Christmas Competition

It´s competition time here at baby steps.

We are giving away two learning libraries. The Hungry Caterpillar and The Gruffalo

This time we are giving you more chances to win.

1.  Add a comment to the bottom of this post telling us one of your Christmas traditions in your family
2. Like our Facebook page
3. Share the photo on the Facebook page

The competition is open to all and will close on December 24th 2013. The first person drawn out of the hat on Christmas day will be the lucky winner. We will announce the winner here so make sure you check back to see if it´s you. (Prize must be claimed within 30days).

Good Luck!



AND THE WINNER IS........Clara!
Congratulations. Send us your contact details so we can get your prize on its way!

Floor time - independence from birth

Raising independent children begins as soon as they are born. They must become secure with their family and surroundings to be confident to face the world. When our first son was born he stayed close to us and we put him up to bed when we went and we never had a problem. With our second son things were a lot different. As we already had a routine with our oldest boy we put our youngest on the same routine from day one. One thing I really noticed was he wouldn´t sleep in his moses basket and wanted to be held all the time. He was born much earlier than our first boy so I gave him more time to adapt to his bed. However, I tried to put him there several times each night until he was happy to go straight down and off to sleep. Basically I am showing an example of how becoming independent is a process and each child has a different pace and different needs.

 

As independence is a process it is important to go slow and start early. So to the floor goes our tiny man! The importance of floor time for a newborn is huge. It allows them to have a new perspective of the world while strengthening their muscles which leads them to lift and turn their heads and later focus on an object of their choice. At first they need very little time and we began putting out son for a minute or two on his back then rolling him over onto his tummy, again for just a minute or two. Choosing a calm moment to do this is best when the baby is awake but not yet tired and not straight after a feed. Also being aware of the surface is important. Too hard and they can hurt themselves, too soft and there are fewer benefits. We put our son on a light blanket on top of a thin rug. This meant the surface was hard yet comfortable allowing for optimum movement.

 

Our little guy is now 7 weeks old and has been practising his moves for a few weeks. He is able to hold his head up for long periods of time and move it to see when a sound is coming from. He is also moving around the mat where we place him and he seems to enjoy floor time immensely as we hear those cute gurgles of satisfaction often when he is playing like this. We never leave him to long and always monitor to see if he is getting tired or bored. This is is first step to independent movement and so far he´s having a great time!

Repetitive behaviour - why toddlers love repetition

Toddlers often become obsessed with one toy, book, song or action and will repeat something again and again.

 

Our boy just loves trucks!

 

The reason for this behaviour? Well, we all love to be good at things and be an expert on a subject. This is a toddlers way of perfecting a skill and becoming an expert. When our son began throwing, it was a difficult time for us. With a new baby too it was unwelcome behaviour and we had to address it quickly to avoid accidents. Of course we told him off wen he threw toys and have even taken toys away for periods of time when he continued to throw them. But this wasn´t enough. Throwing is an important skill in the right context. So we gave him opportunities to throw. Taking him to the muddy field where there are huge puddles to throw stones in and to the beach where he can throw shells into the sea or the forest where he can throw sticks for the dog to chase. All these activities allow him to perfect his new skill while diverting the throwing from inside. He also had a purpose to his throwing (a splash in the puddle or sea, the dog chasing the stick). We now have small balls in the garden which we throw around and use in the paddling pool and the amount of toys thrown in the house has reduced dramatically. And, I must say, he can throw better than his mummy right now!!!

 

His other obsession is trucks. He just loves them! There is a road close to our house where trucks pass by all day long. His favorite passtime is going for a walk to watch them. We have put a chair by the window so he can get up and see the trucks anytime he likes and when we are out we let him go near parked trucks so he can touch te wheels and marvel at the size! He has become a truck expert!

 

 

 

To allow him to develop his love of trucks further I made him a simple game. I cut out felt squares, rectangles and circles in two colours (you can do more colours but so far I haven´t had time)! Then I covered a piece of cardboard with a piece of material and the game is ready! Now he can use the shapes to create his own trucks. It´s a great way to encourage the learning of shapes and colours too and very inexpensive and quick to make.

The first week as a family of four

As promised, a post about our first week with our two boys. It has been a pleasant yet hectic week!

 

Brazilian hospitals make all mothers stay for two nights so our first days were all in a strange environment. My husband went home after the birth so he was there when our boy woke up to give him his breakfast and keep his routine as normal as possible. Then they came to the hospital. When they arrived I was holding the baby and our big boy came to sit with us. He pushed his hand against the baby so i put the baby in the crib so I could give my boy some big squeezes. Very soon after, the baby cried so I told my boy I must pick him up. He watched silently as I quietened the baby and asked if he would like to see. He gently stroked his brother saying ´baby´. I think he was trying to get his head round the fact that the baby was now right in front of him and not in mummy´s tummy anymore. The first few days he looked for my tummy asking ´baby´ and each time we explained that the baby came out of my tummy and showed him his brother. Each time he seemed a little more accepting and intrigued by his baby brother.

 

One big reaction we noticed from him was that he woke much more frequently during the night for the first three nights. We aimed to keep his routine as close as possible to the pre-baby routine but as we were both quite exhausted from running around after him/recovering from birth and waking with a newborn several times we did have to adapt the way we were dealing with night wakings for a few days, meaning my husband would lay down close to him if he woke up and often did nod off himself!! However just one week in, he is sleeping better and we have returned to our normal ways of dealing with night wakings.

 

He hasn´t seemed to digress too much with the potty training and continues to ask when he needs to use the bathroom. We have kept everything the same in this department and are not really giving him a reaction should he have the odd accident which, hopefully, will avoid any purposeful accidents!

 

One of the most important things we have managed to do is to include our big boy in the day to day care of his brother. He has been a super little fetcher and carrier! He sometimes asks for one of us in particular to pick up his brother when he is crying and where possible we have done as he wishes (for now). He has accepted the breastfeeding really well without any obvious jealousy or fear. He does find it hard when his brother cries but this seems more out of fear that he is hurt rather than jealousy or anger and often tries to comfort him with us by stroking him or calling for us to pick him up. We have had a couple of walks now where our big boy is able to help push the pram or have a ride on his buggy board which is novel and fun - at least for now.

 

We are really pleased with how smoothly things are going and hope it continues like this. Preparation has been the key for us (view our pre-baby preparation here) and being prepared for any minor issues has kept us all calm and relaxed. I´m sure there will be a few bumps in the road but overall we are all managing to enjoy our new arrival together.

And then there were two - preparing your toddler for the arrival of a sibling

So the hospital bag is packed. The crib is awaiting. But what about your toddler? The often anxious expression and the sudden increase in tantrums signals something, but what´s wrong? ´mum what´s going on´? How you prepare your toddler for the arrival of a new baby can significantly reduce the fear, anxiety and general stress that may be felt by all family members. Here´s our story so far.

 

The first thing we have been sure to include is that we do not make any changes to our son´s routine in the weeks leading up to and the few weeks after his brother´s arrival. Any change in routine is difficult to adapt to but this will intensify dramatically with the arrival of a new family member. We began potty training over 10 weeks before the due date and changed the bedtime routine slightly to incorporate the new baby when he arrives. This includes my husband getting up in the night and having bath time in a slightly different way. Our boy adapted to these changes fine and now they will be much smoother when his brother arrives. I´m sure he may digress slightly with potty training and become a little more insecure at night but if we continue to be consistent, these changes should be minimal and he should adjust to his little brother much more calmly.

 

Preparing for feeding time! This was a major concern for me as I plan to breastfeed and as you probably know the first weeks can be slightly horrendous even without a demanding toddler at your side demanding attention. I remember my son took around 40 minutes to feed in the beginning and its not easy or convenient to move around whilst feeding your new baby. First I sat down and thought about our day. The baby will probably have around 8 feeds in 24hours three of which will be overnight (before bed, in the night, first thing in the morning) so I would only need to solve 5 feeds. If my husband is home from work in time for the evening feed this is reduced to thinking of 4 feeds. So not too bad. Getting the baby on a rough 3 hour schedule should leave us calmer. But that's still 4 lots of 40 minutes and you know how long 40 minutes is in the life of your toddler. I figure one feed can be with a movie or tv time as we watch some tv during the day so I can see how the day is going and use the tv time during the most erratic of the feeds. So that leaves 3! My son loves reading, so books will be piled high next to the sofa where I plan to feed. I have made some mystery bags for him to explore by my side. These include random objects beginning with the same letter. So our ´S´ bag contains a small saucepan, a star, a seal, a sun and some shells. This should keep him busy and also give him more language skills. We have a variety of finger puppets too which he loves to put on his fingers while we sing nursery rhymes. We have the famous ´Nemo´ fishing game which I should be able to play one handed. I will have to remember to have his water bottle and perhaps a snack handy too so that he has everything he needs for the duration of the feed. I think we´re ready to go?!

 

The next area of planning concerns where the baby will ´play´. We intend to put the baby on the floor from an early age to allow him to gain all the necessary and important motor skills. As he will move very little at the beginning we have got a blanket which he will lie on. Our son came with us to choose it and when we got home we put it on the floor and explained to him that the baby would be here and it was the baby´s space so he must not walk on the blanket. We all practiced walking around the blanket and it was a fun activity for the three of us. Our son was so excited about the blanket however, he just wanted to touch it and pick it up. So, I got him a blanket too! He now has his space too! We practiced walking around it and he is allowed to run over it and pick it up and choose where it goes and this has been a huge success so far. Lets see how we get on when there is a little baby on the other blanket!!!

 

We moved the moses basket into our room early and prepared our sons room for the arrival of his brother. This was probably one of the biggest changes and we did have a slightly adverse reaction from our boy. We have decided our second son will also sleep on a matress from an early age and sleep in his brothers room for nap time to start with in the hope they will be able to share a room when the time comes to move the baby out of our bedroom. We got a second matress, pillow and covers. We explained to our son that the baby would sleep there when it comes. He didn´t seem to mind the second matress and we refer to it as the baby´s bed and he never asks to sleep there or seemed to have any negative feelings towards it. The moses basket was a slightly different story! It had been in the spare room since our son had finished with it so he had seen it around but was never very interested. As D day got closer we prepared the basket. We washed the sheets and sorted the matress and gave the basket a light wash and told our son the baby would sleep there - so far so good. A few weeks ago I moved the furniture around in our bedroom, had a good spring clean and moved the moses basket up there too. I din´t think to talk too much about it but when it came time to have his bath our son went into our room and saw it. He looked for a moment then turned away. I picked him up to show him inside (all ready for baby) and explained the baby would sleep in mummy and daddy´s room when it was very tiny. He wouldn´t look at the basket and pushed away from me to go down. I put him down and he had his bath and got ready for bed but did seem a little quiet. When we put him to bed that night he cried a lot and woke several times in the night not just that night but for several nights. Clearly he was unhappy about the idea of the baby being close to us but over time he has adapted and (for now, baby still hasn´t arrived) seems fine with the basket in its current location! This is a great example of why preparation should start weeks in advance. I was just imagining if this reaction had happened the night we brought the baby home. Newborn crying + toddler crying = mummy sobbing!!! So glad we avoided this (though that's not to say we won´t have an adverse reaction the night we do bring baby home)!

 

The next big thing was arranging for someone to stay with our son while we are at the hospital. I have never spent a night away from my son and am extremely anxious about this. I will be in the hospital for two nights which is standard procedure here in Brazil so some hefty planning was needed! My husband will be present at the birth and for as much time as he possibly can. He is allowed to stay at the hospital with me but we think it may be too much for our son to spend more than the necessary nights without one of us as he is still very young. Really we were at a bit of a loss as to who we could ask but have a wonderful neighbour who will be stepping in to help us out. She has two older girls so has already been through it all before. She speaks English so he will have no problems and she sees him quite regularly so he won´t be confronted by a stranger if he wakes in the night or we have to dash off during the day. Also her girls are wonderful with him and he enjoys their company very much, completely forgetting about us when they are around. These factors leave us very calm when thinking about leaving him for the necessary time and know that he is in good hands.

 

So far these are the steps we´ve taken to reduce the potential stress of the baby´s arrival. For sure we will have some tense moments but if we keep in mind that it is temporary and that it is fear causing them we will be just fine. Our son just loves giving his ´baby´ or my tummy cuddles and asks several times a day (probably comfort from me more than the baby but its very sweet either way). Throughout the pregnancy we have spoken to him about the baby and he seems to love him just as much as we do. Not we anxiously await his arrival in the next few weeks and will let you know if our preparations were adequate! Any tips would be great so please leave us a comment :)
 

From nappy to pants - POTTY TRAINING

At 18 months we made the leap from nappies to underwear. Now a month in we are ready to tell you all about the process and how we dealt with the new situations which we found ourselves facing and how our little boy adapted to this new milestone.

 

The first question I will answer is ´Why so early?`

We have been asked this question several times this month. There are several reasons. Firstly, we want our son to be independent and thrive to help him reach his goals.Here, i´d also like to point out that we never force him to achieve something that is beyond his ability, yet aid his development by giving him opportunities and listening to his needs. Potty training fits here too. It is not just using the toilet but learning to dress and undress and wash his hands and the routine of hygiene that comes with using the bathroom. Sure these other skills can be taught without using the toilet but it is a great way to teach them all at once! Secondly, at whatever age you begin toilet training, it is a process. It rarely happens overnight. We have been helping him to develop his skill since he was able to sit up unaided. At 18 months we felt he was able to begin wearing underwear and taking more responsibility for his body as he was able to use the potty several times during the day. The third reason for starting all this so early comes from a Montessori concept. Why teach a child twice what they can learn once. If you continue to use nappies when a child is able to use the toilet at some point you will have to re-teach them to use the toilet. So we have skipped this re-teaching and been helping him from very early on.

 

And the moment of truth.... was it a disaster???



Well, i´ll be honest and say the first few hours of the first day I did think ´what have I got myself in for?´ But, after the first few accidents and working out his pattern, we have had a wonderfully successful month. We began taking him every 15 minutes until we saw a pattern emerge and saw he could go somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes between using the bathroom. We broke the day down into manageable chunks and got through each hour with few accidents. Each time he went we told him what he was doing and he watched the flush of the toilet then washed and dried his hands. It was very stress free and he was learning the vocabulary quickly and practicing saying them. We made a sticker chart for him so that he could see each time he succeeded and although it didn´t end up working as a reward chart (he is too young really to grasp this concept) it was a lovely distraction if he needed to sit a little longer to ´perform´. We made him dog and nemo stickers and he got very excited about them counting them together and he learnt how to stick them onto the paper (yet another skill).

 

Our sticker chart

Now, over a month into it all, he is able to ask us when he needs to go although he cannot hold once hes asked so we do still have the odd accident. He can go longer between needing to use the bathroom too usually over an hour and we´ve noticed that at least 50% of the time his nappy is dry after his nap of over 1.5 hours. Sometimes he tells us he needs to go when really he doesn´t so he is even trying to trick us and test what happens!

 

We are very happy we decided to go for it and hope we have inspired you too. But remember, if it´s not right for you, your child or your family then its not going to work out well.

Here are a few of our tips to a smooth transition.

 

 

• Try to plan a week of limited activities outside the house. If you start with pants it is not a good idea to put a nappy back on because you need to do the shopping. I rearranged life for 10 days to see how we got on and then we attempted our first trip out and yes, we had a couple of accidents!
• The first time you go out remember to take your child straight to the bathroom. We made this mistake the first time we took him out. As adults we take it for granted that there will be a bathroom around. Our poor little guy didn´t know that and as he had only been using the toilet at home he probably didn´t even know they existed outside his house!
• Have a potty to hand. We have ours in the back of the can so if he needs to go when we are out and about we always have one handy for him.
• Try to have a relaxed and calm approach to the idea of accidents both in your home and when out and about.
• Protect furniture. We have a thin plastic changing mat that we have put on the sofa for him to sit on - it is now his special seat!
• Be prepared for the accidents by having old towels or cloths and disinfectant spray ready. We also had a bucket of soapy water in the bathroom so we could put his dirty clothes in (just for the first week then it was so few we felt we didn´t need it anymore).
• Prepare your child a day or two beforehand. Talk about what will happen and show them the new underwear (allowing them to go shopping for the underwear is a perfect way to introduce them and allow them to make choices). 

Cooking - Banana Bread

So this week we decided to use up our abundance of bananas by making a yummy loaf of banana bread. Sugar free so perfect for a snack or as picnic food. Why not give it a go and let us know what you think!

 





Ingredients:

2 cups of flour

(we used one of plain and one wholemeal)

Squeezing the orange

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon cinnomon

2 large ripe bananas

Handful of raisins

1 egg

Juice of 1 orange









Adding raisins

Put the flour, baking powder, raisins and cinnomon in a bowl and mix. Mash the bananas well and mix them together with the egg and orange juice then add to flour mixture. Mix together then put into a bread tin and cook for around 30-50mins on 180oC.

 

Simple and yummy, enjoy!