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How a Professional Lactation Consultant at Twinkle Can Support Your Breastfeeding Journey?

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Breastfeeding is essential for healthy growth and development of your baby and crucial for mother-infant bonding. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) currently recommends exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months of your baby’s life (1).

Breastfeeding has to be done properly because during the first few months it is very important for your baby to get all the essential nutrients and antibodies which altogether cannot be supplied by any formula milk (2).

But sometimes it is challenging because it does not come easy to everyone. Remember, breastfeeding is a learned behaviour for both child and mother. It takes time and effort to build this relationship. That is where lactation a consultant comes in! If you are going to become a mother, you have to come to the right place. Twinkle Home Health Care is ready to provide you the best lactation support.

Lactation consultants at Twinkle will provide you compassionate and non-judgemental support in your breastfeeding journey. We help moms to become more confident by helping them overcome all breastfeeding challenges.

Our CLEP certified Lactation Consultants, who are qualified and well trained to provide a balanced approach to breastfeeding by solving the practical problems you may be facing. They will offer guidance and support to assisting you while breastfeeding. Your questions will be answered regarding lactation from the comfort of your home by providing one to one sessions.

Common challenges regarding Lactation could be:

  • Lack of information or experience
  • Low milk supply
  • Latching difficulties
  • Sore nipples
  • Difficulty adopting breastfeeding
  • Depression or anxiety
  • Other physical issues

The way you sleep, your emotional state, how baby feeds and the way you eat can also contribute.

To book an appointment Contact us 800 8946553 (TWINKLE) or info@twinklehomehealthcare.com

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Potty Training

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The key to potty training success is starting when your child is interested, willing, and physically able to. While some children are ready as young as 18 months, others may not be prepared to learn until well past their third birthday.

Potty Training Tips: Let them watch and learn

Toddlers learn by imitation and watching you use the bathroom is a natural first step.

Buy the Right Equipment

Most experts advise buying a child-size potty, which your toddler can claim for their own

Create a Routine

Put your child on the potty whenever she is likely to have a bowel movement. This will help your child to get used to the potty and accept it as a part of their routine.

Dealing with Setbacks

An accident doesn’t mean that you have failed. In such cases, guidance is much better than scolding. If you find poo behind the couch or under the curtain, try to avoid direct language (why did you do that?) and let your child help you in cleaning up instead.

Focus on Praise

You have to pick something that is consistent with your parenting style. What works best is focusing on positive reinforcement, love, affection and pride when your child is successful.

Night Training

Even when your child is consistently clean all day, this doesn’t mean that they will stay dry through the night immediately. At this young age their bodies are still too immature to wake them up in the middle of the night just to go to the bathroom.

And maybe, most importantly…

Make it Fun and Don’t Put too much pressure!

Introduce role playing into your potty training routine. You could encourage your little one to help the babies put their nappies on and talk about how, now that they are older they need to start using the toilet like mummy and daddy. Remember it might take some time but your little one will get there when they’re ready.

At Twinkle Home Health Care, we can assist with your potty training routine. Our childcare experts will work with you to understand your plan. Our partner – Pure Born have also offered our customers a 10% discount on all training pants! Call us at 800 Twinkle for more information.

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Worried about leaving your child for the first time – here are some tips on how to help prepare!

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Leaving your child for the first time can be a traumatic experience for both you and your child but the reality is that once you leave, they are quickly engaged in activities and tend to forget about you! Of course, this is the aim and our childcare experts at Twinkle Home Health Care know exactly how to interact with your little one to distract them from their initial worries.

Our experienced childcare experts are skilled at putting children at ease quickly once they arrive, but as a parent there are also certain steps you can take to help your children prepare for this new routine.

For little ones, the prospect of someone new arriving can be met with mixed feelings. Some children will be excited to show this new person their toys and to show off their gymnastics skills, while others may be very nervous. They may have a lot of questions running around inside their little heads and as a parent, you will know what you need to do in terms of reassuring your child before your childcare expert arrives.

How you reassure your little one is a very personal decision because as we know, every child handles things differently. Some children might want to know every detail about what will happen when they arrive and others might be so comfortable with strangers that they take this very much in their stride.

If your child is showing signs of anxiety:

  • Reassure them that you will be back soon and that their childcare expert has your number and can call you if needed. It’s also best to emphasise that whilst you are contactable, you are busy and shouldn’t make demands for the childcare expert to call you.
  • For older children, discussing rules for the day/evening is important. We all know that kids want to avoid bedtime at all costs and can come up with any excuse to prolong the bedtime process! Whilst our childcare experts are trained to deal with these situations, it will support them further if this rule is explained before they arrive.

 

Whilst our childcare experts have the skills to put your little one at ease, it can be a good idea to try to make this exciting for the child and encourage them to think about what sort of activities they would like to do with our caregiver – “their new friend”. We send a few important questions as part of the booking process which will help our childcare expert prepare for their time with your little one.

  • Do they have a favourite toy?
  • What is their favourite food?
  • Are they allowed to watch TV, if so, the little one can choose a favourite movie to watch with them?

 

Making this a positive and exciting experience will really help both you and the child feel better.

We know that leaving your child for the first time can be a daunting experience and that children usually want to know why this person will be coming, who they are and where mummy/daddy are going to without them!

We share our childcare expert’s profile which will include their name and picture. We can also arrange for an interview and for your child to meet their new friend ahead in advance. Call us now at 800 Twinkle or visit us at twinklehomehealthcare.com for more information about our childcare service.

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When do children stop napping?

This will differ from child to child and the age varies greatly. Some children will be ready to stop napping by the age of two, while other children will continue to need naps up to the age of four and in some cases even later. The average age children say goodbye to nap time is around three to four years old.

So, how will you know when your child is ready to stop napping?

There are three clear signs to look out for which may suggest that the days of afternoon napping may be coming to an end. When deciding whether you should reduce the amount of time your child is napping or if you should drop the nap altogether, be on the lookout for these three tell-tale signs:

1. Your child is taking longer to fall asleep at naptime

If your child takes a long time to fall asleep during their afternoon nap and does not seem tired when nap time comes around.

2. Your child is taking longer to fall asleep at bedtime

If your child is starting to take a long time to fall asleep at bedtime and generally doesn’t seem tired when bedtime rolls around, it may be time to either reduce the amount of time spent sleeping in the afternoon or stop the nap completely.

3. Your child is starting to skip naps

If your child is starting to skip naps at the weekend or while away and is showing no negative side effects, e.g. they are not cranky and don’t become exhausted, this is a good sign that they are ready to transition away from daytime napping.

How can we transition away from napping?

The first step would be to reduce the amount of time your child sleeps during their afternoon nap. If they are currently sleeping for two hours during the afternoon, this time should be slowly reduced, and effects monitored. If your child handles this transition well, reduce again until the naps are stopped all together. Remember, slow and steady wins the race. Keep in mind that you may need to adjust bedtime to ensure overall amount of daily sleep stays consistent. Two-year-olds need 12-14 hours of sleep, whereas 3-year-olds only need between 11-13 hours.

What’s next?

When stopping naps, it is a good idea to replace this sleeping period with some rest time. Put on some relaxing music and have some calm time where your child is able to recuperate before being more activity again in the afternoon.

Here are a few ideas for rest time activities:

Read a book together or give your child the opportunity to look at some books independently.
Try out some yoga or mindfulness activities – research has found that these activities have great benefits for children as well as adults, including lowering anxiety and stress and increasing positive moods.
Draw, write, colour or paint together!
Talk about your day and what you are going to do in the afternoon.
Build with blocks, put together a puzzle or pretend play with puppets and teddies.

Our childcare experts will work with you to ensure that your nap time strategy works. Together you can develop a plan and we will support your little one through any transition periods.

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How to help develop your little one’s speech and language skills

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One of the most valuable learning tools in developing correct articulation is providing your little one with suitable talking experiences but BEWARE OF BABY TALK! It is more efficient to help children develop the correct language skills from the beginning than to try to correct later once habits have formed. Remember, your little one is a sponge and will mimic and learn by observing you!

TRY THIS – Can your little one copy the facial expressions and mouth movements that you make? Give them a mirror so they can also see the various expressions that they are able to create.

Reading plays a vital role in so many areas of your child’s development including speech. Listening to you read provides entertainment and an opportunity to bond as well as a great speech and language lesson in disguise!

Playing games such as “What can you hear?” and “Repeat after me”, helps your child to develop the ability to distinguish between different sounds that they can hear and make. Ask your child to talk about the sounds they hear in their environment and to repeat the sounds you make.

DID YOU KNOW – Articulation (pronunciation and talking) is the ability to move the tongue, lips, teeth and jaw to produce sequences of speech sounds, which make up words and sentences. Correct articulation is key in developing, not only efficient communication but also literacy skills.

Explore phonic sounds together at home – can your child make the phonic sounds when they are shown different letters? You can start developing their ability to use sounds even from birth. From newborn stage, babies will recognize your voice and turn to look at you. They will also start to make cooing noises. From around 6 months, they should start to imitate you. This is all part of their speech development.

TRY THIS – Can your little one repeat sounds after you? Make sure that you are facing them and have their full attention. Encourage them to touch your face so that they can also feel the sound. Exaggerate the sounds that you make – say “sssssnake “or “ddddddog”. Raising your pitch also keeps your little one interested for longer. One of the key points when exploring speech skills is repetition. You might feel silly, but this will speed up the process and really help your little one.

We know that you all have busy schedules and might need help and support with your childcare – whether that’s regular or just a few hours here and there, you can contact Twinkle Home Health Care and we can continue your great work in helping your child develop their speech and language skills.

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