The tools of the trade are few:

• a blender (better still, a hand-turned baby food grinder)
• extra ice cube trays for freezing
• a steamer (handy for cooking vegetables to a soft texture while maintaining as many nutrients as possible)

From there, it’s really a matter of prepping the food (washing, peeling, slicing, as necessary), steaming or cooking, grinding it to the right texture for your baby’s age and development, and then feeding (adding breast milk, formula, or water as necessary for the right consistency) or freezing it.

As your baby gets older and relies more on solid food instead of breast milk or formula for nutrition, it’s increasingly important that she eat a wide variety of foods. So when she’s ready for more complex multi-ingredient fare, it’s useful to have a few resources on hand.

TIPS & NOTES:

• If you plan to make your own baby cereal, check with your pediatrician. He or she will want to make sure your baby is getting the same key vitamins and minerals that are found in fortified commercial infant cereals.

• Prep carefully. Scrub fruits and vegetables with a vegetable brush under running water and rinse well. Trim any hard or potentially choke-able pieces (stems, skins, pits, and seeds from fruits and veggies; skin, bones, and extra fat from meats).

• Don’t feed babies who are less than 6 months of age home-prepared beets, carrots, collard greens, spinach, or turnips. They are high in nitrates and can cause a type of anemia in young babies. (Commercial baby foods of these varieties contain only traces amounts of nitrates.)

• After freezing purees in ice cube trays covered with plastic wrap, transfer them to freezer-safe containers or plastic bags, and label the contents and date.

Choose Learning Materials that Match Your Child’s Interests

Children feel accomplishment and empowered when they pick and choose what they read and when they read. A great trick would be to get reading material that matches your child’s interests and place them on their desk, in the livingroom area, etc. These materials can include anything from the newest installment of Twilight, to magazines, and comic books.

Sign Your Kids Up for a Library Card

Another great way to raise an avid reader is to get your child a library card in his or her name. Libraries are an inexpensive alternative to purchasing books that your child may or may not finish reading. If you do get your child a library card make sure you encourage them to use it by scheduling weekly library visits. One quick note here though, always make sure you have time for your child to peruse through the books and take their time picking out what they want. Visiting the library in a time-crunch spells disaster because there are just too many options for such a small amount of time.

Pick Up a Book & Read

If your child truly does not seem to be interested in reading you can always try to teach by example. When a child sees that a parent enjoys reading and takes time out of their day to read, it becomes more interesting to them. Children don’t like to miss out on anything that seems like fun, especially if an adult is doing it. Additionally, getting involved in bedtime stories can be a great way of peaking your child’s interest in reading. Make it fun, have them ad lib what will happen next, make funny character voices, do anything creative you can think of to get them to play along.

With the right kind of preparation on your, you can give your baby the best start toward a healthy life. The months that you plan for your pregnancy give you time to prepare your body and make any necessary lifestyle changes. You can eat nutritiously, cut out alcohol and tobacco use, begin an exercise program, get your weight under control and talk to your doctor about any other medical concerns you have.

If you are considering having a baby and starting a family, the quick tips below can get you off to the right start.

• Exercise regularly.
• Find out if medications you take regularly can be decreased or discontinued. Ask your physician if they are safe to take during pregnancy.
• Get your weight under control. Pregnancy is not the time to lose weight.
• If you need X-rays or medical tests, get them done before trying to get pregnant.
• It’s a good time to control or to eliminate tobacco, alcohol or drug use.
• Decide who will deliver your baby.
• Check on your insurance coverage for pregnancy.

Paying attention to these details before you get pregnant makes your pregnancy safer and more enjoyable.

Between the age of 3 and 6 a child’s imagination becomes fully developed. Engaging in pretend play throughout this period is very common. Children can pretend to build a castle out of a blanket, rock a crying doll to sleep, or even have imaginary friends that they interact with on a regular basis. With all that is good, there is always something bad. In this instance, the increase of their imagination can also cause them to develop fears. For many children distinguishing between imagination and reality can be difficult.

Dr. Sherman advises, “Parents need to take these concerns seriously rather than simply telling their children that monsters do not exist.” It is equivalent to telling an adult to not be afraid while walking down a dark alley in a bad neighbourhood. The most important part about overcoming fear is how you handle what can not be changed. In other words, your child does have to go to bed and it will be night-time when this occurs. We can’t change that. But what can we do as parents to help alleviate the fears children may have as their imaginations run wild?

• To help your child cope with night-time fear, provide your child with a flash light that they can keep next to their bed. This way, they can shine it on any dark corners of the room at any time to see that there is nothing to be afraid of.
• Play games at dusk just as the sun is setting so your child gets comfortable in the dark.
• Don’t allow your child to watch scary shows that feature monsters.
• Try reading books about children who overcome their monster fears. A favourite is “Too Many Monsters” in which a boy learns that monsters are afraid of ducks and that quacking makes them run away.
• Some parents make it a nightly ritual to check all the places in their child’s room where a monster might hide and then reassure their child that their room is monster free.
• Night-lights can help dispel a child’s fears.

Although most parents do recognize the Internet as dangerous place many of them do not realize the severity. According to a 2002 FBI report - Children that visit chat rooms are at a 100% risk to encounter a pedophile at one or more point at any given time. They also report that every two out of five missing teenagers is in some way Internet related.

If that isn’t scary enough, unfortunately most children will share personal information about themselves, their families, and where they live to complete strangers within chat rooms and other forums. Pedophiles can use these small tidbits of information to create a profile of your child. Innocent information like the name of a school, basketball team name, or town they live in can be used to locate them using Internet resources.

Thankfully there are ways to help protect our children. The Safe Surfin’ Foundation is an organization that works to educate the public about Internet crimes against children and how communities can protect their children from becoming victims. According to their resources, here are some suggestions of things that every child should know and do:

• You don’t always know who you’re chatting with online so never reveal personal information in a chat room or any other public forum. Personal information can include: address, school, town, team they play on, street name, phone number, or email address.
• Always use an online name instead of your real name.
• Be careful when filling out profile forms. Just because there are fields that ask for personal information doesn’t mean that they need to be filled out.
• Never meet with someone that you met online by yourself or in a private place.
• Tell a parent if any one harasses you or if there is any inappropriate content in a chat room or forum.

By installing this software on your computer you can:

• Limit the amount of time your children spend on the computer.
• Add your own security keywords.
• Prevent access to dangerous sites, and chat rooms.
• Filter from over 60 categories (adult, criminal, drugs, etc) sections of the Internet
• Set up automatic “locked-out” websites.
• Automatically blocks access to web sites based on Internet keyword searches.

Parents want their children to be confident in their own abilities and to not be afraid to try new things. After all, the toddler years are a time for exploration. Unfortunately, their exploring expeditions often leaves many toddlers hear the word ‘no’ rather than the word ‘yes’. As parents it is important that we provide a balance and give our child opportunities to explore within limits. Some quick tips are: remove objects that are too tempting, try to limit the amount of rules that you have when your child is exploring, and don’t get upset if things aren’t perfectly neat. For example, if your child dumps out all of their toys… relax! They are just exploring what happens.

Another way to help boost your child’s confidence is to indulge their ‘helper’ side. When I clean the house or try to get my toddler dressed, I find that these situations can always go one of two ways. Either my child hinders my progress or helps his growth. What I mean is that instead of telling your child to go play with their toys in the room quietly while you clean the windows, let them help. Instead of battling your child to get that last shoe on their foot, challenge them to see if they can do it. You want to encourage your child about self reliant living. Praise them when they accomplish something or even just try something new. Give them simple tasks to do around the house like putting spoons on the table, folding towels, helping with the cooking, or putting toys away. Toddlers feel an extreme sense of satisfaction when they accomplish tasks on their own. As a result, their confidence grows because they realize they are capable of a great many things.

Most importantly, listen to your child when they are talking. Often toddlers do not speak well enough to be understood but they know what they’re saying. Give them your attention and respond by asking questions if what they want isn’t clear. If they say something you don’t understand, ask them to point it out to you and when you find out what it is, say the correct word out loud. More often than not, your child will repeat the word and remember for next time. When you listen you instill in him the idea that what he has to say is important.

According to the American Obesity Association, obesity among children and teens is reaching epidemic levels. About 30% of children and teens are overweight and 15% are obese. Children, who are overweight, with at least one overweight parent, are 79% more likely to be overweight as adults. Along with the poor self-image that often accompanies obesity; children who are obese are at a greater risk for asthma, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and damage to bones and cartilage.

To prevent your child from suffering childhood obesity, begin by helping your child make good diet choices. Sweets and treats should be allowed in minimum quantities and should never replace a well-balanced meal. Replace the sweets in your home with healthy snacks like yogurt, cheese, fruit, and nuts. Additionally, monitor the intake of soda and juices. Soda is loaded with calories and other ingredients that are not good for growing bodies and most juices are high in sugar as well.

As adults we realize the importance of exercise but for some reason we do not extend this necessity onto our children. Everyone - young or old - should exercise for at least twenty minutes each day. Make exercising fun with activities such as riding their bike, jumping on the trampoline, jumping rope, rollerblading, dancing or playing tag.

Most importantly, help your child prevent childhood obesity by leading by example. Exercise as a family. Make exercise fun by doing things together as a family. Also, if you’re going to ask that your child limits their sweets and candy intake, you should do the same. It’s hard to argue with a parent that practices what they preach.

Health Benefits For Baby

In studies by the Centre for Disease Control, nursing has been shown to lower (in some cases totally eliminate) the number of infant ear infections, breathing problems, or stomach trouble;especially if breast milk is used at least 6 months.

Nursing protects against, and often prevents, the development of leukemia, allergies and Type 1 diabetes. Reports from the INDG as well as the CDC show this is due to the antibodies in the breast milk which build up the immune system.

The INDG has also found that babies who are breastfed 6 months or more appear to have a higher IQ due to the fatty acids that are in breast milk which increase brain development.

Health Benefits For Mom

In recent study by HealthDay News breastfeeding can lower one’s risk of cardiovascular disease,high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stroke and diabetes by as much as 20% for mothers who nursed for at least one year. And, according to studies at the CDC, other benefits for mom are:

1. Nursing helps mom to lose weight gained during pregnancy more quickly due to the calories burn producing milk.
2. Nursing reduces postpartum bleeding due to the oxytocin hormone that is released into the body and helps the uterus to contract.
3. Nursing is shown to lower the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
4. Nursing has been shown, in at least 2 studies, to improve a woman’s bone density,thus reducing the risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures later in life. This benefit, however, is still being researched but it’s worth keeping in mind.

Post-partum depression can occur weeks or even months after delivery, and can last for up to a year or more. Having postpartum depression is nothing to be ashamed of and can be effectively treated with therapy, medication, or a combination of the two. Support groups can also be beneficial, as they provide a new mother with understanding and empathy during this difficult time. In order to properly treat postpartum depression you must first be aware of the warning signs.
Be especially alert for any of the following:

Persistent Feelings of Sadness or Hopelessness

Although it is common to have your emotions go on a roller coaster after giving birth; persistent depression is a sign that there are more serious problems.

Low Self-Esteem and Self-Confidence

If you find yourself second guessing your mother instincts and feel helpless, possibly even inadequate, you may be experiencing postpartum depression.

Loss of Interest in Your Favourite Activities

When you have a baby, it sometimes becomes very difficult to find “me time”. Once you do make the time however, and your find yourself uninterested in anything you used to enjoy before you had the baby, you may be experiencing a side-effect of depression.

Anger or Irritability

Do you snap at everyone who gets in your way? How about anyone who is merely just trying to talk to you? If so, this is a serious sign of postpartum depression.

Extreme Anxiety

Checking the baby 5 times during the night to make sure he or she is still breathing is normal for the first few weeks of your child’s life - it’s simply motherly-instincts kicking in. Checking on your baby 800 times a night is a sign of extreme anxiety. If you find yourself being overly protective to the point of extreme stress, consult your physician.

Difficulty Sleeping

Sure you’re exhausted… you just had a baby so that makes sense. But what happens when despite that exhaustion you still can’t sleep. There are too many things constantly running through your mind and you can’t relax. This too is a sign of postpartum depression.

Fear of Hurting Yourself or Your Baby

If at any time you have visions of hurting yourself or your baby, please contact your physician immediately.