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Miracles do Happen!

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

When you’re pregnant, a new word enters your vocabulary – swaddle. It’s a funny little word and everyone starts throwing it at you. If you take a taking care of baby class, you’ll discover it means to wrap your baby up like they’re in a strait jacket. In said class you’ll likely get a little demo and be forced to fumble around with a blanket to try it several times in front of complete strangers. You won’t give it much thought until one sleepless night just after your baby’s arrived, you find yourself at your wit’s end for how to calm your baby to sleep. Then a lightbulb goes off and you think, “Let’s swaddle this baby!”

You’ll discover babies love the comfort of being swaddled. It soothes and relaxes them. You will also discover swaddling is a very tricky science which requires the right equipment. If you use the wrong blanket, your squirmy baby will pull a Houdini and make their way out. There are lots of swaddling blankets out there but there’s only one we consider to be the best – The Miracle Blanket.

Reasons Why The Miracle Blanket Is THE Best Swaddle Blanket

  • Reduces fussiness allowing your baby to sleep better, deeper and longer (you, too!).
  • Comfortably fits your child for several months so you won’t have to purchase them with every little growth spurt.
  • The smart design makes it so your baby won’t squirm their way out of being swaddled.
  • Easy for parents to use with no buttons, velcro, straps, zippers or snaps.
  • Comforts baby as they transition from the cozy comfort of the womb into the outside world by mimicking many of the sensations of being in the womb.
  • Pediatricians, doulas and other professionals who work with babies rave about The Miracle Blanket.
  • As your baby grows, the blanket will loosen around the legs which is an intentional design feature to allow for proper development and movement of hip and knee joints.
  • Because each baby has their own opinion of how they like to be swaddled, The Miracle Blanket gives parents the option to swaddle their baby with or without their feet tucked inside the blanket.

So many Bellani families have discovered for themselves why this blanket is rightly named The Miracle Blanket. If you give one gift at a baby shower, this should be it! Just take a look at this video courtesy of the folks behind The Miracle Blanket. We’re pretty sure both baby and mom are very, very thankful to whoever gave them the blanket!

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Preparing For Cold And Flu Season

Monday, October 24th, 2011

A year and a half ago, we put together a post on creating a healing basket for common warm weather ailments amongst the little kid set. Today it’s all about getting together your own personal “doctor’s” kit for this cold and flu season. We all know hand washing is the way to go and hand sanitizers are a good runner up. However, despite our best efforts those pesky germs sometimes catch our little ones (and us, parents) off guard.

Preventative Measures

  • Nothing beats a good hand-washing. The moment my girls and I come into the house we gather around the sink and give our hands a good scrubbing. On the road, I try to use soap and water as much as possible but when that doesn’t work out a hand-sanitizer comes in great handy.
  • Last year we discovered elderberry which is a great natural way to boost your immune system with high levels of vitamin C. Everyone in our family takes a spoonful every morning when we’re not sick and then more often we start to feel a cold coming on.

Sick and Tired

  • Stuffy noses are the worst especially when your child has yet to master how to blow their nose really well. Enter the Nosefrida, the official snot sucker. While the premise sounds a little, um, gross (you insert one end into your child’s nose, the other in your mouth and suck out the snots – easy peasy – a sanitary filter prevents any contact between parent and snots), the results are monumental. Check out our Facebook page for reviews from devoted users.
  • Water, water and more water. I fill up every water bottle in the house and make sure to have one by the bed and by the couch. And for the still breastfeeding set, it’s a nursing on demand marathon. Anything to help them get back to their healthy selves!
  • During a cold, things always seem to get worse when my kids go to bed – the stuffiness, the coughing. We’ve found having them sleep at an angle helps tremendously with breathing better. We’re putting the cuddly Cloud B Aroma Pillows on our holiday wishlist this year. A removable lavender scented pouch helps your under the weather kid fall asleep and the size is just right for little heads to get a comfortable night’s sleep. Winning!
  • A thermometer is essential. A fever is a healthy sign your child’s body is fighting a good fight. A thermometer will help you track if your child’s fever is getting higher or coming down. Every few hours, I’ll jot down the course of my child’s fever which comes in handy when determining what course of action to take.
  • Pen and paper. This year I’m creating a sort of health notebook for each of my girls. Any time they come down with something, I’ll take note of what symptoms they have, what methods we use to help their bodies get well and how they respond to those methods. This is a good way to know what products you should be stocking your house with – from medicine to herbal remedies to immune system boosting foods. It’s also a great way to give your pediatrician a thorough overview of your child’s condition.
  • When my girls get sick they actually get a little excited because they know it means it’s time for a bubble bath and a massage! We’re big fans of the California Baby Cold and Flu Aromatherapy Bubble Bath and Essential Oil. The bubble bath helps relieve ache-y bodies and when I use the essential oil, the scent works wonders to relieve congestion. I’ve also mixed the oil with their moisturizing cream and given my girls a calming massage.
  • Six out of seven days a week, we’re a no TV household. So when someone gets sick I think we all get a little excited to cuddle up on the couch with our favorite movie. There nothing like rest to allow your child’s body to help itself.
  • It’s an old wives’ tale but I buy in. I use a natural eucalyptus based menthol cream and spread it on the bottoms of my girls’ feet. I put socks on them and I’m convinced it helps them sleep easy at night. This one’s not proven but just one of those things I did when they were babies and now I can’t stop myself.

What do you consider essential when your kids get sick? I’d especially love to hear if you’ve got any family recipes known for their healing powers. Does chick soup still cut it? Let us know in the comments what’s in your “doctor’s” bag of tricks for cold and flu season.

Carla Molina, formerly a Bellani educator teaching gym classes to babies and kids, is a mom to two girls under 5 with a serious magazine addiction. Carla is a freelance writer passionate about families, parenting and babies. Currently, she’s behind the scenes preparing to launch Petit Rhody, a daily email and blog on all the family friendly fun you can find in Rhode Island. When she’s not writing about parenting or parenting, she loves a good book, a hot yoga class or a good trip to the movie theater, butter layered popcorn and all.

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Keeping Pictures of Your Kids Safe on Facebook

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011

Photo by Doe, John via Flikr.

A few weeks ago, Kelly and I were discussing our usage of Facebook; we’re both pretty active on the social networking site. She’s on it for business purposes and making friends hungry and jealous of her culinary skills. Me? I use it to keep up with family and friends, as a filter for news worth reading and YouTube videos worth viewing. Despite our different reasons for using Facebook, one common thread we share is we both share photographs of our children and we’re getting to a point where we’re not 100% comfortable putting up pictures of our kids. Okay, maybe we never really were 100% about posting pics but with the frequent changes to Facebook and confusion over security settings, it’s becoming harder to tell who can see what.

I’d bet 8 in 10 infants born in the last several years has had a photo posted on Facebook. Likely a cute little mugshot at just minutes or hours old. I’m guilty as charged. There’s nothing wrong with it; it’s how our society communicates. Only thing is I’m concerned people will copy and use an image of my children without my permission. I’d be pretty ticked if I went on a vacation to Germany and found a picture of one of my girls promoting a local business (read this mom’s creepy experience). Heck, I’d be worried if someone randomly downloaded a picture to their hard drive, friend or not. Just weird, right?

So what are parents to do? We can’t stop sharing photos on Facebook. It’s one of the ways Bellani staff keep up to date on whose going to be transitioning from Prenatal Yoga to Itsy Bitsy Yoga.

Not to fret, we’ve got you covered. Here are a few tips for keeping your photos safe.

Select secure privacy settings
When you create a new album, make sure to select a security setting. You can select just your friends, make it public or exclude specific people. A good idea is to create a list within your friends list. On the right hand side of your newsfeed there should be a section labeled “lists”. Hover over the word “lists” until the word “more” appears to the right then click on “more”. It will bring you to a screen with any lists you’ve created and, in the upper right-hand corner, the option to create a list. I have lists for friends from different stages in life, family, business contacts and a few other silly lists. You could make photo sharing easy by creating a photo friendly list of friends. Bonus tip: Be sure to select a privacy setting for your mobile uploads album which is automatically created when you post pictures directly from your phone.

View profile as
This is a neat little feature I recently discovered. On your homepage, you have the option to view your profile page and any content you’ve shared as someone else. Somewhere near the right upper-hand corner of your homepage you’ll see a link for “view profile as”. Click on it and a box will appear where you can type in someone’s name. For instance, if you have blocked John Doe but just don’t feel confident he’s truly blocked, then type in his name and poke around your profile including photographs. Clicking on “view profile as” will also allow you to view your content as “public” so it will show you exactly what someone would see if say they found you through Google or through a friend’s Facebook page. Bonus tip: Do what I do and use this feature every time Facebook makes any major changes to make sure your security settings haven’t changed.

Share photos temporarily
I started doing this earlier this year and so far it gives me peace of mind. Upload your photos and leave them up for a set amount of time. I don’t really have a method for this other than every few weeks I remember to check what pictures I have up. So pictures of my kids stay up a good two to three weeks and then I delete them. It might seem silly but the less time they’re on the internet the lower the chances someone might steal my photos.

Choose your apps wisely
Third-party applications on Facebook, the ones which usually stop you and ask for access to your account, should be chosen with care. These folks are not associated with Facebook so there are no guarantees to what might happen when you make your information available to a third-party.

These are just a few ideas for keeping your family photographs safe on Facebook. Do you post pictures of your children on the mega-social network? Tell us in the comments what your personal philosophy is for sharing pictures of your kids and if you take any special precautions to protect those images.

Carla Molina, formerly a Bellani educator teaching gym classes to babies and kids, is a mom to two girls under 5 with a serious magazine addiction. Carla is a freelance writer passionate about families, parenting and babies. Currently, she’s behind the scenes preparing to launch Petit Rhody, a daily email and blog on all the family friendly fun you can find in Rhode Island. When she’s not writing about parenting or parenting, she loves a good book, a hot yoga class or a good trip to the movie theater, butter layered popcorn and all.

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