandpa, or other special friend.With that being said, please avoid sneaking out. Though this may feel like a safe option, the moment your child discovers you are missing, he will feel abandoned and will dread every time you leave him to go out. Always say a bye before you leave and re-assure that you will come back.

Hang in there moms! It will get better, and know that other moms are going through the same thing as you right now.

Entertaining Kids For Free – Good Weather

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Entertaining Kids For FreeA trip to the mall is always met with applause by children in a typical 20th century household.And why not!? There are entertainment zones that have rides, bouncing castles, toy trains, simulating games and the works! It is a perfect place for your child to be entertained. This scenario is a far cry from our childhood, when there were no theme parks or malls that had such great entertainment
system just for kids. But do you also know that such entertainment does not stimulate or nurture your child’s imagination. This is only spoon-fed visual entertainment, with little or no room for imagination that is very important for any child’s development.

The best entertainment is free entertainment that is provided by nature. Free entertainment stimulates their minds more and tires them out if they enjoy it. If they are simply distracted by rides and toys they switch off and then lack enough imagination to entertain their own.

A fantastic way to do this is to plan a Park Walk Activity when the weather is nice. All you need is a picnic basket with nibbles and a couple of sealable plastic bags. This activity is great for getting your child to take an active interest in nature. Find a good park near your house that has enough trees, shrubs, flowers and shade to rest. Start early so that you can wrap up by the time it gets sunny. Start your walk and see how many different things you can find. There is no need to rush the kids. Let them take it all in at their own space. Let it be a leisure walk rather than an activity that has a start and a finish. You could simply guide your children by picking out leaves or flowers that you like and carefully putting them inside the re-sealable plastic bag. Tell them you want to take it home and put it in your room. Your kids are sure to follow your suit. Make sure you don’t pick too many. One of each will be fine.

When you do this more than once, you will notice your children brining back bags full of moss from the trees, different twigs, berries and nuts, various leaves and flowers, small stones and feathers.

Whatever you can find you can collect. Let your child get interested in the surroundings and discover new things on their own.

A picnic basket is great to break up the walk when you feel your child has walked enough for one time.

When you get home get a large piece of paper and some glue and see what scenes you can make from what you have collected. Younger children will enjoy sticking things on randomly and maybe doing a bit of colouring around it as well. Older children could try and make a picture out of the things they have in the bag.

6 Awesome Parenting Resources Found Online

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bril3

Good parenting is all about trial and error. Nobody is born with all the super mom or super dad skills. All of us want to be the best parent we can be, but we sometimes we may doubt our actions and approaches. After all it is the most precious living being that is in question. Whenever in doubt, consult the internet. This seems to be a norm these days. But where should you go for parenting advice and tips online? There are hundreds of parenting websites. Which ones offer the best parenting resources?

Take a look at these sites for valuable parenting tips.

1.Baby Center, one of the most reliable online resources, has excellent sections on parenting. It is filled with information on parenting issues right from pregnancy to teenage. Particularly useful is their Expert Advice and FAQ’s section, where you can ask questions or look at existing questions asked by parents. These are answered by a panel of paediatricians from the world over. http://www.babycenter.com

2.Raising responsible and aware children is what every caregiver wants for themselves and their children in the long run. But that goal is often lost in fighting the day to day battles of potty training, discipline and many other issues. RIE, founded by Magda Gerber, follows the basic principles of raising infants and children with respect that you would give any adult. Their website www.rie.org is abundant with how to give babies and children more independence and respect.

3.Raising a toddler seems like a cake walk until you have pre-teens and teens to handle. A great online resource for this age group is http://centerforparentingeducation.org. This website offers free online courses on parenting. Now, you may not need their certification, but their methods and advice is definitely worth a shot. Some popular courses include “Setting the stage for discipline that works”, You’re so mean, I hate you! Taming the anger tantrum” and many more. Also worthwhile is browsing through their article library for commonly asked questions.

4.Handy tips and ideas for planning your kids’ birthday parties, tiffin recipes, craft ideas, project assistance and adventure based learning, are available on http://www.pbs.org/parents. The entire PBS network is abundant with parenting resources. Educational videos form a part of their network as well. This is a great resource for all those day to day help that moms need to reference ever so often.

5.Parents, who are either working from home or are employed full time struggle to find a balance between work and home, especially children. www.indiaparenting.com is a forum where you will find articles to help you strike that precarious balance and is also a buzzing forum for parents to actively discuss their issues.

6.And, finally, for those times when you need a lighter moment, there’s http://www.parentinghumor.com, a well written website, dedicated to the lighter side of parenting.
Remember that you’re not alone. All parents need advice sometimes.

There are thousands of parenting resources online. From parenting workshops to parenting forums, there’s a wealth of information available for parents with children of any age.

 

 

5 ways For New Parents To Get More Sleep

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bril2The joy of a new baby is something so special that only new parents experience. However, lack of sleep is collateral damage. New parents notoriously get very little sleep, if any at all. Fortunately, there are some strategies and tips to help new parents get snatch snippets of sleep once the new baby arrives. Of course, with a baby you will never get an over abundance of sleep, but these tips will help you to at least get enough sleep to keep your sanity intact.

The key here is to be prepared before you get to that phase. Forewarned is forearmed. This adage is true for all new parents.

Tip #1 Take Turns:

A new born baby has no sense of day or night. Irregular feeding time, potty and pee are a never ending cycle that keeps new mothers awake all night. For the first few days, time the baby’s waking and then takes turns waking up. There is no point in the father waking up to a crying infant who only needs to be fed. Similarly there is no need for a mother to wake up when the baby needs a change of diaper. Generally, taking turns is really the best option and will help everyone get just a little more sleep.

Tip #2 Nap With the Baby:

If you are the only one caring for the baby, then when the baby goes to sleep, you should take a nap as well. This will allow you to get some rest. So, whether the baby naps in the morning, afternoon, or early evening you should also get a little rest because you never know when the baby might wake up. Don’t be tempted to do chores in this time. The laundry basket may overflow, the dishes may need doing, or the house may look generally like a hurricane just hit it. Don’t bother about these things in the first three months. Just remember, this will pass when the baby regulates her sleeping pattern naturally.

Tip #3 Accept Help:

When you have a new baby, there are plenty of people willing to help, be it parents, siblings, friends, and other family members. So, when you really need to get some sleep, just accept some of the help that is being offered. Having your mom or mom-in-law care for the baby for just a couple of hours will allow you to get some much needed sleep. If enlisting the help of a part time help is feasible, get it immediately. This will allow you to rest when the baby is napping.

Tip #4 Keep the Baby in the Nursery:

The baby should sleep in the nursery and not with the parents. Although there is another school of thought that promotes co-sleeping. Many times it is tempting to allow the baby to sleep with the parents, but this may form a habit that is difficult to break in the later years of the baby’s life. After the baby is six months old, you can slowly start the transition of making the baby sleep in the nursery. A video or an audio monitor is a must in these cases.

Tip #5 Feed the Baby Before You Sleep:

If your baby typically wakes up just before your sleep time, it is safe to wake the baby up for a feed and then put her back to sleep. This way she won’t interrupt your sleep immediately and hopfully sleep for longer. This is a long shot, but worth a try. All the best!