Parenting

If the days are flying by and you never feel like you get enough done, then you might want to make a few adjustments to improve how you use your time. Don’t worry that doesn’t mean that you need to give up the activities you love doing. Instead, it means that you have to be smarter about time-management! If you’re not sure where to start, these ten tips will be a great start for you.

1. Prep the Night Beforehand

If tomorrow has a lot of appointments, then why not save yourself a hurried morning by spending a half-hour tonight preparing for what is to come? For example, you can make the coffee ahead of time.

Another idea is to lay out the kids’ clothes the night before (as well as your own outfit for the office or home). And give them a bath in the evening, so this is one less thing to do in the morning.

Also, make lunches for the children the previous evening. Just don’t forget to grab them from the fridge before heading out the door in the morning!

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Right now, health is at the forefront of all of our minds. We all want to do what we can to keep our homes clean and our children as safe as possible, so Spares2You have asked me for the best tips on disinfecting children’s toys.

Cleaning children’s toys is not always a straight forward matter. There are so many toys, each with different types of materials from wood, to plush teddy bears, fabric toys, bath toys or toys with batteries which can’t be immersed into water… so how do we handle these, and how often do you need to clean your child’s toys in the first place?

Bath toys 

Bath toys are great fun, but if you’re not careful you might start to spot some mould building up in these toys – particularly the squeezy water squirter variety! One way to get around this issue before it even begins, is to seal holes in your bath toys shut using a hot glue gun. Some bath toys are also made specially with no holes nowadays, to help combat this common bath toy cleaning issue.

Regardless of the holes, bath toys are still an area which need extra care due to the possibilities of mould. You may want to check the bath toy storage caddies too, and regularly clean these out. After your baby or child has finished their bath, it’s best to take out all of the toys and dry them, squeezing out any water that has seeped inside any of the toys, before putting them away.

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By: Maryam Ahmed

Being the mother of an overly active 3-year old, I have much to whine about. Starting right with the complaining, I miss the days when I could hide under the covers, completing an entire season of Grey’s Anatomy in 3 days or not being able to put down Lord of the Rings since I just had to find out what mischief Gollum was up to next. Alas… those were the days, the end of an era as marked by September 21st, 2016 or the birth of my boy. 

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Many parents are wondering how they’re going to keep their kids busy at home. Screen time doesn’t have to create conflict at home. Programming is a valuable skill, and some sites make it uniquely easy to learn, say those at Construct.net. Let’s explore some of the unique benefits children experience when they learn to code.

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By Maryam Ahmad

With the schools suspended, indefinitely for many kids, offices adjusted to online operation and the unprecedented panic created around the globe, little do we think about the effect of the situation on the brains of our little ones. 

Being the mother of a three-year-old, I understand how difficult it can be to implement social distancing on a child of his age. While he understands absolutely nothing about what the world is fighting against, the tantrums are heightening, and even the sleeping and eating routines are suffering as a result. So if you’re experiencing the same problems with your toddler or preschooler, know that you’re not alone in this. 

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Igglepiggle, Upsy Daisy and Makka Pakka are an important part of bedtime rituals for many preschoolers across the UK. As the clocks prepare to spring forward on Sunday 29^th March, In the Night Garden is once again teaming up with renowned sleep expert Mandy Gurney from the Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic to provide valuable tips that will help parents and carers manage the upcoming time change with their little ones.

Together with Mandy, In the Night Garden has created a short quiz to determine a child’s chronotype which describes the time of day they feel most alert and energetic – whether they are a morning lark a night owl, or somewhere between the two. Based on each of these three chronotypes, there will be tailored, easy-to-follow tips for parents and careers to help prepare their children for the clock change and ensure a good night’s sleep all round.

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“Being at home with the kids for two weeks need not feel like prison. Instead use those 14 days to create some family memories. Here are my top 10 ways kids can really enjoy being at home and learn something new”, states Guillaume Thevenot Founder of BabyBreaks.com.

1. Improve your drawing skills 

My daughter recently discovered this great YouTube channel Arts for Kids Hub. She spends hours drawing all of these cartoons. I’ve got the awesome pictures to prove it. 

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Parenting is a tough job. You will find yourself exhausted after a hard day’s work only to come home to your loved ones who can’t wait to play with you, tell you what they did that day and cuddle. Kids can be tough to manage but they can also inspire you to find that last ounce of energy somewhere in you and spend it with them. They can make you laugh in an instant and lift your mood momentarily if you had a bad day. It’s a fact that kids demand time and you have to spend some with them before spending some with yourself, and you can do this through several activities.

A Trip to the Park

The park is a great place to take your kids to. It can be a regular walk that doesn’t last more than 15-20 minutes. Short walks will give them a change of scenery and in the park, they’re free to explore anything they want. The park is the place where you can bond with your child by asking them how their day went and what they did. If you’re going to the park in winter on a snowy day then you and your children can make a snowman, snow angels and have other fun activities in the snow.

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When organising a birthday party for your child, one of the things to consider is what to put into the party bags. Giving a fun party bag is a great way to round off the perfect kids party, giving your guests something to remember the party by and enjoy once they get back home.

The first tip to consider when choosing party bag items is to keep it age appropriate. For toddler parties, its best to avoid some of the sweets and candy that are popular with school aged children in party bags, and once the guests are a little older, they may not appreciate some of the more babyish party bag toys so it’s important to strike that balance. For all ages, it’s always better to go with quality over quantity and avoid those tiny little plastic party bag toys that tend to be destined for landfill straight away…

If you’re looking for some ideas for your child’s birthday party bag fillers, here are a few suggestions:

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