Happy Days » Parenting

  For nine months your baby is nurtured in the ideal world of the womb. From this calm environment your baby emerges into a busy sensory world.  The transition to the harsh world can to be made smoother by you. Your baby’s brain acts like a sponge absorbing all the new sensory information of the world outside the womb. In the early days your baby is very susceptible to overstimulation. Becoming over simulated results in fussing and an unsettled baby, who won’t sleep. By keeping your baby’s world calm and mimicking the world of the womb your baby will be calmer and the...

The process of interviewing and selecting the prefect nanny is potentially very challenging, there are many wonderful women (and men) with a passion for children looking for work as nannies. The key is to find the perfect nanny for your family and home. When looking for a potential nanny, there are a few considerations to make before you brief placement agencies or prepare to source potential candidates in order to set up interviews. Ask yourself the following questions, many of which are not entirely politically correct, however one needs to be honest with oneself when looking for someone to care for...

  Congratulations, you are pregnant and inside of you is growing and developing a little life. Over the next 9 months, there will be so many changes for you and your baby. Each month, your baby will change so much, as he prepares to cope with our busy world. The shifts for you are also immense. This month, we look at the monthly changes that you and baby go through during this precious time. Month 1 Baby – The sense of touch is your baby’s first sense to develop and is the most well developed sense at birth. Your baby’s touch system began to develop before you even knew you were...

  At the start of each new year, many of us make resolutions; promises or intentions to do something better or to stop something that we feel holds us back. Being a parent adds a new slant to our annual resolutions and for many of us our resolutions are intentions for the year ahead to be a better parent. This year Meg Faure took the Top 10 Resolutions on our Facebook site and wrote a simple ‘how to’ for each one. 1. Establish a routine for my baby. Routines are something many of us long for, to create a little order and predictability in our days. You can start a sleep routine based...

  In the last trimester of pregnancy, your little one’s sensory systems begin to make connections in the brain and learning starts. However, unlike other mammals, human babies are born relatively immature. Consider the newborn antelope, springing across the African veld, following the rest of the herd only hours after birth. Her ability to keep up with her mother as the herd moves on is essential for the survival of the species but it is also made possible because of her relative maturity at birth. The human babies are born way less mature, with limited ability to act on their world. The...