Natural Family Online Blog

Bringing Home Baby with Siblings

Tips to Build Sibling Attachment
By Anna Stewart

Ask a pregnant mother what her fears are and the answer may surprise you. With the first baby, fears tend to be about the pain of childbirth, financial woes and loss of independence. The second time around, a parent knows how to care for an infant and how quickly the dependent infant becomes a struggling-for-independence child.

But for many parents pregnant with the second, the fear is about the first child. How will she handle the new baby? How am I going to give my first the attention she is used to?

Preparing the first child for the arrival of the second is a big concern. Lorna Benton, MSW, specializes in working with children. “As long as a child is perceiving that their needs are being met, everything will be copasetic,” she said. “The difficulty is separating their wants from their needs. Healthy children want to please their parents and to be part of the process of including a new child into the family.” READ MORE.

© Anna Stewart

Anna Stewart, B.A., C.M.T., C.H.T., mothers three young children, one with special needs. In her classes, workshops and services, she weaves her expertise as a professional writer, creative artist and student of rhythm dance. Anna offers a number of classes in the Boulder, Colorado, area. She can be reached at (303) 499-7681 or via e-mail at anna (at) motherhands.com. Her web site is ww.motherhands.com.

Swap Clothing - Organize a Neiborhood Swap

Too Many Clothes in Your Closet? Organize a Clothes Swap!
By Marcia Passos Duffy

I bumped into a friend at the supermarket the other day. She eyed my sweater a bit too enviously. "Love that color," she said. "Do you want to get rid of it?" We both laughed, and I politely told her to take her paws off. It wasn't ready to be swapped -- not yet.

We, along with about a half-dozen other friends, are clothes-swappers. We meet every so often with our bags of unwanted clothing after a spring (or fall) cleaning frenzy to … well … swap clothing. I'm not sure when this ritual started. I was invited to a clothes swap two years ago after a friend (who probably realized we were about the same dress size) invited me to a clothes swap she organized at her house.

Dump the goods and dig in
At first, I was skeptical on what kind of clothing I could get and frankly a bit embarrassed over the hopeless clothes I lugged along that nobody in their right mind would want. But what ensued was a cross between a slumber party and an open fitting room at Filene's Basement. There were about eight of us at my first clothes swap. Veteran clothes-swappers immediately told us to dump our goods on the bed and dig in. It was finders keepers -- but you had to try it on first!

One hand pulled out my awful maroon wool dress (which previously belonged to my mother-in-law and fit too snug and short on me). I had to admit it was mine. It was gingerly picked up by a petite woman I only knew in passing. Was she just trying to humor me by trying it on? When she emerged from the bathroom it was like was tailor-designed just for her. It was snug in all the right places; the hem hit just above the knee, where it should have. "I'll take it," she said and quietly folded it up into a growing pile she was gathering at her feet.

Wow. Hey, maybe this wasn't so bad after all! One woman threw a very loud flowered dress at me. "This is you," she said. Huh? Me, who wears muted greens, grays and black? It was not a dress I would ever try on, never mind wear. But with prodding from the group, I did try it on and sheepishly modeled it. Claps, cheers. "Take it!" "Oh, it is you!" I laughed and kept it -- I mean, what did I have to lose? (I've since worn it several times. A special notice to all my friend swappers: I'm now tired of it and it will emerge again at our next clothes swap

Read the rest of this wonderful article

© Marcia Passos Duffy

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Marcia Passos Duffy is a freelance writer and the publisher/editor of The Heart of New England online magazine and weekly e-newsletter, a publication that celebrates the unique character of the northern New England states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Terminate trashy toys! Excerpt

Sick of all the plastic junk being passed off as toys? Are your kids bored among a sea of walking, talking objects? Check out tips on toys that work – and toys that don’t.

Toys: Weighing Junk vs. Keepers
By Lisa Russell

Kids deserve real stuff to play with, not pretend things. Why give a child a plastic stethoscope that doesn’t really allow him to hear his amazing little heart beating? Why a plastic thermometer that always reads “102” degrees when the human body changes temperature constantly -- isn’t it amazing that our baseline normal body temperature can range several degrees? We want a child to discover that! And imagine how his eyes will light up when he discovers that his internal (mouth) temperature is different than his underarm temperature. (Let’s hope that’s as far as the exploration goes!)

View more of this article at http://www.naturalfamilyonline.com/NFL/20048-good-toys.htm

© Lisa Russell

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Lisa Russell runs an eclectic homeschooling and parenting web site at LisaRussell.net.