Pregnancy and Weight Gain

Did you know? Most women who are scared of falling pregnant don't fear the responsibility of motherhood or the pain of delivery nearly as much as they fear... putting on weight.

Clearly, those are women who've never been in a close proximity to a screaming baby, a tantrum-throwing toddler or a 13-year old with a tongue stud and a packet of condoms. But I digress.

It is normal and desirable to put on weight during pregnancy. Your baby, the placenta, you name it. If you try to diet when pregnant, you will only risk your own health and the development of your baby. 

How much pregnancy weight gain is ok? How much is too much or too little? 

The literature suggests 8kg - 20kg, which seems hopelessly too vague. The best tool I found for the job is Kidspot's Pregnancy Weight Gain Calculator. It takes into account your height and pre-pregnancy weight, and it calculates your safe range of pregnancy weight gain for you. Try it.

And just as a reminder, avoid these foodstuffs when pregnant... in favour of these healthy ideas.

Household Tips for Busy Mums

Household Tip 1: Messy clothes drawers?

• You won't believe it until you try it, but if you roll up your kids' t-shirts and pants instead of folding them, you will be able to fit more clothes into the same space. They will be more visible too, making it easier to choose outfits in the morning.

Household Tip 2: Pot or lasagna dish with food burnt into it? 

• No problem. Sprinkle a teaspoon of your dishwashing powder onto it, pour a little hot water, leave to soak for an hour. The dirt will lift away easily.

Household Tip 3: Get organised 

• Have a folder with every child's school information:  other parents' phone numbers, sports timetables, class topics for the term, etc.
• Have another folder with the menus of all the local take-away shops that deliver.
• Dedicate a large plastic box (with a lid) for all the bits of toys that you can't readily identify: a tiny pink dress (Barbie or Bratz?), a small key, half a magnet, a plastic something that could belong to a board game... or not.

Household Tip 4: Food 

• The best tip I've heard for avoiding those dinner battles: If you don't like what the rest of us are eating, you can have breakfast cereal with milk and some fruit. 
• Some children will eat food they normally reject if you present it nicely (small shapes, faces, with dip, on tons of small separate places, on the picnic blanket).
• Tips for packed lunches.
• Top tips for fussy eaters.

Bonus Tip: why it's important to veg out.

Please share your own household tips, either by commenting on this post or on the Kidspot Social Forum.

Kid-friendly and Mum-friendly movies

Peter Pan is a regular guest in our household (not so long ago he had a dedicated chair at the dinner table), so I really looked forward to the movie "Tinkerbell". We finally watched it the other night and...

... it was ok, in an ok sort of way. The kids liked it, but didn't rave about it. I managed to sit through it, wishing I was watching "Nimm's Island" or "Madagascar". Not that "Nimm's Island" or "Madagascar" were particularly brilliant, but they were aimed at adults as well.

I'm told "Bolt" is good - my husband was lucky enough to get that one. My turn came with "Hotel for Dogs", which is great for 5-year olds - only.

So what's wicked today? Check out the latest movies for kids. And kids' DVDs. And movies for mums and dads.

Tell us what you've been watching.

Money, money, money - it's not funny

Money, money, money. It's always about money nowadays. 2009 is the year of:

1. saving money, 
   
2. wishing you had more money, 
   
3. blowing money on "70%-off!!!" sales.
   

I do a lot of 2 and 3, but not enough of 1. 

I may have a degree in mathematics, but budgeting is still a foreign word to me. I honestly don't know how other people do it. I only have two modes: "buy what I want" and "agonise over every purchase, wonder whether we can make do without paper towels this month, put bottled water back on the shelf (tap is ok for me), plan popcorn for dinner 3 times a week"... you get the idea.

This week's resolution is to become smarter about my family's spending, so I'm reading:

• Family Budget
• Managing the credit card
• Using a financial counsellor

so that I don't have to read How To Deal With Debt.

So far, my favourite tips include making my own cleaning products with vinegar&soda and replacing small toys with daily walks in the kids' "treats" bag.

Please leave comments with your own tips.

What Birth Order means for Your Child

• “A first born son usually feels a greater connection with his mother and at times may clash with his father. In any situation of family conflict, he looks to be his mother's protector.”
• “Mentally focused and physically strong, the first born girl presents a powerful physical presence. She gathers and preserves the family, sometimes overpowering others with her confidence and driving sense of responsibility.”

Does that sound familiar? The text comes from an online tool, Kidspot’s Birth Order Index. I don’t know about your family, but it’s scarily accurate in mine. Have a look (you don’t need to type in full names, an initial will do if privacy’s an issue) - it’s heaps of fun. Don’t only do your own children - also check out the households you and your partner grew up in!

The Rayid Model™ has been used around the world since 1970s. It gives insights into personality and relationship patterns, and the influence of family-tree dynamics on our children’s development and well-being.

 

 

Maths - Just A Memory Game?

How are your children being taught the fundamentals of Maths? Do you know? Or is it all a bit of mystery, a secret carefully guarded by the teachers? 

At my school - and it is a fabulous school in almost every respect - we don’t have textbooks for our 5-9 year olds and maths workbooks remain in class (there is no maths homework), so I actually have no clue whether they are learning addition or fractions. 

When I ask my daughter what they did in Maths today, I inevitably hear:

• “Um... nothing?”
• “I can’t remember.”
• “What’s for afternoon tea?”
• “Well, Jessica said that I could borrow her pencil but then Katie, that’s Katie S not Katie M, said hers was better than Jessica’s, so we spent the rest of the lesson comparing the pencils...” (!!!!!!!!!!!)
• “We did these squares. You write a number on top. Then you skip a line. Then there are some other numbers already filled in, and then you fill in some other numbers, but I don’t know how.” (?????????)

 

When I ask the teacher how I can support her in teaching maths to my child, I hear:

• “She’s doing well. You have nothing to worry about.”

And when I insist:

• “Play board games and card games with her. Make maths fun. Make sure she really knows the answers without having to work them out.”

 

That really bothers me. Why should a child memorise answers to sums? Maths is all about comprehension. What’s the point of being able to recite like a parrot that 15+15=30 and 15+16=31 and 15+17=32? I would prefer my daughter to be able to work out 15+16 in three different ways, taking her sweet time to arrive at the answer. 

What do you think? 

PS: Some great links for this discussion:

• Math Flash Card Builder
• Check out what other parents say about Math
• Your child’s learning style (my daughter is highly visual and the auditory way of learning maths at school doesn’t suit her natural ability)

Breakfast woes

“Oh no! Not oatmeal AGAIN! That’s what I had yesterday. No way am I eating it.”

Does that sound familiar? For your information, in our household, that’s actually me talking. Me, a responsible mother of two youngsters, one of whom is like his Dad, happy to eat the same cereal every day of his life, while the other is like her Mum.

(I’ll never forget that line from City Slickers: “Every day, for the rest of your life, the same cereal”... except they were talking about marriage. It stuck. But I digress.)

I like oatmeal. Just not two mornings in the row. The same is true of any other food. As a teenager, I spent two weeks in a holiday resort with my parents, and towards the end I refused to come down for breakfast where I would be offered a choice of boiled, fried or scrambled. Eggs every morning for 14 consecutive days would make a perfect diet for me: a weight-loss diet, you understand.

My daughter shares her mother’s little quirk, and it drives her father crazy. You see, he cannot understand the point of asking: “What would you like for breakfast today, honey?” His own heartfelt answer is: “Whatever I had yesterday.” 

Because he is the one making the kids’ breakfast every morning, the topic of breakfast menus is fraught with danger in our family. Meanwhile, I’m running out of breakfast foods, fast. So far, we had a week of Gorilla Munch, scrambled eggs with tomato sauce, buttered toast, lemon meringue yoghurt, cornflakes. Tomorrow, she’s having cottage cheese with honey. But unless you leave a few ideas in the comments, it will be an empty plate for her the day after.

Ok, things are looking up. My trusted friend, Dr Google, has given me a link to Fussy Eaters, as well as to Breakfast Basics, where I found this lovely tip: “Go the savoury route. Anything can be breakfast - last night's leftover pasta, a toasted bagel with baked beans, toast with roast chicken on top. Don't get locked into offering only cereal, eggs or toast.” Woo-hoo! Sushi for breakfast, anybody?

The latter article has fine ideas for kids’ breakfasts on the run, too - perfect for those of us who are too busy choosing a school outfit and brushing our hair to have a breakfast stop.

I’ve also found a super-easy omelette recipe - yes, I know omelette is just egg by another name, but it does smell sweeter, particularly a fruit-based omelette. There are also corn fritters (I never realised you could make those for breakfast) and purple pancakes (yes, with blueberries). All of those are kid-friendly and older children can have a go at cooking their own.

So that’s the children’s breakfast sorted then. I wonder what I’ll be having tomorrow, though, because there is only enough cheesecake available for one.

“Oh no! Not oatmeal AGAIN....”

What educational computer games can you recommend?

Commercial computer games

My 6-year old daughter loves “Aladdin’s Maths Quest” (Disney). It features visual-spatial puzzles, basic addition, and problem solving such as: if I have 8 crystals, and half of them are green, and two are white, and the rest are red.... A year ago, she refused to do the problem unless I changed the crystals into lollies, because that’s what she could relate to.

My 4-year old son prefers Bob the Builder games of the “fix the leaky pipe” sort: diagnose the fault, find the right tool and the right parts, fiddle with all the bits. You know, boy stuff.

They both love “Learn the Language” games from New Concepts (the games are aimed at adults, but my kids love them, and their Polish vocabulary is impressive as the result).

Free online games

My friends swear by the following for 7+ year olds:

• http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/games.aspx (general science)
• http://www.kidspot.com.au/SpellingGames/wordscrambler-index-kidspot.asp (spelling)
• http://www.coolmath4kids.com/ (maths)
• http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm (geography of the world)
• http://ababasoft.com/kids/index_logic.html (logic games)

What are some of your favourites?

Please leave a comment on this blog to tell us what your children enjoy playing on the computer.

 

Kids and the Internet

Of course, we could go into the debate of whether it’s better to kick a soccer ball around or to click the mouse, how much screen time is too much, and so on. We won’t. Some basic things to keep in mind, though:

• Teach your kids to be Internet-savvy
• Read articles about Internet safety for kids
• Assess how safe your child is on the Internet
• Consider using the Net Nanny
• Don't wrap them in cotton wool: they have to brave the cyber jungle, sooner or later....