Have you heard about the Toddler Interpreter?

Do you need a Toddler Interpreter?

Does your tot get frustrated about communicating? Tanties beginning? Perhaps you want to help them to communicate as soon as possible so you can feed that growing mind? Make a connection; feel that thrill of non verbal communication… What if you had simple signs and gestures for safety situations?

Hot! Stop! Gentle!

The Toddler Interpreter is a resource you can explore:

Click to find out more about the Toddler Interpreter resources...

Baby Sign Language

Simple Baby Sign Language can help your baby tell you what they want and when they want it.

Baby Sign Language provides a way for your baby to communicate instead of crying…

Baby Sign Language helps to reduce the frustration of those pre-verbal years – for both you and your baby…

Download your Free Baby Sign Language Chart and get started today!

No prior experience with Sign Language required.

Toddler Interpreter® Baby Sign Language is specifically for 6 to 30 month old babies.

A Loving Gaze Builds Trust: Pinky McKay

Find out more about Pinky’s popular teleseminars – click here…

A Loving Gaze Builds Trust

By Pinky McKay

I love watching parents and babies interact, especially the gazing that goes on between mother infant pairs. It is like a secret, intimate language between lovers as each looks at the other as though they are the most wonderful person in the whole world. And this is exactly how it feels when mother and baby are perfectly attuned to each other.

Sadly though, many parents and particularly mothers, are being given advice that interrupts this exquisite bond. I have had mothers call me knowing intuitively that something is amiss as they say, my baby won’t make eye contact. At first I was baffled the baby concerned looked directly at me and smiled (so, thankfully, nothing was intrinsically wrong). I then discovered that the mother had a normal drug-free birth and no separation afterwards, so bonding at birth had been optimal mothers and babies are biologically, hormonally primed to fall in love after a natural birth. Apart from distress about her baby’s lack of eye contact, the mum wasn’t exhibiting any symptoms of chronic postnatal stress or depression. So what, I wondered, had happened to create a breakdown in the connection between mother and child?

It turned out that this mother and others I have met with a similar reaction from their babies since had been religiously following a very strict sleep training regime that advocated avoiding eye contact with her baby. Although it is wise to keep bedtimes calm and gentle, imagine how you would feel if your partner repeatedly avoided your gaze. How do you feel when people avoid eye contact with you?

Eye contact is an important element of parent child bonding and the development of trust between parent and child: your face is the most potent visual stimulus your baby encounters, and as you and your baby gaze into each other’s eyes, endorphin levels rise in your baby’s brain, producing feelings of joy. Your own endorphin levels will rise and, in turn, you and your baby become emotionally synchronized.

According to Margot Sunderland, Director of Education and Training for the Centre for Child Mental Health in London and author of The Science of Parenting (Penguin), face to face conversations between you and your baby and the subsequent release of optimal hormonal levels into your child’s brain will help develop pathways in your child’s higher brain that encourage social intelligence, the ability to form relationships. Ms Sunderland says, the ability to light you up is the very basis of your baby’s sense of himself as lovely and lovable.

Fortunately, with a little time teaching these mothers to read and respond to their babies cues and, with interaction such as baby massage and games that involve face to face contact, they and their babies are soon engaging with each other again. So, please be reassured, if you have been trying to follow a rigid baby care plan but feel it is interrupting the bond between you and your child, it is never too late to make changes. Above all, you haven’t irreparably damaged your relationship with your child, but please, look into your baby’s eyes and say, I love you. And wait for her to meet your gaze.

Pinky McKay is an Internationally Certified Lactation Consultant, infant massage instructor and author of Sleeping Like a Baby and 100 Ways to Calm the Crying. She is offering a series of supportive teleseminars for mothers, you can also find out more about these at her site.

For her Free Report on 10 things you must know about breastfeeding before you have your baby visit Pinky McKay to discover more about Breastfeeding Simply.

Find out more about Pinky’s popular teleseminars – click here…

Pinky McKay’s Teleseminars

Find out more about Pinky's popular teleseminars - click here...

I LOVE Pinky McKay – She is running regular teleseminars.

Do take a look!

Thank you to My Green Nappy’s Sponsoring Partners:

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If you are just visiting for the first time today, and have found something new in this article, be sure to register & receive My Green Nappy Guide, you’ll be both relieved and excited at the things you will discover!

A question to you about Pinky McKay:

Have you read any of her books or met her?

I have. She is so wonderful! I have ‘Toddler Taming’, ‘Sleeping Like a Baby’ and her Baby Massage DVD. I was at a couple of seminars she presented at the ABA HotMilk Conference in Melbourne too. I love Pinky!

The Zaky Hospital and NICU Donation Program

Have you heard of the Zaky Infant Hand Pillow?

You can help support families in need by participating in the Zaky Neonatal Intensive Care and Children’s Hospital Donation Program.

I was a premmie baby myself – I was born at 28 weeks and spent 3 months in a humidicrib and the NICU unit, and most horribly, my mum was unable to touch me for three months! This is EXACTLY why I am such a strong believer in natural parenting options – while I was not cuddled in those first three months, my own babies were barely out of our arms in that time. The Zaky is designed for those times when you do need to pop baby down – I think I would have loved one to go to the loo by myself, LOL…

Luckily times have changed a lot since the early 1970’s, and kangaroo care is more common, as is support for breastfeeding and breastmilk feeding and online support for parents, including the Little Aussie Prems network of information and forums.

Here is a bit more about the Zaky donation program:

Many families want to help other babies in hospitals on behalf of their babies who have spent time in a NICU, or on behalf of the memory of their babies, to help families as they travel this difficult and stressful journey.

One such way is to donate a Zaky to the family, so that they can wrap this special ‘hand pillow’ around their baby for comfort when they have to leave.

Zaky have developed a NICU Donation Program.

There are special quantity discounts to purchase The Zaky for premature babies in need of this special comforter that absorbs the scent of Mum for when she can’t be there with her fragile and new baby.

Here is how the Zaky Hospital & NICU Donation Program works:

You can purchase up to five (5) Zakys at regular price ($59.95 each) to donate to a hospital.

Your donation will be matched one-to-one for the NICU Program!

That is, if you purchase 5 Zakys, 10 Zakys will be sent to the hospital.

In addition there is No postage charge Australia Wide.

For more information about the Zaky Infant Hand Pillow, visit The Zaky.

For support for someone you know experiencing the stress of having a premature baby, refer them to:

A Question for You about the Zaky:

Do you think, as I do, that this is a WONDERFUL idea? Do you know anyone who has benefitted from this program?

My Green Nappy uses the Elegant Themes ‘Pure Type’ Template to look so great!

My Green Nappy uses the Elegant Themes template called ‘Pure Type’:

A template is basically a pre-made website that you can download to your server, and then simply add in whatever you like! I use WordPress as the platform as it is awesome and free and easy to use – and still there is much to learn, and so much that can be customised. Plus, of course, all the Elegant Themes templates are created specifically for WordPress.

It costs just a smidge under $20 to join Elegant Themes for a year, and during that time you can download and use any of the themes you like!

I am changing my Tribal Baby site over to an Elegant Themes template too – I have downloaded Studio Blue – which I will use in the ‘Green Skin’:

Then I will change my Part Time Nappy Free! site over to Studio Blue in the ‘Blue Skin’:

I think they will look much better, and by golly I will be SO glad not to have to do the website myself anymore – as I stuff up the CSS coding continuously as I only vaguely have a handle on what to do! LOL…

I have another site in the planning stages (such FUN!) and I am thinking I’ll use the ‘Lumin’ theme:

Have you been thinking about starting a blog? I can recommend checking out the gallery of themes at Elegant Themes – they are the only ones you will see as my websites from now on! New themes are regularly added, too.

Visit Elegant Themes for Quality WordPress templates for under $20 a year…

A question for you:

Did you know that ‘templates’ existed? I didn’t a year ago… If you were to start a blog or site tomorrow, which of these themes would suit your idea?

3 of the best treats at Harry’s Rocky Road

Harry’s Rocky Road – the most delicious Rocky Road you will ever taste!

Rocky Road – chocolate, marshmallow, nuts.. a simple, scrummy combination – right?

Wrong! Harry’s Rocky Road has taken this traditional treat and elevated it to new, delicious heights, so that it is almost impossible to stop eating once you start, and you’ll salivate at the mere mention of more.

I’m going to tell you about three of the scrumptious, velvetty smooth, crunchy and smooshy chocolate treats offered for your gastronomical delight, made by this Australian small business.

Turkish Delight!

Turkish Delight Rocky Road

Oh My Goodness – such a delight! This was the first I had eaten – I got two blocks of it, and they arrived wrapped in cellophane with a couple of fridge magnets that are still on my fridge, he he he.One block was demolished that afternoon between my husband and I. The next lasted a couple of days until a friend came over and that felt like a great excuse to introduce her to it – and another block was gone!

Cookies and Cream!

Rocky Road Easter Eggs

Rocky Road Easter Eggs. Each egg is covered in smooth and delectable chocolate, filled with chunks of flavour and decorated lovingly with coloured trails of chocolate. These are no ordinary eggs. These are rich and satisfying and perfect for sharing. Well, that’s it really – a unique Easter egg treat made of rocky road. Yummo. Various flavours, from Cherry, Triple Choc, my favourite Turkish Delight, Pineapple, Caramel and more!

Fruit and Nut

Fruit and Nut Rocky Road

I LOVE fruit and nut chocolate myself – Harry’s Fruit & Nut Rocky Road is a nutty mix of Raisins, Almonds, Cashews and Vanilla Marshmallows all coated in Milk Chocolate with Dark Chocolate Squiggles.

Postage is affordable for such freshness – it is express post delivered to your door very quickly, so once you make that order, it won’t be long before you are relishing every last lip-smacking taste of rocky road goodness!

A great gift idea, your friends and family will love being introduced to these tasty treats too. Store bought rocky road is tasteless in comparison, so if you like that, you will be blown away by the really fresh stuff made by Ben and his family who run Harry’s Rocky Road from Bendigo in Victoria – a lovely town we visited just last year.

Just do it – pop over and make your selection today!

Visit Harry’s Rocky Road…

A Question for you about Harry’s Rocky Road:

Which have you tried?