2010 Toy Guide for Differently-Abled Kids now available

Last updated on March 9th, 2018 at 12:16 am

This year’s toy guide for differently-abled kids is now available from Toys R Us online and in stores. Featuring actress, author, philanthropist and mother Holly Robinson Peete, the guide explains which developmental areas each toy addresses. There are also inspiring quotes from special needs parents sprinkled throughout the booklet.

All items in the booklet are available online with free shipping or at your local store. Layaway is also available.

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Editor’s Note:  There is a new version of the Guide available every September.  To get on the mailing list to receive next year’s Guide, send an email to DifferentlyAbled@toysrus.com

It’s Not too Late to Find the Perfect Summer Camp for Your Kid

Last updated on March 9th, 2018 at 10:26 am

Schools are letting out for summer break and soon camps all over the country will be filling with kids ready to have fun! If you haven’t already, then now is time to start making your kid’s summer camp plans. Most camps have been enrolling kids since early in the year, and many may already be full, but it’s not too late to find one for your child. There are camps available for nearly every sport, activity, or interest that your child might have, so start researching now online and locally. Let your kids help choose a camp but limit the choices to the ones that you have already pre-approved and have confirmed that there are still slots available for your kids.

Wondering how to make sure your child has a fun and memorable time at camp? Here are a few pointers to help your kids have the time of their lives:

• Choose a camp based on your child’s age, maturity level, interests, and location. Young children and those who aren’t ready to go to an overnight camp may want to attend a local day camp. Check out local organizations that offer day camps, such as Scouts, Campfire, YMCA, and many others. Talk with your child about his concerns and ideas about camp. Choose one that offers age-appropriate activities that your child enjoys.
• Prepare your child for the camp you have chosen by talking about the activities he will get to do there. If he is worried about missing his family, reassure him that it is normal to feel home-sick, especially if it his first time away, and that those feelings will lessen after a couple of days. Share some of your fun childhood camp stories too. Older kids who are ready for overnight camp may want to stick with one fairly close to home their first time, just in case.
• If possible, send a postcard or card a few days before camp to the camp’s address so it will be waiting when your child arrives. (Check with the camp first to make sure they will hang onto it until your child arrives.) And be sure to send some pre-stamped postcards addressed to home, so your child can write to you and let you know all the fun he is having!
• If your kid has friends who want to attend the same camp, try to coordinate with them so they can bunk together. My daughter and her best friend went to camp for the first time at an overnight camp that is three hours away from home. They were a little nervous about it, but had an incredibly fun time because they were together. My son and his best friend attended that same camp the next summer because their sisters had talked so much about it. Having a friend at camp can help kids beat homesickness and it doubles the fun!

Can’t find a camp with openings for your child?

Can’t afford to send your kid to camp?

Why not create your own?

Pick a week to have your own camp at home for your kids and their friends. Pitch a tent in the backyard or in the living room! Cook out on the grill or make camp food in your own kitchen. Make fun crafts out of everyday household items and play lots of games. Name your camp and have everyone pitch in to make it exciting and entertaining. Kids are creative and can turn anyplace into a summer camp if given some help from their parents. A great camp doesn’t have to cost a lot of money; it just has to be a lot of fun!

Simple Tips to Prevent Childhood Obesity

Last updated on March 3rd, 2018 at 02:15 pm

I am always skeptical of easy fixes.

If a diet or a product or a book claims that they will have astounding results with little pain, my first instinct is to run in the other direction.

However, a study that will be published in March in the journal Pediatrics looks at risk factors for obesity and has three simple bits of advice that I think are worth following.

1. Eat with your family.
2. Decrease TV time.
3. Get more sleep.

Simple, right?

But are these recommendations really so simple? If so, why aren’t we all doing them?

Our lives are busy and some families do have difficulty intergrating consistent mealtimes during a week filled with work and kids activities. Parents allow their children to watch a lot of TV and playing video games and spend hours on the computer for a variety of reasons, including their children’s insistence and their fatigue at fighting and limit setting. And bedtimes creep later when kids fight and scream and yell and refuse to go to bed, and parents just don’t have the energy to fight it.

But making little steps towards these goals can really be a game changer for your family, and for your kids health now and in the future. According to one of the authors of the Pediatrics study, children who practiced all three of these behaviors had a 40% lower risk of obesity than those who did not.

So try it.  This week…

…Eat one more meal with your family than you usually do.

…Make some rules for kids about “screen time”. And enforce them. Every time.

…And put your kids to bed earlier: maybe start 15 minutes earlier, and go from there.

…And while you’re at it, put yourself to bed a little earlier too.   Sweet dreams….

Tips for parents:

To keep your family healthy and decrease your risk of obesity:

• Eat family meals together more than five times a week.
• Limit your children to no more than 1 hour of screen time on weekdays, and less than 2 hours on weekends.
• Aim for 10 1/2 hours of sleep for young and school-aged children.

YouTube – Adding Child Safety to the Menu

Last updated on March 3rd, 2018 at 02:19 pm

With millions of videos on YouTube, keeping your child safe from inappropriate videos has been a major challenge. There’s a significant amount of sexual content and violence…in fact, typing in the word “cartoon” on YouTube leads to over 300,000 hits and on the first page you find a video entitled “very creepy, disturbing children’s cartoon, banned from TV”. And we all know how enticing something that is banned can seem. Scott Rubin, YouTube’s head of child safety, cites that “YouTube was never intended to be used by children under age 13”.  Unfortunately the best of intentions do not always match the end result.  So what is a parent to do??? You could of course choose to block YouTube entirely or keep a constant eye on your child while they scanned through the vast amount of video streams available to them. Finally however, there is another option for parents, one that should make the task of keeping your child safe a little more manageable.

As of last Thursday, YouTube’s parental controls will now be displayed on the bottom of every YouTube screen. You can also create a blocking filter to limit what YouTube will display. According to NY Times reporter Warren Buckleitner, here’s how to turn it on:

1. Scroll to the bottom of any YouTube page.
2. Click on the words “Safety Mode is Off.”
3. Adjust the settings, click Save and start searching. To permanently lock on Safety Mode, you must log on to your YouTube account.

So how does Safety Mode work? CNET Senior Editor Natalie Del Conte describes Safety Mode as accomplishing three things: it “limits content on videos containing nudity, pornography, narcotics, graphic violence, and news events containing graphic violence; collapses all comments on videos automatically (you can choose to view comments, but comments with profanity will be filtered out); locks Safety Mode for all users, even if a user is logged out, so kids can’t turn off Safety Mode if they try to.”

Keep in mind, Safety Mode is both browser specific and account specific, so you must turn it on for every browser (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc) and every account you want to filter. And make sure private browsing is disengaged since Safety Mode will not function if that is turned on. Still nothing is failsafe, so monitoring your child’s internet use remains the best policy. Knowing however that a child’s search for “naked” brings up a message that says “the word “naked” has been filtered from the search because Safety Mode is enabled” should provide concerned parents the ability to breathe a little easier

Sippy Straw Cleaner

Last updated on March 3rd, 2018 at 02:27 pm

Have you ever accidently left your child’s sippy cup in the blistering hot car or wonder what that odd smell is coming from under the couch, only to find your child has hidden their thermos there over a week ago? Have you ever gone to pick up your children from daycare only to see some other runny nosed child drinking out of your child’s sippy cup? I am a stay at home mom that has tackled the never ending battle of trying to disinfect and clean out the curdled milk or molded apple juice from my children’s sippy cup and thermos straws. I tried using toothpicks, pipe cleaners, Qtips, even small paintbrushes… always with minimal success. I never felt confident that it was bacteria free and clean enough to have my children drink through it again. After throwing away TONS of expensive sippy cups because of dirty, clogged straws, I came up with the idea for a mini reusable straw brush cleaner…and voila … the idea for THE SIPPY STRAW CLEANER was born.

Surprisingly, it took only four months to go from an idea to an actual marketable product. During these months I spent many sleepless nights scouring the mommy message boards, online boutiques, and major retail chains for any similar products. Everyone had the same home remedies, yet none of them seemed to be a full proof method for cleaning those pesky straws. More importantly, I saw the reoccurring phrase “I just throw them out and buy another one” and it raised a huge red flag as to the amount of PLASTIC sippy cups that were being thrown in the garbage and what that was doing to our environment. In addition, parents were wasting money purchasing new expensive sippy cups, merely because they couldn’t get the straw clean.

My goal for the Sippy Straw Cleaner was three-fold:

• Save parents money by not having to purchase new sippy cups on a regular basis.
• Better for the environment due to less plastic toss out.
• Healthier for kids by cutting down on straw bacteria build up.

Over the last two years, the media has spent quite a bit of time talking about the dangers of Bisphenol-A (BPA) and how scientists have linked very low doses of BPA exposure to cancers, impaired immune function, early onset of puberty, obesity, diabetes, hyperactivity, as well as neural and behavior problems among children.  Being a mother, I only wanted to develop a product that was safe for both me and my children. The Sippy Straw Cleaner underwent weeks of laboratory testing in New Jersey for verification of its compound makeup. I am happy to report that the Sippy Straw Cleaner is not only FDA approved, but BPA FREE and meets all the requirements of the US Consumer Product Safety Regulations.  The brush has a nylon bristle tip, stainless steel rust free wire stem, and a polypropelene handle to allow for easier holding and scrubbing motion. The design and size of the brush allow for it to universally fit all major brands of sippy, thermos, accordion, and sports bottle straws. It also works fabulously on medicine droppers, jewelry, and keyboards.

The Sippy Straw Cleaner has been on the market for a mere 2 months now…and based on the feedback we’ve received, I’m proud to say we’re meeting our goals. Healthier kids…healthier environment…one sip at a time 🙂

HEALTHFUL HINTS:

What are the benefits for your child by drinking from a straw?

1. Drinking from a straw cup helps oral motor strengthening and speech development.
2. Straw usage helps to improve lip closure, strength, and control.
3. Using a Sippy Cup with a straw allows a child to hold their cup easier and doesn’t require tilting.
4. When purchasing bottles and/or Sippy Cups always look on the label to verify that the product is BPA free.

To help ensure your child’s sippy cups and thermos’s are BPA free, there are many websites that are full of “green” recommendations with reviews on products available on the market today.

1. The Soft Landing : Store and blog offering over 45 brands of 100% BPA, PVC, and Phthalate free baby and toddler products. 
2. Safe Mama: BPA free bottle and sippy cup cheat sheet
3. Z-Recommends: Searchable database providing information about potentially harmful chemicals in a wide range of baby products based on company reporting.

Tips on How to Get a Baby to Sleep through the Night

Last updated on March 3rd, 2018 at 02:31 pm

I want to start off by saying all babies are different so my suggestions may not work as easily for your baby than another baby. My baby is now 1 month old and he is not sleeping more than 2 hours at a time at night. In the beginning I was blaming it on the fact that he just had his nights and days mixed up, but now I am beginning to wonder. He is quite collicky and doing a lot of spitting up. My first child had acid reflux as a baby (it was horrible) and I am praying that this is not the case now.

But as your baby gets older and they get on a better sleeping and eating schedule, there are some things might help them become better sleepers. With my first 2, they were sleeping through the night by 5 months old. All of my friends were amazed because they had little ones still getting up at night at 2 years old. I have to say that a baby should most definitely be sleeping through the night by 9 months to a year old. And if they aren’t then you might just be giving in to them too easily.

Well, let me go into my list of things you can do to get your baby to sleep through the night and I will go into more detail about everything.

• Be Consistent – It is very important to introduce consistency early on. Getting baby on a schedule is great. You can even do this when you baby is a newborn. One thing that I try to do is go to bed at the same time every night. I try to keep track of the feeding times. You will see that they will wind up getting up at the same time each night to be fed. Both babies and children need consistency in their lives. They will be much more well rounded as they grow up. I have always had my children on a schedule and now with my 2 older ones (4 & 5 yrs old) they know what to do no matter what time of day. In the morning, they know that they eat breakfast at 7:30am after I have fed the baby. They know that after breakfast they have to wash their hands, get dressed, and brush their teeth. I make sure we do the same thing in the same order because then they pick it up much easier. Even my 1 yr old knows his naptime and right when he wakes up from his nap, he runs to the kitchen because he knows that it is then lunch time.

A few things that you can do to create a night time routine of consistency is:

• Keep Bedroom Dark – This is a great tip if your baby is having a hard time getting adjusted to night and day. Even if they are in the bedroom with you, you can still create an atmosphere of calm. And when you get up for all those late night feedings, don’t turn the TV on.
• Bedtime Bath – Giving your baby a bath right before bed is a great way to calm them as well as get their energy out. You will see that they actually sleep longer once you put them to bed after a bath.
• Add Cereal to Nightime Bottle – You can do this once your baby hits the 3 month mark. The cereal helps their belly to be full for longer so they sleep longer.
• White Noise – I have a Sleepmate in our bedroom running at night. It is a small machine that creates white noise (a fan type sound). I turn it on right before bed. They say that this can help your baby sleep better.
• Keep Bedroom Cool – When a room is hot, it is much harder for a baby to be comfortable. When it is cool they can get warm & comfy being swaddled or under their blanket.
• Use a Humidifier – This is especially important during the cold months when you use the heat. Dry air is not good for a baby to breath while they are sleeping. They need moisture and a humidifer helps to put the moisture back in the air that the heat takes out.

So, that is the first step, getting on a schedule and being consistent. The next step is:

• Put Your Foot Down – A lot of new moms have a hard time not giving in to their baby, especially when they cry. Once you know that your baby has been fed enough and they are still getting up to be fed, you really have to work at breaking their habit. Getting up at night to eat becomes a habit because they are doing it for so long. Once they pass 6 months and are eating solid foods, then you know that they can probably survive without eating every few hours like they did when they were small babies. But, be warned, they will cry and if they are older, they will throw a tantrum. It can be heart wrenching to listen to them cry that first night that you deny them their feeding. It usually take about a week and they will finally be broken of that habit.

  Many moms don’t follow through and then they complain that their baby doesn’t sleep well at 1 or 2 years old. But it is their own fault for giving in and not breaking the habit.

  You can start the process by giving them water at one of the feedings instead of their milk. That was something I did as well.

• Get the Baby out of Your Bed – I have to be honest with you, I was always against keeping a baby in your bed especially if you share it with a spouse. I never had my first 2 in my bed, but once baby #3 came along, I wound up kicking my husband out and keeping the baby with me in bed. It was just so much easier for me to feed the baby and do what I needed to do. I was plain exhausted, so I did what worked for me at the time. And even now with baby #4, he is also in bed with me and my husband has been sleeping in another room. So, I am all for making things as easy as possible so that you get more sleep in the long run.

  But long term, having a baby in your bed can actually cause them to get up more and breaking that habit will be harder as they get older. Even having the baby in a bassinet will be better because they will sleep more soundly.

These are just a few things that I have done as a mom that have helped my children become great sleepers as early as 5 months old. Again, every baby is different. You will have to do what is best for you and your baby, but just know that you do have the power to help them break the habit of getting up at night.

And if you are like me, and have a newborn baby – then we are in it for the long haul.   🙂   You cannot NOT feed a small baby, especially if they are eating only milk.

I hope these tips have helped you. Do any of you moms have any tips to share on how to get a baby to sleep through the night? Be sure to leave your comment below.

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