Category: Preschool

Are you a first-time parent? If so, you may be wondering what you need to do before your baby arrives. There is a lot to prepare for, and it can be overwhelming. Don’t worry – we are here to help! In this blog post, we will discuss the most important things you need to do before your baby arrives.

Here are some tips and tricks to help make the process easier for you!

Make Sure You Get The Right Crib Size

When it comes to cribs, size does matter. You want to make sure you get a crib that is the perfect size for your baby and equip it with the right cot. Otherwise, they may not be able to sleep comfortably or safely in it. To do this, you will need to know the dimensions of your baby’s nursery. Once you have these, you can start shopping for cribs! If you are unsure about what size crib to get, you can always ask your pediatrician for advice. They will be able to tell you the ideal size for your baby’s nursery.

Prepare All Must-Haves

Preparation is the key for a smooth transition. So, set up your baby’s nursery with a crib and changing table. Don’t forget to buy baby nappies, a good quality baby monitor, first aid kit, and a humidifier.

Don’t hesitate to take prenatal classes and read parenting books. This will help you prepare psychologically before the baby arrives. It is also crucial to plan for childcare, update health insurance, and consider financial adjustments. Furthermore, you also have to prepare a hospital bag with important documents.

Spend quality time with your partner and establish a support system of friends and family for emotional well-being. Set up a comfortable sleep environment for yourself and the baby, and consider a sleep schedule. Take care of legal matters by updating or creating a will and considering life insurance. Ensure the car seat is correctly installed in your vehicle well before your due date. Plan for postpartum recovery, including meals and support.

Baby Proof Everything

You need to babyproof everything before your little one arrives. This means getting rid of anything that could be a choking hazard, covering up any electrical outlets, and putting away any harmful chemicals. You also want to make sure that your childproofed doors and windows are installed properly. It’s also good idea to get some stair gates to keep your little one from getting into places they shouldn’t be.

Additionally, baby-proof your home by identifying sharp edges, small objects, and electrical outlets. Secure furniture by anchoring heavy items and installing edge bumpers. Place baby gates at stairs and doorways, and cover electrical outlets. Use cord organizers, install window guards, and secure cabinets with childproof locks.

By following these tips, you can help create a safe environment for your child before they even arrive. And once they’re here, you can rest assured knowing that you’ve done everything you can to prepare for their arrival. So go ahead and get started on babyproofing your home today!

Make Sure You Are As Healthy As You Can Be

Although having a baby is wonderful, it also presents many new emotional and physical challenges. To help you (and your baby!) navigate these changes, it’s important to make sure you are as healthy as you can be before your little one arrives.

Start by talking to your doctor about any concerns you have and getting up-to-date on all of your vaccinations. This is also a good time to start taking a prenatal vitamin if you haven’t already. Eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise will help you feel your best during pregnancy (and beyond!).

If you have any chronic health conditions, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, be sure to work closely with your doctor to manage them during pregnancy. Additionally, if you smoke, now is the time to give it up! Smoking during pregnancy can cause serious health problems for both you and your baby.

Moreover, regular detailed check-ups throughout your pregnancy are essential to ensure the health of both you and your baby. Lots of future mothers visit a private maternity hospital where they run all the necessary tests and keep a close look at the development of the baby. This can give you peace of mind as well as help your healthcare providers to identify any potential problems more quickly.

Taking care of yourself before your baby arrives will help ensure a healthy and happy pregnancy for both of you. So don’t forget to take care of yourself, too!

Make Sure You Have Pumps Ready

If you are breastfeeding, make sure you have pumps ready. You will need to pump every few hours to keep your milk supply up. It is also a good idea to have some stored in the freezer for when you go back to work or school.

Another thing to think about is childcare. If you plan on going back to work or school, you will need to find someone to watch your baby. This can be a family member, friend, or daycare. Make sure you do your research and visit the facility before making a decision. You should also have a backup plan in case your first choice doesn’t work out.

Make Room In The Fridge

Making room in the fridge may seem like a small thing, but it’s actually really important. When you have a baby, you’re going to need a lot more food than you think. You’ll need baby formula, breast milk, and food for your little one. Having enough space in the fridge will help you keep everything organized and easy to find.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you’ll need to sterilize all of your baby’s bottles and nipples. This can be done by boiling them for five minutes or using a special bottle Sterilizer. You’ll also need to have a good stock of diapers on hand, as well as wipes and other changing supplies. It’s always better to be prepared than to have to run out to the store in the middle of the night!

Baby proof everything, make sure you are healthy, have pumps ready, and make room in the fridge.

Get Your Car Ready

Most parents focus on making sure they have everything at home to care for their baby.  Yet, for children born in a hospital, their first experience when you take them home is the car.  And when it comes to the car ride home, and many rides to come, it’s all about safety. Ensure your car is ready with changes your car needs when you have a child.  There is the obvious car seat installation, but proper installation can never be taken for granted and should be done well in advance so that you are familiar with all the safety features.

Schedule a thorough safety check for your car, including brakes, tires, lights, and seat belts. Ensure that all necessary repairs and maintenance tasks are completed before the baby arrives. Consider adding childproofing measures to your vehicle, such as window locks and door protectors. And stock your car with emergency supplies like a first aid kit, extra diapers, blankets, and non-perishable snacks.

In conclusion, there are a few things you should do to prepare for your baby’s arrival. You’ll have your hands full so it’s never too early to get started.  By following these tips, you can help make sure that both you and your baby are ready for the big day!

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As parents and guardians, we have a crucial obligation to secure the wellness of our kids. Part of that tough job includes knowing exactly how to keep track of and encourage physical, cognitive, linguistic, and social growth, specifically in the early years of life.

We will talk about general speech and language anticipated from birth to 36 months and give suggestions to assist moms and dads in supporting their children’s advancement. As these are generalized, remember that each child develops at their own rate.

If problems persist for the past couple of months, look for specialist support. There are different ways pediatric speech therapists assist parents in developing ways to support child development.

Birth to 6 months:

During this young age, your infant ought to react to sight as well as sounds. Babies will undoubtedly babble, squeal, laugh, and utilize various cries for various needs. Throughout this early stage, talk during the day, describing what you see, what you are doing, and where you are going. Respond to your baby’s articulations and facial expressions, as these are their attempts to interact! Begin reading aloud daily, using vibrant, repetitive/rhythmic passages and a vibrant voice. Babies react well to parentese, which is talking in a sing-songy voice.

7 to 12 months:

By age 1, children generally respond to their name and recognize things by label, point or grab wanted items, comprehend simple instructions, and make use of motions. Speech may include a lot more complex babbling, 2-5 early words, and a replica of noises. To encourage language development at this age caretakers must respond to squealing, model great speech, incorporate nursery rhymes or easy songs right into regimens, educate the names of familiar people and day-to-day things, take the child to new locations, and also play straightforward games such as “peek-a-boo” as well as “pat-a-cake.”

1 to 2 years:

Between 12-18 months, many children reply to ‘no’, understand basic commands and concerns, point to a few body parts, make animal sounds, use 10-30 words meaningfully, and begin to integrate words.

By 24 months old, kids can generally adhere to two-step commands, use at the very least 50 words, start to ask what, who, and where questions, and also make use of two-word sentences. Speech sounds anticipated by this age include p, b, m, h, w, and vowels.

To promote language development at this age, caregivers should attempt to:

• encourage, reward, as well as praise efforts to speak
• narrate acquainted routines
• talk simply, plainly, and slowly
• discuss new circumstances before you leave, while there, and once again when back in your residence
• model ideal eye contact
• describe what your kid does, really feels, and also listens to
• play kids music

This is a terrific age to develop a day-to-day reading routine. Your child can participate by picking publications, turning pages, pointing to photos, and naming things they see. Parents, guardians, and caregivers can engage children by making remarks, asking easy concerns, and checking out the exact same book in various methods.

2 to 3 years:

As young children grow, they develop speech and language skills promptly. They seek verbal communication with others as well as establish more complex play plans, engaging in pretending to have fun with themselves and others. Your 2-year-old should develop three-word utterances, know how to hold a book upright, as well as show an exploration of writing versus drawing.

Children do best when playing with familiar adults and also various other peers. It is vital to make time to play and participate in shared activities with your youngster daily. If your child is not able to communicate with unfamiliar people or not yet utilizing basic sentences by age 3, it may be time to seek aid from an experienced expert.

Paula Acuña, M.A., CCC-SLP, is a licensed bilingual (English-Spanish) speech-language pathologist. Her practice, Ms. Paula, SLP Bilingual Speech + Language Services, offers bilingual evaluations, speech therapy, consultation, and training to meet diverse client needs. Paula and her team are dedicated to providing effective, individualized intervention to support children, adults, and their families via in-home, on-site, and telehealth services.

Read how text to speech readers can help overcome learning issues.
Learn about speech therapy for stroke and traumatic brain injury.

Alphabet, or letter recognition, is a foundational skill that is essential for learning to read and write. Children with a solid grasp of letter recognition can identify both upper and lowercase letters, in different contexts, in any order.  Letter recognition goes beyond singing the “ABCs,” which only teaches children to recite the alphabet from memory.

To be proficient with letter recognition, children also need to be able to distinguish the physical characteristics of each letter.  Letter recognition can begin at a very young age, with reading babies and toddlers alphabet books.

There are tremendous benefits to reading aloud to children, and books about the alphabet are no exception. Alphabet books provide children with exposure to letter names and their appearance. There are board books, storybooks, and books written in rhyme to choose from.

After your new baby arrives at home, education on letters and words is the last thing on your mind, even though their learning journey as already begun.  As children get older, they may begin recognizing some letters of personal significance, beginning with the letters in their name.

It is not uncommon for children to recognize the first letter in their name and later, to begin identifying others. This is a great starting point for teaching letter recognition. Take advantage of teachable moments to point out letters in the environment. For example, show your child how the letter on the sign is the same as the letter in her name.

Young children can benefit from tactile ways to interact with letters. One way to provide these opportunities is through the use of alphabet puzzles. In addition to the letters, alphabet puzzles often use pictures to represent the sound each letter makes. This is a great way for children to start associating letters with a picture, which can act as a cue to its sound.

Another tactile way for children to use letters is through the use of playdough. They can create the letters, either on their own, or with the help of a playdough mat that shows the outline of each letter.

Alphabet printables provide many different ways for children to work with letters. Choose from activities like mazes, spinners, tracing sheets, letter hunts, and flip books. These activities help children learn the letter names, distinguish their physical characteristics, and begin learning the sound each letter makes.

It can be helpful to have the alphabet displayed for children to refer to. This can be a premade alphabet chart or cards that you purchase from a store. Typically, they show the correct formation of each letter along with a picture that represents the letter sound. Alternatively, you can involve children in the creation of alphabet cards and have them choose pictures or items that represent each letter sound.

Having them choose the pictures can make the activity more meaningful and help them remember the sounds more easily. For example, children may choose to associate the letter “f” with a frog. The hope is that when they see the letter “f” in another context, they will think of the frog and be cued to the correct sound an”f” makes.

When focusing on letter recognition, it is important for children to learn both the upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet. In addition to the activities outlined above, matching provides another way for children to see the physical differences between upper- and lowercase letters. Provide them with opportunities to use materials like magnetic letters, letter tiles, stamps, or stickers to match the upper- and lowercase letters. It can be overwhelming to work with the entire alphabet, so begin with a few known letters and add in one or two new ones.

There are lots of ways to teach children the letters of the alphabet. Choose different activities to keep them engaged and provide lots of encouragement as they begin the exciting journey of becoming a reader!

Do Babies Always Respond to Their Name?

As parents, we do get alarmed when our children fail to respond to their names. That’s because this could be a sign of autism and other developmental delays we don’t want our little ones going through. Needless to say, children also develop at their own pace, and what you might take as a sign of autism could simply be your youngster operating on their own timeline.

That said, remaining in the dark and hoping for the best is hardly a space that parents want to occupy when it comes to their children. And while we can never be one-hundred percent sure of the answer until we see understanding reflected in our child’s eyes, it does help when we know the signs are mostly pointing toward a positive outcome.

So, do babies recognize their names all the time? No, they don’t. But this shouldn’t be an immediate cause for concern unless your little one is way past this milestone. Besides, you can help speed things up on your end by employing the speech-enhancing tips we’ll be sharing today.

Getting Your Children To Respond To Their Name More Often

For some children, it takes a while to have full recognition of their name. Sometimes, they’ll respond to it right away; other times, they’ll ignore it completely. If an intellectual disability is not the reason behind this, you can get your child to acknowledge their name with the help of the following:

Response in Isolation

There’s no question that children get distracted easily. They might know you’re calling their name yet fail to respond because their attention is on something or someone else. That is why you should first teach name recognition in isolation.

Teach your child to recognize his or her name when there are little to no distractions. Your bedroom or the kitchen could be a good area to start since it doesn’t have any toys lying around or any fun things taking place.

Once in this isolated environment, sit your child down and start the name-recognition process. To do things correctly, you must prepare something your child likes as a reward. It could be their favorite food, toy, or gesture from you.

Wait for a specific time when they’re looking away before you call out their name. If they look your way, hand over a reward. If they don’t respond, call their name out again louder, accompanied by some sort of commotion, like clapping, waving, or tapping on the table.

Whenever you present a reward, make sure your little one knows what it’s for. Do this repeatedly, using just their first name and only use waving and clapping when they fail to respond the first time.

Response in a Structured Setting

Now, it’s time to dial up the distraction levels and see how your child fares. After all, distractions are a reality your youngster eventually has to deal with. Your child should learn to recognize their name with distractions present.

To do this, take your child to a room where an appliance or two is running. It could be the television or radio or some toys lying on the floor. Repeat what you did in the previous method and call out your child’s name to see if they respond. If they do, reward them. If not, say their name again louder, accompanied by some tapping and clapping.

Of course, the presence of distractions means it might be a bit harder for your little one to focus on what you’re actually saying. Thus, give them a little more time to respond. You just have to keep calling out their name until they eventually look your way. Keep on practicing this method until you’re satisfied with your child’s level of response.

Response in an Unstructured Setting

You could be feeling a little bit better about the situation once your child nails the second method. However, things aren’t quite done just yet.

The third lesson involves getting your child to react to their name with any or all distractions present. So, in this case, you might want to bring them to a room that has all their favorite toys, people, and things to do.

Unleash them into the room before you call their name out. Make sure to stand close to them when you do and wait a moment for a response. If they recognize their name, proceed to hand over the reward and let them know what it’s for.

Though keep in mind that your child might not look your way all the time. What’s important is that he or she responds enough times for you to know that he or she absolutely recognizes the name you gave them.

Children and Their Unique Timelines

While a child has milestones you expect them to reach at a certain age, delays can often happen. Your child might not talk, respond, or act like their peers, and that could be perfectly okay and normal. Your child might simply be biding their time and will catch up eventually.

Though we also understand how this might keep you from getting some sleep. And in that event, you’d do well to get in touch with a speech language pathologist to help address the situation you suspect your child is in.

Expecting a baby? Explore tips on how to prepare before your baby arrives.