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Popular Articles

• Weaning Baby From The Bottle
• The Scoop On Giving Baby Juice
• Teething Tips
• Choosing the best BPA-free Sippy Cup
• Dealing With a Screaming Toddler
• Getting Your Baby To Sleep
• When Should Baby Wear Shoes?

Ever since I’ve been a mom, going to restaurants has been tricky business. Each stage that my children go through means a different set of challenges each time we eat out. Over the past few years however – and after too many public tantrums to count – I’ve picked up a few tips that make eating out with babies and toddlers a little less stressful.

Here are some things you can try to make dining out with your children more enjoyable:

Choose family friendly restaurants – I always take my kids to restaurants that have highchairs and kid-friendly staff. The owner of one local restaurant was kind enough to bring my son and daughter a pail full of toys while they waited for their meals. They were happy and quiet the entire time and I got to relax.

Go prepared – I always pack a small bag of Cheerios (or any light, healthy snack) and sippy cups with water. Having a few small, quiet toys on hand doesn’t hurt either. Family friendly restaurants will allow this if it means the kids stay content while waiting for their food to arrive. Don’t forget to pack any bottles, diapers, plastic utensils, etc. that you may need.

Order right away – I always order a “baby plate” as soon as we’re seated. This is usually mashed potatoes, vegetables, and some kind of meat or sandwich that smaller kids can eat. Sometimes I just share my own meal or order an extra plate of fries if I think my kids aren’t very hungry.

Choose a good time – Eating out right at noon or supper time is usually a bad idea since the kids are already getting cranky from being too hungry. I try and choose a time when A) the restaurant isn’t very busy, and B) the kids aren’t starving yet and will remain content until it’s time to eat. Going after nap time is usually a better bet than before. Tired, hungry kids can make for an extremely unpleasant dining experience!

Don’t avoid eating at a restaurant with your child just so you can bypass a possibly disastrous evening. It’s good experience for your child to be around other people in a public setting, and it’s a chance for you to show your child how to behave in a restaurant. It also adds a little variety to your week to keep you and your child from getting stuck in the same routine.

It was a birthday weekend here at the Germsheid residence. Unfortunately, I came down with something pretty nasty and was really sick all week, so when the weekend came, I thought my son’s 3rd birthday was Saturday when it was really Sunday.

It all worked out in the end and we had a nice, quiet little birthday party for him with a few family members and a delicious Dairy Queen Ice Cream cake! I found it a bit funny that the cake was decorated with American decorations when we live in Canada, but oh well.

When I look at these birthday pictures, I’m amazed at how far we’ve come. It doesn’t seem like that long ago when that little bum turned sideways the day I was induced into labour and I had to have an emergency cesarean section. Now he’s getting so big I can barely lift him without having heart palpitations.

Birthday #3 didn’t involve too much “cake-face”. Ice cream cakes are notoriously messy but I’m pretty impressed that we didn’t end up with more of a sloppy mess. Birthday #1 was a bit dirtier.

Birthday #2 was somewhere in the middle.

We didn’t do anything big or fancy, but we enjoyed it all the same. Having a small get-together like we did makes it special for us since we like to spend time with close family.

A new bed was a pretty exciting gift for him and he’s now spent two nights in a big boy bed instead of a crib. The transition could not have been easier. I must say though that he was equally excited about the Curious George gitchies I bought him – so if you’re looking for a gift idea for a little boy, buy him some underwear!

Last year for Christmas, I bought my kids an Aquadoodle Travel N Doodle which was the second best gift I’ve ever bought. They still play with it every day and it works just as good as they day I bought it. It’s small so it’s easy to store, and it’s perfect for travelling. When I have this in the car, I don’t hear a single peep out of my kids even when we’re driving an hour out of town.

You definitely need to have a few Spin Master Aquadoodle Magic Water Pens for this toy to work. The pens fill with water and come out through the felt tip which “draws” on the Aquadoodle pad.

My son likes to suck the water out of the tips though so I like to buy a few pens at a time and toss them once they get too dirty which is every few months. If the pens get temporarily lost (which does happen with two little kids) a washcloth or damp sponge does the trick.

The single best gift I purchased for my kids was a MagnaDoodle. Unfortunately, it got stepped on and eventually had to be thrown out although I have to say that it put up with an insane amount of abuse before it took its last lickin’.

This Christmas when family members asked for gift ideas for the kids, I suggested they buy some more MagnaDoodles. They ended up with six!

We have two big Magna Doodle (Classic) pads that we keep in the house, and two smaller ones that I keep in the car for travelling. The last two have a permanent home at my mom’s.

These Magnadoodles and Aquadoodles are favorites with my kids since they both LOVE to draw. It’s great for their creativity and imagination, and I use them a lot to teach them shapes and words. I’m constantly amazed at the things my little artists come up with!

This is what happens when I let my 2 (almost 3) year old dress himself.

He’s becoming really independent lately, especially since he’s completely potty trained. Finally! Now that he’s the master conductor of the potty train, he’s moved onto dressing himself. He refuses to let me help put his clothes on, and he insists on picking out his own outfits.

I couldn’t be happier about this even though he ends up looking pretty silly most days. I just let him be the backwards man all day. I think it’s cute.

By the way, he’s been playing with those yogurt lids and containers in the picture above all day long. Just one more reason to add to the list of ways in which those little recyclable plastic wonders are so handy.

If you’re like me, bath toys are a big part of your life. My daughter went through a stage where she was afraid of bath time, so I’ve always tried to make sure that it was a fun experience with lots of cool bath toys. As a result, that means my bathroom is always full of toys.

Every day I have to go in the bathroom and clean up bath toys out of the tub and put them away. I’ve finally started getting my daughter to put them all away before she gets out of the tub which is really helpful, but the mesh bag we used to store them turned out to be pretty useless. The suction cups didn’t work any more and the bag kept falling off the wall leaving bath toys all over the tub again.

Enter Boon Frog Pod.

This thing is so cool and cute! It’s for kids, but parents love it too because it gets rid of clutter in your bathroom, it’s mildew-resistant, and it just plain works. Every bath toy storage container I’ve ever tried has failed abysmally, but you’ll be amazed at how much this little green cutie can hold.

It has a detachable scoop so you can, well, scoop the toys up. If your child is old enough, you can get them to do it themselves after each bath. Along with holding a lot of bath toys, it also has space for storing shampoo and soap.

I still keep my shampoo and soap out of reach or my 2 year old would have it all squirted out into the tub, but you can use that space to store other things like empty shampoo bottles that are great for playing with. My kids have more fun with those than most of their bath toys.

A lot of people find Baby Tips Online by searching for “drool rash”. I wrote a bit about drool rash in my teething tips article but I realized that I never included a picture of what drool rash looks like. When my son was going through his first stage of teething, he got a pretty bad case of drool rash. I managed to find a picture that was taken during this stage, but I didn’t take it when the drool rash was its worst.

Drool rash is very common when babies are teething. My son would get a rash every time he teethed which wasn’t surprising since he has extremely sensitive skin. The only thing I found that helped keep it at bay was to pat away the excess drool as much as possible throughout the day. If it got really bad I would sometimes put a bit of petroleum jelly on the rash.

Eventually the rash will go away so unless it’s causing discomfort for your baby, don’t worry too much about it. It’s all part of the glorious teething process!

One of my most popular articles I’ve written is about feeding juice to your baby. Since my own children were babies, I’ve been very careful not to give them juice too often.

I was reminded of that this morning when my son asked me for some water even though we have juice in the fridge. When I got up to fill up his cup, he jumped around yelling “Water, water, water”. He was excited about drinking water!

I use juice for two reasons when it comes to my kids. I either give it to them as a treat (but I always dilute it with water) or I give them juice when they’re sick.

So far, my plan has worked. They regularly request water even when there is juice or pop (soda) around and I never have problems getting them to eat.

Christmas has come and gone, but all the toys my kids received this year are still here! A lot of them consist of little pieces which leaves quite a mess at the end of the day.

Thankfully, I wash out all my yogurt containers and keep them stowed away for times like these.

Yesterday I pulled out 5 yogurt containers and used them to organize all the little pieces of toys including cars, puzzle pieces, markers and crayons, doll clothes and plastic farm animals.

I snap the lids on when they’re full and pop them onto the top shelf in my daughter’s closet. When they want to play with something, I pull one container down at a time and make sure everything is put away before I bring another one out.

This saves me space, time (from having to search for all the little pieces in the big toy box) and it helps teach organization skills to my kids.

I’ve always felt bad for using cold wipes to clean my baby’s butt during a diaper change, but I didn’t understand just how cold they really are until today.

My daughter is going through the unfortunate “dropping entire rolls of toilet paper into the toilet” stage, and I found myself completely out of TP. I had a box of baby wipes sitting in the bathroom since my son is now starting to potty train, so I used one.

Never again!

A cold wet cloth should never ever be near anyone’s behind and our poor babies are suffering through that trauma every day!

I think a baby wipe warmer is in order.

I’ve heard a lot of great reviews from other moms about Prince Lionheart Ultimate Wipes Warmer.

I’m proud to introduce our contributor and fellow mom, Jennifer Kirkpatrick with her first guest article. She has some great ideas in store so make sure you subscribe and keep up to date with her future posts.

Getting rid of pollutants, toxins and chemicals in your family’s home

Like a lot of moms, I’ve been worried lately by the flood of reports about toxins in our homes that are posing a threat to our children.

OK, worried is not the word.

The truth is that it scares the you-know-what out of me!

It is terrifying to think that there are things outside of our control that may be harming our families. Flame retardant chemicals in clothing and mattresses, off-gassing from household materials such as carpeting and pesticide laden foods are all adding unnecessary and harmful pollutants to our bodies.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by it all, trust me, you are not alone.

Not very many of us can afford to replace all of our carpeting and kitchen cabinets with options that don’t leak chemicals into the air. We can’t throw out all of our mattresses and clothing and replace them with organic alternatives. And we definitely can’t start growing all of our own organic food!

So what CAN we do?

There are some changes you can start making TODAY that will drastically cut down the harmful substances your family is exposed to – without having a big impact on your bank account!

Here are some of the most important ones:

• Clean with natural products. Instead of cleaning with nasty chemicals that put fumes in to the air and pollute our water, try using good old vinegar and baking soda. This powerful duo can clean and sterilize almost anything. If you’re not ready to give up cleaners entirely, at least opt for one of the all natural options.

• Eliminate as many chemicals as you can from your home.  There are so many chemicals we use in our home that can be easily eliminated. A big one is cleaning products, but it’s also a good idea to stop using air fresheners (turns out the plug in ones are particularly awful) and burning candles. Even soaps, shampoos, perfumes and other personal care products give us a constant dose of chemicals that may be harming us.

• Watch what you eat. Organic food is expensive if you buy it from the grocery store but if you look around you will probably find that there are lots of local options. Most grow organically but have not gone through the lengthy and expensive certification process. So their food is affordable but also free of nasty pesticides. And because it’s local it is really fresh. Try buying extra when something is in season and freezing it for later.

• Stop using plastic. In North America we have a love affair with plastic. We’ve found a way to make almost everything out of it! Unfortunately we are now learning that the chemicals used to produce these products are leaching out and in to our food and homes. It’s really not that difficult to eliminate it, even if you can only do a little at a time.

Keep watching for future blog posts with great strategies from the experts for doing each of these things in your home.