Tag Archives: genetic disorder

Teaching Preschoolers How to Breastfeed

My jaw just about dropped. I was watching my local news in the morning and they featured this new doll called, “The Breast Milk Baby.” Yes, it is exactly what you think it is. It is a doll that breastfeeds. The website for this doll features a video that demonstrates how it works. You see this little girl holding the doll up to her chest. The little girl is wearing this cloth halter (which comes with the baby) that has two big flowers where your, well, the nipples would be. The baby actually makes a suckling noise. So what is … Continue reading →

More Inexpensive Ways to Keep Your Preschooler Busy

Did somebody say cheap? The following activities are designed to keep preschoolers busy long enough for you to make dinner, fold the pile of clean laundry sitting on your bed, or take a shower without having a 4-year-old clinging to your legs. What’s more, they can all be done without having to spend a dime: Indoor “Snowball” Fight: Get a large stack of old newspapers or magazines and divide it up between two kids. Have them wad up the sheets of paper and start throwing. When they get bored of playing “snowball” fight, place two garbage bins in the middle … Continue reading →

Inexpensive Ways to Keep Your Preschooler Busy

You just dropped a bundle on back-to-school supplies for your older kids and now you’re scrounging around for money to purchase another box of diapers for your infant. Where does that leave your preschooler? You can show him how much you love him without spending a dime. Simply set up the following activities and have fun playing together: Beads: String some plastic beads onto a straw in an easy pattern of alternating colors. Glue the first and last beads to the straw so they won’t slip off. Give your child another straw and have him string beads to match your … Continue reading →

Overconfident Mommy Gets Burned

Ouch! Burns hurt. I should know. I was the overconfident mommy, and boy did I get roasted, toasted and charred during a recent conversation with my preschooler. The incident was initiated by a study I had just read. Researchers asked a group of children ages 5 to 10 what they would do if they were in a building that caught on fire. Amazingly, the majority of the kids (nearly 60 percent) said they would remain inside and try to find a grown up or use a phone to contact an adult to help them. Another large group responded that they … Continue reading →

Is Your Green Thumb Harming Your Preschooler?

Mommy, mommy, how does your garden grow? If you are one of the millions of parents around the world, who uses gardening as a means of escaping from the stress associated with raising young human beings, then you might want to brace yourself for some disturbing news: A new study found that children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) had a significantly greater likelihood of exposure to household pesticides compared with a control group. Translation: Parents of preschoolers, who use pesticides on their grass, in their gardens and around the house have a greater chance of developing cancer. According to the … Continue reading →

Driven to Distraction: Behind the Wheel with a Preschooler

How many times have you had to use one hand to break up a fight in the backseat between your squabbling kids while using the other to maneuver your moving vehicle through traffic? You aren’t alone. According to a new study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, such multitasking is a prevalent problem on America’s roadways. In fact, the study is making headlines around the nation because part of its results were not fully disclosed—-namely the stats on kids being a major distraction in moving vehicles (especially if you are breastfeeding one while behind the wheel). Despite the … Continue reading →

Obesity a Problem with Preschoolers, New Study Says

A new study was released that shows that one out of every five four-ear-olds is obese. This information is startling even to the researchers. Furthermore, there was a lot of disparity with obesity and race, even at this early preschool age. Here is what the researchers found. More than half a million four-year-olds are obese Obesity is the most common in American Indian children, who are twice as likely to be obese as are white children. Obesity is also prevalent among four-year-olds who are of Hispanic or black heritage. The study is an important one because obesity in early childhood … Continue reading →

Major Milestone Delayed

She can walk, talk, sing, dance, print words, read (some) books, heck, she can even beat an egg better than most of the guys I dated in college. But, there is one major age appropriate milestone my 4-year-old has yet to achieve: Blowing her nose. It’s true. One of the great givens of life is more than just a challenge for my darling daughter. Not only has she not mastered the art of nose blowing, she routinely turns the process into a major ordeal. A major ordeal… complete with tears that beget more mucus, which begets additional frustration and misery. … Continue reading →

Preschoolers and Monsters

Sometime between the age of three-and-a-half and four-and-a-half, the monsters under the bed (and in the closet, behind the curtain, in the hamper, etc) start to appear. Your preschooler may suddenly be afraid to sleep alone in her own bed and may describe bad dreams or associate noises in the home with monsters. Why is this happening? Well, there are a number of reasons. The preschooler is now at an age where she is growing in a few developmental ways. Her imagination is really taking off. You may witness a lot of imaginative play that involves complete story lines with … Continue reading →

Halloween and Young Children: Trick or Treat?

The school supplies are long gone at area stores; swiftly replaced by Halloween everything. My preschooler, who is absolutely petrified of anything that howls, hoots or hangs crooked, bursts into tears each and every time we get near the Halloween area at Wal-Mart and Target. (I don’t even attempt to visit places like Halloween USA or Halloween Express when my daughter is with me.) This understandable, yet at times inconvenient fact (inconvenient because these days obtaining a tube of toothpaste now requires taking a six aisle detour around the Halloween madness) is not unique in families with young children. Likewise, … Continue reading →