News
Taking your child for a hair cut
Unlike many other children, mine refuse to go to a hairdresser. So far, I’ve tried it three times with my daughter. And on all three occasion, she wasn’t impressed. She disliked the fact that she had to sit still while someone cuts her hair. So, for ten years now, I’ve been a hairdresser to my kids, and they have boring hairstyles.
But for many children, a trip to the hairdresser for the first time is exciting. In fact, I remember my nieces and nephews being so excited and proud about it. It’s a ritual that puts them on their way to becoming a grown up, and marks the start of a lifetime of different trends and styles.
Choosing the right time to take a child’s mop for its first chop purely depends on how much hair they have, and how quickly it grows. Typically, a first haircut is likely required within your child’s first 18 months.
Whilst most adults relish the chance to relax in a hairdresser’s chair, it’s sometimes not quite the case for a wriggly toddler. Parents can find a trip out for a haircut a stressful, tiring experience.
Preparation is key. Taking a big bag of lap-based toys will keep a child occupied enough to hopefully sit still in a chair. Most hairdressers are experienced in dealing with young customers, in fact some even specialise in haircuts solely for kids. It’s always best to phone a salon first, or pop in to see if they are child-friendly.
Whilst children’s haircuts can seem a little frivolous at times, they are beneficial in helping the child’s hair to grow thick and strong. Kids with curly or afro hair will require extra attention to maintain a manageable style, as well as children with multiple crowns or cowlicks.
Taking a child to the hairdressers from an early age will help them get used to the experience, hopefully making it easier for future visits. Most children actually enjoy sitting in a booster seat, in front of a mirror and being fussed over!
It can be quite dangerous to cut hair yourself on a small child, unless you are a trained hairdresser. Hairdressing scissors are exceptionally sharp and should only be handled by professionals.
The kindest cut?
New research shows that holding off cutting the umbilical cord when a baby has just been delivered may have major health benefits for the child.
Research by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists suggests that babies who don’t have the cord cut strain away are less likely to suffer from anaemia (a lack of iron) later on. The delay only has to be for a few minutes for the blood to drain out of the cord and into the baby.
Iron is a vital ingredient in blood as it makes up the red blood cells which carry oxygen around the body. A deficiency of iron has been linked to issues with brain development. The Natural Childbirth Trust (NCT) is also calling to the cord to be cut later.
Current advice is that the cord should be cut straight away. In some cases this may be clinically necessary and as most children have it clamped it is normally not a problem.
The research was published in 2009 but it is only now that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is reviewing the evidence and preparing to update guidance to mid wives and Obstetricians.
The Umbilical cord is part of the baby during the pregnancy and has both two veins and an artery to take the babies blood to the mothers placenta to pick up oxygen and nutrients that the baby needs.
Dr Who
Can’t say I am a huge fan but I did recently watch a old episode, based on one of my favourite stories The Lion the witch and the wardrobe.
I have to say (and I am sorry to any die hard Dr Who fan’s) I was not converted but the programme did make an interesting point and one which on reflection I am really pleased it did.
Without wishing to spoil the plot, the Timelord doctor despite his multiple hearts and a Tardis was not seen as being strong enough to save a race of sentient trees from destruction. But a human women who happened to be protecting her children was. I know it is science fiction but I think it does raise a good point and something which TV and films often miss out on, perhaps because as we are not aware of it ourselves, as to quite how tough we are.
Toughness is not just about Bruce Van Schwarzenegger blowing things up, it’s not even about going through 12 hours of labour, managing to hold back, when some one who has never tried this says “your are doing really well” and then staying awake to breastfeed.
Every day mothers have to put other peoples needs before their own, if they feel sick or tired (generally both) it’s not something you can call in sick or say cut while you take a lie down. And we have to do it every day. And while mothers day is great, it still means that normally for 364 days a year no one notices and even on that one day I suspect that my 5 year old did not make the card out of his feelings of gratitude, I expect chocolate changed hands…
I don’t think we should get medals or anything like that, but I do think that being a mum should entitle us to a bit more respect, at least in my house.
Report suggests the light drinking not harmful to babies?
It was a debate I had with a friends of a friend recently. He being an internationally renowned dairy consultant and a huge advocate of raw milk (milk mind you not the “white liquid” which supermarkets sell). His wife had recently had a baby and I asked if she had eaten soft cheese during her pregnancy. Apparently not just because they would have felt awful had anything gone wrong.
After years of contradictory advice we have been informed yet again that “moderate” drinking during pregnancy poses little risk, according to an article in the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
But the precautionary principle comes in here, light drinking was defined as 1 – 2 units a week, or in other words 1 smallish glass of wine (a large glass of 250ml has 3 – 4 units) which to me is practically not drinking, so I won’t be popping the champagne corks any time soon.
Research on moderate drinking is not advanced enough to make concrete recommendations, while the effects on heavy drinking during pregnancy are well documented, both on the health of the baby and the long term effects as the child grows up.
Baby’s Bedroom Boredom
If you’ve seen the new programme “bedtime live” you’ll know that sleep is something that doesn’t come easily to babies and toddlers. Getting a baby into a good routine is essential for your own sanity however it’s amazing how hard this can be for some.
My brother has twin boys of 3 and a boy of 6 and when meeting last week he told me he still gets up with them on average of four times a night. He even shares a bedroom now with one of my nephews as the master bedroom just doesn’t have space for him anymore.
This made me feel very lucky for the sleeping patterns of our three, yet it hasn’t always been like this. Mitchell, now 12, took 2 years before he’d sleep well through the night, whereas Poppy, although a great sleeper as a baby and toddler, began finding excuses to get out of bed from the age of 3 onwards.
We think we’ve learned with our third. It’s her second birthday tomorrow. In her first weeks we were judged as she’d sleep on my chest and others derided us for co sleeping, telling us it would produce bad habits in the future.
We learned recently that she has underdeveloped lungs and this was her way of being able to breathe soundly, being alone on her back in a cot would not have been very good for her at all.
When she did move to a cot, she began sleeping through almost immediately so we moved her to her room which unlike our friends was completely devoid of anything except her bed, a chest of drawers, a chair and curtains. We’d learned that although we would have loved a brightly coloured nursery full of her favourite toys, this only keeps kiddies awake.
She’s two tomorrow and we’d love to fill her room with planets and moons, clouds and the sky as this is her latest obsession, yet we’re being quite selfish as she knows it’s for sleeping only, and we really don’t want to chance breaking that pattern again. So we’ll have to wait a little longer as for now her room is ultra-minimalist with magnolia walls and hardly any personality in sight – completely unlike the rest of the house!
