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Cultivate the friendship of your partner and your children.
Where your partner sees him/herself as your friend,
he/she would work in harmony with you to achieve
success in your parenting enterprise.

Take it from me, everybody is needed in this exercise.
Nobody should be left out. It’s just not advisable to
exempt even the smallest ranking person in your
household or family because at the end of the day they
may be the saving grace to your child.

Carry your partner along with you. Let your partner
know what you intend to do and what you are doing in
order to succeed as a parent.

It’s got to be a joint venture!

As parents you have to develop a very strong
relationship and speak in one voice based on the
understanding that if you don’t ,it would eventually
affect your children and lead to total failure in your
parenting duties.

You should also learn to cultivate the friendship of your
child or children. This is vital because when your
children see you as a friend, they will be free to express
themselves to you.

They will not hesitate to tell you about their problems,
feelings and ambition.

They will submit themselves to your pieces of advice at
all times instead of listening to the wrong and
misleading advice of their peers.

You can also consult your children whenever you want
to make any decision concerning the family. Ask them
their individual opinions about what step to take. I can
assure you that they will really surprise you by the time
they make their suggestions.

The problem with us as parents is that we usually
under-estimate they intelligence of our own children,
yet we continue to pray for them to be wise and
knowledgeable while we do not subject their wisdom to
a test even when there are opportunities to do so and
even get a good result in the end.

Where your children have good and better ideas than
your own, please do not rubbish their ideas. Use the
ideas and make your children feel proud of themselves
that after all they are contributing to growth, progress
and development of their family even in their own little
way.

Be friendly with every member of your family in order
for you to succeed in your parenting enterprise.

(This is excerpted from my book: A-Z of Parenting)

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Choking in toddlers, though a rare occurrence, is seen by medical experts as one of the causes of unintentional death in children.

If parents of toddlers endeavoured to be very careful in the handling of their children there is the possibility of preventing so many harmful thing that may unwittingly cause them sorrows in life through preventable death.

Some everyday objects that we have around us such as safety pins, coins and other tiny metal and plastic toys could lead to choking in toddlers.

These are not the only cause of choking; food is the main reason responsible for death through choking in toddlers.

When your baby is about one year old, you should be careful and seriously watchful as your baby sample new foods on his way to weaning from the breast. This is important in the sense that some tiny but solid foods can cause your child to die contrary to your personal intention.

If you follow this suggestion and take the correct step, you may succeed in preventing sudden death through choking:

Avoid Giving Babies Hard Foods
When your baby is still very young, say around the age of one or thereabout,
Try not to give him hard and smooth foods like groundnuts as they could be
choked up while trying to swallow such food.

I am sure this is definitely not your intention for your baby, is it?

Yet, a baby who is of that age must not be allowed to get near groundnuts
Until perhaps he is about four or more years old.

No Round Food, please!
In as much as you may be eager to see your baby taking his first solid food,
avoid offering round food like carrots, grapes, hard biscuits and meat sticks.

You should do away with the above foods because they can easily lodge in
the baby’s throat.

Cut Food to Pieces
No matter how occupied you may be or how tight your time is, make sure that
you cut or break the hard food you are offering to your baby into small pieces that he can bite. If possible try to marsh the food before giving it to the baby to obviate choke up.

You can see for yourself that it is not difficult to prevent the loss of one’s baby .As long as the precautions are followed.

When you follow the outlined steps, it is certain that your baby will not only
learn to eat hard solid food, but his life would be secured and well protected
from harms.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Giving your toddler to a caregiver to take proper care of in your absence is a common everyday occurrence in mothers.

But before you take that final decision to give your beautiful baby to anyone to take care of there are certain things you have to consider if you do not want to regret your decision at the end of the day.

These are the things you should consider before handing your child to any caregiver:

Open Relationship
Is your caregiver a person with whom you can develop an open relationship? Do you truly feel that the person you are considering handling your precious baby to is worth it really? If you feel differently from the above, please reconsider your stand for the sake of your dear toddler.

Relationship with Your Baby
Are you so impressed that this person is the kind that your baby will enjoy staying with? This is important because you will not be around to know what transpires between them.

In another way, does this person enjoy working with children in the real sense of the word and not just for the money derivable from the service? If someone is working for the money and not for the deep interest in the service, there is no way they can deliver the right service as we want it.

Provision of Activities and Materials
Can your caregiver provide the necessary activities, materials and equipments for your toddler to play with and help him/her to learn and grow at the same time?

Knowledge of Basic First Aid
Your caregiver should have the knowledge of basic first aid treatment in order to help out where there is a medical problem from the child. This must be made a priority as there is a risk if the caregiver is lacking in this basic knowledge.

Enough Time for Each Child
The caregiver must be able to give enough time for each of the children in his/her care for things to work out well for your child and for you to benefit fully from the money you are paying the caregiver for the service.

A qualified caregiver should be able to properly care for your baby’s physical needs such as feeding and changing of the diapers.

In addition, he/she must be ready to find time to hold the baby, talk to the baby and play with the baby most of the times as long as the baby is in his/her care.

Provision of a Safe Environment
A safe environment is important for your child’s safety and for this reason; you should ensure that the caregiver you want to give your child to must provide this basic amenity. Actually, this should be of concern most especially when the child has started to crawl and walk.

These are the six main things you have to consider before appointing any caregiver for your dear toddler.

You will agree with me that these are worth considering for the sake of your baby. If you love your baby enough, somebody else should, as much as possible, do the same for your baby in your absence since they shall be earning their pay from your hard-earned money.

Anything short of this should not be considered at all. Do not compromise in matters of baby caregiving, please, for the sake of your baby if truly you love him/her.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

The crib is your baby’s own abode and it makes him feel alone and independent without any form of intervention from you or anybody else. The usual thing is that the baby will definitely be unattended while in the crib, therefore, there is a need for the crib environment to be a safe environment at all times.

The most common injury experienced by babies in the crib is the injury that has to do with the cribs. But the amazing thing is that this kind of injury could be prevented if all the necessary precautions have been taken.

How do you prevent the hazards of the crib? This is an all important question every parent should be concerned with.

The following cautionary measures should be taken:

•Don’t raise the mattress too high for he baby’s height.

•Try not to leave the side rail down while the baby is in the crib.

•Ensure that the slats are not more than 23/8 inches apart in order to prevent your child’s head from being trapped between the slats.

•Let there be no cut-out in the headboards or even the footboard because the baby’s head may be trapped in them.

• Cut off any corner posts (or finials, as they are sometimes called) if you don’t intend for your child to be snagged on the posts thereby getting himself choked up.

•Make sure that the crib is not painted with any lead-based paint because your baby could be become poisoned if he gnaws on the crib rails. It has been medically proved that lead accumulated in the human body.

•Check for rough edges or sharp points on the metal part of the crib periodically. In the process, ensure that there are no cracks or splinters in the wood.

•If your baby is an infant, make us e of a crib bumper with an all round pad and ties of not more than 6 inches.

•When your baby can pull to a standing position, remove crib bumpers, toys, pillows and stuffed animals which are large enough to be used as a climbing instrument.

•Never place your baby’s crib beside a window; this will prevent the most serious of falls.

There you are the sage says “prevention is better than cure”. With all that have been explained above, there should be no reason what for any good mother to have a case of crib hazard in her home any more. Follow the instruction above and you will never regret it.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Are you tired of warning your stubborn child using
words upon words?

Is your child so worrisome that you always feel like spanking
him and teach him the lesson of his life,at least
to get him know that you are the one in charge ?

Have you heard that researchers on child development
have reported that most child psychologists think
that children only learn to use violence to solve
whatever personal problems they may be having anytime
they are spanked by their parents.

There is also the possiblities of your children who
have been spanked to be prone to low self-esteem and
depression as adults.

Now,don’t you think that you need to find an alternative
way to spanking as a form of punishment for a child that
has offended?

Well,if your intention is to do some other things to
punish your child instead ogf spanking him,here now are
some of the things you can do:

1. Relax Yourself

You are naturally prone to spanking your child when you
don’t have enough time for yourself.You are tensed up
and depressed.The solution then is for you to relax
yourself.Exercise your body for more relaxation.Read
some interestoing books especially novels that are
comic in nature.Or simply take a walk away from your
busy work place.

2. Pray

Try and pray over whatever problems you are having
through your child and believe the problems will be
solved by an higher authority than you.The Almighty
God or whatever name you give to Him.

3.Be Kind but Firm

Another frustrating situation where parents tend to
spank is when your child hasn’t listened to your repeated
requests to behave. Finally, you spank to get your child
to act appropriately. Another solution in these situations
is to get down on your child’s level, make eye contact,
touch him gently and tell him, in a short, kind but firm
phrase, what it is you want him to do. For example, “I
want you to play quietly.

4.Walk Away From The Place of An Offence.

Naturally you may be provoked to want to give your child
a slap across the cheek anytime he chooses to misbehave.
This is very wrong and you need to check it.The best
saolution is to try and walk away from the place of
the offence.

5.Be Kind and Firm At The Same Time

Why smacking your child’s bottom simply because he
touches something you have warned him not to touch when
you can just take the child’s away from the very place
where you don’t want him to touch anything.Bre firm while
doing this so the child will not think you are joking.

These are just five of the alternative ways to control your
child instead of spanking him and infrlinting injuries on
him.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz