Category: Our stories
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Morning Sickness – Tips & Tricks!
☆☆GINGER☆☆
☆☆MINTS☆☆
☆☆DRY TOAST☆☆
☆☆FRESH AIR☆☆
☆☆LITTLE & OFTEN☆☆
☆☆MOTION SICKNESS BANDS☆☆
Have you tried any of these remedies?
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Never Tell Your Child The Policeman Will Take Them Away
A view from a policeman
If a child goes missing. Wouldn’t you want them to tell the police, “I can’t find my mummy/daddy”, so that we could keep them safe and reunite them?
We would! 👮
But we still walk past the little tinkers getting a telling off, crying, or sometimes neither, in the street and hear their parents say, “Behave, or that police officer will come and take you away!”
Stop! ✋
Don’t teach children to be scared of the police if they get lost. Next time you see one of us, come and say “Hi!” There might be some nee-nors in it for them (not you 😅)! 🚔
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This Is Why Car Seats Matter
Jenna Casado has taken to Facebook to raise awareness on car seat safety:
I’m not one to post anything too heavy or personal on Facebook but guys… THIS is why you buckle your kids into their car seats correctly every SINGLE time. Even when they scream because the straps are tight. Even when they complain about the chest clip or being rear facing. We stopped for milk on the way home from preschool yesterday. We were minutes from home. Someone sped through a red light and slammed into us. You never think it will happen to you. My boys escaped without a scratch but the paramedics told me it could have been very different had I not taken the extra 2 minutes to be sure they were buckled correctly. I will be fine, my kids are fine, everything else can be replaced. Sending thanks to God for keeping us safe (along with Honda, Graco & Chicco).
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One Bad Decision Can Change Lives, Seatbelt Awareness
I am writing this as I don’t think people totally understand the effects seat belts can have on your life. If it changes one persons opinions then I’ll be happy.
One February a few years ago everything changed for me. I was asleep in bed when I received a phone call telling me my aunt and uncle were in hospital. They are very close to me and I was complete mess.They were in a car accident, they were coming home at 12.30am from being out with some friends, coming down a country road slowly may I add due to weather conditions when suddenly they skidded on black ice and lost control of the car.
The car flipped into a ditch. Luckily my aunt and uncle walked away with a broken rib, some scratches and a lot of bruises, but they were safe and home the next day.
Their friend in the back seat wasn’t so lucky. My aunt and uncle were not aware that he was not wearing his seatbelt for the journey, please bear in mind this was someone in their 50’s, when the car flipped he ended up with his head in the water at the top of the car.
As soon as they got him out they took him to surgery to operate on his broken bones. The paramedics and medical staff were unaware that he has inhaled water. He died two days later of secondary drowning.
This is when everything changed, the house became a constant point filled with solicitors and police officers. News articles were posted with incorrect information, this caused further heartache. They were interviewed at home, at the police station over and over again, they felt like they were in the wrong.
Not only were my family mourning the loss of a close friend, they were also being accused of causing death by dangerous driving.
18 months later the final court hearing came, £3.5k in solicitors fees, the risk of losing a very high powered job and a lot of heartache later. The new judge laughed it out of court. It didn’t stop here though.
My families life has changed forever. My aunt who was driving has constant panic attacks when in the car with other people, she has become constantly anxious about people wearing seatbelts, she is also having counselling and on strong anti depressants.
It kills me even writing this. I would love the carefree woman I once knew back. But please be aware in the inquest his chances of survival would of doubled if he wore a seatbelt. All this pain over a seatbelt. Is it worth it?
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Do You Know What Dyspraxia Is?
My son Elijah has dyspraxia, he’s 8 and many people I speak with do not know what is is.
So here’s some facts about dyspraxia…
It is thought that 5-10% of the population have dyspraxia. There may be many more people who have dyspraxia, people often find the statistics very surprising as dyspraxia is a lot more common than you might think!
Dyspraxia is more common in males than females.
It is thought that males are four times more likely to be affected by dyspraxia than females. However, there might not be as much difference as statistics suggest. The Dyspraxia Foundation’s theme for this week is “Is it a battle of the sexes?” and looks at the fact that females often go through school, university and even the workplace without knowing.
Dyspraxia is not the same as dyslexia. Despite the fact that: they sound the same, they are both classed as specific learning difficulties, and they have overlaps such as difficulties with short term memory and organisation, they are two different things! There’s been so many times where I’ve told someone my son has dyspraxia and they’ve thought I meant dyslexia!
The signals sent from their brain to their body get muddled.
Most people’s brains will send signals to their body successfully, enabling them to perform tasks that require balance and co-ordination, to speak fluently, to process things at a normal speed. Whereas for those of us with dyspraxia, these signals get muddled – you could even picture them as tangled wires. This can affect us in a variety of ways.
Dyspraxia can affect the following areas: physical, speech and language, social, eye movements, sensory, spatial awareness, memory, organisation, concentration, emotion, sense of direction and thought processing.
As you can tell, dyspraxia affects a variety of things. This means that summarising it is not an easy task and I’ve probably missed something off the list!
Physical – fine motor skills, gross motor skills, balance and co-ordination.
Speech and language – difficulty pronouncing certain words, stuttering, getting words muddled up, difficulty organising the sequence of the sentence, difficulty controlling tone and volume of speech.
Social – difficulty with eye contact, literal thinking, difficulty knowing when to interject in a conversation particularly in large groups, may repeat ourselves, background noise makes social situations more difficult.
Eye movements – tracking, relocating.
Sensory – over/under-sensitive to touch, temperature, noise, smell, taste, pain, light.
Spatial awareness – knowing where they are in relation to other objects/people, difficulty judging amount of pressure to apply to things (I wasn’t sure what other category this would fit into!).
Memory – difficulty with short-term memory, following a long list of instructions can be difficult.
Organisation – made more difficult due to difficulties with memory, organisation doesn’t come naturally to them.
Concentration – daydream very easily, difficult to concentrate for long periods of time, concentration can be made even more difficult by background noise.
Emotion – tendency to get easily stressed and frustrated, difficulty adapting to changes in routines.
Sense of direction – getting lost easily, difficulty telling left and right apart.
Thought processing – thought processes can be slower than for others, tend to have lots of thoughts at once – can make getting to sleep difficult as their brain can’t ‘shut down’ easily.
So if someone tells you they have dyspraxia or their child I hope you have more understanding
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I Wish My Son Was Never Born
Call Reddit user Dislikemythird a “horrible person” — and she’ll agree with you.
According to a recent post on the social media site, Dislikemythird loves her two daughters but does not like her 3-and-a-half-year-old son “at all.”
She explained:
It all starts with the fact that my daughters were very much planned and wanted pregnancies. My son was not. I didn’t realize I was pregnant until 16 weeks when I first felt the baby move.
She continued:
I sobbed my eyes out when I realized I was pregnant because I didn’t want to be pregnant again, hence the birth control, and it was too late for an abortion anywhere in my country. I probably would have had one, to be honest. Both my husband and I were pretty adamant we didn’t want more babies. I hated the baby/toddler stage with my daughters and with them being 3 and 4.5 at the time, it was like having a prison sentence extended right before freedom.
The Reddit user admitted that she was finally starting to really enjoy her two oldest children and finally got on the right path in her career. So when she learned that she was pregnant with her son, it threw everything off track again.
And to make matters worse, her son never slept through the night. He suffered from reflux and colic, and she said it nearly ruined her marriage:
I can honestly say it nearly broke my husband and I’s marriage apart. At one point, we didn’t sleep in the same bed with one another for months, because we had to take shifts sleeping at a friend or sibling’s home with the girls because he screamed that badly they couldn’t sleep. We tried numerous doctors, and nothing helped, we just had to wait for him to grow out of it.
She and her husband resented their son for so much, and she admitted they even wished horrible things on his health and considered adoption at one point. But how could she explain keeping two and giving away one?
She wrote:
I don’t want to be insensitive to anyone who has suffered a loss in this way, but I have to be honest, my husband and I both had a period where if he had of died in his sleep, we would have felt relief. At one point, I googled if we could still put him in the “baby hatches” our country has. He was too old. But again, how would we explain to everyone, including the girls, why we had a baby and then suddenly didn’t. I sobbed. I wished more than anything I realised I was pregnant earlier and could have had the abortion I wanted. I feel like my ability to bond with him was shot to hell by the fact he was just such a difficult baby. I honestly hated him for the first 18 months of his life.
Dislikemythird acknowledged on Reddit just how awful it sounded to say that she “hated” her own son and that while she loves spending time with her daughters and doing things with them, she only does things for her son because she has to:
Now he is three-and-a-half years old and even though he has now outgrown all that, and is pretty chill, I still just don’t like him. I am struggling to bond with him or even like him because I’m having trouble separating him from the memories of my marriage almost falling apart and my career being absolutely destroyed by having him and just the feelings that he was “forced” onto me by a birth control failure. My husband isn’t struggling to the same extent as I am, but has confessed he wishes our son “didn’t happen” because things were “better” before. Things have also been a lot more financially strained, and there he fact that we now have three kids to provide for and not two. Thankfully, we managed to save our marriage, but we both agree that we’d undo our son in a heartbeat if we could.
The Reddit user continued by saying she has visited two therapists since her son’s birth, and all of them simply told her to “fake it till she made it,” but that hasn’t worked in her.
Again, I am well aware I am going “mess him up” and he’ll grow up feeling like the least favorite child and all of that. I feel guilty about it and don’t want to feel this way, which is why I’m here.
Dislikemythird is hoping that by being honest about her feelings toward her son, she can get advice from someone who will make her feel differently about her son. She hates feeling this way and understands that he deserves better from her.
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Stop Nagging Your Husband, I Wish I Had
I always said it would be a cold day in hell before my husband learned how to put away his stuff and clean up after himself.
And sure enough, it’s cold out, and I’m in hell. But he still didn’t learn how to do those things. Seems he’ll never get the chance, either.
We just got back from the funeral.
I’ve cried so much over the past two weeks that my head aches and I’m all out of tears.
I’ve been so caught up in the chaos that followed the accident and the funeral, that I luckily haven’t had all that much time to myself.
But now I’m sitting in an empty bed, looking at a hamper without any clothes lying on the ground next to it, and I’m praying to God that this is all some kind of horrible nightmare that I can wake up from.
But I won’t.
And now I desperately wish I could have my husband and his sloppiness back.
Because now I know what it all means.
You see, he constantly was “losing” his keys because I was always putting them where they belonged. Which I’d inevitably roll my eyes every time I found them on the counter or on the couch or wherever he dropped them.
But now in the silence I realize that he was dropping them where he stood because he was walking in the door from work and running to pick up our two-year-old daughter as she screamed, “Daddy!” at the top of her lungs. Keys get in the way when you’re spinning your little girl above your head, so he had to drop them then and there.
Why was that something that would ever bother me?
I also noticed how there wasn’t a stray dish to be found around the house. This is partially because his family has been over every day since the accident to help take the load off and to keep the kids busy. But now I wish I could find a bowl with milk film at the bottom of it on the coffee table. Cereal was his go-to midnight snack. And whenever he’d get out of bed to comfort one of our kids if they woke up crying or if they were sick through the night, he’d always stop by the kitchen on his way back to bed and fill up on cereal.
And somehow those bowls bugged me before.
And let’s not forget about that damn hamper sitting perfectly in the corner of our room, not a sock or pair of underwear anywhere on the ground next to it.
He either had the worst aim or he was the most forgetful person in the world. But those clothes never quite made it into the hamper. And how quick I was to snap a picture of his dirty clothes next to the hamper and send it to him via text while he was at work with the caption, “notice anything wrong with this picture?”
I could have been sending him a love note or a simple kissy emoticon. But instead I let the minor annoyance of some clothes on the side of the hamper get to me. Now, as I think about getting up, getting the kids fed, and getting myself ready without my wingman there to help herd these cats, I suddenly realize how much help he was. And that maybe he was too busy helping brush our five-year-old’s teeth to notice his smelly socks missed their mark.
I want the mess back. I want the chaos. I want the good, the bad, and everything in between about my husband back. But that’s not going to happen. And I’m left to think about how much I let the minor little things get to me. And I’m left to wish I could have him bug me just one last time.
Credit: @mommyinghard
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When Should You Stop Breastfeeding?
Women come under a lot of scrutiny when it comes to breastfeeding. There are those who are shamed for doing it in public, those who are corrected for doing it wrong, and those who are criticized for not doing it at all. And then there are those who continue to do it even when their child is old enough to talk in full sentences.
Davina Wright, a mother of five who lives in New Zealand, wrote a blog post for The Milk Meg about continuing to breastfeed her triplets who are now five years old.
“I have often heard, ‘oh you’re just doing it for you now, it’s not about the children,’ but in all honesty I would be happy if they weaned now,” she wrote. “I am big on letting the child decide when they are ready to wean.”
Her post raises the question about whether there should be a cut-off age for breastfeeding children.
“It’s a controversial topic in North America and Europe, for sure,” says Stefanie Carrabin, a certified lactation consultant and breastfeeding expert. “But the immunobiology benefits are huge. Anything the mother is exposed to will be processed in her body, which will then build antibodies that will be passed on through the breast milk. It’s like an ongoing vaccination.”
Health Canada recommends exclusive breastfeeding of infants up to six months old, and extends its recommendation to two years and beyond with appropriate complementary nutrition.
“People always ignore the ‘two years and beyond‘ recommendation,” Carrabin says. “It’s basically saying there are no limits.”
Breastfeeding advocates also question what we consider to be generally accepted norms when it comes to nutrition.
“Most people in our society recognize that young children drinking milk is a good idea, but there’s a bizarre shift in thinking human milk is harmful and bovine milk is better,” says Genia Stephen, a midwife and lactation consultant. “Cow’s milk is not optimally designed for humans, whereas human milk is. The immune and growth factors in breast milk change intrinsically as the child ages. Breast milk produced for a four-month-old is different than breast milk produced for a four-year-old.”
There’s a common misconception that toddlers who continue to breastfeed are less independent and “clingy.” But professionals, medical and holistic alike, are quick to quash that perception.
“The child who breastfeeds until he weans himself — usually from two to four years — is usually more independent, and more secure in his independence,” writes Dr. Jack Newman, a pediatrician and executive director of the International Breastfeeding Centre. “He has received comfort and security from the breast until he is ready to make the step himself to stop. And when a child makes that step himself, it is a milestone in his life of which he is proud.”
“Of course, breastfeeding can, in some situations, be used to foster an over-dependent relationship. But so can food or toilet training. The problem is not the breastfeeding. This is another issue.”
Experts say that it all boils down to personal preference. And it’s a decision that women and their children should be able to make without judgement or criticism.
“The looks and comments that mothers who are breastfeeding their toddler children in public receive are demeaning,” says Carrabin. “That’s not about the mother, it’s about other people and their reactions.”
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Every Parents Morning Struggle
Ahh mornings. 🎉
To be honest I’ve always been an early to rise sort of person so getting up early isn’t a problem.
However, how I used to wake up is much much different to the current way I’m ripped from the depths of slumber and dragged into the morning light, barely clothed and afraid.
See, time was I used to wake like most folk; quietly, smoothly transitioning from sleep to woken, gradually adjust to the natural light from the windows and then the harsh interior home lighting.
Good times.
Waking with a child…😬🎉🎉🔥💀
I scarcely stir mere moments before a small version of myself crashes into the room, head first, as if she’s taking point on the biggest crime bust of the century and she’s not going to let the other guys take the credit; the only difference is she’s yelling ‘daddy’ instead of ‘police!’.
Already starting to trip balls as my system shifts the wake up routine into overdrive, Dave in the adrenaline department opens the valve all the way open.
From here, I can barely just start to make out the small shape making all the noise when BLAM! the overhead big lights flash on and my retinas scream as they 100% fail to cope with the binary change from zero light to ALL THE LIGHT! 💀
Just as the pain subsides and I wonder if the small one has accompanied her door kicking with a military-grade flashbang, I then discover what it’s like to be a trampoline, as it proceeds to further proclaim the arrival of morning with a spot of jumping on and around my prone form…
#InsiderTip set your alarm 10 mins before you know the small interrogator is due to arrive prepare you body for the coming assault.
Happy Morning everyone 👌🏻
Credit@ Diaries of a disgruntled dad
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Why Your Child Is Good At School But “Bad” At Home
Your children’s teachers insists they are as lovely as can be during the school day—but that’s not what you’re experiencing when 3 o’clock rolls around. They don’t have split personalities, they’re just experiencing something called “after-school restraint collapse.” And, according to experts, it’s both totally common and totally something we can help our children overcome.“Children experience this in various ways. Some children have a complete meltdown that involves temper tantrums [or] refusal of parent directions while others just withdraw or are quiet for awhile after school,” says Stacy Haynes, CEO and counseling psychologist at Little Hands Family Services.
Haynes explains it’s only natural for kids to release their emotional, mental and physical energy as soon as they leave the gate. After all, they had to show a lot of self-control during the school day.
After-school restraint collapse is extremely common in kids under 12, says Psychotherapist Nancy Brooks , and (thankfully) lessens as children develop more emotional resiliency.
Until then, the symptoms of after-school restraint collapse are likely familiar to parents of young children: “When they come home from school they will regress emotionally,” says Brooks. “They will act younger than their age and whine, cry, throw tantrums, act needy, moody and generally have a meltdown. They will look and behave as if they are exhausted.”
How you can help ease the after-school transition
At the end of the school day, most of us parents are eager to ask all about the day. But that may be the last thing a child needs for a while, says Haynes. “Give children time to get a snack [and] relax their minds,” she explains. “Offer your child a physical activity directly after school, sports, yoga or walking are great releases that help to balance the mind and body.” Homework can also wait and will probably be done better as a result of a brain break.
Parents should be aware of how we act when we get home, as our kids are likely to model our behavior. If we’re irritable as soon as we walk in the house our kids will likely follow suit. (After-work restraint collapse is real, too!)
“I often use my car ride home to decompress from the day and to allow myself to be ‘fresh’ for my family when I walk through the door,” says Haynes, who says meditation and yoga can help parents unwind. You can even do this together with your kids.
As the school year goes on, Brooks says you can expect after-school restraint collapse to ease up a bit—both because of our children’s increasing maturity and their adjustment to the new schedule. She says if it’s still happening two or three months into the school year, parents should seek guidance from a pediatrician or a child therapist.
Until then, have hope: Going back to school is a transition for everyone in the family!
A little tip to help your child; I started bringing a drink and snack for my son so that he couldn’t have till he was buckled in his car Then I’d take his shoes off & play calming music or nothing at all on the way home. For my other kid who could care less about food, I fill a soft sided lunchbox with some of her favorite small toys or books in it & change it up every day. She loves the surprise of it but seeing her familiar things & it’s usually enough of a distraction to let me get her in the car Hope this helped & good luck, mums.