#Sleep: All the different places to put a baby to sleep.

#Sleep: How to co-sleep safely. I would also like to add you should not co-sleep if you are obese because the risk of suffocation increases greatly. The baby should ideally be on the mother's side with a bed guard and not in the middle of the bed.

#Montessori: I'm a big proponent of the montessori method until the child's age of 4. It should be the norm in every household - allowing the child to freely roam, help out, focus on one toy/activity at a time and be allowed to learn to do things themselves.

Baby Food #Recipe: oat carrot crackers. I made these recently and ate half of them myself. They're really good if you have a child who won't eat something unless it's crispy. You don't have to use the cookie cutter, you can just roll them into balls and flatten.

I added hashtags to make searching the channel easier for parents and parents-to-be. Currently the hashtags are: #Pregnancy(6) #Birthing(4) #Items(2) #Formula(5) #Breastfeeding(2) #Nutrition(3) #Recipe(2) #Activities(3) #Sleep(8) #Montessori(2) #Video(2) #Books(4) #Skincare(3). I will update this list as more posts appear.

#Montessori #Items, month by month. The right toys should be unpainted (or painted with non-toxic paint) and preferably wooden. However, the main goal of a toy should be interaction for your baby. Your baby should be able to pull, move, and figure out the object, rather than simply observing it. It's the physical engagement which makes the mind work; that's why TV and most battery-powered toys are bad for brain development.

I also hope you guys appreciate the graphic above, it took me like 4 hours to make.

#Video: Dads try to answer basic questions about their kids.

Don't let your children watch TV.

#Development: TV and What is deferred imitation?

Gm

#Books: Fairy Tales by Christian Andersen. This is probably THE classic baby book of the last 200 years. Together with Aesop's fables and the stories from Grimm brothers, it should definitely be on your child's shelf. I might be biased from my own experience, but some editions of this book are masterpieces of art in themselves. Different versions contain a different choice of Andersen's stories.

#Video: Baby "Felicity" reading at 12 months old.

About the video above, I believe the results are entirely and purely derived from the parents' hard effort. It is difficult to make time teaching you baby anything in the first year, when you're burdened with lack of sleep, socialising the child, your marriage finding a new ground. You can teach your child anything, and quickly, but it requires you to be on top of it on all the days that you don't want to be.

This is happening.

https://youtu.be/xW6DrQ0kC0w?si=rgqcRKcEV-Um4I9U #Video: How to teach your baby to crawl.

Before I had a child, I thought each skill they learn one day just clicks in for them. To an extent, this is true, but the only way the learn is if they are taught, either by a teacher or by experience. And with experience, the teaching moment can take a very long time to arrive.

On the other hand, when you mentor a baby in anything, you can see direct results after a day or two, if not after an hour. Show them repeatedly how to put a ball in a box and they'll do it very soon. If you don't show them, maybe next month they'll figure it out.

This 1948 ad for Swift’s Strained Meats states, during “actual feeding tests,” doctors felt that “meat-fed babies were in better physical condition generally!” The ad notes “All medical statements made in this advertisement are accepted by the... American Medical Association.” With Swift’s, your baby “gets to know the distinctive flavor of six tempting meats he will eat all his life: beef, lamb, pork, veal, liver, and heart.” Unlike a few generations ago, many babies today never taste lamb, liver, or heart—and certainly do not eat them throughout life; yet these special meats offer superior nutrition. (Source: Katherine Erlich)

#Nutrition: Multiple studies have correlated meat consumption in early childhood to improved cognitive functioning in adulthood. Here, it was also associated with better grades and economic achievement later in life.

#Skincare: If you haven't heard of using tallow as moisturiser, frankly, where have you been? Beef tallow is anti-aging, heals acne, repairs damaged cells and contains a whole range of vitamins that nourish your skin. As an adult, you can use it in your routine, but know that you can also safely use it on the baby; it takes great care of dry creases and rashes.