Baby Mindful Maidenhead & Berks

10/10/2020

01/07/2020

Babble back!

When your baby babbles, babble back. When they make funny noises, copy the sounds. When they flap their arms and legs, smile and do it back! Get eye contact as much as you can and respond, respond, respond.

Every time you do, you are recognising their attempts to communicate with you, and you encourage more.

Every time you mimic your baby, you're saying 'Yes, I see you! I hear you! You're a meaningful person, you're important, and I want to hear what you think!' This creates fabulous brain circuitry for a lifetime of communication🤩. When you copy your baby, he learns that communicating is rewarding and fun.

"I must be loved! I must have worth! I must be interesting! I feel so good about myself!"

The technical term is 'serve and return', like in a game of tennis. Babies actually 'serve' a heck of a lot. That's them wanting to start something up. Don't miss it. Once you're tuned in to the little sounds, you'll be able to 'return' a lot more of them, and have many more 'conversations'. This helps connect up the social parts of their brain.

Baby chats! The best! 🥰

30/05/2020

🐝 Stings! Would you know how to treat them ❓
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🐝 If you or your child gets stung...⠀
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🐝 First of all make sure you remove the stinger if it's left in (this will be from a bee as wasps take it away with them!)

❌Do not use tweezers as the bee stinger will be attached to a venom sac and you may squeeze more poison in.

✅ Use something with a straight edge, such as a credit/debit card to scrape across the surface of the skin to remove it.⠀
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✅ Wash the area with water to remove the poison. ⠀
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✅ Elevate the area and apply a cold compress on it for 10 minutes. ⠀
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✅ Watch out for signs of a severe allergic reaction. A localised area of redness and inflammation is normal.

🚑 If they have any of the following phone 📞 999
A. Airway - swelling of the face, mouth or throat
B. Breathing difficulties - wheezy, noisy, difficulty breathing
C. Circulation - signs & symptoms of shock.
Pale, clammy skin, feeling dizzy or faint, rapid pulse, loss of consciousness
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🐝 Stings in your mouth, throat or eye area also need medical attention. ⠀
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👀 Look out for signs of infection too! ⠀
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Check this NHS link for more information and advice. ⠀
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https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/insect-bites-and-stings/treatment/

09/05/2020

Day 6 of Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week and today, we’re putting the focus on the Dads!
So do join us throughout the day for videos and information and to find out more about support for dads.

15/03/2020

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02/02/2020

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What do you do when your baby won’t sleep despite all your efforts? Here are some articles to read when you’re dealing with a little sleep thief. Great for those toddler years too!

13/01/2020

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05/01/2020

There are no bad sleeping habits 💚

Babies are all different. The amount of sleep a baby needs in 24 hours varies. Some find it much harder to go to sleep than others. This is due to their temperament, not your parenting. A baby does not sleep 'badly' because they have a parent who helps them. Trust what your baby tells you. If they find it hard to go to sleep, help them.

There are no bad sleep habits to be made here, contrary to what you might hear. An underdeveloped, immature brain needs a lot of adult input to remain calm. And that's just the baseline, some babies need a lot more help than others (again due to their temperament).

This isn't how sleep will look for the rest of your life. This is sleep in the early years, where quite simply, your baby just really needs you.

*This applies to older babies, toddlers & children too. There is no magic age when they should all be sleeping through the night. This developmental milestone is reached naturally in their own time.

01/01/2020

You will be a different parent every morning to a child who will also be different, sometimes changing in just hours, or minutes, or before your eyes. There will be good days and bad days, good minutes and bad minutes, good choices and not so good ones. You will do some things, probably a lot of thi...

31/12/2019

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21/12/2019

Beautiful sand sculpture! 💚

What a beautiful sand sculpture 💜

03/12/2019

🌟 ADVENT CHALLENGE 🌟

Day 3: Have a soak in the bath or a shower

02/12/2019

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02/12/2019

06/11/2019

💜 NATIONAL STRESS AWARENESS DAY 💜

The first Wednesday in November, each year, is National Stress Awareness Day.

Take a moment to think about your wellbeing, at home and in the workplace.

Sharing your thoughts and feelings when you are feeling stressed, with friends and colleagues, can make a difference.

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/

https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/stress-in-the-workp…/…/

03/11/2019

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24/10/2019

Amazing! 💚

03/10/2019

So cute! 💚

29/09/2019

Let them be little... 💚

06/09/2019

This is fascinating ! 💚

Hold your babies, people!! Preferably up, as far as the child is concerned... and much to the dismay of tired parents around the world who are exasperated at an infant’s insistence at holding them standing.

A study by Esposito et al. (2013), published in the Journal of Current Biology, demonstrated for the first time that the calming response to parents holding them is a coordinated set of central, motor, and cardiac regulations and is a conserved component of parent-infant interactions in mammals.

Using electrocardiograms (ECG) to monitor twelve healthy human infants’ heartbeats, along with their behaviour and vocalisations, they recorded mother-infant pairs during behavioural tasks that consisted of the child lying in a crib, being held by the mother who was sitting on a chair ( ), or being held by the mother who was walking continuously ( ).

The researchers found a sustained elevation of heart interbeat intervals due to carrying in awake infants could not be explained by any known cardiac vagal reflex, including the orienting reflex (brief period of heart rate deceleration by mild sensory stimulus), suggesting that carrying evokes a sustained heart rate reduction in concert with the rapid behavioural changes in human infants via a novel mechanism.

The researchers furthermore found that in mouse pups, carrying induced calming responses similar to those in human infants, even though maternal carrying methods differed. This draws parallels between the carrying-induced state evoked in human babies and other mammalian young such as cats or squirrels who adopt a still, compact posture with their hind legs drawn up when maternally carried. The reduced mobility, reduced distress vocalisations, and reduced heart rate appears to be adaptive.

The calming responses evoked by carrying are thought to be an evolutionary measure to increase the survival probability of the infant in cases of emergency escape by the mother and child, and so ultimately works to strengthen the mother-infant relationship. There is adaptive value in this behaviour in carer-infant relationships and, as a consequence, infant survival.

The study found that the effects of carrying on the infant’s parasympathetic nervous system were significant, and it provides a scientific understanding of this physiological infant response that could be beneficial for parents and early childhood educators to understand.

Considering the physiological response of the infant when being carried may lead to greater parent and carer patience, reduced frustration and an increased appreciation of age-old parenting techniques such as and parenting.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(13)00343-6

29/08/2019

For any parents who may have purchased this sleeping bag.

⚠️ BABY SLEEP BAG RECALL — Please share

Mothercare is voluntarily recalling its 2.5 tog Grey Star Sleep Bag → whi.ch/MothercareRecall

This is due to a labeling error that displays the incorrect tog rating.

This could lead to potentially dangerous overheating

23/08/2019

Very true! 💚💚

So true 😍😢

18/08/2019

Interesting read... 💚

When it comes to children’s development, parents should worry less about kids’ screen time—and more about their own.

17/08/2019

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A new video uses nursery rhyme characters and a catchy song to teach parents how to perform infant CPR.

10/08/2019

🌟 Great advice from SR Nutrition🌟

👶🏼💩Constipation during weaning 👶🏼💩
Lots of parents ask me about baby constipation on Instagram, especially when it seems to occur soon after they have started weaning!
🙌🏼Please remember that when you introduce solids to a baby, their poo is likely to change and potentially become less frequent, especially as the digestive system is adjusting to the changes!
👩🏼‍⚕️If you are ever worried the first port of call is to go and see your GP and/or health visitor.
💩However constipation is fairly common when you first start weaning
It is defined as:
“a decrease in the frequency of bowl movements characterised by the passing of hard stools which maybe large and associated with straining and pain”
🙁Not nice at all for baby!
🤒Symptoms include;
- Baby pooing less than three or four times a week
- Hard large poos or small rabbit droppings
- Distress or pain when passing stools
- Straining
- Sometimes bleeding from the bottom
🌟So if you noticed some of these symptoms, it’s important to go and have a chat with your GP…
📝However there are a few things that the NHS recommend you can do at home too:
1️⃣Give sips of water with meals - tap water is fine to offer straight from six months
2️⃣Include fruit in their diet including pears, apples and strawberries which can be helpful for constipation, lots of people anecdotally also swear by prunes and figs for constipation too
🚲Try tummy massages or doing baby bicycle legs to help stimulate the bowels
❌If the symptoms do not clear up over the course of a week or two definitely have a chat with your GP - there are medications available, however they will be prescribed on an individual needs basis!
🙌🏼I hope this was helpful as I know it is something that causes parents a great deal of anxiety.

10/08/2019

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When looked at with fresh eyes, these misbehaviors can make sense, even to us. Then you will be able to guide your child through it to a more socialized way of being.