After not being available for a while, we are delighted to say that we now have these lovely, soft, organic cotton terry squares listed on the site again.
They come in packs of 6, in three sizes so you will always get a good fit. Prices start at £13.95 for 6 nappies.
For those who don’t know, Steiner education is a very child centred method of education and has many close links with attachement parenting. You will find that many parents co-sleep, use slings, choose to breastfeed etc.
The school has a lovely parent and toddler group, with a great emphasis on supporting parents as well as providing a wonderful place for babies and toddlers to socialise, a kindergarten and classes for older children.
The school’s website is http://www.exetersteinerschool.com/ where you can see more about us or come along on the open day where you can chat to parents, find out more about Steiner education and have a cup of coffee and a yummy cake.
If you have any questions, do feel free to email me.
New stocks of these bestselling pregnancy bands have arrived, so we have put them back up on the site. We get great feed back about these and lots of new mothers like them too - they are ideal for breastfeeding mothers to wear so that they don’t show off more post baby tummy than they wanted to.
As a parent, there are many gifts that you will give your child – a great education, a healthy lifestyle and all the material things money can buy. But all of these pale in comparison to the gift of self esteem. None of the above mean a lot if a child grows up not feeling “very good about himself,” or not having confidence in his abilities to accomplish much.
The benefits of fostering self esteem and confidence in kids are virtually limitless. Confident kids tend to be more creative than shy kids who may have lowered self esteem levels. Children who are raised (unintentionally) to think poorly about themselves are the most at risk for poor performances in school, and later college.
None of this however, means that empty praise is the route to self esteem. In fact, we’ve seen a backlash against too much praise – a generation of kids raised to believe they were great just for picking up a glass, and placing it back on the table.
Inane praise doesn’t help your child. On the contrary, kids grow up with an inflated sense of self worth and worse, they fail to challenge themselves. When your doting parents are telling you everything you do is great, and not a word about how you could improve on your skills, it only prepares for a grand fall when you go out into the real world, and find people aren’t as impressed with you as your folks were.
Effective self esteem building in preschoolers has to focus on enthusiasm and energy for a task or activity, and not just the result. Praise the efforts that your child makes whether in a drawing or at school or a chore he completes around the house, but also remember to add a challenge at the end of it – “That was a great sea you drew, now let’s see how well you can do a house.”
Here are a few quick ways to get your preschooler to feel good about himself.
Enlist His Help
Give him chores to do around the house. For 5 year olds, it could be helping you set the table or washing veggies in the kitchen with you. It gives them a sense of accomplishment that they can be proud of. For younger kids, give them a chance to sort spoons and forks.
Create a Love Map
Make a list of 25 of his favorite things, and then fill them up together. Include everything you can think of – his favorite food, movie, song, cartoon character. You’re developing his sense of identity as an individual with firm likes.
Play the Body Part Game With Him
Sit your child down, and sit opposite him. Point out different parts of his face and body, and tell him what he can do with them.
Point to his eyes and say “You have eyes that see everything.” (Ask him to point out five things he can see in the room.)
“You have two ears that hear many things.” (Use objects to create a sound or imitate noises yourself.
“You have a nose to smell any thing.” (sniff in the air)
“You have a mouth that can taste many things.” (Give him a sweet to put in his mouth and ask him what it tastes like.)
End with an affirmation of his abilities – “You can do so much with yourself.”
Play the Dinner Game
Create a story around your child and his favorite foods. It could go like this:
(Child’s name) woke up early in the morning today. He brushed his teeth, put on his clothes and had (ask him to say what he had for breakfast here) for breakfast.He played with his toys, and then when it was time for lunch he ate (ask him to add whatever he had to eat for lunch).
Again, you’re developing a sense of self importance. He’s the star of the story!
Plus, you’re encouraging his language skills.More games like this, and he’ll find it easier to add things and activities that he’s completed during the day to the story. Encourage him to add as many activities as he wants to the story.
Compare Baby Pictures
Sit down with your child, and look through his baby pictures. Compare his facial features, hands and feet now with how they are in the pictures. Tell him how he’s grown, and list out all the things he can do now with his body that he couldn’t do when he was a baby. Again, you’re building a feeling of importance and pride.
Originally from - http://preschoolmama.com/index.php/2008/01/12/five-2-minute-tips-to-raise-a-confident-child/
Bio dynamics is a holistic approach to life, including skin care. It is based upon the belief that that people can only truly be well if they cherish the emotional and spiritual sides of their nature, as well as the physical.
It goes beyond the organic movement in that bio dynamic prodcuts contain natural ingredients, grown and produced to the higest standards, without the use of chemicals, pesticides etc.
The bio dynamic movement is based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, who believed that all elements of farming, such as livestock, soil, the moon and even stars, sustain each other.
By nurturing the soil, rather than feeding chemicals to the plants, bio dynamic farming produces crops with superior qualities and results in skin care products that are full of active and potent ingredients, ready to nourish delicate and sensitive skin.
Weleda use only raw materials from the natural world – for example, precious plant ingredients grown organically, or better still biodynamically, at their own farms.
Their award-winning Baby Care range includes 2 of our best-selling products, the Calendula Nappy Change Cream (£5.25) and Tooth Gel (£2.50), both products that we have used extensively in our own family.
The Nappy Change Cream is a deep-nourishing and protective barrier cream to help prevent redness and reduce soreness and also be applied to sore skin to promote healing.
The Tooth Gel’s bright and sunny yellow much loved by children is derived from calendula flowers, not artificial colourings. It contains non-abrasive silica especially for milk teeth and is the only toothpaste our daughter will use.
The whole Weleda Baby Care range is suitable for vegetarians as no product has been tested on animals and many products are suitable for Vegans.
You can see our full range of Weleda Baby Care on our site.
Congratulations on the birth of your new baby. This is a glorious time in your life – and a sleepless time too. Newborns have very different sleep needs than older babies. This article will help you understand your baby’s developing sleep patterns, and will help you have reasonable expectations for sleep.
Absolutely everyone has an opinion about how you should handle sleep issues with your new baby. The danger to a new parent is that these tidbits of misguided advice (no matter how well-intentioned) can truly have a negative effect on our parenting skills and, by extension, our babies’ development…if we are not aware of the facts. The more knowledge you have the less likely that other people will make you doubt your parenting decisions.
When you have your facts straight, and when you have a parenting plan, you will be able to respond with confidence to those who are well-meaning but offering contrary or incorrect advice. So, your first step is to get smart! Know what you are doing, and know why you are doing it. Read books and magazines, attend classes or support groups – it all helps.
The Biology of Newborn Sleep
During the early months of your baby’s life, he sleeps when he is tired, it’s that simple. You can do little to force a new baby to sleep when he doesn’t want to sleep, and conversely, you can do little to wake him up when he is sleeping soundly.
Newborn babies have very tiny tummies. They grow rapidly, their diet is liquid, and it digests quickly. Although it would be nice to lay your little bundle down at bedtime and not hear from him until morning, this is not a realistic goal for a tiny baby. Newborns need to be fed every two to four hours — and sometimes more.
Sleeping “through the night”
You may believe that babies should start “sleeping through the night” soon after birth. For a new baby, a five-hour stretch is a full night. Many (but not all) babies can sleep uninterrupted from midnight to 5 a.m. (Not that they always do.) This may be a far cry from what you may have thought “sleeping through the night” meant!
What’s more, some sleep-through-the-nighters will suddenly begin waking more frequently, and it’s often a full year or even two until your baby will settle into an all-night, every night sleep pattern.
Falling Asleep at the Breast or Bottle
It is natural for a newborn to fall asleep while sucking at the breast, a bottle, or a pacifier. When a baby always falls asleep this way, he learns to associate sucking with falling asleep; over time, he cannot fall asleep any other way. This is probably the most natural, pleasant sleep association a baby can have. However, a large percentage of parents who are struggling with older babies who cannot fall asleep or stay asleep are fighting this powerful association.
Therefore, if you want your baby to be able to fall asleep without your help, it is essential that you sometimes let your newborn baby suck until he is sleepy, but not totally asleep. When you can, remove the breast, bottle, or pacifier from his mouth, and let him finish falling asleep without it. If you do this often enough, he will learn how to fall asleep without sucking.
Waking for Night Feedings
Many pediatricians recommend that parents shouldn’t let a newborn sleep longer than four hours without feeding, and the majority of babies wake far more frequently than that. No matter what, your baby will wake up during the night. The key is to learn when you should pick her up for a feeding and when you can let her go back to sleep on her own.
Here’s a tip that is important for you to know. Babies make many sleeping sounds, from grunts to whimpers to outright cries, and these noises don’t always signal awakening. These are what I call sleeping noises, and your baby is asleep during these episodes.
Learn to differentiate between sleeping sounds and awake sounds. If she is awake and hungry, you’ll want to feed her as quickly as possible so she’ll go back to sleep easily. But if she’s asleep – let her sleep!
Help Your Baby Distinguish Day from Night
A newborn sleeps sixteen to eighteen hours per day, and this sleep is distributed evenly over six to seven sleep periods. You can help your baby distinguish between night sleep and day sleep, and thus help him sleep longer periods at night.
Have your baby take his daytime naps in a lit room where he can hear the noises of the day. Make nighttime sleep dark and quiet, except for white noise (a background hum). You can also help your baby differentiate day from night by using a nightly bath and a change into pajamas to signal the difference between the two.
Watch for Signs of Tiredness
Get familiar with your baby’s sleepy signals and put her down to sleep as soon as she seems tired. A baby who is encouraged to stay awake when her body is craving sleep is an unhappy baby. Over time, this pattern develops into sleep deprivation, which complicates developing sleep maturity. Learn to read your baby’s sleepy signs — such as quieting down, losing interest in people and toys, and fussing — and put her to bed when that window of opportunity presents itself.
Make Yourself Comfortable
It’s a fact that your baby will be waking you up, so you may as well make yourself as comfortable as possible. Relax about night wakings right now. Being frustrated about having to get up won’t change a thing. The situation will improve day by day; and before you know it, your newborn won’t be so little anymore — she’ll be walking and talking and getting into everything in sight…during the day, and sleeping peacefully all night long.
Excerpted with permission by McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Publishing from The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night by Elizabeth Pantley, copyright 2002 http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth
Your little one is on the way, or already born and you would like to regain the use of your two hands! So you’ve have decided to buy a sling to carry your baby. The question is what type of sling will you choose? What are the differences? How do you find the one that’s right for you?
Wraps are probably the most versatile of all the slings. They are also called “Simple Piece of Cloth” as they are basically a piece of fabric, tied around your body ensuring that your baby is held securely in place. A wrap can be used to carry the baby in many different positions: on the parent’s front, back or hip. Most carries involve the sling being worn over both shoulders and often around the wearers waist in order to offer maximum support to the baby.
The baby’s weight is well distributed which ensures maximum comfort for the parent. They are an excellent choice if you suffer from back pain. It may take time to learn how to tie the sling correctly but the effort will be worthwhile. Excess fabric may be used for more discreet breastfeeding.
This sling consists of a piece of fabric threaded through two rings, forming a loop. The fabric wraps around the wearer’s body, from shoulder to the opposite hip and back up to the shoulder. The end of the fabric is then threaded through the rings to create a buckle effect. The baby can then be placed into the pocket of fabric in either a sitting or lying position. The sling can be taken off and put back into place without rethreading.
The baby’s weight locks the carrier in place. This type of sling is easily adjustable to suit different wearer’s size and different wearing positions.
It is easy to breastfeed on the go in a ring sling. It is are adjustable to allow easy access to the nursing mother’s breast. It can also be quickly adjusted once feeding is done.
A pouch is formed by a wide piece of cloth sewn into a tubular shape, with a curve sewn into the fabric that will hold the baby more securely in place. The sling is slipped over the wearer’s head and worn sash-style across the body. Most baby wearers find that they adapt to using the pouch sling very quickly.
Pouch slings are an excellent choice for situations in which the baby is frequently removed from the pouch and being placed back into it. The asymmetrical weight distribution can make carrying heavier children more challenging. Pouch slings offer good value for money and are relatively easy to make.
Many different types of sling fall into the soft carriers and backpack category.
Mei tai are inspired from the Chinese tradition of baby carriers, a simple rectangle with a strap on each corner. Two are tied around the waist and the top two act as shoulder straps. Many soft structured carrier are inspired by this principal. Some of these carriers are suitable from birth and there are models that are ideal for carrying older children. Some carriers are closed with buckles, as a hip carrier or front/backpack style. They are usually quick to put on and can be a good option for heavy toddlers.
There are many types of sling available but you also have to consider which option will best suit you and your family: how you wish to wear the sling, whether you intend to keep the baby in the sling or keep removing from the sling, if you wish to breastfeed discreetly when you’re out and about and also how willing you are to practice using your sling until you get it right. Once you have chosen the right sling and had a chance to get used to it, you and your child many hours of very happy baby wearing!
If you’re not sure which one is best for you, just give us a call and we’ll be happy to help you: 0845 890 1665
Copyright Anne Dhir, Calin Bleu Ltd
Here are some answers to questions I get asked by pregnant friends on a regular basis - they are based on my experiences though, and may be glaringly obvious to some people, but they were not to me! Please feel free to add to this list of useful tips in the comments section.
Clothes
Come in sizes according to weight and don’t last very long at all in the beginning. You will need a slightly larger size if you use real nappies. Some babygros have integral gloves that fold back - very useful for babies that want to scratch their faces off. Things that fasten at the front are easier than things that go over heads. All socks are sacrificial; they don’t stay on feet for long so I prefer things with feet for colder weather.
Nappies
Cloth nappies rock and I like the smell of the Weleda nappy cream which is brilliant stuff. It is a good idea to research nappies, and there are some helpful tips on this blog.
www.naturalnurseryblog.co.uk/how-easy-are-cloth-nappies-to-use
www.naturalnurseryblog.co.uk/why-use-cloth-nappies
Toys
My child at 3 month liked noisy things, mirrors and things he could hold with his tiny fingers. Brightly coloured board books are good too. If you buy anything musical remember that you will have to listen to it too.
Feeding
I used a pump to express milk and I pumped in the morning while feeding after the small had triggered off the let down reflex. Thinking milky thoughts of waterfalls made the milk come out faster! My son never took to a bottle but he would use a sippy cup. Pumping was just in case of emergencies. I boiled cups and the pump to sterilise them, it’s not a hassle and I don’t think the sterilising equipment is really necessary, though it may make life a bit easier. I have read that the sterilising solution can increase the risk of thrush.
Sleeping
I had a Moses basket for small but didn’t like it ‘cos I had to peer in to check his breathing. I bought a cot because it seemed to be the thing to do but in the end decided that I am a fan of co-sleeping. There are guidelines for safe co-sleeping that are well worth looking at. Grobags are brilliant and my small sleept much longer when I got one.
Bathing
I think a bath thermometer is vital, what’s warm to me is boiling for the small. We shared the bath and he loved it. You also need a soft sponge and ducks!
I hope some of these hints are useful, I found it daunting and confusing trying to work out what I needed and what was clutter and I hope my tips can help you.
One of the most common worries for a breastfeeding mum is her milk supply. Here are some reassuring words and helpful tips to help you carry on breastfeeding through a growth spurt.
First of all - DON’T PANIC! One of the things that can slow down milk is stress, so try to relax as much as possible - easy to say I know but it is important.
If your baby is nursing more than usual and you are worried that they are not getting enough milk they might be going through a growth spurt. This generally happens between 4-6 weeks and again between 4-6 months. When my son was at this stage I felt like I never stopped breastfeeding and it was exhausting, but it was worth it. As long as your baby is getting bigger and producing wet nappies you should have no need to worry. What the baby is doing is changing the calorific value of your milk to suit them better as they go through different growing stages, once through the growth spurt they tend to feed less often and sometimes have been known to sleep longer, though I think that is a myth, my son still thinks sleep is for the weak! If you formula feed through a growth spurt you will be telling your body to produce less milk and your body will not be triggered to change the nutritional value of your own milk to suit your baby.
Drink gallons of water - It helped me to have a small bottle of water everywhere I was likely to breastfeed, because as soon as I settled down I would become incredibly thirsty.
Change your position - It is very easy to settle into one breastfeeding hold but you will probably feel more comfortable in the long run if you change your position occasionally so that you drain all your milk ducts.
Forget the ironing - This time with your baby will not last forever, revel in your super power to give them the best start in life and let the housework slide. You are burning off about 500 calories a day by breastfeeding so you need rest, and possibly chocolate!
Support your system - Oats are supposed to be very good for helping you produce milk - they are also a good supply of iron and there is something very comforting about a bowl of porridge. Welcome World Breastfeeding Support Tea is made by a specialist birth and herbal healing company. The tea comes in a packet that has enough for 40 servings and there is a a free advice line to call if you have any concerns.
If you are still worried about your milk supply there are lots of free breastfeeding helplines who can give telephone advice or tell you about the nearest breastfeeding support group.
Summer holidays are nearly here and to celebrate we are offering huge discounts off this season’s must have organic cotton range from Frugi. Massive discounts are also to be had on Lion in the Sun UV protective clothing plus Tots Bots nappies.
