We know that safety gates (”baby gates” to many of us) are a good way to keep small children confined to safe areas. They prevent kids from falling down stairs, having access to fireplaces, etc. - but how do you pick the best possible gate?

HealthDay passes along these tips from the Nemours Foundation:

* Choose a gate that is securely mounted to the door frame with hardware, and that doesn’t leave any openings to pinch little fingers.
* Be careful with gates that use pressure or tension to keep them secured in a doorway. Never place this type of gate in front of stairs, as it may be more easily removed by children. (We ended up throwing away a gate of this type because my two-year-old could ram it hard enough to dislodge it, despite our best efforts to make it super-tight. And if they warp at all, forget it - they’ll never fit right again.)
* Make sure that the bar on pressure gates is on the side away from the child’s access.
* Leave no more than 2 inches at the bottom of the gate to prevent a child from trying to slide underneath. (They will try if they think they can fit, which can result in wedged limbs.)
* Choose a gate that is difficult to climb on or over. (Think of little kids as monkeys - they are always capable of more than we give them credit for!)
* Only use gates that are safety approved and certified, and have no sharp or dangerous parts that could hurt a child.

It doesn’t take much extra time to select a gate that will do the job right. I would never have forgiven myself if we’d had a stairway and had used the pressure-mounted gate my daughter ended up barreling through. Can you imagine? As it was, she only crashed into the kitchen. Whew!

Posted by Sunshine.

It only takes a moment for winter fun to turn into a trip to the ER. Cold weather dangers abound, but that doesn’t mean we should spend the season indoors. It’s important to stay active year-round, so here are some tips for a safer winter play season, from HealthDay:

• Children should wear a helmet when they’re snowboarding, sledding, snowmobiling and skiing.
• Dress to keep warm and safe. Wear layers of clothing and top it off with coats that are wind- and water-resistant. When snowmobiling, make sure that scarves and any loose fabrics are tucked in.
• Parents should always supervise young children and keep them in sight. Older children should always have at least one companion.
• Don’t play on ice, which poses a serious fall risk. When skating, use ice only in areas designated for skating, and check for cracks and debris on the ice.
• When skiing, snowboarding or sledding, always make sure the path is clear of people and other obstacles.
• Only take part in winter sports in areas well-lit by sunlight or artificial light.
• No matter what the winter activity, always think about safety. For example, never pull your child in a sled behind a snowmobile or other motorized vehicle.

Posted by Sunshine.

What a year it has been!

We had some sad times - including the Utah mine disaster, the California fires, and the Virginia Tech shootings.

We also said goodbye to Harry Potter and the Sopranos.

It was not all bad though… 2007 did bring us the iPhone!

We were informed again and again that obesity is ever increasing and it is a serious threat to our future health and our medical system.

And we learned that many toys aren’t safe and it is perhaps time to make a stand to ensure the safety of our children.

Women’s health has made many advances this past year, and I wish all of us wonderful women good health!

On the entertainment side, we bid a sad farewell to Anna Nicole Smith, and we watched with our boxes of popcorn in hand how Lindsay Lohan is seemingly crawling out of her dependency hole, while Britney Spears is diving deeper down.

For sports, we saw Tom Brady pull a nice one out of somewhere to lead the Patriots to a perfect season (that’s for you Supa!), and college football was a rollercoaster ride that has sparked many passionate debates about the BCS system. But many of our favorite athletes fell to scandals - Michael Vick, Floyd Landis, Marion Jones, and a whole lotta baseball players… leaving a lot of wide-eyed kids disappointed by their heroes.

We also watched our politicians gear up for the presidential race that has us wondering if we will see the first female President next year. (BTW - this is not an endorsement!)

Over on the boards, we celebrated the births of many future squawkers, we watched our precious ones grow a year older, we supported each other through the sleepless nights, potty training, magic marker mishaps and terrible two’s. And we marvel at the strength of our guy, Mikey. We shared the good times and the bad, laughed and cried and we can’t wait to do more in 2008!

Love to you all and all the best for 2008!

Posted by Meganlux

Ever wondered what makes certain toys so appealing to little kids, while others just gather dust? With Christmas a week away, most of you who celebrate the winter holiday have already finished your shopping - but for those like me, who procrastinated until the last possible moment, here are some toy-buying tips to ensure that your gift to little Johnny isn’t tossed aside at first glance:

Posted by Sunshine.

In our health-conscious postmodern society, why are children breaking their arms more often? Why are they developing rickets, the 19th century “soft bone” disease? And why might they be at greater risk of osteoporosis than our own parents and grandparents?

The answer: a lack of this critical bone-friendly trio: sunlight, calcium, and exercise.

Almost half of peak bone mass develops during adolescence, and the concern is that missing out on the strongest possible bones in childhood could haunt people decades later. By the 30s, bone is broken down faster than it’s rebuilt. Then it’s a race to maintain bone and avoid the thin bones of osteoporosis in old age.

“There’s some early data showing that even a 10 percent deficit in your bone mass when you finish your adolescent years can increase your potential risk of having osteoporosis and fractures as much as 50 percent,” says Dr. James Beaty, president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

Less than 25% of all adolescents get the recommended amount of calcium.

I thought that calcium was the most important factor by far in bone density and bone growth, but I was wrong: Strong bones require more than calcium alone. Exercise is at least as important. Consider: The dominant arm of a tennis player has 35 percent more bone than the non-dominant arm.

We already know that our children get less exercise than kids in generations past. But what does sunlight have to do with it?

Vitamin D (which the body absorbs from sunlight) is crucial to calcium absorption. If kids aren’t getting outside often, their bodies probably aren’t getting enough vitamin D, which in turn ratchets down how much calcium their bodies are absorbing.

It sounds to me like the best remedy for this disturbing trend is to get outside with the kids, have some good old-fashioned winter fun, and then come in for hot chocolate made with vitamin D-fortified milk. I can handle that!

Posted by Sunshine.

If you start singing this silly ditty to your little ones now, they’ll likely have it down in time to entertain their grandparents on Thanksgiving.

Plus it’s a nice way to mentally stave off the Christmas music that is already (annoyingly) popping up in stores, around here, at least.

The lyrics are sung to the melody of “My Darling Clementine.” (If you don’t know that tune, here’s a midi version.)

Albuquerque Turkey

Albuquerque is a turkey
and he’s feathered and he’s fine
And he wobbles and he gobbles
and he’s absolutely mine.
He’s the best pet that you can get yet
better than a dog or cat.
He’s my Albuquerque turkey
and I’m awfully glad of that.

Posted by MommaSteph.

The Boston Globe has a very interesting article on the whole “smart baby/toddler” movement that’s definitely worth a read.

One area the article looks at is the push for early reading, from flashcards for babies to a completely restructured Kindergarten curriculum that aims to get five-year-olds literate as a way to begin preparing them for standardized tests (more on that in an earlier MomSquawk post). According to the article, a small percentage of little ones are natural early readers. These children precociously grasp phonics even at three or four years of age. But most “early readers” have actually managed to memorize sight words; they don’t understand that discrete sounds make up the word “CAT” or “DOG”. They merely know what those words look like, and they make mistake “LOG” for “DOG” because they look similar. These “early reading” advances, whether brought on through the child’s natural curiosity or parental or preschool teacher drilling, tend to wash out a few years later, and these kids are on average reading at the same level as the children with no early sight word memorization.

But there’s more to the story. A Temple University researcher looked at two groups of children: one group had attended an academically-oriented preschool, the other a socially-oriented one. By age five, those in the former group knew more letters and numbers than those in the latter, but these leads faded by first grade. Moreover, the children who attended the academically-oriented preschool were found to be less creative and less enthusiastic about learning than those who attended the socially-oriented preschool.

Some research of note (emphasis mine):

A classic study in the 1930s by noted researcher and Illinois educator Carleton Washburne compared the trajectories of children who had begun reading at several ages, up to 7. Washburne concluded that, in general, a child could best learn to read beginning around the age of 6. By middle school, he found no appreciable difference in reading levels between the kids who had started young versus the kids who had started later, except the earlier readers appeared to be less motivated and less excited about reading. More recent research also raises doubt about the push for early readers. A cross-cultural study of European children published in 2003 in the British Journal of Psychology found those taught to read at age 5 had more reading problems than those who were taught at age 7. The findings supported a 1997 report critical of Britain’s early-reading model.

What might explain this? In her fascinating new book Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Maryanne Wolf offers some answers. True reading requires the integration of complicated functions from different regions of the brain - visual, auditory, linguistic, conceptual - a process that takes time. The speed with which these regions can be integrated depends on something called myelination, in which the tails (or axons) of neurons in the brain are wrapped in a fatty sheathing that makes them perform better. For these regions of the brain to interact efficiently, they need one neuron to talk to another neuron in rapid succession. And to do that well, those neuron tails need lots of myelin. Myelination rates can vary, but Wolf says generally these pivotal regions aren’t fully myelinated until sometime between the ages of 5 and 7, with boys probably being on the later side.

By pushing early reading, we may be asking preschoolers and Kindergartners to perform tasks for which their brains are not yet ready. And that can lead to labeling kids “slow readers” when they’re actually right on schedule - and we all know how such labeling can follow a kid throughout her school career.

I guess my take-away is, if my children are interested in learning to read early, fine, but I’m not going to push it on them.

There’s lots more. If you have an interest in early literacy studies, I suggest you check out the whole article.

Posted by MommaSteph.

FluMist for children: A federal advisory panel concludes that FluMist, a nasal spray that delivers the flu vaccine, may be safely given to children as young as two. The panel did not advocate one route of vaccine delivery - shot or mist - over the other. However, the panel noted that children with a history of asthma or wheezing should stick with the shots. The panel voted that government funds that cover childhood vaccines also pay for FluMist for this age group.

Childhood obesity clues: A new study in the Journal of Pediatrics finds that children with Down syndrome are more likely than their siblings to have higher levels of leptin, a hormone associated with an increased risk for obesity. These children tend to have a higher BMI and a higher percentage of body fat. “The normal role of leptin is to suppress appetite and regulate body weight,” said senior author Nicolas Stettler, M.D., MSCE, a pediatric nutrition specialist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “In general, obese people have higher levels of leptin, which suggests that they have some leptin resistance—their bodies do not respond to the hormone properly. Because Down syndrome is a chromosome disorder, children with Down syndrome may have a genetic predisposition to more severe leptin resistance.”

From the Environmental Protection Agency site:

National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week is set aside to educate parents and children about the dangers of lead exposure, especially lead-paint hazards in housing. As part of the observance, many states and communities will offer free lead screening, and conduct education and awareness events.Lead exposure among young children has been drastically reduced over the last three decades due to federal, state and local regulations that banned lead in gasoline and house paint, and efforts to reduce or cleanup lead in industrial emissions, drinking water, consumer goods, hazardous sites and other sources. In 1978, there were about 13.5 million children in the United States with elevated blood-lead levels. Today, approximately 310,000 children ages 1-5 years in the United States have elevated blood-lead levels.

It is the federal government’s goal to totally eliminate childhood lead poisoning by 2010.

Although most lead exposure occurs when people eat lead paint chips or lead-dust, EPA estimates that 10 to 20 percent of human exposure to lead may come from lead in drinking water. A DVD, “What Your School or Child Care Facility Should Know About Lead in Drinking Water” was recently made available to the public and sent to the 50 largest school districts in the country to help increase their understanding of the importance of testing for lead in drinking water.

Lead is a highly toxic element that cause a range of health effects, from behavioral problems and learning disabilities, to seizures and death. Children six and under are most at risk because their bodies are growing quickly.

The theme for this year’s lead week is “Protect Our Most Valuable Resource — Our Children.”

Here’s an earlier MomSquawk post on lead paint in old housing.

And if you’re a regular reader of our blog, you know we’ve been all over the lead in toys issue for over a year now. (I was just taking a little trip down memory lane with this post from September of last year - it’s amazing how inconceivable lead toys sounded at the time…)

Please, take a moment and sign our Toy Safety Petition. We are not powerless. We can use our consumer dollars to take action to protect our children.

Posted by MommaSteph.

About six weeks ago I bought some underwear for my toddler. They were Cars underwear. He looked at them, took them out of the package and said: “Lindo!” (which means beautiful in Spanish). Then he heard the Mickey Clubhouse song and he just completely forgot about the underwear. They have been in a closet ever since that day.

Why is potty training such a hard task for many toddlers? According to the Children’s Hospital Guide to Your Child’s Health and Development, 40 percent of three-year-olds still use diapers. Many parents just let it go if there is resistance. Most of the time patience is not the best ally in the process.

According to Potty Training Solutions here are some Potty Time Readiness signs to look for:

• Your child stays dry for at least two hours during the day and is dry after naps, which indicates that she’s able to remain dry for an extended period of time.
• Your child can follow simple instructions, such as a request to sit down or remove his clothing.
• Shows an interest in wearing underwear.
• Walk to and from the bathroom, sit still on his own for at least a few minutes.
• Shows obvious signs of discomfort when the diaper is soiled.
• Has predictable bowel movements on a regular basis.
• Expresses an interest in using the toilet or potty seat.
• Indicates through facial expression, posture, or language that he’s ready to use the toilet.
• Your child asks to wear grown-up underwear.
• Your child may be ready to begin when the diaper stays dry more and more often overnight.
• Your child will begin to notice the potty and want to sit on the toilet.
• The child may express displeasure with a wet or dirty diaper, or may not want to wear a diaper anymore.

When you think your child is ready to start potty training it is always good to have a plan. To assure that the process goes as smoothly as possible, here are some facts about the training:

• Girls usually complete training at a younger age than boys. 80 percent of boys and girls are completely trained by 3-1/2.
• Potty training takes an average of eight months.
• Rewards should be easy and simple

I think I’m just letting it go because he is my last kid and I want to stretch his childhood as long as possible. My other two boys were potty trained quickly and it felt like they changed overnight. They didn’t even use the potty, they went straight to the “big one”.

I’ll probably give it another try this week. During the weekend when my toddler needed a change he came running to me and said: “Caca! Pamper!” He did not want to feel it in his diaper. I’m pretty sure he is getting ready to start his training. The question is: Am I ready?

Posted by momcrazyforkids.