Visual Baby: August 2014

A Bad Day With Baby...

A bad day with baby
is better than a good day at work,

Ain't that the truth.

I'd rather hear a bawling baby than a bawling boss.

In some cases there's not much difference!

It's all worth it in the end...

The first ray of sunshine is all the brighter when the clouds have been black and the rain never seemed to end!

Check out my Visual Baby series of eBooks. Each contains 30 original high-contrast black and white images to delight and inspire your baby or toddler. For free samples, see the page link at the top of this blog.

Five A Day - Supermarket Creeps

Hi - This article in the Guardian talks about how supermarkets have hijacked the health message of Five a Day and use it to push high calorie, high fat, high cost foods. It's a sleazy trick, made even worse when they're using it to peddle processed foods aimed at babies and toddlers.

I've heard a lot of parents saying 'it's one of her Five a Day' in a kind of awed, almost spiritual tone as they hold up some plastic packet of overpriced gloop that contains a token amount of dried date powder or whatever, just so that the label can make its Five a Day boast.

Marketers know what they're doing and as busy parents who want the best for our children as well as craving a little convenience in our lives, we are sitting ducks.

It's time to stop being hoodwinked by this dishonest labeling. And it's not hard to do. What I like to do with my daughter is to think of how much fruit and veg I want her to have in the day and then use a simple trick with the meals to overachieve it.

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Check out my Visual Baby series of eBooks. Each contains 30 original high-contrast black and white images to delight and inspire your baby or toddler.

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Let's say I'm aiming for five portions of fruit and veg. I plan her breakfast, lunch and snacks so that by the time she gets to her evening meal, she's already had her five portions.

That way, she's guaranteed to get more than the daily recommended minimum, because whatever she has in her evening meal is a bonus.

So I might get a banana and some strawberries down her at breakfast, some tomato and apple at lunch and a glass of fruit juice, just as one (admittedly rather fruit-centric) example. And then she has some green veg with her evening meal.

By spacing it out in that way and choosing foods she likes, it's not too difficult to achieve the target, and not a plastic packet in sight!

I hope you find some useful tips here. Please share your experiences in the comments section!

Five Useful Web Links For Potty Training

Hi - we are currently potty training our two and a half year old daughter. She's fine with wees and has quickly been able to stay dry and to tell us when she needs to use the potty or the toilet.

Poos are another matter. We're seeing her take longer to go for poos now (without a nappy) and she has done four in her pants in the last two days.

We're thinking that she needs to stay in pull-ups for a little longer.

To help us we have looked for advice from reputable sites about tips for potty training and the best five are listed below.

Getting a toilet seat and step was very useful as was a travel potty with disposable bags.

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Check out my Visual Baby series of eBooks. Each contains 30 original high-contrast black and white images to delight and inspire your baby or toddler.