This is possibly one of the hardest techniques I used with the kids. Hardest on me, because I have a bad back. It’s Tracey Hogg’s technique and it’s used to curb baby manipulation at sleep times. You can use it from about 4 months old onwards. For those times when baby cries in bed, the technique is such that you…
I will not eat!
This is one of those sentences that comes up often, especially when you have more than one child. I can’t say how many times I’ve heard it, but it’s been a lot. No kid is perfect and they will always test the boundaries. This is why having a clear set of rules that you, your partner and your carers agree…
Can we really have it all?
My parents both worked. I don’t think of them as having been career driven, it was just the reality I grew up in. All my friends’ parents worked too. I grew up in Portugal at a time where the country had just risen from a political revolution (the Carnation revolution), was a mainly agricultural country, not much infrastructure existed –…
The day we go from invincible to helpless
My sister has two kids. They’re teenagers now. When they were little, and I was a care-free soul with no children, I remember a day when we were all at the beach. A hot sunny day. I asked my sister to go swim with me and off we went. The sea had some waves, but was suitably calm for us…
Disappointment is part of life
Before the Christmas break, we got a letter from Miss Z’s teacher about an upcoming school trip to St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was going to happen at the end of January. I told Miss Z that as I worked really close to St. Paul’s I would go meet her there to give her a kiss and a hug. For more…
Expectations and assumptions… the Mother of all f*** ups
Pardon my French, but I couldn’t find a better title. You probably know what I’m talking about. We go through our lives having expectations of people and making assumptions about people. And generally that ends is disaster. We are supposedly adults. We grew up, we found partners, we have jobs, we found a place to live, we had kids, we…
Breast is best
This catch phrase has been in my mind for ages as a topic for a blog entry. I just hadn’t had anything to say before but the phrase itself. I don’t want to offend anyone. The title is a fact and I support the principle, but I’m not judging anyone that doesn’t. It’s like we all know exercise is good…
Moms are Superheroes
I don’t mean to blow my own horn here… Last week I had flu which turned into a serious chest infection. I also had asthma which I haven’t had in years. I had to take a course of antibiotics and that made me feel sick in my stomach. I’m all better now from the infection, my stomach is not yet…
Meal times should be fun, for you!
By now you may be thinking that I’m a database of rules and regulations. It may be so, but I think that rules and boundaries are essential to having well-adjusted kids. My husband’s Aunt once told me that as her kids grew so did their level of freedom and responsibility. Meaning they had no freedom and no responsibilities as littlelings,…
Trust or nanny-cam?
When I hired my first nanny she was working on a nanny-share arrangement for my daughter and my nephew at my house. It was like that for the first 3 months. I was still on maternity leave so I had enough time to get to know her and establish a relationship of trust. When I went back to work Miss…