Kirsty Lavender has asked for tips on how best to wean her baby off his bottle and onto a trainer cup. Thanks for the request, Kirsty. The best advice I can give is to have patience. When I decided to coax my oldest son off his bottle, at around 12 months of age, it took…

Stranger danger is a difficult subject to administer. We all tell our children never to speak to or approach a stranger, and then we take them to meet Santa and encourage them to not only tell him what they would like for Christmas, but also sometimes to sit on his lap! We also forget sometimes…

  My husband would say that I am highly qualified to encourage a child to talk; as I never stop! Even having suffering a massive stroke didn’t stop me, much to his disappointment! When I was in hospital he told me he thought he had gone deaf! When I was growing up my dad would tell…

Experts say that most children don’t get bladder control until around 18 months, so there is no point in trying to potty train before that age. I must admit however, to placing my first born son Leigh, on his potty just after his first birthday. He seemed to be quite happy sitting there, whilst watching…

Nowadays, keeping children entertained on long car journeys is relatively easy thanks to things like laptops, electronic games and tablets such as iPads. They can now watch a movie or play a game whilst they travel. When my own children were young, there were no such luxuries. I once made a booklet for each of…

Many parents are under the impression that teaching their child to read is the responsibility of their child’s teacher. While this is true to a certain extent, there is a lot you can do to help as a parent. My eldest son started to recognize words from a very young age by the way they…

When I met my second husband, my boys were aged 4 and 6 and he had an 8 year old son. Once we settled into life as a “blended family” the boys didn’t call their step-parent mum or dad (after all, they each had an absent parent who they still saw) neither did we tell…

After catching up with Terry who originally suggested I write a blog on Child Led Play, he told me his Daughter aged 2 had recently been to a birthday party. He was surprised that all the small children played separately, instead of together. This in my experience is perfectly normal for that age, and soon…

Thanks to Terry who suggested that I write a blog about Child Led Play. It is too easy to hover over our children while they are playing. It is much better take a step back and et them use their imagination. When I was child minding, I sometimes laid out the tea set on a…

The question of how to help a child with number recognition came up recently on social media. These are my ideas. In my experience, most children start recognizing numbers by their age. Many youngsters are given birthday cards with their age on ( usually the number is large and brightly coloured) Some children walk around…

I am hearing of more and more parents complaining that their children are addicted to electronic devices such as tablets such as iPads, MobilePhones and games consoles and that the children get stroppy when told to switch them off. I had a similar problem when my eldest son became obsessed with his play station and although…

Thanks to Tina for the suggestion of an absent parent, a difficult subject; but one I have had a little experience of. My boys, were aged four and six years, when myself and their father split. I decided at the time that I was going to try to stay on good terms with my ex,…

Similar to learning about numbers and colours, the easiest way to teach our children about shapes in my opinion is to make it fun. Start by looking around your environment. Sitting in my living room, I can see several different shapes; square and rectangle picture frames, a round clock, rectangular windows and door frames, a…

The subject of encouraging your child to do No.2’s (poos) on the potty, has recently come to my attention, both in person and on social media. I did encounter, this problem, with my middle child, although his problem was of constipation; which in itself can be a vicious circle, it hurt him to go, so…

Managing their child’s behaviour can be one of the biggest challenges for many parents, after all; the “terrible two’s” do start at around 18 months and finish at 18 years, don’t they? The solution to this is simple – reward good behaviour and, wherever possible ignore the bad. The best example I can give of…

Another request from Sarah Knight, this time for fussy eaters. Thank you so much Sarah. My experience with my own children, as far as eating goes is that they usually eat most things, until around twelve months, when the picky eating starts. My eldest son would eat a varied diet until this age and then…

During my time as a childminder I was asked; on a few occasions (usually by first time parents) what were my feelings towards using a dummy. When I was in my early twenties and expecting my first baby I was under the mind set that no child of mine would ever be seen with a dummy in…

Personally, I have never experienced sibling jealousy with my own children. When I was pregnant with my second baby, I told my son who was almost two ,in language that he could understand. We looked at pictures of babies in magazines and borrowed library books etc. He came with me for some of my midwife…

Cooking with children is an activity that I have done with both my own children, and the ones I used to child mind. You can simply let the children help with baking, my own children used to like to stand on a chair beside me so that they could reach the kitchen worktop and help…