Mummy Zen

I attended a baby and child first aid course at the weekend. It was one of those things I had been meaning to do for a while so I was glad to finally do it! It was certainly helpful and I came away feeling a bit more prepared to deal with any unpleasant eventualities, should they occur. I expect many of you have also done a similar course but I thought it might be helpful to share a few things I learned or was told, that you might find useful. The instructor we had works at a big London hospital and had some anecdotal information from working there that was interesting to hear too.

• Most burns on children that they deal with at her hospital are caused by hot coffee or tea spillages. Whilst our skin can take the heat, theirs is that much more delicate that it can cause a more severe burn. She mentioned the coffee we all buy in coffee shops that’s usually too hot to drink at first – that’s what we need to look out for!

• With head injuries, it’s usually a good sign if the child cries out after hitting their head. This was good to hear, as it seems once children start walking, they have so many falls and bangs to the head you are never sure when to be worried.

• If a child is choking, they won’t be making a noise. If you can hear them gagging or making a noise in the back of their throat, that shows that the airway is still clear. If it’s blocked by some food, they’re not able to make a noise.

• When a young child sticks something up their nose, one way to get the object out is to close the other nostril, put your mouth over theirs and give one short, sharp breath into their mouth.

• In instances where CPR is done on a child, the success rate in getting them breathing again is fairly high and a lot higher than with adults. Even if we don’t remember the exact number of breaths and chest compressions we are supposed to do, we were told that anything we do will likely help.

We all hope that we don’t have any scary situations with our children, no severe injuries or accidents but you never know what might happen and it’s good to be prepared.

What kinds of injuries have been most common with your children? Have you got any first aid tips to share?

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A friend mentioned she was taking her son to a little girl’s second birthday this coming weekend and she was stuck on ideas of what to get her as a birthday present. As we’re both mothers to boys, we were saying how much easier it is for us to think of things to get for a boy’s second birthday but we have less of a clue what little girls of the same age are into. This made me think it could be helpful to share ideas here and hopefully get more suggestions from you!

Thinking back to my son’s first birthday, there are some gifts that were a big hit and ideal for a one-year old (boy or girl). Here are some suggestions (I’ve tried to keep to fairly inexpensive items):

FIRST BIRTHDAY GIFT IDEAS

Stack and Nest Cups – as well as stacking and nesting the cups, my son loves putting small things in the cups and tipping them from one to the other
Stacking Rings
Stacking Boxes – trust me, they love stacking toys!
LEGO DUPLO Bricks – they may be too young to build with the bricks but my son loves pulling apart the bricks when we build something for him and he also loves playing with the individual pieces of lego, putting them into cups, boxes, trucks
Sticklebricks
Building blocks
Hammer and pegs
A ball
A Noahs Ark – this works well as there are little doors to the ark to open and close, lots of different coloured animals to look at and play with, to put in and take out of the ark. My son really loves his and it can entertain him for quite a while.
Bucket and spade – not restricted to sand castles, digging around in the soil or with pebbles and putting them in the bucket can be great fun for the little ones
Push-along toys
Pull-along toys

Moving onto the second birthday, this list is more guess work than experience but I feel it’s a bit easier to know what a two-year old might enjoy than it was with a one-year old. They are able to do more creative things and are enjoying pretend play more and more.

SECOND BIRTHDAY GIFT IDEAS

Crayons
Sticker books
Colouring books
Play Doh
Toy cars
Trucks
Pots and pans
Cutting fruit set
Household toys- these types of toys allow them to mimic you and feel more grown-up
Play tent - fun to use both inside and outside
Pop-up tunnel
Train set

BOOKS

It goes without saying that books always make a great gift. Here’s a small selection that would be suitable for one and two-year olds:

Over to you! What gifts did your children receive for their first or second birthdays that you remember them really liking and getting a lot of use from? What would you recommend as a good gift for a boy or girl turning either 1 or 2?

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Today’s post is a sharing of a three links I think you’ll be interested in. Sometimes you come across things that need to be shared

There’s a wonderful free e-book full of tasty recipes that can be prepared in 10 minutes with just 5 ingredients over at Stone Soup. Ideal for busy parents and people looking for inspiration in the kitchen, the e-book is beautifully presented and has some great ideas.

At Girl Geek Chic, there are 10 tips to being more green with your gagdets. Many of us spend a lot of time on our phones and computers so there’s some helpful advice  to benefit from.  I had no idea that updating your Facebook once on your PC uses the same amount of energy as updating it a hundred times on your phone.

A reader of Mummy Zen has registered a proposal on the government’s Your Freedom website suggesting state funding is stopped for schools who select pupils on the basis of faith. Have a read of her argument here. Some of you will no doubt have run into this issue so it will be of interest. Do register to rate and comment on the proposal if it’s a view you share.

I hope you enjoy these links. Is there anything you’ve come across recently that you’d like to share?

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We just got back from a long weekend away which is why I haven’t yet posted anything this week. I’ve called this post ‘in-flight entertainment’ but really it’s for any journey, by plane, car, train…. Rather than general travel tips which I have covered previously, this is a list of activities or entertainment for keeping your little ones amused when you travel. I’ve asked other mums what worked best for them on their travels and combined their answers with things that have worked for our son too.

Being prepared for travel is the best way to ensure the journey goes as smoothly as possible. I keep a little child-size rucksack full of small toys, books etc for travel so it’s all ready to go. That also means the toys are either new or rarely seen giving them an extra novelty value. My mother-in-law told me she used to pack a couple of favourite toys a week or so before they went on a trip so her children didn’t get to play with them the week before they left. That way, they’d be really pleased to see them when she pulled them out of a bag on the plane or in the car.

Here are 10 ways to keep your toddler entertained on a journey:

Portable dvd player. Not for everyone but if you are happy to ration their viewing or don’t care about rationing it, I hear this is the most long-lasting way to keep them happy on a journey. I read recently that dvds were taking over more tradtional travel games like ‘I spy’.

iPhone apps & games. Again not every parent wants their child playing with a phone or may want to limit the time spent on it but there are certainly some good apps out there for toddlers, such as the toddler flashcards.

Etch A Sketch. On the suggestion of a friend I picked up one of these from a pound shop. Yes, it’s a bit flimsy but it’s perfect for travel and doesn’t matter if it breaks. The same friend advised I attached the accompanying pen with a piece of string to avoid it being dropped or thrown. That was a great tip!

Stickers. One of my friends told me her daughter loves to stick them on her head! Otherwise there are sticker books you can pick up inexpensively, or you can stick them on all kinds of surfaces.

Colouring. Probably best if you are seated next to them to engage them in some colouring and catch any falling crayons but you can find small sized packs of crayons and colouring books that are ideal for travel.

Books. Lift-the-flap books are good to engage your toddler in the book. Travel or holiday themed books can be fun.

CDs. Best for the car, a nursery rhyme CD can be an alternative to you doing all the singing or something you can all sing along to! A friend of mine uses In the Night Garden story CDs which are a big hit with her daughter. For older toddlers, stories are good, especially those with funny noises or voices. Sometimes, just regular music on the radio can appease my son.

Small push-along toys. Especially good if you are on the plane or train where your child can use a table as a surface to push them along on. My son was very happily engrossed on our most recent trip, playing with little trucks, pushing them back and forth on the fold-down tray table on the plane.

Play dough. With supervision, play dough can wile away some time, rolling it into shapes and pulling apart again. You can get it in small tubs which facilitate transportation.

Other children. Seeing other children on a plane or train can be a great distraction. Sometimes they just like to watch one another or maybe they even share toys.

As parents, it’s also nice to engage our children in the travel experience itself. Show and tell them what’s around them or what they can see out of the window, explain what’s going to happen on the journey and give out positive happy vibes about your family adventure! If you’re on a plane or train, take them for a walk to show them other people, doors, windows, eating areas and point out passing trains, people, clouds and whatever else.

I’d love to have other suggestions from you. Let me know in the comments what keeps your toddlers happy when you travel.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about photos recently. Maybe it’s because my best friend is currently consumed with finishing her projects for the photography course she’s been doing over the past year. Or maybe it’s because my talented photographer father-in-law was just here with his impressive big new camera. In any case, parents tend to like taking photos of their children and so I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on photo-taking and organising.

When I asked a friend of mine who recently had her second child if they’d been taking lots of photos of her, she told me that apart from the day she was born they hadn’t taken any. I was shocked. This was her first daughter, (her older child is a boy) and she was around 2 months old when we were having this conversation. A cute baby girl – why wouldn’t you want to take lots of photos of her? At the other end of the spectrum there’s my mother-in-law who has a full record of photos of both her children, wonderfully organised so she can find a photo of them at a certain age in less then a minute. For many of us, somewhere in-between these two might be most realistic. After all, I recognise not everyone enjoys or has the interest in taking lots of photos.

Later down the line, it’s great to have photos to look back on. There are the memories, the comparisons with younger generations and the record of another time that’s interesting to see at a later period. With digital cameras and camera phones, it’s easier than ever to snap away. One thing I love about my iPhone is that I can take a quick photo of my son anywhere and email it straight to the grandparents.

Here are 7 suggestions on taking, sharing and organising photos:

If you don’t often take photos of your child, aim for at least a couple of photos of them once a month. That’s a very manageable amount of photo-taking and means you have a regular record of them as they grow up.

Don’t feel constrained by a posed photo with them smiling. It can be a struggle to get them to look at the camera and smile at the right moment. Some of the best photos can be of them engrossed in a fun activity or looking/playing/talking with others.

Get up close or zoom in. Children can be so wonderfully expressive that it’s good to fill the frame with their face or top part of their body so you can really see them well, as opposed to a shot of them off in the distance.

Set up a blog or Flickr account to share your photos. Send the link to your family and friends so they can bookmark the page and keep updated with how your little one is growing up and changing. It’s such a nice way for those far away to keep up-to-date if they don’t see you very often. You don’t have to be especially tech savvy, sites like Blogger and Flickr are very user-friendly, free and straightforward to maintain.

File your photos on your computer in folders by year and by month. That way, it’s easy to locate a particular image from a particular time or event.

If you plan to have hard copies of your photos in an album, do it regularly so it does not become an overwhelming job. Each month print out the selected photos and put them in an album with any accompanying text or dates as you see fit. It’s a lot harder to do the same job with a backlog of a year of photos.

Consider photobooks as an alternative to printing photos for albums. Most photo printing sites make them very easy to create with ready-made templates, colour/size/paper options so you simply upload your images and drag the photos onto the page where you want them to appear. They also make a lovely gift for family.

Do you have other suggestions to add to my list? What are your photo-taking habits? Do you print them out? Is it something you feel you’d like to dedicate more time to? How do you share photos with relatives?

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Exercising with your child isn’t for everyone. For those of us who don’t have family nearby to help out with childcare, it can be expensive to take time off to go and exercise. Thankfully there are other ways to burn calories that can be easily incorporated into a regular day.

Here are 5 activities that involve exercise without you even realising it and that are easy to do with children around:

Cleaning. Vigorous scrubbing, hoovering and other household cleaning chores are a great way to get some physical exercise whilst making your home nice and clean at the same time. Give your child a clean sponge and let them ‘help’ you clean.

Gardening. This can be an enjoyable way to burn some calories for those of you who have a garden. Digging, hoeing, weeding….and give your little ones a bucket and spade and an assigned area for them to dig around in while you’re working. They’ll have fun imitating you.

Walking. A long walk can be a lovely family activity. Keep to a brisk pace and go for hills and steps to make it more of a work-out. Use the nature around you to keep your child interested. They could collect sticks, daisies and leaves to press or to use for a collage for example.

Playing. Head to your local park and run around with your children. Chase them, play football, throw a frisbee or other games that involve running around. An easy way to get your body moving!

Shopping. Brisk walking to the shops or around a shopping mall, combined with carrying back bags of groceries or other items is another way to burn calories. This is easy with young babies but more challenging with older children who get bored easily. Try to do something for them on the shopping trip to make it more fun, go to a toy store or stop off at a play area.

What have I missed? Can you think of other activities that provide a bit of a work-out and that can be easily incorporated into a day at home looking after children?

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Sherri Kruger, who’s been a guest post author previously on Mummy Zen and is behind two of my favourite blogs, Serene Journey and Zen Family Habits has just launched a fantastic new site that I wanted to share with you. Called ‘Listbean’, it’s a site of checklists covering everything you could possibly imagine. From major projects like buying a home, various business and finance checklists, to child-related things like child-proofing your home and suggested activities to keep the little ones amused, it’s all there! I am astounded by the thorough range of lists on the site and it’s obvious that a lot of thought and hard work has gone into it.

If you’re a keen list-maker yourself, fear not – the site doesn’t take away that pleasure from you! You can sign up to Listbean which allows you to create your own lists or to customise those already there, to make them better suited to your own personal needs. For those of you less-inclined to make checklists, then the site is a goldmine for helping prompt you to think of lots of relevant, helpful things to consider for all kinds of tasks and aspects of your life.

I have not by any means gone through all lists on the site but have looked at quite a few and picked out some to mention here that I especially like:

Indoor Activities for Kids

Babysitter Info Sheet

Decorate your Home with things you already have

Whole Home Quick-Clean

Over Night Guests

Take a look at Listbean and let me know what you think. Are there any lists that stand out as seeming particularly helpful to you?

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This is a guest post by Allison Evans, Hypnotherapist specialising in HypnoBirthing and HypnoBirthing Fertility Therapy.

If you’re reading a blog called “Mummy Zen,” you’re probably aware of the concept of mindfulness:  that is, bringing your full awareness to the present moment.  There is something about raising a child that seems to invite mindfulness.  You can’t help but notice how in-the-moment children are, how they delight in the smallest details, and you delight in their joy, too.  There’s also an undeniable pull out of the present moment, as we must think and plan for the future – “What do I need to pack for our outing?”  And as we reflect on past missteps – “How could I have forgotten the sun cream?”  This is just part of being human, especially when you are responsible to others!  But if you ever find yourself feeling disconnected, vaguely dissatisfied, quick to anger and wondering where your sense of humor has gone, mindfulness may be what you need.

A few years ago, when my children were four and two, that’s exactly where I was.  Fortunately for me, a friend introduced me to a wise Naturopathic Doctor.  Her simple suggestions turned my life around, and I have shared them – and some discoveries of my own – to many others to positive effect.   Here they are:

1.  Breathe. Deeply.  Every day.  Breath is foundational to the HypnoBirthing method that I teach.  Deep breathing actually short-circuits the body’s stress response, and helps to keep a mother in labour – or anyone – calm and in control, no matter the circumstances.  I now recommend that mothers continue their breathing exercises after their babies are born:  5-10 minutes of slow, deep breathing through the nose, two times per day, and in moments of stress.  Focus on the breath, allow it to be all you do for those 5-10 minutes, allow it to nourish you and be grateful for the simple miracle of breath!

2.  Mono-task. Yes, I mean stop all the multi-tasking!  Start by picking one routine task where your mind has a tendency to wander or that you might do while also talking on the phone.  For example, as you do the washing up, focus on each of your senses:  feel the warmth of the water, notice the flex of your arm muscles as you handle the dish, smell the fragrance of the dish soap, listen to the sound of the running water.  Avoid the tendency to mentally prepare yourself for your next task.  Focus on this one, menial chore and smile.  Smiling reinforces good feelings, similar to deep breathing.

3.  Allow yourself to be interrupted by your child at least once per day. How often has your child heard, “Just a minute, honey”?  As convenient as that phrase is, it does send a message to your child that the laundry is more important than she is.  Is it?  That’s mindfulness, too:  not just reacting, but taking the time to respond consciously.  If what you are doing is, in fact, time-critical, pause to hear her out.  Make eye-contact with her as you listen to what she needs, then give her a realistic time frame for when you can attend to her.  Similar to responding to your baby’s cries, this attention, even when it’s inconvenient, encourages her trust in you and the world.

4. Make a date with your child. Take a moment to think back over the last month.  What makes you smile to remember it?  Was it how clean your bathroom was?  A television programme?  More likely it was something your child did or said!  Schedule time each day to be present for such moments.

5.  Make a date with yourself. Make yourself a priority, just as you have made your child.  Get up earlier than your child so you can enjoy an hour or so of the prime morning time all to yourself.  If your child is a very early riser and that isn’t practical, use the child’s nap time to do something that restores you, such as meditating, reading a book, or corresponding with a friend.  Resist the urge to “get something done.”   It can wait.

These mindfulness exercises will ground you in your life and bring you a real sense of peace.  Enjoy!

I invite you to practice these mindfulness techniques and please share your own with us.  Let us know what happens!

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Yesterday it was raining. We’d planned to go out and do something but the weather put an end to that idea and instead we felt stuck inside needing some inspiration to liven things up a bit. Back in the early days of this blog, I wrote a post about things to do with a young baby when it rains but now our son is an energetic toddler, some of those suggestions aren’t so effective. We did have a bit of a sing-along session and we did go out for a walk anyway but in the middle of all that, we were desperately thinking of something different to do with him at home. In the end we built a living room ‘tent’ by draping blankets over chairs!

Later that day, I stumbled across a blog post of 10 simple play ideas for toddlers. Too bad I hadn’t read it earlier in the day as there are some good things to try:

1. Tissue Box (for posting things into and then shaking them out)
2. Utensil drawer
3. Old phone and keyboard
4. Pegs
5. Saucepans and lids
6. Cup stacking
7. Lining up (eg. putting socks on a window ledge and then knocking them all down!)
8. Pillow obstacle course
9. Dustpan and brush
10. Cubby (like the ‘tent’ we made in our living room)

The mother of five children who wrote this post, points out that most toddlers love to play with household items so these can be perfect play solutions for your little ones. I put a similar list (from Simple Mom) in a post a while back but as all the things on this list are totally different, I decided to include another similar post as we can never have too many of these kinds of ideas in my opinion!

My son loves to watch me use the dustpan and brush (especially when I pretend to sweep him up!). He also likes to help me unpack the dishwasher and passes me the cutlery one piece at a time. Utensils and plastic containers are still a big hit with him, as I’ve mentioned on here before. No surprise then that sometimes the best ideas for fun play are letting children loose with some of the everyday items they see you use so often.

Are there some household items or games you play with your children at home along similar lines to those suggested above?

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Last month, we went to Croatia for 10 days. When we got back, I found out I’d won a copy of the book, ‘Tales from a Travelling Mum‘, after leaving a comment on an interview with the author Alice Griffin over at the blog Angels and Urchins. It might have been better timing to have read the book before our trip but reading it afterwards, meant I could relate a lot more to Alice’s tales and tips.

The book covers Alice’s journeys with husband and daughter Isabella, beginning when her little one was a mere eight weeks old and covering the first two years. After having a baby, Alice didn’t want her love for independent travel to be affected by parenthood and so her book is a great narrative of how you can make it work with a baby in tow. She provides both anecdotal stories and practical tips to give other parents the confidence to travel at whim with their children. Her travels were not just a week spent here and there but lingering road trips over a period of weeks and months. As a result, Alice has all kinds of insightful experiences to share with her readers.

I’ve decided to pick a few of my favourite pieces of advice from the book for this post, which I am sure you will find helpful for your own family travels:

Babies exist the world over. You don’t need to stuff hundreds of nappies in your suitcase; just pick them up at a local chemist. Whilst this might sound obvious, many of us are guilty of over-packing when it comes to our children. It’s good to stop and think what makes sense not to pack, like nappies and formula that you can pick up at your destination.

Consider self-catering accommodation when visiting a city as it provides a home-from-home environment for you and your baby. This is what we did in Croatia and it definitely makes life a lot easier than all being cramped together in a hotel room.

Old toys will not hold Isabella’s attention if she feels irritable. I therefore now always have a handful of new items or toys she has never seen before, or that she sees as forbidden. This is something we learned on our recent trip. Whilst we had toys with us to keep our son busy as we had a coffee, waited for a meal or during a car journey, he barely took any interest in them. I’m now starting to collect a secret travel batch of toys and hope the novelty of these will hold his interest a little longer on our next trip.

It would be wise to visit a city with a little one at a quieter time. It is less overwhelming for little eyes and ears and everyone  has a more enjoyable experience. I wholeheartedly agree with this piece of advice and think that before you’re constrained to school holidays, it makes sense to take family trips out of season. With less cost involved and less tourists, it’s definitely the way to go.

When you’re heading off on a long car journey make sure you have a good selection of stories and nursery rhymes on CD. I wish I’d had this tip before our holiday. We had to resort to lots of singing in the car!

There is no need to take huge numbers of large toys. There is usually something much more interesting going on and you will just find yourself lugging them about for no reason. We took a small selection of small toys with us and it was fine. Our son was given some toys by friendly waitresses and shopkeepers and there were fun things to do outside like throwing pebbles into the sea and building sandcastles.

For many more helpful suggestions on travelling with a child under the age of two and for some wonderful travel stories, do get yourself a copy of Alice’s book, Tales from a Travelling Mum: Navigating Europe with a Babe-in-arms. Also, check out Alice’s website here.

What have your baby/toddler travel experiences been like? Do you have some tips to share?

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