Cláudia Morgado, Author at Aurora

Adapting to nursery, kindergarten or to daycare

Each child has different needs in terms of adapting to new realities/routines.

Entrance to the nursery/garden /kindergarten is always a source of concern for parents.

kindergarden — Photo by BBC Creative on Unsplash

A good option is to plan a few days of adaptation where you stay with him there. Evaluate, for yourself, if he is integrating and help him do it: helping to find toys, showing all the rooms, establishing trusting relationships with caregivers, introducing other children …

Another important aspect is our example: our children react instinctively like ourselves, that is, if we are anxious, they will show signs of anxiety, if we are suspicious of the people who will be their main caregivers, they will not trust those people, etc.

So I recommend that you take a deep breath, trust that it will go well, leave your watch at home on those days (go without schedules to leave or return), focus on your child and help him discover everything! He will give you all the signals you need to assess how you need to plan ahead!

As soon as you see that he is integrated, establish a goodbye routine (kiss and hug, for example) and leave. This may not happen on the first day or the second, but it must happen sometime. Mark at the calendar the deadline, the last day, for him and for you.

Never try to start thinking about leaving if you are not sure that it is the best decision and that you are going to leave (and leave him there). When you start the goodbye routine it should be a point of no return from which you should not hesitate or go back.

When you leave (alone), if your heart gets tight, it’s normal! If you want to cry, cry, throw it all away! Life is made up of stages and this is just one more. Above all, it is very important that you make sure that, deep down, you know that you are doing the best for your child! So prepare yourself and make your own adaptation to the new reality, but without interfering with his (and preferably without him realizing).

Good luck!

Signs that the child is ready to stop using diapers

Shows curiosity about using the toilet.
She/He wants to go with parents (or caregivers) to the bathroom.
Begins to mention when she/he has a dirty diaper.
Stop what she/he are doing when are “filling” the diaper.
It has the autonomy to fulfill a simple order (ex: Stay seated).
…
Does anyone remember any more?

Tantrums

There is no way to avoid them, but we can always work around them. In those days when everything seems to be a cause for tantrums, try to constantly change the subject.

roxinasz @ sxc.hu — *Photo by* Arwan Sutanto on Unsplash

Example:
-I do not want to dress up
-Do you want to eat toast for breakfast?”
-I do not like the sweater
-Do you know that we’ll go to the beach tomorrow?
-I want to take the car lane to the nursery school.
-Can you help Mommy to carry this heavy briefcase?

It seems tiresome (and it is) but it is better than put up with an endless tantrum in the morning.
For some reason, the English nicknamed them “the terrible 2” …

When is water introduced into babies’ feeding?

As soon as you introduce foods other than milk. If the baby is being breastfed, ensure that the mother stays well hydrated, especially during the hottest days of the year. Up to 6 months, exclusively breastfed babies do not need anything else, not even water.

Ã¡gua — *Photo by* Jana Sabeth on Unsplash

If the baby is being fed with industrialized milk, ensure that the preparation of the baby is strictly followed by the indication of the amount of water and powder written in the package (do not forget that the measuring spoons must be shallow). You must ensure that you use good quality water and that it is not contaminated.

I suggest it be bottled water, preferably low mineralized (ideal for milk preparation) and balanced with pH 7. In order to avoid problems, the ideal is to vary in the brands, within those that present neutral pH (7), since its constitution in minerals is very varied. I suggest using small bottles to avoid possible contamination over time.

Signs that the child is ready for introducing solids

Can sit upright.
Lost the extrusion reflex (throw away everything that gets into your mouth).
Reached twice the birth weight and 6 months of age.
Shows curiosity about everything that comes into the mother’s mouth (or the main reference person).
Starts salivating when you see food (solid).
…
Any other suggestions?

Bye-bye binky!

Letting go the pacifier doesn’t have to be a drama. The trick is the previous preparation.

1 °. Set the last day. (It should be 2 or 3 months (minimum) for preparation)

2 °. Define the process. (Eg: Give to Santa, Go hang in the garden tree for the storks to take, etc.)

3 °. Start detachment:
a) reduce the amount of time that the child has the pacifier and encourage her/him to withdraw it from her/him mouth;
b) begin to show the difference between babies and grown-ups;
c) gradually limit free access to the pacifier that should be reserved for tantrums and sleep time;
d) from times to times simulate the loss of the pacifier (not finding it at bedtime, for example)

The child should be encouraged to either give or deliver the pacifiers (all of them) on the last defined day. During the whole process, it is important to evaluate the child’s reactions and to praise all the active attitudes that the child demonstrates (ex: “Great, you took off the pacifier), but avoid highlighting the passive ones (ex: do NOT say “Great, you spent all day without your binky”). It’s important that all caregivers are aligned in the way they act.

Are accidental all accidents?

For a child, the adult world is full of “dangers” and its innate curiosity, as well as the lack of notion of consequence, causes many “accidents” with children. This leads me to the definition of an accident: an unexpected and inevitable event that causes physical, emotional, or material harm.
That said, are all the “accidents” with children, real accidents?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — *Photo by* Mike Arney on Unsplash

The child who gets caught on a closing house door … is it an accident? The adult who shares the home with the child could not have that door protected or it lacked supervision?
Do not think that I am an apologist for children to live in bubbles and without any danger around, but if it is true that the child should be taught to protect himself when he is close to a possible danger, it is even more certain that it is up to the adult, to protect and avoid possible “accidents”. We should be always aware of all possible dangers to the eyes and the natural course of a child’s daily life, we must avoid the greatest or more easily accessible dangers to children and teach them to live together and protect themselves from all (including those we avoid, either by protection or by elimination). That is, we must always and first of all identify with the danger to the child and how to avoid it, then protect it, eliminate it or supervise the first contacts.

For example, I have a small glass top table in the living room (near the sofas). Even when my little ones did not talk (but they already crawled) when I began to show them the danger of the glass and how they should do before they got up (when they were crawling around the table). From an early age, they learned to look up first and/or put their hands over their heads before thinking of getting up and even identifying where the glass was. I did not protect or withdraw, but I taught them and supervised them all while they made their first “paths” around the room. I did not avoid all the hits, but there was never anyone more worthy of attention… And with each bump, we restarted the teachings. Without entering into the wrong transfer of responsibilities, like, starting with: “look what you did! Didn’t I tell you that you can’t do that!”.

Never forget that the responsibility lies with the ADULT! What we can/should do is (after calming/caring for the child), is go back to the beginning: “Look here! This is dangerous! You can hurt yourself! You must always do this” … Show him/her how, alert him/her and supervise next times!

Tips for teeth eruption

dentes — *Photo by* Brandless on Unsplash

Lots of “binkies” (pacifiers) in the freezer! (and change it several times for a cold one…)

P.S. Stay away from healers from the drug store. If it’s too complicated ask for some smoothing gel for teething with chamomile and apply it with your very clean finger and let the baby bite you because it helps relieve the discomfort.

P.P.S. When it is the first tooth it doesn’t hurt to let him/her bite you, with the followings it’s better to give them the teethers. It is also time to stop buying silicone pacifiers or bottle teats and start buying rubber ones (they are more resistant to sharp teeth). There are certain types of silicone that are already resistant to the bite, do not break so easily and are more elastic. If you can pull by the bottle teat/pacifier and stretch it, then this silicone is resistant to teeth. This should not stop you from paying attention to any signs of wear and tear that may occur in the meantime.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The pacifiers must be thoroughly dried before going to the freezer. If they get ice on it they should not be given directly to the baby.

My baby is hungry! (?)

“My baby cries a lot because he’s hungry.”
“He cries after he nursed because he’s hungry.”
“He wakes up every 2 hours because he’s hungry.”
“When I give him a supplement, he sleeps rested because he was VERY hungry!”

ShunÃ© Pottier @ sxc.hu — *Photo by* Sergiu Vălenaș on Unsplash

Clarification: All babies cry! Crying is the only form of communication they have at their disposal. If we count the hours that we speak or express ourselves by gestures and facial expressions, perhaps the baby does not even cry as much. The baby cries because he is hungry (right) but also because he is too cold/hot, has a dirty diaper, wants attention/rest, or stimuli or is stressed by excessive stimuli. Summing up: it cries for everything and anything else.

Crying after breastfeeding is very common, especially in the more active babies. Just as we do when we eat in a hurry, we delay to feel satiety, so do babies. Between the stomach being full and the brain receiving this information go a few minutes (even 1/2 hour). Therefore, it is not usually a sign of hunger, but rather a sign of too much avidity in breastfeeding.

Breastmilk is the only food your baby is prepared to digest, so it is natural that in 1h30 it has already digested it all and wanted more. Giving supplementation only makes them sleep more because the digestion effort is so high that it ends up giving drowsiness. Realize that it is not a healthy sleep, it is another compulsory siesta so that the baby can digest the artificial milk. The breastfed baby is able to establish better and faster the sleep routine (it is understood to sleep all night) than a baby fed with artificial milk, which alternates between feeding and sleeping naps, day or night.

The hunger/good feeding of babies is not evaluated by crying but by the number of diapers soiled per day and weight gain (whether 5 g / day or 60 g / day, if increased, it’s growing and feeding well). By the way, babies do not always get fat every week, not even in proportion to what they got from food, but to the level of growth at that time. Growth works by peaks and it’s not an exponential increase.

So NO, your baby is NOT HUNGRY!

Labor and Childbirth

There are good stories, there are bad stories and there are very scary stories… Of course, the passage of time helps to flourish the memory and anyone who tells a story adds something extra and if there is something a mother always likes to tell is her childbirth story (no matter if it’s a good or bad memory).

Until I was a mother for the first time, I always enjoyed listening to those stories but I always kept that doubt of… hum … will this be how they tell it will?

gravida — *Photo by* Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

After being a mother, I began to give another kind of attention to these stories and began to find a common denominator in the worst stories: lack of preparation!

It is not called labor to childbirth by coincidence. Mother and child have to collaborate in the most delicate, sensitive and abrupt work of their lives.

And now tell me: what is the likelihood of a job being well done if the person is not prepared for it? The baby comes pre-programmed and even then it doesn’t always go well … what if the mother doesn’t help? And what if the mother thought that the preparation for childbirth was just uninteresting? And what if at the time when the baby needs to relax, the mother strengthens and compresses it? What if, when the baby needs well-oxygenated blood, the mother is busy screaming? And what if when the baby needs that extra help to get out the mother, she is spending her energy clinging (to something: bed, father’s hand, etc …) with all the strength she has instead of channelling it to the pelvic muscles?

And for those who think that in the second child we already know what we are going to, I have not yet heard two birth stories of exactly the same. Did you?

Preparation is NEVER too much!