Safety - the stop/go game

This morning we were out for a stroll in the park. We had a very bouncy ball with us and were enjoying throwing it about in the basketball court when it went under the fence. Neither me nor my husband had noticed there was a hole in the fence which led to a busy road and before we knew it our boy was through it after his ball. Absolute panic flooded my body and my instinct made me shout ´STOP´. And, he stopped. Both of us ran and got to him because he stopped. If he hadn´t, we may be having a very different afternoon.

We praised him but tried not to make too big a deal of it so as not to scare him.

And why did he stop? Because we practice this all the time. Whenever we leave the house we play some version of the stop/go game. Its fun, we laugh and he has unknowingly learnt a life saving skill.

I certainly would never put this to the test but today he proved that this method does work and even if he had started running again, that pause was enough for us to get to him.

Tecnologia como ferramenta de educação

A tecnologia é muito presente na vida de nossos filhos, e é um desafio escolher quais os recursos que são mais adequados a eles. Fico preocupada pois meus filhos são muito jovens e gostaria que eles curtissem a vida "real". A tecnologia, entretanto, também é parte da vida deles, por isso é muito importante que eles tenham contato. Então, qual é o ponto de equilíbrio? As seguintes formas de usar tecnologia estão presente dentro de nossa casa.

Assistimos desenhos e programas infantis com os meninos pela internet, ao invés da TV. Dessa forma, mantemos certo controle do que assistir e diminuimos o risco de expô-los à propagandas que podem influenciar negativamente nossos filhos. 

A leitura também faz parte da rotina, e usamos, além dos livros tradicionais, as publicações digitais. Encontra-se online muitos livros interessantes e adequados as diversas idades. Como exemplo, há uma série do Usborne Reading Programme, especialmente para auxiliar na alfabetização das crianças. A alfabetização não é o caso do meu filho mais velho, de apenas dois anos, mas os livros são simples de entender e com ótimas e cativantes gravuras (ele adora especialmente aquelas de animais ou dinossauros)! 

Essa semana me peguei usando o YouTube de uma forma interessante, mais pedagógica: meu filho tem um livro sobre veículos, e nessa publicação (tradicional) há a imagem de um foguete. Ao ver a gravura, ele comentou "- avião, avião". Expliquei que é parecido com um avião, mas que o foguete vai ao espaço, vai a Lua. Ele gostou muito da ideia e acabamos confeccionando um fogete usando papel e papelão. Depois eu perguntei se gostaria de ver um foguete indo para a lua. Ele ficou muito empolgado e assistimos o video no YouTube!

Na minha opinião, é muito importante controlar a informação digital recebida por nossos filhos, e de forma supervisionada e sem excessos, a tecnologia pode ser uma ferramenta super interessante para apoiar sua educação. A tecnologia avança muito mais rapidamente do que imaginávamos há poucos anos atrás, e nossos filhos estão expostos de forma substancial a esses avanços. Percebo que tenho o dever de ajudar meus filhos a usar a tecnologia de forma responsável para que possam se beneficiar ao máximo das oportunidades que ela proporciona. Ao mesmo tempo, quero ajudá-los (e tenho a esperança que aproveitem muito!) a experimentar todos os outros aspectos da vida!

Technology as a teaching tool?

So much technology is present in our children´s lives that it can be a full time job just verifying which is positive or negative for your child. I am always wary of letting my boys use technology as they are still so young and I want them to experience life naturally. This said, technology is part of life these days and I want them to be familiar with it. So how do we manage this balance?

We watch a bit of tv or cartoons online. This is great as I have full control of what they watch and no nasty advertising companies can brainwash my kids!

We read e-books (as well as traditional books). There are some really interesting books out there and my toddler has got into the osborne first readers (obviously he doesn´t read yet but the books are short enough for him to enjoy and are very well illustrated). 

Today we used youtube.com. The boys have a picture book about vehicles and in it there is a picture of a rocket. My toddler came to me saying ´plane, plane´, so I explained it was a rocket. We then made a rocket out of a cardboard and enjoyed playing in the garden zooming it to the moon. Later, I asked him if he would like to see a rocket and found this great video of a shuttle launch. He was captivated! 

It´s important to be careful about the content of what children see and how they use technology but if it is well supervised and not overused, the use of technology can be an amazing asset to teaching your children. The modern world is advancing faster than most of us could imagine and our children are right in the centre of it. I feel I have to help my children to responsibly use technology to their benefit and hope they enjoy all the other aspects of life too!

My toddler won´t wear....(insert item)

Having worked for many years in the early years setting, i´m used to children turning up in clothing that is inappropriate for the climate or incorporates some form of super hero! Toddlers love to assert their opinions and choosing their own clothes is one way they achieve this. But what about plain refusal to wear something?

We have had an ongoing battle with our oldest son about wearing a hat. Perhaps this seems like no big deal but if he has to be in the 40 + degree sun for even a minute or two, I feel much better if his head is covered. Now winter is approaching and hes had several colds already (the joy of shared germs at nursery), i´m keen for him to use a hat, especially on those windy days when ear infections are almost guaranteed.

So how do I get him to wear one? I searched the net for a fun hat design and made him a personalised hat! He´s quite into dinosaurs lately and I was fortunate to stumble across a simple pattern. I got some fleece material and a couple hours later his hat was ready! So far hes tried it on a few times and has worn it for around 20 minutes at a time so here´s hoping i´m on the right track. Making or buying an item that is linked to your toddlers latest craze usually has a positive impact on the amount of use it gets. I made sure my boy had a look at the designs I had found and got him involved in the making process so he was sure to know it was a hat especially for him. 

And doesn´t he look great?  

Find more fun templates here and create your own cool hat

A year of language

Our eldest son is now 2 years and 2 months old and has suddenly burst into speech! Every day there are new words and phrases in both English and Portuguese. I decided to capture some of these as it really is amazing to hear your little person speak.

Just before his second birthday he said his first two word sentence and since then he´s increased his vocabulary daily and has even begun to speak in his second language (which is mostly thanks to nursery). We went to an aquarium and he was in his element running around all the displays looking at all the different sea creatures. When we came to the tunnel with the turtles (still his favorite animal) he was just so excited and shouted "bye bye turtle" probably around 300 times! Priceless!

Now is the moment to expose him to language and help him to develop his language (yes we each have our own and its a very personal journey).

I am watching him work out word order. As he has two languages he knows that sometimes the noun comes before the adjective but sometimes it´s the other way around. He ofter asks me by saying something like... "brother baby, baby brother". I then give him the example in English "baby brother" and he goes off repeating it several times.

Each week I will add a word, sentence or phrase (more for my benefit than anyone elses)! I hope you enjoy his quirky little ways :)

Week 1: "Tanta coisa" (so many things). After overhearing his teacher speaking to one of the girls in his class saying she had so many things in her hands he repeated "tanta coisa". They were very excited at nursery as it was the first thing he had said and they said it was just so natural. For the whole afternoon while he played at home he repeated the phase. Now, a few weeks later he looks at me and says "mummy, tanta coisa" with a big grin on his face!

Week 2: "Name puppy Barney". For months he has been calling our dog "puppy". Every day my husband says to him ´your puppy´s name is Barney´. Today he was in the back of the car and said "mummy, name puppy Barney". When he said it to my husband later on he was driven to emotion that his son could finally say the dog´s name!

Week 3: "ohhh, car coming". I am guilty of this phrase! I´m very intent on teaching him road safety and every time we go for a walk I make sure he stops and comes to me when a car is coming. He has to hold my hand then we wait until the car has passed and he can walk alone again. Tonight as we were driving home, he was looking out the window and with every car coming in our direction said "oooh, car coming". I admit is was hilarious as it was rush hour so you can imagine the amount of cars on the road!

Week 4: "baby read, ready baby" after finishing a book he wants to share it with his brother and gives him the book while he gets another one to read - very cute!

Week 5: "butterfly cry, cloud cry, raining" after a week of illness in our house and quite a bit of TV downtime, this phrase appeared. It was his interpretation of a clip from Pocoyo (his new favorite cartoon).

Week 6: "Help me, mummy" this week´s phrase came from tidy up time. Every day I ask the boys to help me tidy up the toys. One evening this week I was preparing dinner and asked my son to start tidying up. After a minute he came up to me pulling me towards the toys so I asked him what he needed to which he replied ´help me mummy´ (which came out a bit more like "´elp me, mummy"!

Week 7: "down up" or "get up, down" Every time he sees someone get up or down or leave the table we have some variation of up/down get up/down. I think hes working out which is up and which is down!

Week 8: "Give it to you" meaning give it to ME! Love this one so much hope it lasts a while.

Week 9: "Mummy funny" meaning mummy´s laughing

Week 10: "Put it off" meaning take it off.

Week 11: "Not, no way" Basically any form of NO comes in this beautiful sentence!

Week 12: "Dinosaur coming" any noise has become a dinosaur coming in our house!

Week 13: "play wif Barney" this is said frequently throughout the day as he love to play in the garden with our dog Barney.

Week 14: "Sing the Song mummy" If he´s tired he asks for the song which is a lullaby I hum when putting the baby to bed which has now become the general cue to sleep in our house. (another of my favorites)!

Sleep - toddler and baby and the juggling act!

Sleep is a reoccurring topic here at Baby Steps. I´m sure there are a lot of readers who feel like we do - sleep is vital! Not just for the children but for us as parents too.

 

Now that our 2 year old is settled into nursery, we are seeing a better sleep pattern from him. We have had a few full nights and others with just one brief night  waking. We have, however, had to limit his nap to just one hour. We found that when he slept longer in the day he was taking a long time to fall asleep and waking more frequently at night. I guess somewhere during this year he may drop this nap completely (ahhh then what will I do)?

 

Our (almost) 6 month old has learnt that we go out of sight and he doesn´t like it one bit! At 3 months he was sleeping very well even full nights or just one night waking around 4am for a feed. At the 4 month sleep regression (where babies learn to fall asleep by themselves) we noticed he was beginning to wake more frequently and looking to feed each time. For the first two days I fed him, assuming he must be going through a growth spurt, but he began to wake even more often. I went on a sleep research frenzy and came across the no-cry sleep solution by Elizabeth Pantley. The book is designed to very gently and gradually help your baby to sleep all night. As he had been a good sleeper and I knew he was waking for comfort not hunger, I searched the book and found a very important tip that I had never heard before. Never let the baby suck to sleep - whether bottle, dummy or breast feeding. Ok, so how do you stop this once its a habit? By letting baby suck until they are nearly asleep then gently removing. If he cries replace and repeat. This takes patience and some nights I would remove 7-10 times before he fell asleep but gradually he was able to fall asleep by himself and stay that way for a while.

 

After another month he started to wake more frequently again. Now he wasn´t having a dummy and I wasn´t feeding him to sleep so what to do here? I returned to a method we used with our older son which I discovered from Tracy Hogg the baby whisperer. The pick up, put down method. Her you pick up the baby then place him back down (all the way down even if he´s crying) then repeat until he is calm and drifts off to sleep alone.

This last week he has been waking more again but now I just need to rub or pat his tummy and he goes back to sleep. Every night waking I do this until he sleeps. If he takes a long time to go to sleep or wakes again within 30 minutes, I give him a feed and make sure I finish the feed before he is asleep.

 

Here´s hoping they both sleep a full night (the same full night please) very soon. It may seem like a lot of work but it´s worth it when you are feeling sleep deprived. I´ve found it very hard especially when my husband has been travelling and I have to deal with ALL the wakings alone (sometimes both of them at the same time)!

 

I recommend both of the books I have used as they both have really good ways to help you teach your baby to sleep. Both use no-cry methods which I prefer. I would say though, each family is different, each baby too, only do what you can cope with and if it´s working for you and your family - then it´s just fine. Nobody else has to go through it every night and nobody else knows your baby like you do.

 

Good luck and good sleeps for all parents and babies :)

Books, world book day and reading

Happy World Book Day 2014


I love books and want to help my boys to love them too. I remember as a child going to get new books was one of the highlights. I hope my children feel the same way and I am starting lots of projects to encourage this behaviour.

This year I made my two boys a book each. As they are still very small this was ideal. Each page had a photograph of them with one line of text which I made up. For my eldest son I chose to write about the things he can do now he´s two as there have been several changes in his life recentley and I hope this will help him to see that he is growing and able to do so much more. For the baby, it was simply a picture book of his first months within our family.

I will give my boys a book each year on WorldBook Day (as well as other times of the year) in various formats and hope they look forward to this day. Someday I´m sure they will see hard copies of books and think it strange but I intend to keep passing my love of books onto my children.