Nanny to Mommy

Being a great parent can sometimes feel like an uphill struggle. There’s just so much that you need to get done in the day.

However, it’s not impossible. Shortcuts are available. Here’s what to do.

Being a parent is amazing, but there is no doubt it is also a relentless task. When you are a mom, there are never any days off, and your own needs tend to be put in last place. Often life is so busy you don’t have the time or energy to think about self-care, let alone put it into practice.

Over the past year, with quarantines in place and physical distancing measures, parents have been under increased stress as they try to homeschool the kids as well as work at home and keep up with chores. Under these circumstances, it is little surprise so many parents are feeling incredibly stressed and exhausted due to this unprecedented situation. As life returns to normal, you might be looking forward to the opportunity to focus on yourself a little more and to have the time for some self-care.

Being in a state of chronic stress is bad for your wellbeing and health, so it is crucial to find effective methods to reduce your stress levels. Why not give some of these stress-busting ideas a try to see what works for you?

Babies are known for not being able to sleep very well. However, most babies grow out of this habit as they become toddlers and young children. Nevertheless, your child still might have some sleeping issues as they grow up. It's not wildly uncommon to see children aged 3-5 struggling with their sleep, leading to days full of tiredness and some pretty bleak nights. So, how do you help a child that's struggling to sleep? Here's a three-step process that you can try: 

Everyone knows being a parent isn’t easy, but unless you are one, it can be hard to truly understand how chaotic life can get when you’re trying to run a household, raise children, and balancing a career all at the same time. Whether you’re a working mom or a stay-at-home mom, you will face challenges every day, and it can be hard to find the time to fit in all your daily responsibilities. This is why it’s worth considering some of the services listed below, as they might help you manage your schedule a bit better as well as allowing you a bit more time for yourself! 

Being a parent is hard work. It’s something everyone knows, but people sometimes find it difficult to acknowledge! As much as you love your kids, and treasure experiencing every moment of them growing up, they can also drive you up the wall. Many of the most common problems that new (and old) parents have are so well-known they’ve almost become clichés. The tired parent who’s not getting any sleep, the children refusing to eat their green veg, running away before a trip to the dentist, asking ‘why’ to every statement… the list goes on! Yet these clichés exist because they describe something very real - the wonderful, demanding, crazy reality of raising a child.

You may encounter these problems every day, and sometimes more than one, and it can be hard to know how to counter them. They are the kind of situations where little life hacks, little ways of making everything a bit easier, can go a very long way. These hacks certainly can’t solve everything, and they’ll work better for some than others, but they’re worth giving a try - you never know, it could change your life! 

Post millennial, Gen Z or iGen are some categories associated with kids aged between 6 and 23. Raising them as a parent is quite challenging as compared to millennials. If we analyze millennials, they have seen everything from doing manual jobs to automated ones. However, post-millennials are those who opened their eyes in the digital age.

The struggles of raising a millennial child versus Gen Z has taken a 360-degree turn. In fact, the child’s development and education in today’s digital age are quite challenging for parents. They have to look so many things that were not present at the time of millennial. For instance, Smartphone and tablets are prime examples.

A study found that the average age for a child to get the first Smartphone in the United States is 10.3 years old.

Here are just a few of the many benefits that your child can enjoy when they participate in a team sport:

Bedtime battles are a literal nightmare for parents, and there is nothing worse than ending the day on a bad note. While you know that your child needs proper rest to grow and learn each day, children often have trouble settling down in the evening. Fortunately, it is possible to transform bedtime into one of your family’s special times of the day, and you can use these tips to make putting your child to bed easier on everyone.

It's not that I am totally against YouTube. I watch it myself and have a few accounts that I subscribe to and actively follow, but between pedophile comments on kid content and suicide tips for kids hidden in videos on YouTube, I decided that enough was enough and I removed YouTube Kids from both of my kids' iPads. My daughter cried. Seriously. But I explained to her that some recent stuff had come out about bad content that she or her brother might accidentally see. I told her that it could get fixed, but there are videos that I just don't want to have to worry if she would see or not right now. She seemed okay with that explanation and moved on to her educational apps that she enjoys as well.

And hopefully the algorithm will get fixed. And it wasn't just the bad press that YouTube has had recently that made up my decision. My children were becoming like little electronic zombies. Looking at a screen too long is bad for eye sight and my son already has vision problems. Thankfully my children still play outside, but the weather has been so poor this past week and they were on Winter Break from school. They ended up watching YouTube almost non-stop. My daughter who normally loves arts and crafts, wasn't asking at all to create anything. But yet she did ask to start her own YouTube channel and she is only 8!

Dental sedation is a procedure that involves the administration of sedatives to the patients. It helps reduce fear, anxiety, and pain during the course of the dental treatments. Due to its ability to facilitate, the dentists perform even the complex of operations with ease, its popularity is on the surge. The young and the children can especially benefit from it by using it while going through long and painful treatments.

Dental sedation is normally a safe procedure for people of all ages, whether it be children or the old. This article means to focus particularly on the fact that even small children can undergo dental sedation without any issues. However, there are certain things that the parents must make sure of, before and the after the procedure, to increase the safety level to the optimum. Let us get a peek into the types of dental sedation existing today.

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So I have been having concerns about my son's eye sight. My pediatrician said that children should actually go to the ophthalmologist once a year especially if you have eye insurance. This post is all about my experience getting my son his glasses. If you have ANY concerns at all, even the slightest thing, then you need to talk to your pediatrician. Write down your concerns as soon as you have them so when you go to your pediatrician you can address them. I wish I had done this.



I am not a doctor, this is just our experience.

My daughter had a tooth injury when she was about two years old. She was on the playground on one of those rocking toys, my mother-in-law started rocking her and my daughter hit her tooth on the metal toy. She had tooth sensitivities that night that we noticed at dinner. The tooth over time began to turn a little greyish. I decided to take her to her first dentist visit first dental visit when she was about four years old because I had concerns.

The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) recommends your child see a dentist when their first tooth appears or no later than their first birthday.

Get your little one ready with these 5 tips:

Date nights. We love them and dare I say “dread” them all at the same time. Of course we love getting dressed up and we’re super excited to get some alone time with hubby, but then you remember “Oh wait...who will watch the kids?” I have spent hours calling relatives, searching Facebook groups, asking neighbors, and asking close friends for their sitters (people really do horde sitters!) - and still no luck.

After all the time searching, you almost want to say “forget it, let’s just stay in”. I always say to myself, am I asking for too much? Are my standards for sitters too high? I really don’t think they are. I just want a sitter who is:

Kids: they’re inquisitive, creative, energetic, and have an admirable desire to learn. One of the best activities to encourage and support all of these wonderful traits is gardening. Not only can gardening with kids be incredibly fun (the look on their face when they pull a potato out of the ground is precious), but it is an opportunity to teach them functional skills and life lessons that they will thank you for in their adulthood.

Aside from education, gardening has been said to lead to healthier food choices and a more diverse pallet of fruits and vegetables in children’s diets. Gardening also supports your child’s development in regards to literacy skills and cognitive learning.

And even if you aren’t a gardener now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t start! Gardening is also a wonderful activity for adults. It’s stress-relieving, meditative, a nice little workout (or a big workout), and it results in a beautiful backyard and fruitful harvest.

Read on to learn more about how to get started gardening with your kids!

Raising children in a media saturated world exploits many generational differences. The lives of children today are drastically different than the lives of parents in their youth. This generational gap can make parenting difficult, mostly because parents don't understand Gen Z. The days of kickball in the park or freeze tag in the neighborhood seem to be dwindling, and instead, children flock to online chat rooms, social media apps, or Internet connected video games. Just how much media does the youth consume in this day and age? According to a survey conducted by Kaiser Family Foundation, 8-18 year olds consume an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes of entertainment media every day.

As technology rapidly develops so do the children we raise, and the question arises, how can parents allow our children to grow from Internet use while keeping them safe simultaneously? Our kids want autonomy and privacy, and as parents we understand that. When it comes to Internet use we straddle the line of freedom and control. The following tips should help parents balance their child’s Internet use, help them develop in a positive manner, and keep them safer online.

Now, more than ever it is important to set a good example of body positivity for our children. With the pictures in magazines, actors on tv screens, and advertisements constantly telling both us and our children that we aren’t good enough, there couldn’t be a more important message to send our kids than to love themselves exactly as they are. But how do we do that? How can we override all of the pages, screens, and ads screaming the opposite message at them day in and day out? Unfortunately, there’s no way we can avoid these things completely, but there are plenty of opportunities to promote a body positive attitude and teach children that they don’t have to listen to the constant body negativity filling their worlds.

This post has been sponsored by Pedia-Lax®. All thoughts and reviews are my own.

Caring for your comes with a lot of concerns. When my daughter was a baby, I breastfed her and we were worried about constipation. Turns out we were wrong, but knowing the signs and knowing how to avoid it are key. Staying regular isn't always easy, but these simple steps help support good gastrointestinal health so your kids can be #1 at going #2.

This is a sponsored guest post by CheckPregnancy.com.

Parenting can be exciting, but it can be challenging as well. Parents influence most of the things their young ones do. When it comes to behavior with your children - whether we would like it to be or not - it usually is a "monkey see, monkey do" type situation. The same applies with speech. Some babies may speak earlier while it may take time for others to start speaking. We did some research and here are some of the ways to help your child to start talking.

I don't know about your kids, but mine have enough toys. We have a playroom full and now they are starting to take over their bedrooms and this is after donating a ton! I honestly don't know how they get so many; we are just very fortunate to have a lot of people in our lives that buy for them. But I have been thinking of moving to something different this year instead of toys. What if there was a way to help them learn to invest instead of cluttering our home with more stuff they don't need?

I have been trying to teach my daughter about earning her own money. Right now in the US, only 7 states require high school students to pass a basic finance test in order to graduate. The lack of financial education in schools are the major reason young Americans aren’t prepared to invest in their futures. But 89% of parents say tying allowance to chores is good training for the real world.