Baby oil and tips for massaging.

Massage is very essential for your baby, it is an age old saying that massaging the baby before bedtime will always make the baby sleep better. Using a massage oil for massaging the baby is always better than using creams and lotions, oils are always a better option. Oils are easily absorbed into the skin and a hot water bath after the oil massage is bliss for your baby.

There are many branded baby oils available in the stores today, you can choose the one which suits your baby the most, as baby oils are rich in moisturizer and will make your baby skin become soft and supple.

Oils which are good for your baby depends on your baby's skin and the climatic conditions. In summers coconut oils is well suited as it has cooling properties and will make the baby feel cool and relaxed. During winter you can opt for mustard oil this oil is a warm oil and will add strength to your baby and also make his bones strong. Mustard oil has some great benefits for the baby and massaging your baby with it will do wonders to the baby and his body.

Olive oil and almond oil are also super oils for massaging and can be used throughout the year, both these oils are also good for the baby’s hair and can be used for scalp massage too. 

Before massaging the baby make sure you warm up the oil , a warm oil will absorb faster and also relax the baby, babies are lying down at all times and this can lead to some stress on their backs, a hot oil massage  will relieve them of any discomfort. Make sure the oil is warm and not hot to burn the baby just Luke warm , massage the baby's limbs lightly and softly and in circular movements only do not try pulling or stretching the limbs of your infant.

 After massage wrap the baby in a towel and bathe them in warm water only, during acute winter you can avoid a bath and just sponge clean the baby. Dress the baby comfortably in loose clothing and feed them only after the massage. Please ensure there is an hour’s gap between the last feed and the massage. Within a few minutes you will see your baby fast asleep in a peaceful bliss after a good massage relaxing bath and tummy full feed.

Your baby has a personality of his own

when your baby is born; the first thing you see is who the baby looks like it's every mother's anxiety that the baby adopts the best looks of the family. Looks of the baby can always go on the family members but their personality traits at times are a replica of any one parent along with some of their own personal traits which are in-born in them and can be completely different from their either parents.

Their in- born personality is always the more dominant to decide their base nature, their reasons to cry show anger even laugh all this has a lot to do with their personal traits. The babies’ emotional and physical growth and development too are ruled by the babies’ personal habits, some babies who have laziness as an in-born habit will be lazy always, they will crawl less and walk late. Babies who are born moody will always be moody, their laughter their behavior will fluctuate as per their mood swings.

I know it sounds frustrating as here you wished you could change a few things in your partner’s personality now you have a baby who has a set of his own behavioral mood swings. May be you can't do much to change the annoying habits of your partner but you can do some changes in your babies in-born traits. For example if you have a cranky baby who has a tendency to cry for everything, from the very beginning you can bring in a change .One by not giving into lame crying as most babies just cry for attention and when they realize it is not working they start behaving themselves, same way if you have a baby with temper issues you can control it by trying to divert the babies attention to something more interesting and giving the baby loads of your special pampering and patience.

But make sure you do not fall for the baby's unnecessary tantrums that will give a boost to their tantrum throwing and increase your stress even more; being a little strict will only do good in the long run.

There are various techniques to check the babies behavioral levels like -

Physical Activity Level- Once your baby is 5 months plus you can judge their activity level by their day to day regime. If your baby is a soft and calm baby you will notice them being happy in their bouncy chair happily playing with their one toy, their bath and diaper change schedules are also easy. But a hyper baby will make his bath and diaper change time a hard task for you, neither will they be content sitting in one place in such cases your baby is a hyper child and you need to help channelize their energies into more physical activities.

Daily Schedule- If your baby is a clock work baby then you definitely are a lucky mother, as that's the way they will be always. Their food time, potty time, bath time, play time and sleep time will be fixed and you have nothing to work on. But if your baby has no fixed time schedule then you need to forcefully exercise it but gradually. Make sure you take an extra effort and feed the baby on the fixed time only and also try and fix a common place for feeding the baby, changing the location to feed the baby often is not right. They should be taught from the beginning that food has to be eaten at one fixed place only. Make sure you are strict with their sleep time, babies at times tend to over stretch themselves you need to set a sleep deadline for them and keep it fixed for as long as possible. Even when they are bigger insist on their bed time schedule and no leniency in that should be given.

Social Level- Some babies are born socialites they will beam at every one who greets them or smile at all, some will go further and smile even to strangers to catch their attention. With such social children there is really nothing you can do but do keep an eye as every stranger may not be a good person. Whereas some kids are born shy and they will even not take an effort to be social with their extended family, there is no reason to worry about all you need to do is work towards making them more social and shed their inhibitions. Kids are just like we soft clay you can mold them as and how you want to, but make sure when you are molding them you do not overdo it and crush their personal personality under your desires, give them an open path to dwell and develop as they want to. Correct them when they are wrong, applaud them when they are right and love them for everything as every child is special in his or her own way.

HOW DO NEWBORNS GROW?

Infants or newborn’s we call the babies who have just been delivered. The first few weeks after their birth we will see the babies only sleeping. An infant will sleep up to 16 –18 hours a day, getting up only for a feed or a diaper change. Many a times a mother has to literally nudge the baby to feed him. It’s an old saying many of us may also have heard it from our granny’s, do not disturb the baby while sleeping as the baby is growing. The more the baby will sleep the stronger they will be.

It is definitely not a myth, it’s a fact newborns while sleeping are growing in every way their physical body, their motor skills, their psychological and communal skills, their mental cognition, each and every aspect of their body is grasping from their environment and helping them grow.

Physical Growth –

Every day in the 1^st month you can see a change in your baby. Especially the 1^st and 2^nd week there is a rapid weight gain in the baby. Most babies are said to gain around 4 oz to 8 oz per week and about 1-1.5 inches in height in a month.

Therefore the first year of the baby is known as the swift growth period. By the time the baby is 6 months old their body weight will be twofold their birth weight, and the baby will be threefold grown by the time they turn a year old.

Not only does their body weight increase but there is a significant growth in their height and body size. Their head their chest their hands and feet all of it will be bigger and stronger. Newborns have a soft skull at birth by the 3^rd-4^th moth that too gets filled up and gets hard.

Their necks are more stable and they can hold their heads without your support.

The development of the baby also depends a lot on the mother’s health and the house environment. A happy and healthy mother will generate the same genes to the baby and a happy home will always enhance the baby’s growth. Especially mother who are breast feeding their babies please eat well nutritious food and try to stay as calm as happy as you can as your emotions will reflect a lot on your baby’s growth.

Motor Skills

Motor skills development is mostly the same in all infants. The beginning 0-3 months will only see small activities like head lifting, some kicking and hand movements. The major development of the motor skills can be seen in the 2^nd term of 3-6 months and onwards. From the 2^nd term there will be a rapid development of motor skills, it’s a great time watching your kid becoming more and more active by the day.

Psychological and Communal skills

Newborns will not showcase an immediate growth in their communal skills. The beginning trimester the only communication is high pitched crying and occasional smiles and gurgles. Newborns are said to gurgle a lot in their sleep especially after a good feed.

Smiling is a prize reserved mainly for the mother, during the awake hours playing and singing to your baby helps their psychologically growth. Development in their communal and social skills is more after the 6^th month, when their sense of recognition has grown and they start responding using their emotions.

Mental Cognition Skill-

In the early stage the babies cognition skill are quiet defined, they cry when they are hungry or uncomfortable, they smile when everything is going as per their comfort.

Their mental abilities are in the growing process and they become significant only in the later months. An infant will showcase her cognitive skills only to the mother. Their occasional smiles when held in their mother embrace or their high pitched crying suddenly stopping as soon as they are in their mothers arm .Their sense of belonging towards their mother or attachment towards their parent is the very clear in the 1^st term. After the 6^th month and onwards you will see a considerable growth in their cognitive skills.

The earlier months after your baby is born can be termed as 1^st time months. Everything is so new, their 1^st cry to their 1^st feed their 1^st gurgle their 1^st smile their 1^st yawn etc.

Every day you will see some new growth in them. These moths are much cherished periods and their memories last with you for a lifetime. Making a baby book and keeping a record of their 1^st skill is a great way to save the memory for a life time.

A beautiful phase of your life has begun dear mom enjoy every moment of it for you truly deserve it!!

Safety tattoos for parent's mental peace

At every stage the mother has to face different sets of problems, when the baby is an infant it is a task carrying the baby around on a sling or a stroller carry their baby food their milk bottles or look for places to feed the baby at that time you wish your baby grows up fast so you are free from carrying the whole house along.

Once the baby is a little older say 8 to 9 months they are crawling and you wish they start walking so you get free of the stroller as well as carrying the baby on your shoulder.
Once the baby starts walking or running you have to encounter different kind of stress now you are worried of how to control your toddler from running away, and are constantly scared you may loose your baby in the mall or parks or amusement parks even on the roads, this I know scares the day lights out of every mother . Every mother who has a toddler will agree with me when i say you wish you could just put a leash around your baby so they don't run away. Nearly every single day you hear how babies have gone missing from amusement parks or malls in such cases you need some kind of a assurance to get your baby back safely.

To give mothers some mental peace Baltimore came up with a brilliant idea called Safety Tats. These are fancy stickers that can be used as name tags, Safety Tats come with a pen to write on them too. All you need to do is stick it on your babies arm and write down your name, babies name and your contact detail on it, just in case you loose your baby and some one finds your kid they can contact you easily.

This is a super way to remain stress free when you are shopping or at a birthday party or at an airport or a park. These Safety Tattoos are allergy free as they are made from medically permitted hypo allergic latex free gum . They are also water proof so it won't come off in water or due to sweat. The adhesive being latex free makes it easily removable by adults once you and your baby are safely home.

Just the thought of losing your baby is enough for any mother to go completely berserk and every mother will do all that is possible to keep the baby safe and secured .These Id tattoos for children are super ways to get your child back; it's a tattoo sticker that will bring your child back to you safely. Every mother who has a toddler waste no time and immediately buy them I am a mother I know how important these Id tattoos can prove to be.

Calculating the babies height

As we are always paranoid about our babies physical and mental growth, we often tend to ponder over whether the baby will be as tall as her dad or short like her mom or vice versa.

It is understandable every mother is always worried about the overall growth of the baby, so a periodic check with the babies’ pediac is essential as they will check the weight as well as check the height and the motor skills of the baby.

And if they are satisfied then you have nothing to worry about. But incase if the baby is losing out of some nutrition you can start working on it, today we have drug stores full of some amazing tonics, multi-vitamins, calcium drinks to add to the babies’ nutrition, you can check whichever is best for your baby and start with it. To a major extent the babies physical growth as a lot to do with the babies genes, if the mother is obese then the baby has chances of getting obese same way if the mother is under nourished the baby will also lack nutrition. That is mainly why I keep repeating and repeating to make sure you have a well-balanced and high in nutrition diet all through your pregnancy as the baby gets all their nutrition from you.

Height Prediction is a good guess to judge the babies height but it may only be 95% correct. As to some extent you and your partner’s height will also determine the baby's height. But this attributes only 60% of the decision the rest 40% depends on the babies’ food intake and activity level. If the baby has low nutrition then he is bound to remain short and if he lacks exercise then too he will not develop his 100% height.

Height calculator will not give the right prediction in some cases such as, if the baby suffers from hormone deficiency or he is exceptionally tall again for some medical reason.

To a great extent the babies height does go on his or her parents but make sure your baby is being well fed and also has loads of physical activity in their daily regime, this will make sure they have a good overall body development and a perfect height and weight ratio.

Reasons of delayed speech

Reasons of delayed speech-

Some kids are just slow paced and take time to start talking and in this case there is no reason to get hyper. In some children psychology also plays a pivotal role and in such cases it is important for the mother to help the child. You can also seek help of a child counselor.

Chronic ear infection at times also delays the child speech development and you can find out about it by taking the child fora checkup to the pediatrician. Simple medicines and drops will take care of it.

Home environment can also lead to delayed speech, so don’t lose hopes keep trying to create a happy ambiance.

The new research is also trying to co-relate how mercury exposure can also cause delayed brain development, but we still have to see the results of this research.

There are ways to handle late speech development. You can ask your pediatrician to guide you to a good speech therapist you can also get your baby's test and checkup done by a speech pathologist and know whether it's a medical reason or an emotional reason for delayed talking. Mother's whose babies have a speech difficulty need to be more patient and more involved in the babies day to day emotional needs you need to speak to them, sing to them and read to them and sooner your baby will also react. Have faith!!

DELAYED SPEECH DEVELOPMENT HAPPENS AND CAN BE HANDLED

Every mother awaits her child's first spoken words. It's like their dream to be addressed as mama come true. The first word the child usually speaks is mama or dada or papa easy to say and that's majorly what we want to hear them say too. Simple words of maa, paa or dada make that one simple moment into a special and memorable moment.

Children usually say their first words by their 1st birthday and by their 2nd birthday they should be saying at least 2 or 3 word sentences. However, some kids say it much earlier in comparison to many and a few speak much later in comparison to all.

I know, it can create a huge panic when we realize our kid hasn't spoken yet and our friend's kid or other kids of the same age are already on their way to pronounce more words.I know it is scary, but there is no reason to panic. Speech development in some cases is known to get delayed as children develop their speech as and when then want to and you cannot force them to speak. It is generally noted that girls in comparison will always speak faster and way sooner than boys. Your child comes into the late speech development category that too only if he has not spoken even a word and he is 20 odd months old as by this time. We expect babies to learn atleast 10 to 15 generally used words.

Usually, a child should be saying atleast 2 to 3 words sentences by their 2nd birthday and by their 3rd birthday simple words and sentence understanding should have been developed. By the age of 4 your baby should be able to understand all instructions and pronounce her words correctly, and by 5 your baby should be a non-stop chatter box. Though this may be the case of many children, but in some cases this may not be the case for all children. Some children start their speech as late as 2 or 3 years old.

Read Reasons of delayed speech in next blog post.......