When you first have a newborn baby, you are very protective of it. You are always afraid of something happening to it. Well when you are at home you should not be afraid of anything happening to it because you are there and it should be safe. Keeping your baby safe at home is very important. First, prevent people from coming to your home that are going to smoke, or do any type of drugs, this is your first line of defense for your baby.

To be safe, when you are at home by yourself lock all the doors, this is vital if you live in a big city. Other than other people, to keep your baby from getting injured at home the best thing to do is a buy safety thing for all over the house. Prevention of problems will include the ability of the baby to walk away, or get to the swimming pool. Prevent problems in the home by locking doors, windows, cupboards and garages with locks that a baby or toddler can’t open.

You probably would not want to have animals like a dog or a cat around your baby until it gets older. A pet can maul a baby, or a toddler when the pet is not accustomed to being around children all the time. Avoid having a cat near the baby, so the cat doesn’t cuddle up on the face of the baby, which will then smoother the baby without your realizing what is happening.

When you put your baby to sleep at night make sure that it falls asleep on it’s back because of crib death. Crib death is when a baby suffocates to death. Also, keep loose blankets out of the crib. The crib is a place for the baby to sleep, not to play. The crib should have bars that are close enough, so the baby can’t slip through, and the crib should have bars so that the head of the baby can’t slip through and get stuck. Avoid potential problems and situations where your baby could easily be hurt.

Once your baby starts to crawl, the best thing for you to get is a walker to let it learn how to walk. If you have steps in your home, the ‘thing to get’ is those child gates. They have them at most department stores if you don’t know where to purchase them. This will prevent your child from falling down the steps. You could even use them in doorways to rooms that you don’t want the child in without you. If you have animals, you could even use the gates to keep the animals away from the baby.

Once your child starts to walk you should keep things back away from the edge of the counters and the table. If you drink coffee, you should definitely keep that away so it is not reachable. You should not let any thing that is small laying around because if you do so this it will help so that your baby does not choke on anything. Just remember to lock all the doors when you are there by yourself. Any thing like this will help you keep your child safe at home.

Author: Mike Freije, contributes articles on Home Security for www.freeinfoarticles.com . For more information, visit home-security.tagandlink.com and my home security articles on home-security.tagandlink.com/home-security.

Article Source: http://marketing.article24h.com/home-family/7

A baby with diaper rash will not be shy about letting his or her parents know that they have a situation on their hands. This, along with the readily decipherable signs of the problem, does mean that it can be treated at an early stage, and hence treated effectively and decisively. Treating diaper rash is not something that takes too long, and the results tend to be swift. Of course it could be almost instantaneous and any parent would still feel that it was an eternity, but it needs to be said that a parent who has a child with diaper rash is not a bad parent at all, just unlucky.

In cases of diaper rash, it is important to change your baby even more regularly than you currently do. It is something inside the diaper that has caused it, and this same thing will either aggravate it or retard its eradication if left unchecked. Keeping your baby clean and dry will prevent the conditions in which diaper rash thrives. If your child has scope to play outside or on a surface that wipes clean, you may even leave their diaper off for a time, as the flow of air around the area will speed the healing. If you use disposable diapers, using a different brand free from fragrance and additives may also help, especially if the rash is a symptom of an allergy.

After three days the diaper rash should be more or less gone. If it still persists, then a cream for treating fungal infections will be well employed.

How often should you bathe your baby? It is a question that a lot of new parents ask themselves and others when they have their first child. There are two separate questions in this. Firstly, how often is often enough, and second, how often is too often? While there is some belief that you can never be too clean, the fact is that your skin – and your baby’s – provides natural protection through bodily oils, which prevent infection and irritation being caused by clothing and everyday dirt. Bathing overly often will strip those oils and lead to increased irritation, and is therefore a bad thing.

Some people think that a daily bath is necessary, but for a child this is not really the case. In fact, cleansers and water can damage your baby’s skin if used too frequently. If you must bathe the baby daily, then you must use a gentle cleanser like a mild soap designed specifically for babies to avoid the aforementioned stripping of oils. The parts of a baby that will get dirty quickest are its face, from feeding and general baby activity, and the diaper area. Regularly washing your baby’s face, cleaning up at the time of a diaper change, and cleaning up in case of any other obvious soiling will be more than enough.

There is no stipulated time frame for how often you absolutely must bath your baby. Every other day is really frequently enough as long as you ensure that the baby is generally clean. Babies do seem to enjoy a bath, and find warm water soothing. Even if you like a good hot bath, remember that your baby’s skin is more sensitive, and just above tepid will more than suffice.

Usually there is very little or no information known to most of the parents at the time of the arrival of their first baby. There are many new questions that come to the mind of the parents of a newly born baby like how to handle their babies first cold, how to make babies sleep, what kind of food is good for them till the age of 6-9 months, how to soothe babies teething pain, signs that tell if the baby is ready for the solid food and why the solid food is not good for them in the initial few months and so on. The list of such questions is endless.

We get a bunch of different advice and opinions on such questions from everyone we talk to and since babies don’t come with a “manual” – it’s hard to know what the right thing to do is. Thus, it is very important that the parents should educate themselves with the right ways or techniques to take care of their newly born babies.

As an example, we’ll talk about a common problem – “Potty Training”. There are seven stages of potty training. They begin with showing signs of potty training readiness and conclude with being able to use the toilet away from home.

Signs of Readiness – The first stage of potty training begins when your child shows the following signs of potty training readiness:

- Express the need to go potty (verbally or through body language)
- Expresses an interest in the potty
- Uncomfortable in wet diapers
- Able to dress and undress
- Imitates family members
- Stays dry for two hours
- Has regular bowel movements
- Interested in big kid underwear

Introduction to the Idea of Potty Training – When your child shows a majority of the signs of potty training readiness, it’s time to introduce him to the concept of using the potty. This can be done by reading a potty training book as a bedtime story or watching a potty training video or DVD together. Purchase a potty chair and let your child watch you use the potty. Children will often imitate family members.

Sit On the Potty – When your child has been introduced to the concept of potty training, he will probably imitate family member and sit on his potty chair while you use the bathroom. This is a good time to teach good hygiene such as wiping and washing hands after using the potty.

Use the Potty Sometimes – Be sure to give your child plenty of liquids and take him to the potty every 30 minutes. This will help build muscle memory. The first time your child uses the potty, make a big deal of his huge accomplishment. A hug, encouraging words, or a small reward can be good motivational tools and help your child feel proud of his or her accomplishment.

Use the Potty Alone – As your child gets more comfortable with the potty and his ability to control his bodily functions, he will go to the potty by himself. He will then come tell you about it. Again, this is a time for lots of praise and encouragement.

Transition to the Toilet – When your child is comfortable using his potty seat, it’s time to transition him to the toilet. Many children are afraid of falling in, so you may need to purchase a toilet seat adapter such as the Flip-N-Flush or the PRIMO’s Ducka toilet adapter. These devices reduce the size of the toilet hole, thereby making you child feel more secure.

Use Potty Away From Home – The last stage of potty training occurs when your child is able to use the potty away from home. Thankfully, there are many portable and disposable toilet seats available to keep your child from coming in contact with public toilet seats. Many public bathrooms have auto-flush toilets with electronic sensors. These sensors often fail to detect that a child is seated on the toilet and cause the toilet to flush repeatedly, scaring the child. Devices such as the Flush-Stopper prevent auto-flush toilets from flushing while your child is seated.

Some children breeze through the seven stages of potty training in a matter of weeks, while other children take several months to complete potty training. Your child’s progress depends on his or her stage of development, your potty training knowledge, and the potty training products you have available.

About the Author: Tom Johnson is the chief content editor for BasicBabyGuide.com.

Article Source: http://www.articletrader.com/pdf/article-91457.pdf

The question of when to change a baby’s diaper is one that will give a lot of parents pause for thought. If you are to change a diaper every time a baby goes to the toilet in it, the simple fact is that you will end up spending so much on diapers that you will have little left to spend on anything else. Leave it too long, however, and the results are more harrowing than any impact to your bank balance. There is no gentle way to say this, but the bacteria in faeces, when combined with urine, will cause diaper rash – and this is something that anyone who has seen it will do their best to avoid.

For starters, it is important to change your baby’s diaper whenever he or she defecates. This is important for hygiene and comfort, as your baby will be in some discomfort if he or she is made to sit in a dirty diaper. When your baby defecates – and you will know when this has happened – you must change their diaper as promptly as possible. Although urine poses less of a problem, it is still not desirable to leave a child in a diaper that is too wet, even a highly absorbent disposable one.

On average, babies will urinate every one to three hours and defecate several times a day. At regular intervals you must therefore change the diaper. It will save money if you use cloth diapers, however it is important to have several diapers and a washing rotation so that there is always a clean diaper around – so it really is a question of expense versus work.

Way back when in the days of Home Ec, one favorite class was ‘how to diaper baby’. Turning a flat piece of absorbent cotton into a comfortable, well-fitting nappy was a trick that seemed to require the dexterity and legerdemain of a trained magician. Worse, diapering the baby clumsily came with the very real fear of jabbing a squirming infant with a diaper pin. Generations of mommies suffered pinpricked fingers rather than risk a scratch to baby’s delicate skin.

All that changed with the advent of disposable diapers. Even the unfitted, flat, uncomfortable first generation disposables were worlds above typical cloth diapers for convenience and ease of use. Just unfold the back, pull the plastic up between the baby’s legs and smooth it against his belly, and tape the back to the front. Voila! Instant diaper. Even better – no need for washing. No dirty diapers soaking in a pail of borax. No smell, no fuss, no laundry service – just un-tape, wrap the diaper up and toss it in the trash.

For mothers of my generation, Pampers was the dividing line between ‘back then’ and now. I can’t count the number of mothers, grandmothers, aunts and older female relatives who started off a tale with ‘Of course, we never had Pampers, WE had to…”

The advantages were obvious: disposables were cleaner, more sanitary, more convenient. They did away with hours and hours of laundering and drying, making time for lots of other things. If you were the least bit conscious of disposal, you could completely eliminate the dirty-diaper smell – just wrap it up tight in a plastic bag in put it in the OUTSIDE trash. And no more wrestling with a squirming baby while you tried to pin his nappy closed, nor having the whole thing slip off his adorable little butt because you missed a layer of cloth when pinning.

The disadvantages were not so readily apparent, but they were nonetheless real. The major point against disposable diapers is a potent one: disposable diapers may be great for mother, but they put an enormous strain on Mother Earth. Some facts:

* Over 19 billion disposable diapers annually end up in landfills – where they do not degrade.

* Disposable diaper makers use more than a million tons of wood pulp every year.

* The manufacturing process creates waste that contains dioxins, heavy metals and industrial solvents.

In a world with limited resources, disposable diapers consume resources and create pollutants and hazardous chemicals. Is the convenience worth the damage to the Earth?

On the face of it, the debate does seem to be one more instance of man – in this case mommies – putting their own convenience above what’s best for the world.

But there’s yet another side to the debate – disposable diaper.

Here are some of our favorites. But before you get started with the games, be sure to get some prizes first. Prizes to consider are full size (not bite size), candy bars, blue or pink pens for the sex of the baby. Additionally, blue or pink balloons with a face drawn on the front, or the words “winner” written across in permanent marker make for really fun prizes as well.

After you have some up with some prizes, here our some of our favorite games to play.

1. Fastest Diaper Changer in the West. Have smaller size balloons blown up and hand them out to everyone who will be playing. Next give them two diapers. Have the guest carefully put the diapers on the balloon before the game starts. After they have already placed on diaper on the balloon, give them the instructions that junior has just had an accident and being the careful and delicate parent that they are , there objective is to change the diaper without pooping the balloon. Anyone who pops a balloon will be disqualified and whoever changes the diaper first, will win a prize.

2. How does Mommy Measure Up? Begin by passing out some yarn to everyone who will be playing. Next pass around some scissors and have each guest cut the amount of yarn that will fit Mommy perfectly at her widest point without being over or under. The person who is the closest is the winner.

3. Guess the Number of Kisses. This is used everywhere and everyone already know how to play. Fill a jar with Kisses (jelly beans are too typical) and have each one guess at the number of Kisses, the closest one will win the jar of kisses.

4. The Price is Right. For this one, it is played much like the game shows you see on television. Visit some online merchants who have both pictures and descriptions of Baby items and print them up. Pass around some paper and pens. Have the host narrate the online product description and pass it around with the price blacked out. The person who is closest to the item without going over will win a point. After all of the items have been passed around, the person with the most point wins.

As your can see, there are a plethora of baby shower games that can be played for your shower. What is important to remember is to know who your audience is going to be. This means, are the games that you are thinking about playing fit both the audience and the theme you are trying to create?

Author: Jason Payne is the owner of Baby Shower Fun Activities, the website that makes baby showers fun and easy. Copyright, 2006

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_Payne

One of the most important things in getting your baby to sleep properly is for your baby to learn to sleep on his or her own. The reason it is so difficult for many parents – why parents of a newborn suffer from so many sleepless nights – is because your baby, at first, isn’t used to sleeping on his own, and when he wakes up in the night he cries for his mother: being in the presence of his mother is only way he knows how to get to sleep. It is natural that this transition from sleeping with the mother, to sleeping on his own, will take some time for your baby. Many baby sleep tips involve setting up a strict nighttime routine, and introducing objects – such as stuffed animals – into the bed that your baby can associate with sleep. If you find after some months that your baby is still not able to sleep on his own, you can try what is known as the Ferber method.

Invented by Dr. Richard Ferber, the Ferber method is the most common way of weaning your child away from the mother, in terms of his sleep habits. It is usually successful within a couple of weeks. Nevertheless, it is important that you choose a week where you can afford to lose some sleep to begin the Ferber method. Especially at the beginning of the process, the Ferber method does require that you spend a lot of time listening to your baby crying, and if you attempt it at a time when you are desperate to sleep, you run the risk of breaking down and allowing your child to sleep with you, or sleeping in the room with him. If you do so you risk undoing a lot of work that you will have put into the method.

The first night you attempt the Ferber method, put your child to bed as you normally do. Your baby should be tired but still awake when you put him to bed, so that he is left to fall asleep on his own. After you leave the room, the baby will inevitably start crying. Allow him to cry for about 5 minutes, then re-enter the room to console him. It’s important that you stay in the room for only a short time – even if he is still crying – and that you don’t pick him up or rock him. This second time you leave the room, wait 10 minutes before returning in the same manner. The third time wait 15 minutes, and set this as a maximum wait time for the rest of the night.

Every time thereafter, enter the room briefly and then allow your child to cry for 15 minutes. Eventually, he will fall asleep on his own during one of the 15 minute intervals in which you are out of the room. The second night, you should begin with a 10 minute wait before re-entering the room, followed by 15 and then 20 minutes. In a similar fashion, increase your initial and subsequent wait times by 5 minutes each night.

Using this method your child will soon learn to go to sleep on his own. Although it can be difficult to listen to your baby cry, understand that the Ferber method is a safe and effective way of getting your baby to learn to sleep on his own.

About The Author: Brandon C. Hall maintains (www.freeinfoblog.com) which contains many articles and resources on baby sleep tips at (www.freeinfoblog.com/category/baby-sleep-tips). There is also information on dozens of other topics.

Article Source: http://www.articlecity.com/articles/parenting/article_875.shtml

As the old saying goes, prevention is better than cure. For all that we may fear the onset of diaper rash in our children, there is no certainty of absolute and total prevention – but there is a lot that can be done to make it far less likely, and it revolves mostly around keeping your baby dry and clean as far as is possible. Your baby will not be shy about letting you know when it is in any discomfort. This can prevent diaper rash from developing, but would obviously not be a way of preventing it before it begins.

The prevention of diaper rash is something that requires no small amount of diligence, as well as some luck. But there are some simple rules which can make the process a lot more straightforward. Firstly, you must change your baby’s diaper as soon as it is obviously soiled. This will prevent the infection from having somewhere to live. In the same spirit, it is important to clean your baby in the affected area after it has become soiled. Allowing the area to dry before putting on a fresh nappy is essential. A thin layer of ointment on the affected area will kill off germs while preventing others from taking hold. And applying the fresh diaper loosely will give room for the skin to breathe. Finally when your baby moves on to solid foods you should take a few days between introducing new items. This will help you determine if the infection is down to a food allergy.

Written by Linda L Kinyon (AKA:Countrymom)
CWAHM who enjoys time with my family,freelance writing, gardening and more. Available for hire please send me a msg. Please visit my website www.freewebs.com/countrymom1

Article source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1494322/preventing_diaper_rash.html?cat=25

Congratulations! It’s a boy… or a girl… You’ve imagined those words throughout your nine magical months. But, what you probably have not thought about is the part where you need to put a fresh nappy on the little person!

Even after having two little girls I worried about changing my little boy’s nappy for the first time. For some reason I thought it was going to be really difficult. But actually it was easier!

So how do you change a baby’s nappy? Assuming you are using disposable nappies, as most mums do, at least in the beginning, here are some tips:

Lie your baby on a flat surface, preferably on a soft changing mat; this allows little accidents to be wiped up quickly. If you are placing your baby on a raised surface or a changing station, never leave him unattended for even the slightest moment. Babies can and do fall off raised surfaces, often with disastrous consequences.

Advances in technology allow us to keep the wet surface of the nappy away from the baby. Although this is great for your baby,it can make it difficult to tell if the nappy is wet. So how will you know if the nappy needs to be changed? A wet nappy will feel soft and squishy on the outside. It may also have increased in size. The moisture absorbing material within the nappy swells when it comes into contact with urine making it easy to tell if the nappy is wet.

Obviously, a soiled nappy is easier to detect as you can just peep inside; or, more often than not, you can smell it!

As your baby gets older he will become more wriggly at every nappy change. A good tip is to hang a mobile above his changing station or give him a different toy to keep his interest at changing time – making nappy changes much less tiring for mum!

Remove the old nappy. Wipe the baby’s bottom with some cotton wool pads soaked in warm water. You do not need to use soap or scented wipes on a newborn baby. Newborns have extremely soft, sensitive skin which is easily irritated. A so-called top and tail, or a warm bath once a day, is enough. When the baby is a few weeks old you can wash him with a warm soapy cloth or some sensitive baby wipes at each nappy change.

Wipe baby girls from front to back to avoid the risk of cross infection. With baby boys you will need to ensure you wipe around and under their little bits! However, never pull back the foreskin. You may cause damage and infection if you attempt to.

Creams and talc are unnecessary. Nappies today are so effective at keeping moisture away from the skin that creams are not required. In fact, creams can actually hinder the nappy’s performance, making irritation more likely.

If your baby has nappy rash, and you really feel that cream is required, apply it very thinly before putting on the fresh nappy. Also, let the air at your baby’s bottom. Let him lie on the changing mat on the floor for a while without a nappy. You may want to put an old towel or absorbant bed cloth under him so that he will not be lying in a puddle getting cold, if he does wet it.

Put the fresh nappy under the baby’s bottom, with the sticky seals at the back!

Lift the front of the nappy up over the baby’s bottom and fasten it closed. Do not fasten it too tightly as this will be uncomfortable. Allow the baby some room to breath!

Voila! All Done… until the next one!

Author: Sinead Hoben is the proud mum of three beautiful children aged 6 years, 3 years and 9 months old, all of whom were breastfed. She is currently still breastfeeding her youngest child. A qualified teacher, she now runs her own website, http://www.breastfeedingmums.com, which addresses many of the concerns of breastfeeding mums. www.breastfeedingmums.com offers free breastfeeding information and advice to both breastfeeding and expectant mums.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/changing-a-nappy-32691.html