Sometime before he starts kindergarten, your young child should learn how to write his name. There are some steps he needs to master before he can write legibly, and some activities you can provide to help him along the way.

The young child can recognize words before he can physically write them. His eyesight isn’t quite 20/20 yet, though, so all words should be written fairly large. If you’re sitting really close to him, two inches is probably okay. Smaller than that, and you’re making it much harder for him than it needs to be, and may cause him eye-strain.

The small muscles in his hands and fingers are not fully developed, and his coordination is off. So anything you can do to give him lots of practice using those small muscles can only help. Let him play with playdough, string beads, lace shoestrings through a lacing card, play with legos, and cut with child safety scissors while supervised, to name a few.

Next, teach him to recognize his name. Print his name in large block letters – one capital letter, and the rest lower-case letters, the way he will see it written in school. Do not write it all in caps. Put his name on his bedroom door, at his place at the table, where he hangs his coat – any place you can think of putting it. You can start teaching him to read other words, too, if you like – any word that he finds interesting- print them in large letters on 4×6 index cards.

Next, have him roll playdough snakes and have him form the letters that make his name. You can print his name on cardboard and let him “trace” the name with playdough snakes. Later, let him make his name without the tracing card.

Spritz shaving cream on a cookie sheet, and let him draw his name in the cream. Supervise him, if you don’t want shaving cream everywhere, but this activity may amuse him for 15 to 20 minutes, and it’s educational, too. I let my granddaughter do similar supervised educational activities at the kitchen table while I do dishes or fix a meal. She’s having fun, she’s close by, and I know what she’s up to.

Let him fingerpaint his name, using a large sheet of paper and his favorite color of paint.

Let him draw his name in wet sand or mud.

Let him try to write his name with sidewalk chalk.

Finally, you can print off his name at a website like Kid Zone, and let him trace his name over and over. If you slip the paper in a page protector or laminate it, and get a dry erase marker, he can practice it and wipe it clean to reuse.

He’ll eventually graduate from dry-erase markers, to thick crayons, to pencils. But don’t rush him to writing with a pencil too soon. Let him develop the coordination first, and experience success at every step along the way.

Lorelei

For further reading, you may wish to read:
How to Teach Your Baby to Read
Reading Readiness
Play Areas for Encouraging Creativity

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Fingernails can be a window to what’s going on deep inside you! Pale, whitish nail beds may be a symptom of anemia. White nails may indicate liver disease, while red nail beds may indicate heart disease. So what do short, chewed off nails mean?

Some children develop the habit of chewing on their fingernails. Maybe they do it because they have frequent hangnails or split nails that are annoying them. Maybe they observe a parent or caregiver do it, and they are simply imitating a learned behavior. But for many children, it is believed that biting nails is a form of stress relief.

Why should we care? Is it really something we should concern ourselves over? That is a question only you can answer. If it doesn’t bug you, then go ahead and ignore it. Generally, most kids outgrow this habit about the time that it starts to bother them.

However, there are a number of reasons why you should care, why it should bother you, why you should try to help your child break himself from his chewing habit.

1. children’s hands touch a lot of things! They are dirty! Think of all the bacteria they are ingesting every time they bite their nails!
2. Chewed fingernails can become stuck between teeth or under the gums, spreading bacteria and leading to cavities and gum disease.
3. torn nails and damaged skin are breeding grounds for bacteria. The nail bed can become infected. The the whole finger can become inflamed.
4. compulsive nail biting in young children can lead to deformed teeth
5. Lead is found in higher concentrations among nailbiters than the general public. Lead poisoning can significantly lower I.Q. levels.
6. Adults who continue to chew their nails are less productive than their non-gnawing counterparts.

So, if you have a chewer in the family, there are several things you can try to help them stop.

First, keep a record of every time you see your child bite his nails. What is he doing? Does he bite his nails every time he watches TV? Or only when Aunt Lulu comes to visit? Does he chew when he’s in church, or trying to fall asleep? Knowing when he bites may help you understand WHY he bites.

If he’s chewing away while watching T.V., then it’s just a mindless habit. Getting him to stop may be no harder than helping him find something else to occupy his hands. You can keep drawing paper, pencils and crayons near the T.V. and encourage him to draw instead. With an older child, you could try teaching them to knit or crochet. A child who mindlessly chews his nails is also a child who may start to mindlessly eat – so finding a better thing to do with his hands could save him from a weight problem in the future.

Does your child bite when when she is scared, worried, frightened, intimidated, or otherwise experiencing stress? This is believed to be the main reason why people – child and adult alike – chew their nails. Help your child understand why she’s biting her nails. Help her verbalize what’s upsetting her. Help her discuss it. Sometimes just acknowledging that a child is under stress is enough to help them overcome it. Children experience a lot of emotions, but they lack any understanding of those emotions. They may not know that it is actually okay to be mad!

Teach your child what emotions are. Help him verbalize them all. If you see him throwing toys and screaming, tell him, “I see that you are angry. It is okay to be angry. It is not okay to throw toys and scream in the house, but it is okay to be angry. Can you think of something better to do when you get like this? What if you went outside and pounded nails into a log?” (Or whatever activity you feel would be a good way to release stress).

If your child only seems to gnaw away when his nails are rough and annoying him, then make a manicure part of the nightly bath routine. Trim his nails, file them smooth. Teach him how to wash beneath the nails with a nail brush. Help him learn to use an emory board to sooth away ragged edges. Rub a bit of moisturizer into the nail and cuticle every night. If your yougster would like it, try painting on some nail polish. Help her to see her nails as something pretty, rather than something delicious.

Many people have found a cure in a bottle. They buy products that make the nail taste bad to discourage biting. Now there are natural products that you can use, that won’t poison your little one. One product uses pepper and citric acid. Another uses a blend of bitter-tasting vitamins and minerals. Some websites say NOT to use these products unless your child is eager and willing to stop this habit. I wonder why? Is it not “good parenting” to teach our children? We teach our children to brush their teeth and to hold our hand before crossing the street. We don’t ask them if they mind having their teeth clean or if they object to surviving to walk across the street another day! I say “hog wash”. If your child is a biter, and you want to stop this habit, then try every product on the market until something works!

If you found a way to break your child of this habit that is not mentioned here, please share it! We look forward to hearing from you.

If you are new here, you may want to read:
Ten steps to boost your child’s creativity
Vitamin Deficiencies in Children
Play areas for encouraging creativity in Children

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This week, you and your child will learn about preparing our hearts and home for Christmas, in the season we call Advent. Your child can learn:

• Christmas is Jesus’ birthday!
• Each week we light a new candle on the advent wreathe, as we count down the days until Christmas.
• There are many things we can do to get ready for this special holiday.
• Some people pray and fast.
• Some people decorate their homes with lights, greenery, ribbons, and more.
• Some people are very poor, and cannot afford gifts. We remember them at this time.
• Many people give gifts to each other, just as the Wise Men gave gifts to Baby Jesus.

There may be more that you would like to teach your young child, depending on your religious affiliation. Do you want to include Santa Clause in your family traditions? Would you like to help your child buy a gift to donate to a poor family, or volunteer at a soup kitchen? What about singing carols at a nursing home, or for an elderly church member?

Kids can get so hyped up, that their behavior is atrocious this time of year. Starting in October, they were excited for Halloween. As soon as that ended, there was Thanksgiving, and even before the turkey was done baking, Christmas lights were up and carols playing on the radio. Is it any wonder that our normally sweet-natured little one becomes a greedy little brat every time he sees a man in a Santa suit?

There is much you can do to try to tone this down. Help your child focus on giving, rather than the toys he’s going to get. Help him sort through his toys in preparation for Christmas, cleaning out the ones that he no longer needs. Throw away broken toys, or repair and donate them if possible.

This week you’ll help your child make an “Advent” chain – add as many links in the paper chain as there are days left until Christmas. Then, every morning, tear off one more chain. Help him count the remaining chains (good math activity). When the last chain is torn, it will be Christmas. You could make the last chain a special color – white, perhaps, and all the others alternating red and green.

Many families won’t put the Christ Child in the Nativity set until Christmas Eve. They’ll get the set out, dust it off, and set it up, but have the statues of Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and wise men all looking at an empty manger. This, too, can help the child understand the concept of advent – of waiting for the coming of Our Lord.

Have fun this week! Your child will make some pretty decorations for the house. Together, you’ll bake Christmas cookies, and maybe you’ll even put up your tree, if you haven’t already. Send in a picture to share! We’d all love to see the pretty things your child has made.

Advent Lesson Plans

All of the books recommended in this week’s lesson plans can be found at your local library, or in my store.

For further reading:
Building Family through Tradition
Children in Church
Working with the Lesson Plans

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Drop in to any parenting website, chat room, or pick up a magazine aimed toward parents of young children, and I can almost guarantee that you will find at least one discussion – and probably many more than one – on the fussy eater. It’s almost an epidemic! Many young children between the ages of eighteen months and forty-eight months seem to survive on love alone. They don’t want to drink their milk, eat their cereal, finish their sandwich, taste their vegetables, or even look at their dinner. But when you’re in the checkout aisle at the grocery store they’re always hungry for that candy bar or sugary soda. To exacerbate the problem, the young child is often loud and vocal about their changing food preferences. Instead of a polite “no thank you” to the spaghetti or green beans you are about to serve, they may shout a resounding, “Yuck!”

The worst meal of the day for families with young children is definitely dinner time. Moms and dads are tired. One or both of them just got home from work. They’re eager to get dinner over with, so they can get their screaming tots into the bath, then into bed, before they can finally take a break. And the worst, absolutely the worst thing either of them can do is engage in a power struggle with that child over what food passes between his lips. Once a parent demands that they clean up their plate, it is no longer an issue of health and nutrition. This is a battle of wills, and one the parent cannot win. If the child does eat, he’s not forming healthy, happy eating habits. If he doesn’t eat, the parent will either cave in, or be forced to discipline the child, which can lead to life-long eating disorders.

So end the meal time battle right now, and try a few of the following alternatives.

• Eliminate all refined sugar from your child’s diet. Sugar is not nutritious, but when your child eats even just a little sugar, it changes his palate, and he’ll crave sugary foods even more. He won’t want to eat anything that isn’t sweet. It takes a few weeks to break the sugar addiction, but once you do, you’ll really appreciate how much better all your other food tastes. Natural sugar found in fruit is fine – in moderation, of course.
• Establish specific meal times, and stick to the plan. Write down what time you eat breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner. Serve them at the same time every day. Keep them about three hours apart, with NO SNACKING in between. Your child is more likely to eat if he comes to the dinner table hungry.
• Provide plenty of activity during your child’s day. See that he has time to run and play outside, dance, jump, ride a tricycle, throw a ball, climb, hop, crawl, and turn somersaults. Don’t raise a couch potato. If your child is burning calories, he’ll need to refuel at the dinner table.
• Serve more raw foods, more individual foods, and fewer casseroles. It is not uncommon for a little child to like to eat carrots, corn, green beans, and peas, but refuse to eat “veg-all” with all of those vegetables mixed in together. Remember when your young child was still an infant, you might have fed him a jar of peas and a jar of apricots for a meal, but you probably didn’t feed him a jar of lasagna.



• Set the table. Eat at the table. Don’t serve dinner in the car – ever – if possible! Use a tablecloth sometimes. Set out special plates. Use cloth napkins. Light the candles. Make dinner fun! Play Italian music when you serve pizza, or Mexican music when you have tacos.
• Go on a picnic. No matter what the season, you can take a picnic outdoors. My dad used to love winter picnics. I can remember him bringing a broom to wipe the snow off the picnic tables in the park. We’d have thermoses of hot soup and cocoa. You could build a fire in the fire pit or charcoal grill and toast marshmallows.
• Who said picnics have to be outside? Once in a while, take a picnic to the living room. Spread a vinyl tablecloth over the carpet, and serve your favorite picnic fare on the floor. Maybe the teddy bears could join you for this picnic?
• be realistic about what you expect your young child to eat. His stomach is only about the size of his fist. Make his servings MUCH smaller! Half of one slice of bread is a serving for the 2 – 5 year old child, yet if you make him a sandwich, he’s getting four times that amount! For many fruits, a serving size is only 2 Tablespoons – not the whole banana. It’s better to get him to eat two grapes, then ask for more,than to overwhelm him with a whole bunch.
• Plan mealtime conversations. Instead of talking about what he is or isn’t eating, or yelling at him to clean up his plate, engage him in conversation about his day. Ask what he did, what he enjoyed, what he learned. There are whole websites devoted to encouraging pleasant mealtime conversations for the family. (See a few listed at the end of this article).
• If your child still does not eat his supper, he can still sit at the table with the family until they are all finished. He is part of the family, and mealtimes is an important time to build relationships. After dinner, he will NOT be allowed any snacks. It won’t hurt him to go to bed hungry once in a while. In fact, no one should be eating after dinner. The after-dinner snack is a terrible habit to get in to, and if you or your child are not waking up hungry for breakfast it could be because too much food was consumed too close to bedtime the night before. Breakfast is supposed to be ‘breaking the fast” – not just throwing another log on the hot coals of a slow-burning metabolism.



What a big, beautiful smile! Wouldn’t you love to see this at your dinner table every night? Why can’t mealtimes be the highlight of the day? With a little planning, patience, and ingenuity, it can be!

Check out the book, Table Talk, Creating Meaningful Conversation with Family and Friends, now available in my store.

Table Talk websites:
Table Topics for Kids
Table Talk, How Mealtime Chatter Strengthens the Family
Family Table Talk Information

Related Reading:
Feeding the Finicky Eater

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Young children not only CAN help you clean up around the house, often times they even WANT to help! They love to be with us, and imitate us. A two or three year old doesn’t know that spending time with you wiping down the table or sorting silverware is supposed to be “work” while spending time with you playing Candyland or coloring is supposed to be “fun”. It’s all fun for the young child! Some parents don’t allow their young children to help, because cleaning does take longer with them underfoot, but you are missing a great opportunity then. Maybe washing dishes does take longer, and maybe you’ll have to re-wash some of the silverware if your youngster drops them on the floor – but besides teaching your child some important life skills, you can also teach him the value of a job well done. You can boost his self-confidence, and build a strong relationship with him. And, you just might actually have fun doing it, too!

So, what are some things you can expect your young child to do? ANYTHING! As long as it isn’t dangerous for him to help. He won’t be able to scrub a toilet or bathtub with a toxic cleanser, but straight white vinegar works great for cleaning almost anything, and it isn’t toxic to either your child or the environment. A young child can’t dry and put away sharp knives, but he can dry and put away the spoons, forks and butter knives. Having him sort them into the silverware tray is a great pre-math skill, as well. The young child can set the table, pour milk or water into beverage glasses, fold and put away laundry, pick up his toys, sweep, dust, vacuum and take out the trash. He can feed a pet, make his bed, water the plants. I taught my youngest daughter how to use the washer and dryer when she was just three years old! She needed to use a stool to reach the top-loading washing machine, but it was a chore she did well and willingly. And when she went off to college, she just laughed at all the incompetent Freshmen who seemed stymied by the coin-operated laundry facilities.

Make a list of your regular household chores. Choose one chore to teach your child this week, and make a chart for him. Get some cute stickers to make it interesting. Teach him how to do the chore. Setting the table is often a good place to start, but you could have him make his bed every morning, or pick up his toys every evening before bedtime. Just focus on one chore this week. Teach him how to do it perfectly. Help him do it three or four days in a row. Longer, if he seems to need more guidance. Then watch him do it several days in a row, but don’t help him. Praise him for a job well done. Give him a sticker. Now, every day that he does his chore, he gets a sticker. At the end of the week, give him a reward for being such a great helper. It could be something special, like a ride on the carousel at the mall – if you have one in your neighborhood. Or it could be special time together. Maybe staying up a half-hour later on Friday night to play a game with you. File his sticker chart in a scrapbook, and start on another chore.

The next week, teach him a new chore, but still expect him to do the first one that he learned. Now, he will make his bed every day AND help set the table. He gets one sticker on his chart for doing both chores well – but you will be helping him for several days with the new chore, remember. He really should get the sticker the first three days in a row.

Continue on in this manner, for years – until he is a young adult, and KNOWS how to do any chore you can think of. By the time he’s twelve or thirteen, he could be learning how to check the air in the car’s tires, mow the lawn, wash the windows. By the time he’s fifteen or sixteen, he can learn how to put the storm windows on the house, or winterize the lawn mower. Don’t stop teaching him, until you run out of chores for him to learn. Some people will say about a child, “I taught him everything he knows”, but a better statement would be, “I taught him everything I know.”

Just a few reminders: use child-safe cleansers. You can clean almost everything in your house with either white vinegar, or baking soda. Use sturdy, non-tipping step stools for the young child. Keep cleaning materials that are child-safe, in a low cupboard that he can reach, so he can clean up his own messes once you’ve taught him the right way to do so. Organize his bedroom or toy room so that there is a place for everything and everything in it’s place – with photographs laminated onto sturdy bins, so the child knows exactly where everything belongs. Use positive reinforcement.

And sometimes, just sometimes, get down and help your child. Once in a while, he may really be too tired to pick up his mess. Maybe he had friends over who left without helping. Maybe he is under the weather, or maybe his biorhythms are down! But wouldn’t you love to have a child say to you some day, “Gee, Mom, you look really tired. Why don’t you go take a rest and let me finish the dishes?” Any behavior that you want your child to learn, you need to model it first. Who knows, maybe it will pay off some day when you least expect it!

For more information on non-toxic cleansers, check out:
Inexpensive Earth-friendly Cleaning Products

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There’ve been a few changes here lately, which explains why I haven’t posted in a while. I accepted a teaching position at a wonderful Preschool in my area. I’ll be preparing lesson plans and teaching a classroom of fifteen or more, instead of just one, and actually getting a pay check for a change. I’ll continue to post lesson plans here for parents and caregivers, though, as I hope to increase the circulation and usefulness of this blog.

Another change is temporary – I’m home sick today, perhaps with swine flu. I’ll probably stay home tomorrow, as well, so I don’t risk infecting any of the children. So while I’ve been resting and listening to the news about the spread of this virus, I’ve been concerned with ways we can protect our children and loved ones.

The biggest thing we can do is pretty basic. Wash our hands. Often. It sounds so simple, and yet, it is shocking how few people actually do this! I can’t even count the number of times I’ve been in a public restroom where other people have failed to follow this basic hygiene. Oh, some folks may flick their fingers under the cold water tap and give them a shake, but that does nothing to stop the spread of germs, bacteria and viruses. Then later, if they happen to touch their face – specifically the eyes, nose, or mouth, they’ve just “planted” any number of icky things where they can grow.

So we must teach our children the ONLY way to wash their hands – the perfect way – and instill it in them when they are small. Hopefully, as they mature, it will be such an ingrained habit that they won’t stop just because we aren’t there to remind them. I’m not suggesting that we make them all into mini “Monks” with an obsessive-compulsive disorder. No, there should be a healthy dose of normal in this act. Wash hands well, thoroughly, any time they get dirty. But it’s also okay to get dirty! Let your child play in the sandbox or make mud pies. Then just wash hands very well.

Here’s a fun activity you can do with your child as you teach him about hand washing.

1. Pour a little vegetable oil on your hands and his hands. Smoosh this all over and around, between the fingers, over the backs, into the knuckles. (As an added benefit, once this activity is over, your hands may feel extra smooth!). Talk to him about dirt, and pretend that the vegetable oil – which is not harmful – is the dirt we get on our hands. Shake a tiny bit of cinnamon onto your hands. Talk to him about germs, bacteria and viruses, how they are teeny-tiny and invisible to our “naked” eye, unless we have a powerful magnifying glass. These tiny things are what can make us sick. Pretend that cinnamon specks are viruses. Now, try to wash them off with plain cold water. It doesn’t work very well, does it?

2. Add soap, and use warm water. Now wash hands – see how much better the vegetable oil and cinnamon disappears?

3. Explain that he should ALWAYS use soap and warm water to wash his hands.

4. Talk about WHEN he should wash his hands, ticking them off on his fingers. Review this with him often. He has five fingers, five times he should wash his hands. There are other times – like after visiting a sick friend, or changing a baby’s diapers, but I wanted to keep the list simple so your child can memorize it.

*Before preparing or eating food.

*After playing outside

*After coughing, sneezing, or blowing his nose

*After using the bathroom

*After playing with a pet

5. Talk about HOW LONG he should wash his hands. Sing this little ditty I made up. Sing it through twice – that’s about how long you should take to wash your hands thoroughly, every time – or about twenty seconds. Sing it to the tune of “Happy Birthday to you!”

When you go to wash your hands
Use lots of soap and warm water
Rub them briskly together
And bad germs you will slaughter!

6. When soap and warm water are not available, you may consider using an alcohol-based sanitizer, but BE CAREFUL! Some children have been to the emergency room from hand-sanitizer poisoning. Snopes.com has collected the reports, deciding that this is “true” and not another urban legend. Keep hand sanitizer out of the reach of children, supervise them when using it, and never, ever let them lick their hands after using it! Hand sanitizer smells nice, and most kids will want to taste it. Weird, for us grown ups, but kids learn about everything through their five senses. When they encounter something new, they want to see it, touch it, shake it, smell it, and stick it in their mouth.

It is not necessary to use anti-bacterial soaps! In fact, the use of such soaps may be doing more harm than good. Soap and water kill germs. Overuse of antibiotics can create “super” germs that are resistant to antibiotics. Plain soap decreases the surface tension of water, and adheres to dirt, bacteria, viruses, oil, and the like. When you lather with soap, this all combines together easily and washes down the drain. Antibacterial soap does NOT do this job any better than regular soap. Germ-killing soaps are not the same as antibacterial soaps. Germ-killing soaps use bleach or other disinfectants to kill germs. They do not contain antibiotics, and do not contribute to the “super – bug” problem.

So, have fun this week teaching your child about healthy hands, and I hope you enjoy this cinnamony-scented hand lotion!

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When I was a child, there were no car safety seats. We didn’t wear helmets when we rode our tricycles. We didn’t have curving slides that kept you from falling off at the top platform. We played on teeter-totters that are now nearly obsolete. We climbed trees, skipped rocks, jumped off bridges into quarries to go for a swim, and played in row boats in thunderstorms without a life jacket. And I survived! But obviously, a lot of other children did not, or there would not have been so many changes made to keep children safe. Granted, some of this safety-consciousness is really more related to a fear of being sued than for any real concern for children, but the two are not mutually exclusive. If we keep our children safe, then no one has to suffer the heartbreak of loss, and no company will be sued for damages.

Car seats now are so bulky! They have straps that go this way and that, and padding all over the place, and buckles that are nearly impossible to unbuckle! They have tether straps and latches that hold them secure. And they can be placed rear-facing and semi-reclining for newborns, then turned around and up, so a toddler can see out the window. Many moms are so eager to turn their child around, that they may not wait until their child has reached the recommended height and weight. They feel that their child will be happier facing forward. And maybe having a screaming child in the car puts us at greater risk of causing an accident? But new research shows that children are five times safer in the rear-facing position.

The seat belt holds an adult securely to the seat, distributing the combined weight of our body weight and the force of the crash across our hips, ribs, and shoulder. We have strong bones there to help absorb the impact. Little children do not have strong bones like that anywhere. And their necks are so fragile, their heads large compared to the rest of their bodies. In the rear facing position, the impact is distributed all over their body, reducing the risk of a serious neck injury. Turn the safety seat around, and in a bad crash, their necks are likely to snap.

Two year old twins in the rear-facing position.

The research is so conclusive, that it is expected that the recommendations for car seat standards will change in the near future. But why wait? Help to get the word out, and encourage parents to keep their toddlers in the rear-facing position as long as possible. So how long should you keep your child turned backwards? As long as the car seat will allow. Different car seat models will have a maximum height and weight limit for the rear position, usually around 30 to 35 pounds, with some newer ones coming out that go up to 40 pounds in the rear position, and 65 pounds once it is turned forward.

Some moms wonder about their child’s legs being damaged – because their legs will be touching the back of the car seat. Won’t their legs break in a crash? It’s possible. But better a broken leg than a broken neck! There is a popular slogan for this issue being spread across the internet: “Broken legs – cast it. Broken neck – casket.”

Some parents speculate that their child just doesn’t look very comfortable all scrunched up in a rear-facing seat. I think those infant seats look incredibly comfortable! I wish the adult car seat was as cozy! What I really wonder is, if the rear-facing position is so much safer in a crash – why doesn’t everyone except the driver face backwards?

For more information, check out:
Video of forward and rear-facing crash dummies
News article on car seat standards
Rear-facing Car Seats for older children
The Kyle David Miller Foundation

Photo Credits:
All photos by: MammaBunch84

Raising a Budget Baby in a Consumerist World

I hesitated to write this article, as the focus of my blog is on toddler and preschool age children, but I’ve been asked for advice on this topic often enough to guess that it still might be relevant for some of you. The big question is, what does baby need? Or rather, how much can baby do without! I just laugh when I read articles or headlines about how much it costs to raise a child these days, and I wonder what criteria they use. I can quite honestly tell you that much of the baby paraphernalia on the market today is useless, and some of it might even be harmful.

So here is a discussion on the various things you can buy for your nursery and the costs involved, to help you make an informed decision before you work it into your budget.
Basic Items:

A bed. That’s basic. Your new baby will need a place to sleep. For some famillies, this may mean sharing your bed. For others, this may mean an heirloom cradle with a brass name plate, followed by a solid-maple six-year crib only used for a year and a half, which is then transformed into a toddler bed. Some families may also invest in port-a-cribs and playpens.

Cradles, bassinets, and playpens have fallen out of favor in recent years. A newborn will only use a bassinet for two months, three at tops. You cannot use the bassinet once the baby is rolling over or sitting. A bassinet starts at around $100 (not including the bedding) and a cradle at $150. Since a newborn will sleep just fine in a crib, here is one expense you can do without.

Get a good crib. Your baby can sleep in the crib until he starts first grade. Because nearly everybody gets a crib, you can always find one used. Don’t get one that’s too old, as the older cribs may not meet current safety standards. But if you check around, you should be able to find a really nice used crib for around $150.00. Check rummage sales and Good Will for crib sheets and blankets.

If you choose to go with a new crib, you can still save money. It isn’t necessary to get one that converts into a toddler bed. Toddlers may actually sleep better and feel more secure if they stay in their crib, even after toilet training. Think about it – do you really want your little child up wandering around the house when you might still be asleep? If your child calls for you, and you don’t wake up to answer, it is probably better to have to deal with wet pants and bedding, than whatever mischief or danger your child could get in to. Get a crib and use it.

The issues of a family bed could fill an entire post, if not a book, so I won’t do more than mention that some families choose to keep their baby in their bed. For safety reasons, you should not do this if either you or your significant other smokes or consumes alcohol, to reduce the risk of rolling over on top of your baby.

A Car Seat. Here you can spend as little as $50, or well over $400! It may actually be cheaper to get a separate car seat and a separate stroller, than one of these multi-purpose combinations. Most car seats will convert from the newborn/reclining position, to the forward-facing upright toddler position. However, there is more research to suggest that you should keep your baby in the rear-facing reclining position until he is two to two and a half years old.

For the car seat, it might be wisest to go new. Go ahead and check the garage sales and second-hand shops, but again, older ones may not meet current safety standards. Not all car seats fit in all vehicles – we had a car seat with the padded shield that comes down overhead – it was really hard to use in our Pontiac Firebird, where the roof sloped sharply down in the rear. There is a really great website that discusses car seats, how to use them, how to buy them, by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

A Rocker. This really is a must. You will want to rock your baby to sleep. You’ll want to cuddle your baby in the rocker after a bath, before bed, after nightmares, the rocker may become your favorite chair in the house! It certainly will be the most used. Find a rocker that fits you! I’m a little short, and I always wanted to have my spouse cut the legs off my rocker and put the rockers back on, so I could make it rock without getting a crick in my back.

Used rockers are really hard to find. I think that’s because people who own them, use them all up. So shop around, but you should be able to get a solid, wooden one for around $150.00.

The Layette. “Layette” comes from the French, for “little box”. Supposedly, all the things a baby needed to wear would fit in one – a little box, that is. Many babies today have their own chest of drawers and a closet to hold all their things, which is really ridiculous when you figure how fast they’ll outgrow them. Little tiny baby things are just so darn cute! It’s hard to resist buying them, almost as hard as it is to walk past a display of chocolate bars, only they won’t break your diet. Just your budget.

How many clothing items you’ll need to buy for baby depends on how often you plan to do laundry. If you have a washing machine in your home and can throw in a load every day, then you’ll need a lot less than if you have to haul everything to the laundromat every other week. Start out with: six onesies, six pair of bootie socks, six sleeper-pajamas or nightgowns, and one cute outfit. Add to that some small flannel receiving blankets, a couple of larger, heavier blankets, and depending on the season, you may need a jacket or snuggle-sack – just be sure that the outer garment will “fit” in the car seat.

If you’re choosing cloth diapers, start with three dozen. One dozen plastic diaper covers, and two waterproof pads to lay baby on while changing. You don’t need to buy a special baby towel – assuming that you have a bathroom already, you must also have towels. You don’t need to buy special baby wash cloths. Baby does not need shoes – he isn’t going walking anywhere for about a year.

A stroller. Even if you’re very much into Attachment Parenting, and you want to carry your baby everywhere right next to your skin using the sling, a stroller may be very helpful. At the least you can put the diaper bag in the stroller. If you live in the country and have no sidewalks, get a stroller with larger wheels, like a Jogger stroller. If you live in town, and will spend a lot of time getting in and out of the car, or on and off a bus, consider the smaller, more portable Umbroller- type stroller. The Umbroller wheels do not turn well on rough pavement. The jogger stroller does not collapse very small to fit in the trunk of your car. If you shop at garage sales, you might be able to afford one of each. Or, you could get a big red wagon, and skip the stroller completely. That’s a matter of preference.

A sling. There are many designs of baby carriers today. I strongly advice AGAINST the hard-plastic baby carriers that are so popular. The kind where you see parents carrying a baby like a basket of fruit. Babies want to be held! Hold them close, next to your heart. Let them hear your heart beating. Let them get jostled around as you walk. They’re used to it – they’ve been inside you in that neat waterbed for nine months, they’ve been listening to your heartbeat for nine months. I can’t help but wonder if the sudden rise in diagnosed cases of autism isn’t somehow related to the sudden rise of plastic baby carriers? Get a carrier that holds your baby close to you. Choose a design with wide straps, for your comfort. It will allow you to have your hands free, so you can go on with your life, but keep baby close and happy, so the two of you can bond.

A baby gate. You’ll need either a baby gate or a playpen – you’ll need a safe place to put your baby when he starts to move around. If you have older children, then a playpen may be more practical. Otherwise, I keep the nursery “baby-proof” and put a gate up over the door. Then, for those times when you can’t be with baby (for a run to the bathroom) you know that baby will be safe until you return. As baby grows, you may continue to use the gate, to teach baby to learn to amuse himself for a short period of time.

And there you have it. All the “must haves” for your newborn. For well under a thousand dollars, you’ve got the necessities covered. You do NOT need to buy swings, jumpers, shakers, rollers, monitors, bottle warmers, baby wipe warmers, shoes, boots, or toys. You do not need to buy a dresser for baby, unless you plan on buying too many clothes. You do not need to buy a changing table for baby. While they may be convenient, they also take up space. It may be easier to change baby on the floor, or on the foot of a bed with a large, waterproof pad over it. You do not need a diaper bag the size of a suitcase. You can use any backpack, just make sure you restock it after any trip – take out the soiled items and put in fresh. If you plan to nurse, you do not need baby bottles and formula. You do not need baby dishes and silverware – baby shouldn’t be eating solid foods until he is nearly a year old, and then can just use the same dishes as the rest of your family (unless they are fragile. Then buy him something unbreakable). Eventually, you may want to buy a high chair, but not for many months. You can get a cheap plastic booster seat and strap it to a dining chair. These don’t work for very young babies, but very young babies do not need solid food.

Some families swear by baby swings. Some never use them. See if you can borrow a swing before you decide to buy one. But consider this – in many American homes we swing, rock, and jiggle our babies. We can put babies in contraptions that let them jump, bounce, hop, and wiggle. When a baby is fussy, someone is sure to recommend that we put the baby in the car seat and go for a drive. Baby is constantly in motion… and then when baby is old enough to start school, teachers wonder why baby can’t sit still!

I can’t think of anything else in a “basic” list of baby needs. Of course, if you can work it into the budget, you could buy more of anything – more diapers, more pajamas. You could buy lambs wool and bumper pads for the crib. You could invest in a collectors set of children’s books. You could buy every educational CD and DVD on the market. You could buy only organic fruits and vegetables and start making your own baby food, canning or freezing it until your baby is older. There are a lot of ways you could spend your money, but before the budget is spent, just make sure you’ve got the basics covered. Then don’t sweat the rest.

Lorelei

Related articles:
Wonderful WIC
What NOT to do at bedtime
Going Raw

Photo Credits:
Top:http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonnyhunter/ / CC BY 2.0
Middle:http://www.flickr.com/photos/valentinap/ / CC BY 2.0