Parenting Blog

About 2-1/2 million children are injured or killed each year, due to hazards in the home.

Many of these incidents can be prevented by taking steps to make sure that your home is safe and that you follow age appropriate recommendations for each stage of your child’s young life.

There are many devices available to help prevent injury, along with using common sense. Remember, nothing is completely safe and eyes must be on the children at all times. It only takes a blink of an eye, a turn of the head, for an incident to occur.

Bringing Home Baby

Most  important, ALWAYS  put your baby on his/her back, on a firm, flat, tight-fitting mattress, to sleep.
More infants die or are injured in crib accidents than any other nursery item.
Remove all pillows and soft, loose bedding from the crib.  These items can cause suffocation.

The Crib

Never use a crib that has missing slats or loose hardware.

If you repaint the crib use only high quality lead-free paint.

Use a mattress that fits tightly:  If you can fit more than 2 fingers between the edge of the mattress and the crib side, the mattress is too small.

Door Knob Covers and Door Locks:

Can help keep children away from places with hazards, including swimming pools.

Make sure the knob cover allows the door to be opened quickly by an adult in case of emergency.

Door locks should be placed high, out of reach of young children.

Locks should be used in addition to fences and alarms.

Window Guards and Safety Netting for balconies and decks can help prevent serious falls.

Window Blind Cord Safety Tassels on vertical blinds and drapery cords can help prevent deaths and injuries from strangulation in the cord loops.
For older blinds, cut the cord loop, remove the buckle and put safety tassels on each cord. Be sure older blinds and drapery cords have tie-down devices to hold the cords tight.

Outlet Covers and Outlet Plates can help protect children from electrical shock and possible electrocution.  Make sure that they cannot be easily removed by children and are large enough so that children cannot choke on them.

Corner and Edge Bumpers can be used with furniture to prevent injuries from falls by softening sharp edges.

Door Stops and Door Holders can help prevent small fingers and hands from being pinched or crushed in doors and door hinges.

Expose Your Child to a Variety of Sports and Activities

Let’s face it, we’re not all going to enjoy and be good at soccer. We’re not all marathon runners or rock climbers or Olympic skiers. But physical activity is important. It is important to keep our bodies moving and burning calories, it’s important for our heart, muscles and lungs. Physical activity is important for our metabolism, our development, our immune system, our coordination and even for our happiness.

When we’re physically active, endorphins are released which stimulate feelings of happiness and well-being. Without physical activity, we suffer. Your children suffer. They miss out on the valuable health benefits of exercise but they also miss out on the mental and emotional benefits.

Sports engage us to set goals, to problem solve, to work with others to achieve a common goal. They teach us to be better people than we are. Children gain a sense of pride from participating in sports. They learn the value of competition.
They learn the value of themselves. The good news is that there are hundreds, possibly thousands of sports that your
child can try. In fact, it is important to expose your child to a number of activities so that they can not only find a sport that fits their personality, they can find a sport that fits their abilities.

Playpens

Deaths have occurred when the drop-sides of playpens and cribs were left in the down position.

When a mesh side is let down it forms a pocket.  Young infants, even just a few weeks old, can move into the pocket, become trapped and suffocate.

Deaths have also occurred when the playpen was not securely locked into position, causing it to collapse, entrapping the child’s neck.

NEVER LEAVE AN  INFANT IN A PLAYPEN WITH THE  SIDE DOWN.

REMOVE ALL LARGE TOYS, BOXES & BUMPER PADS. THEY CAN BE USED TO CLIMB OUT.

AVOID TYING ANY ITEMS ACROSS THE TOP OR CORNER OF THE PLAYPEN:  THEY CAN CAUSE STRANGULATION.

BABY GATES

Some gates are dangerous:

A child’s head can get trapped in the openings of baby gates with accordion-style or large V- or diamond-shaped openings, and can get strangled.

Expandable enclosures can be equally dangerous.

Be sure the gate is securely anchored in the doorway it is blocking.  Children have pushed gates over.

Pressure gates are not recommended at the top of a stairway.  They can pop out of the opening.

HIGH CHAIRS

Thousands of children are injured each year because of improper high chair use.

Healthy Kids Begin With Healthy Parents

Take the time to be a good role model. There’s no doubt about it, healthy kids begin with healthy parents. As a parent, regardless of the words that come out of your mouth, it is your actions that your children really pay attention to. You can
profess up and down how strongly you believe that good nutrition is vital for their health and development, if you’re sitting on the couch with your hand in a bag of chips, they’ll get the message that you don’t want them to hear. “These chips are
better than an apple any day.”

If you want them to eat a good breakfast, then prepare a good breakfast and sit down with them. You want your children to make healthy choices when they are away from you at school and their friend’s homes.

Help your child develop healthy habits by:
• Asking them to assist with the meal preparation and shopping.
• Ask them to plan and prepare their sack lunches for school.
• Ask them to choose the menu one evening each week.
• Learn about nutrition and healthy habits together.

Limit TV/Computer Time

One of the biggest time killers for children of all ages, and adults too, is the television, computer, and video games. Children can spend hours of their precious time parked in front of a screen. Time that could be better used playing outside, practicing their favorite activity, or even reading a book. Also, quite often this time spent in front of a screen leads to unhealthy eating habits. After all, how can you prepare a sandwich while you’re engrossed in the latest video game or social networking site? You can’t, you have to grab a quick snack and head right back to what you were doing.

A quick and easy remedy to this problem is to limit their time in front of the screen. Take the games, computers, and televisions out of their bedrooms and move them into one location, preferably the family room, where everyone has access to them. Don’t want to hear the complaints, protests, and general whining when you tell them that they cannot watch TV or get onto the computer?

Protecting your baby from the cold can be a challenge. Here are some suggestions from the Wisconsin SAFE KIDS Coalition to help keep your baby warm – and SAFE – during travel:

• ALWAYS properly secure children in an approved and age-appropriate child safety seat while riding in a motor vehicle
  – it’s the law in Wisconsin!
• Infants should stay rear facing until they reach the recommended rear facing weight limit of the individual seat. This can be up to 30 pounds. Infants do not have strong neck muscles; the rear-facing position cradles an infant’s head and neck and is the safest!
• Avoid using heavy snow suits for babies less than 6 months. Before that time a baby’s shoulder and neck muscles are not fully developed, and heavy layers of clothing make it difficult to correctly position the safety seat harness straps.
• Dressing an infant too warmly may cause him to sweat. Try using multiple light-weight layers instead. Use adult socks to cover the baby’s hands and feet for additional warmth (cold hands and feet can also cause an infant to sweat).

Harmful Products

For some infant toys, it is merely their number that limits meaningful play. Other
“playthings,” marketed to infants may however actually be harmful to their development
there are, for example, the so-called Lapware, computer programs for infants from 6
months to two years. It is called Lapware because the infant sits on the parents lap and
pushes a mushroom like mouse while watching the computer screen. The Lapware
programs are advertised as teaching infants and toddlers many concepts and skills as
well as enhancing self-confidence and self esteem.

“Recent research has shown that for every hour an infant
spends watching TV, he or she loses 5-7 vocabulary words.”

Too Many Toys

Although toys are the tools by which the infant discovers self and world, too many toys
may actually discourage, or inhibit, the discovery process. And all too many infants and
children today, have all too many toys. This is a fairly recent phenomenon. Up until the
last half-century, toys were given to children on their birthdays, at Christmas and perhaps
at a few other holidays like Thanksgiving. The same was true for infants who were
usually limited to a rattle, or a plush toy for the first few months of life. But the world has
changed and the toy industry has become big business. The ability to mass-produce toys
at a low cost, has led to a superabundance of toys. As a result, toys are no longer given a
few times a year; rather they are purchased all year long. Infants as well as children have
been targeted as consumers who can be sold any and all variety of toys. A toy packed
crib, for example, presents the infant with too many colors, too many shapes, too many
textures and too many sounds at the same time. Such an environment can overwhelm an
infant. The golden rule of providing toys for a child is that less is best.

by: John Coutts
Here’s one of the best bits of parenting advice you’ll ever find: “a confident child is more likely to be a success in life, more likely to be liked in life, and more likely to be happy in life”.
Isn’t that what you want?
Here are 7 parenting tips to build up confidence in your child:

1. Always praise your child for the things she does right. Even if they are little things, make them important and let her know that she did well.
2. Let your child do things. Even if she is not quite ready to do certain tasks, help her make a start and don’t worry if it doesn’t turn out right.
3. Believe in your child and let her know it! Don’t pressurize her to be something she can’t be. Just let her know that you believe in her ability to (occasionally) do great things.
4. Only critisise a behaviour – not the child. Always avoid too much criticism of her when she does things wrong. It’s much better to criticise the behaviour – that way she can distance what she does from what she is.