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5 Self-Care Tips for Brand New Moms

self care

When you are a new mom, you have to deal with a lot of pressure and stress of taking care of your newborn, dealing with the stresses of work, spouse or maybe another child in the home you are caring for. Self-care is often last on the list of concerns, but it shouldn’t be.

The transitional weeks between end of summer and early fall often prove unexpectedly hectic. As families try to squeeze in one more long weekend, unearth a few extra days of vacation, or begin to gear up for the busy fall season, this time of year typically feels anything but relaxing. Factor a newborn into that mix, and stress levels can skyrocket, causing new Moms to feel pressured and exhausted as they struggle to adjust to the changes brought about by the arrival of a new baby.

For those of you who have just given birth or are due to welcome your new arrival this fall, the makers of Water Wipes, curated a list of five things you should consider to ease your anxiety and stress level as the Autumn season begins.

  • Push Back Against Pressure: Don’t feel pressured to plan that final weekend getaway or start reorganizing closets for the upcoming change of seasons – spend these early weeks focused on your newborn and getting used to your new life.
  • Turn Off the Noise: New Moms get a lot of advice – online and off; solicited and unsolicited. If it becomes overwhelming, don’t hesitate to focus solely on what works for you and your baby. Remember, you are all your baby needs!
  • Try Saying “No:” With fall right around the corner, invitations will soon begin to arrive – from friends and organizations alike – looking to reconnect after the long summer. In these first few weeks of your baby’s life, do what’s right for the both of you – not what’s expected – and remember “no” is an OK response.
  • Turn Baby Care into Bonding Time: To help feel more confident about caring for your baby, look for opportunities to turn baby care basics – such as diaper-changing – into bonding time. After wiping and diapering, place baby skin-to-skin against your chest and take note of your natural ability to calm and soothe your newborn.
  • Think Instincts: Moms intuitively know how to care for their new babies – but it can be difficult to remember that in the middle of the night. Just remember to trust your instincts – and don’t let anything come between you and your newborn.

They also released a video series about three women starting their motherhood journey, and through their first days, other new moms can learn a few things. Check it out and pass it along to a new mom in your life.

When You’re Done Having Kids Why Your Husband Owes You a Vasectomy

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After a married or committed couple make the mutual decision to no longer have any more children, the topic usually comes up about long-term strategies to avoid “oopsie accidental pregnancy” moments down the line. Most of us know at least one person who had a surprise baby when they thought they were done raising kids. No one wants that to be them, however, often times, the woman opts to tie her tube and a lot of discussion centers around the woman taking surgically invasive methods for permanent birth control.

One Mode author posits that it is the man’s job to step up and take the big snip and she curated a short list of articles that support the position as well. Check it out:

Check out Why Your Husband Owes You a Vasectomy After the Last Baby

by Helen Brown at Mode

7 Back-To-School Tips for Special Needs Students



Heading back to the classroom this fall is exciting, but it can also be a challenging time for families of children with special needs. The Episcopal Center for Children (ECC), a nonprofit organization serving children with special needs ages 5-14 in the Washington, DC area since 1895, offers tips to help:

Tip #1 – Organize your paperwork and review the schedule. Review your child’s Individual Education Plan (IEP). Do you have any new medical or psychological reports that the school should know about? Talk with the school to make sure their plans for your child match the intentions in the IEP. Ensure the school staff are up to speed on where your child is at now. Make sure you know where your child’s classroom is, any transportation plans, and what he or she will need to bring each day.

Tip #2 – Calm any stress or first day jitters your child may have. Whether it’s a new classroom or familiar surroundings, children may be nervous about starting back to school. Talk with your child about their feelings. Assure your child that going back to school will be a good thing.

Tip #3 – Delay getting new school clothes. You may think a new outfit will help calm first day jitters, but for some special needs children, new clothes may aggravate issues. For children with sensory issues, new clothes may feel itchy, stiff and uncomfortable. If your child needs it, let him or her wear clothes that are comfortable and familiar for the first few days of school.

Tip #4 – Help your child “picture” going back to school. If your child is returning to a familiar school and you have photos showing him or her at school or with friends or a teacher, show the photos to your child. If you visit the school before school starts, take a picture of your child in his or her classroom, and show the photo to your child later at home. Some children visually process information and benefit from visual assurances. Create a visual countdown chart at home, so your child can help move the numbers as you count down to the start of the school year.

Tip #5 – Begin introducing new routines before school starts. Morning and afternoon routines can help your child transition into and out of school each day. You may need to establish an earlier bedtime routine to make sure your child is up on time and ready to go. Start thinking about how you want to approach homework. Talk with your child about when and how homework will be completed.

Tip #6 – Talk to the school staff about any of your concerns. Open communication helps children with special needs. Speak with school staff if you have noticed something new about your child that may impact their education. Open communication with school staff will benefit your child. Because transitions are hard for many special needs children, clarify with school staff how transitions are handled. Who greets children as they get off the bus? How are transitions between classes or activities handled? Tell your child what to expect.

Tip #7 – Go to school events. If the school has an open house, parent-teacher night, or back to school program, attend. Talk with the staff about your child’s progress. If you are not able to go, make a point of calling the teacher at another time and getting caught up on the information.

Your ‘Endless Summer’ Invite to Jessica Biel’s Family Friendly LA Spot

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Jessica Biel‘s family friendly restaurant is having an Endless Summer themed party for family and kids tomorrow, Friday, August 26th and you’re invited. The actress shared an invite to the swank affair on her Instagram account.

Let’s make going back to school cool again! #aufudge #endlesssummerbash,” she captioned a photo of the invitation to her Los Angeles French-Provencal themed eatery.

Let’s make going back to school cool again! #aufudge #endlesssummerbash

A photo posted by Jessica Biel (@jessicabiel) on

au fudge
Just love this bright, airy and colorful  space as much as when we previewed it when it just opened this past Spring.
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When the restaurateur isn’t throwing a big bash for kids and parents, she and her husband Justin Timberlake are hosting $30,000 a ticket Hillary Clinton fundraiser luncheons in their Hollywood Hills  home, attended by the likes of Shonda Rhimes, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Aniston and Tobey McGuire.

  Look who came over for lunch… ? #imwithher   A photo posted by Jessica Biel (@jessicabiel) on

 

An amazing event supporting #hillaryclinton at the home of @justintimberlake ?? #StrongerTogether #ImWithHer

A photo posted by Chloe Flower (@misschloeflower) on

We’re with her ? ??@hillaryclinton

A photo posted by J E N N I F E R M E Y E R (@jenmeyerjewelry) on

My boys looked very handsome for lunch with our future president @hillaryclinton. #ImWithHer

A photo posted by Yael Cohen Braun (@yael) on

Back to School: 8 Tips for Dealing With Separation Anxiety

Bellyitch Rewind
Few things tug at a parent’s heartstrings like the cries and pleas of a child in the throes of a separation anxiety attack; still, they are a normal (if distressing) part of childhood development. With proper coping strategies and plenty of love, the worst of your child’s anxieties can be managed until he’s older, at which point most children tend to outgrow their fears of being separated from a parent or familiar adult.
Managing your child’s separation anxiety and helping her to cope with the necessary but painful routine of parting is a matter of being patient, for the most part. Keeping your composure and maintaining a grip on your patience is absolutely necessary in order for you to successfully employ other management techniques.
  1. Establish a Goodbye Ritual – Sharing a special goodbye ritual with your little one is both comforting and reassuring to her, letting her know that staying at school, daycare, or under the care of a nanny is a new part of her routine. Because structure and repetition are so important to young children, establishing a ritual that accompanies every separation can help normalize that separation, making it less stressful for her over time.
  2. Stay Calm – Kids react to the emotional state of a parent or loved one, so allowing yourself to become overly emotional or anxious in her presence is likely to only exacerbate the anxiety and fear that she’s already feeling. Maintain your composure as best you can, saving the emotional moments for a time when you’re out of her sight.
  3. Don’t Hover or Linger – While it might seem that your hysterical child will never calm down after you leave, childcare providers will almost always reassure you that their emotional state will improve dramatically once you’re gone. Lingering around and hovering over her will only prolong the process, stretching out both her suffering and your own.
  4. Speak with Caregivers and Teachers – Experienced childcare providers and preschool or kindergarten teachers are well-versed in reassuring both hysterical children and their concerned parents, so don’t hesitate to speak with them about how your child is adjusting. When normal separation anxiety is particularly difficult for a child to shake, or persists after a significant adjustment period, these people are your best allies in combating your little one’s fears and helping her learn to cope with separation in a calm, healthy way.
  5. Resist the Temptation to Sneak Away – It can be very tempting to wait until your child is distracted and slip quietly from the room, but this may not be the most productive method of dealing with her separation anxiety. Looking up to find you inexplicably gone, without any sort of a goodbye, can lead to a panic that she’s been abandoned or, at the very least, to feel that she can’t always trust that you’ll be where you should be.
  6. Communicate With Your Child – You can help prepare your child for preschool, kindergarten, or childcare by talking about the upcoming change, practicing separation on a small scale, and answering any questions that she has. These methods can be very effective in preventing the worst of her anxiety before it starts, and maintaining that open line of communication as she adjusts to her new environment and has new experiences is vital.
  7. Be Firm and Consistent – Don’t waver or bring your child home after a particularly bad outburst, as it sends the message that a tantrum will yield the desired result of either leaving daycare or school with you or sending your nanny home, rather than being separated. Focus on maintaining a firm but gentle demeanor, and a strong grip on your resolve.
  8. Know When Separation Anxiety Indicates Something More Serious – While separation anxiety is a very natural, normal part of growing up for many children, there are times when it could indicate something more serious. If a previously happy, well-adjusted child begins to regress and show signs of anxiety again, or if existing anxiety is severe and does not lessen with time, you should contact your pediatrician or medical provider for advice.

 

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Back-To-School: 10 Ways to Know If Your Child is Gifted

Bellyitch Rewind



Parents generally think all of their children are pretty special, but some kids really are uniquely gifted when it comes to learning and grasping schoolwork.

If you were a gifted student yourself, you might recognize the signs, but here’s some tips for those of you who aren’t sure what to look for.

1. Strong Vocabulary – What kinds of words and sentence structure does your child use? Do they use more multi-syllable words than their peers? Are they often asking about the meanings of new words they hear and do they quickly put new words to use? Gifted children often have advanced vocabularies and quickly pickup word meanings through their contextual use.

2. Quick on Completing Schoolwork – If your child’s teacher tells you that your child is always one of the first ones completed with their assignments, this is a strong clue that your child is more advanced than the other students in their classroom.

3. Understand Monetary Concepts – Use of money is one of the first mathematical concepts that kids are exposed to in their home environment. If your child quickly picks up the concepts of the monetary values of coins and how they relate to one another, this may be a sign that you have a mathematically gifted child.

4. Listen and Learn – Does your child seem to be able to pick up concepts and the words to songs as soon as they hear them, even if it is only once? Gifted children don’t need the same amount of repetition to learn as other children.

5. Enjoys a Mental Challenge – Are puzzles fun for your child, but they quickly get bored with them if they are too easy? This could be a sign of a gifted child. Gifted children enjoy a challenge but easily become bored if there isn’t enough challenge.

6. Mature Sense of Humor – A gifted child will be more likely to understand more complex humor such as is found in newspaper comic strips or jokes that other children their age may not be able to understand.

7. Advanced Reading Skills – Most gifted children have advanced reading skills and enjoy reading. You will find them breezing through large books quickly and yet still comprehending what they’ve read and being able to explain it to you.

8. Enjoys Learning New Things – For gifted children, learning new things is exciting and fun. They have a great curiosity about how things function, how things are made and learning about just about any subject.

9. Observatory Skills – If you have a gifted child, they will notice things and remember things that most other kids would not. They may notice simple details like a person wearing a different watch than they normally do or be able to remember the exact icons on your computer that you clicked on to get to the program that they like to play.

10. Grasps Relationships – Gifted children will grasp and understand relational concepts quicker than their peers. They will be able to pick out and replicate more complicated patterns. They will find it easier to fill in the missing piece from a sequence.

Hopefully, these clues will empower you to know whether your kid is gifted and what, if anything, to do about it.

Back To School: 5 Ways to Avoid Overscheduling Kids  



The start of the school year also signals the beginning of many fall sports.

Parents must be cautious about over scheduling their kids and its effects. 

Involving your children in too many activities could have health consequences. The stress can lead to anxiety and depression in children.

To help parents avoid this dangerous potential consequence, the resident expert on character education for the Wear the Cape Foundation came up with 5 Tips to Avoid Overbooking Your Kids and Create Life Balance:

  1. Let your kids know that you care about them for who they are, not just what they can do. Children need to know that your love is not contingent on their achievements.
  2. Remember that children do not have the same sense of time that you do. Part of growing up is being able to put things in perspective. There will likely be another friend, another team, another trip if this one does not work out.

  3. Working hard at something you love to do is one of the best parts of life. It takes some of us a lot of experimenting to find those things we love. Kids need that free time to try new things, as well as the permission to give them up and try something else.

  4. Some kids organize their time and find their interests with just a little exposure; other kids may need a bit of a push to try things that don’t seem attractive or interesting (or may be threatening). The trick here is to be sensitive to individual needs and persistent in offering opportunities. If you need to be pushy, try to offer alternatives, so kids have a voice in what they will be doing. For example, some children thrive in competitive sports, and others may find their niche in hiking or dancing.

  5. Remember to include exposure to helping others in your family activities. One of the best ways of developing empathy in our children (and ourselves) is to feel the gratitude that is expressed when we help others. This doesn’t happen if we don’t have the opportunity of interacting with others in need or whom we help. This can happen within the context of the family itself, as well, and doesn’t necessarily require a formal charity event. Create opportunities in which children can feel that they have meaningfully helped other family members or the whole family accomplish something. The combination of caring, responsibility, feeling respected, and gratitude is a powerful stew that nourishes the soul.

“When we’re overprogrammed and feel we can’t keep up, or are constantly running on empty, stress can lead to anxiety, depression and take a toll on our minds and bodies,” commented Dr. Brown. “For children, this can surface in many ways – trouble sleeping, frequent irritability, aggressiveness with siblings, trouble in school, moodiness or frequent illness are all common signs that something is not right and needs to be explored.”

To raise children of good character, a combination of guidance, freedom, and support in the context of shared values should be provided, Brown adds. 

5 Legit Money-Making Opps for Stay-at-Home moms

If you want to earn some money while staying home with the kids, you are in luck. There are plenty of legitimate jobs that can be done from the comfort of your home and around your kids’ school schedule, play dates and extracurricular activities. To find a work-at-home job that suits you, check out the following tips and ideas:

Turn Your Hobby Into an Income

Turn one of your talents or hobbies into a supplemental income. For example, if you’re routinely asked to bring your camera to parties because you take such amazing photos, consider dabbling in freelance photography. Start small with people you know and build up your portfolio. With some word-of-mouth referrals, you could transform this hobby into a profitable job.

Other ideas of hobbies include baking, catering, sewing custom kids outfits, ceramics and jewelry making.

Look Into Contractual Work

Another great option for work-at-home moms is contractual positions. These combine the security of working for an established company with the freedom to set your own hours and telecommute. To find a position that works for you, think about what you are passionate about and research available opportunities. For example, if you are into fashion and beauty, you could turn this interest into a contractual position with a well-established company like Amway. The company is known for being a leader in premium beauty products and it offers contractual jobs that can fit around your schedule.

Consider Being a Customer Service Representative

If you are the consummate people person, like talking on the phone and are pretty good on the computer, an at-home customer service representative job is a great option. These positions pay between $8 and $18 an hour, and there are typically part-time and full-time positions available that can be done from a quiet home office.

You might be surprised how many major companies hire at-home CSRs. Some of these include major hotel chains like Hilton and Best Western and retail companies like 1-800-FLOWERS and Spiegel. To find these positions, check out companies like Alpine Access and LiveOps to see what they have available.

Build up Your Resume

As you look for at-home positions, work on boosting your resume in as many ways as you can. If you routinely volunteer at your kids’ school or are a member of the PTO, put this on your resume. It shows potential employers that you are responsible, committed and organized. Consider taking some classes at a local community college that you could turn into an at-home work option, such as writing and computer courses.

Watch out for Scams

While there are plenty of legitimate and reasonably lucrative ways to make money at home, there are some scammers who are out to take your money. As you look for work, watch for red flags like companies or websites with no contact information. Some other signs of trouble are if a company asks you to pay them a fee to get started or if a position seems too good to be true. Once you find a company that you like, research them to see if anything pops up about scams or bad business practices.

These are the Chores Most Moms Would Love to Outsource

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I’ve always joked that if there was a mom lottery that the top prizes should be something like lifetime of laundry doing or a toy-pick up butler. Something, useful like that. But truthfully, there is a lot of multi-tasking involved with parenting and moms usually have way more roles and tasks than dads un mos households.

Our partners at Mode curated a few articles featuring those tasks that are painstaking and challenging for moms which they would love to outsource to someone else to do! check it:

Check out 7 Chores Every Parent Wants to Outsource

by Janssen at Mode

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