Caring for Your Premature Baby

 Baby Care  No Responses »
Jan 022012
 

When you give birth to a premature baby, responsibilities increase in number. It’s because he is born before the gestation period is over and, therefore, he might not be as healthy as a full-term baby. However, there’s nothing to worry about as your doctor will let you know everything about caring your preemie. It’s natural for mothers to face a little difficulty initially, but once they get into the process, it becomes an overwhelming experience. The more quickly you learn the various ways to nourish your baby, the more beneficial it will be for him. Here we explain how to care for your premature baby at home.

Holding Your Baby

The first thing you should know is the right way to hold your baby. His head is intensely delicate and it requires support while sleeping and when awake. Place your hand behind his head and lift it gently. Rest your other hand on his hips or on the back. When you grip your baby this way, his entire body weight will be balanced on your hands. This technique known as containment holding is the safest way to handle your preemie. You can follow the same method while bathing him or laying him down on the bed.

Right Feeding Techniques

Even though it is highly satisfying as a mother to breastfeed your baby, this feeding technique cannot always be opted for in the case of premature babies. Your baby might be too weak to suck or he might get tired while doing so. Doctors suggest mothers to express milk into a bottle and then feed, when their babies are unable to suck naturally. This can be manually done by applying pressure around your nipples and then storing the milk in a sterilized bottle or cup. You can then feed him from the bottle or with a spoon. Sometimes, tube feeding is also performed on premature babies. Although it might seem a tough job for mothers, knowing the technique properly will eliminate every kind of feeding problems. Your baby will receive adequate nourishment and his health will improve very quickly. The feeding schedule will be determined by your doctor and you can follow it accordingly.

Adequate Sleep and Rest

More than ten hours of undisturbed sleep is a must for a premature baby. Babies born before the completion of the gestation period, although tend to sleep more, do so for short periods. Therefore, you have to take care of his surrounding and make it conducive for sleeping. Do not play loud music or keep your television turned on while he is sleeping. Always keep an eye on him while he is sleeping and make sure that he lies on his back and not on his stomach. The mattress should be firm enough to support his back and head. You shouldn’t panic if he wakes up crying in between. This is quite natural as he will take time to get adjusted to the new environment. The best part is to watch the innocent smile on his face when he dreams.

Protecting from Infections

Babies born premature are prone to infections as their immune system take time to become strong. Your baby can have respiration problems and be susceptible to colds and fevers quite often. It’s, therefore, better to take precautions early on. Avoid taking him out to public places, like shopping malls, theaters, etc. Keep his room well-ventilated and not air-conditioned. Feeding bottles should be sterilized and his diapers must be changed at frequent intervals. Make sure that people coming to visit your newborn, wash their hands before touching. To be on the safe side, try to keep your baby away from unnecessary touching and cuddling of visitors.

Bathing your Preemie

It’s the most crucial of all the premature baby care tasks. First place the bathtub on the ground and fill it with lukewarm water (test it before bathing your baby). Place your baby in the tub and support his head with one hand. Gradually apply the soap and rinse gently with water. Let him relax while you wipe his face and wash his hair. Do not pour water randomly. Perform everything with one hand while holding your baby with the other. Wrap a soft towel around his body and dry him completely. You can bathe him properly twice a week and give him a warm sponge bath for the rest of the days.

Essence of Kangaroo Care

Kangaroo care is suggested by doctors for holistic development of preemie babies. So how is this possible? It’s actually a kind of touch therapy, wherein you lie down straight on your back and allow your baby to rest on your bare chest. You can turn your baby on his side so that your heartbeat is audible to him. Another position is placing his head on your bosom and his tummy on your tummy (i.e. tummy-to-tummy contact). So the baby will actually be lying on his stomach on you. You can play, talk, and cuddle him in this position. Kangaroo care boosts growth and regulates body temperature. Your baby will also improve his sucking ability, sleep more, and gain weight rapidly.

Additional Tips

  • You have to monitor your baby’s growth and development. Doctors suggest vitamins and nutritional supplements which must be administered regularly.
  • If your preemie was born with lung disease and gastrointestinal problems, then the medicines prescribed by your doctor must be continued.
  • In chronic conditions, you can install alarm systems, which will immediately make you aware of this health status. Such alarms are usually kept for babies suffering from apnea, irregular heartbeat, etc.
  • The benefits of baby massage should be known to all moms. Let you baby lie on his cot and you can gently massage every part of his body with baby oil.
  • You can learn the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) procedure before getting discharged. This proves helpful in cases of emergency.
  • You must also keep an account of his vaccination doses and get them done on the specified dates.

Apart from all these, you should spend the maximum time with your baby and try to talk, play, and laugh with him. Observe how he responds to your gestures while being in the playful mood. You can also keep a part-time nurse for help. Above all, it’s the mother’s love that he receives improves his health and accentuates growth. So wishing you a happy motherhood

 Posted by at 5:50 am  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Influence of Authoritative Parenting Style

 Parenting  No Responses »
Dec 152011
 

Effects of Authoritative Parenting Style
Happy Child
Authoritative parenting refers to a parenting style, wherein the parent is proactively involved in child’s mental and physical growth. Thus, it is a very child centered approach, which aims at raising a happy child. In the initial stages of childhood, parents are the only world that children have. Thus, when a parent makes an effort to be with the child, spend quality time, make some of the fondest memories, it automatically culminates into happy household and a happy child.
Maturity in Problem Solving
An authoritative parent strives to make the child independent, but does bring a few restrictions and controls on him. They demand maturity while problem solving, which teaches the child to be insightful and objective while solving certain issues and ensuring mistakes are not repeated again. As the child is intentionally monitored, possibilities of high risk behavior or chronic stress and tantrums is reduced to a large extent. Although kids have the freedom to voice their opinions, it is parents who will have the final decision. This also helps in making children think by themselves, which keeps the negative effects of peer pressure at bay.
onal Bala
Emotince
Understanding your child is one of the biggest challenge of parenting in modern times. An authoritative parent encourages the child to talk about his feelings and emotions and treats the problem with total respect. Children of authoritative parents are emotionally well-developed, as the quality communication helps them reducing unrecognized stress, anger and frustration. The nurturing and friendly attitude of parents towards their children, goes a long way in building a relationship of trust. Thus, rebellious streak in children during teenage is sobered down. Also, as authoritative parents make it a habit to explain mistakes, punishments are received with a complete understanding. An emotional balance is established at a very young age, because emotions are understood and reciprocated by the parents.
Social Conduct
As open dialog and free channels of communication are the underlie of authoritative parenting, it develops an ability to handle their emotions. Thus, they grow up as adults with better social conduct, which is seen through respect for elders, better tolerance levels, maturity and good decision-making skills. Also these kids are better than a lot of their peers as they are independent in thought and sentiment, which also makes them good leaders in times to come. Authoritative parenting also teaches kids to take up household responsibilities, resolve conflicts with peers, value things in life and most importantly do all of this with confidence.
By far, authoritative parenting is one of the most effective parenting style. The influence of authoritative parenting is seen through responsible adults, who can raise good families. Such type of parenting, which treats children with respect and love, allows them the freedom of making mistakes and learning from them, and helps them express their most innate emotions that goes a long way in making a society which understands the objectivity.

 Posted by at 3:53 am  Tagged with:

Slow Parenting and its Advantages

 Parenting  No Responses »
Dec 102011
 

Advantages of the Slow Parenting Style
Slow parenting style is more or less similar to permissive parenting wherein the children are allowed to do whatever they want to, with no interference from parents at all. This gives the kids a chance to learn by exploration, curiosity, discovering, understanding by witnessing, and similar techniques. It also allows to sink in a sense of freedom and self dependency in children. In simple words, while the standard parenting method would make you recite a story about the butterflies and the singing birds, slow parenting would actually make your child learn by actually playing with them. Did you understand the example? These advantages are explained in details in the following paragraphs for a better understanding of the concept of slow parenting.
The Natural Way of Learning
The primary approach of slow parenting resides in the fact that kids should grow and learn in a natural environment rather than being influenced by the materialistic way of learning, which never gives their minds a chance to develop naturally. It wouldn’t be wrong if slow parenting movement comes up with a motto like “Let Nature Take its Own Course in Child Development.” This parenting style doesn’t encourage kids to watch television as there is nothing natural in it. After school classes like ballet, swimming, or football are also not considered valuable as it results in influencing the mind of the child and not letting the child be himself or herself.
Enhances Exploration and Creative Growth
If you watch channels like Discovery and National Geographic, you would know how a young one explores its surroundings as soon as it is born. It checks out the leaves, the branches, the other animals…, it runs, it jumps, it falls, and it learns! Parents who follow the slow parenting style, would actually want their kids to learn in the similar way, though not in a jungle, but somewhere in company of nature. Instead of sending their kids to ballet or football, they would actually want their children to play in the garden, chase the butterflies, hold the snails, learn, and explore. This way, the child’s mind is not being influenced, rather it is learning through curiosity, which in turn, promotes creativity.
Enables Learning through Self Dependency
A modern parent would get a new toy or a game and instruct the kid on how he or she should play it, on the other hand, slow parenting would expect the parent to just give the toy to the kid, stand back and observe how the kid manages to figure it out. The advantage of this approach is that the child will not be dependent on the parents for each and everything. In fact, the child will become self-dependent and self capable of learning and understanding.
Makes the Child More Confident
Self-confidence is something that is very essential to live in a world, the way it is today! In fact, most adults who were raised under the influence of authoritative parenting style end up having problems in decision-making and self dependency. It is mostly these adults that want their children to have the freedom to choose and to live the way they want to, and not live their life the way their parents wished for them.
Lesser Behavioral Problems Resulting from Stress
Sources state that the children who were raised in an authoritative influence, or too much of interference from their parents, end up dealing with a lot of stress and behavioral problems. These children are also prone to suffer from personality disorders and dependency issues. The slow parenting style gives the child the freedom and encourages them to learn through self exploration. This minimizes the children to have troubles in the future.
So, this was a brief write-up about slow parenting and its advantages. Though all parents may not agree to this way of raising children completely, you can also not ignore some of the key benefits that this parenting style involves. Nevertheless, I believe that parents know what is best for their kids and a good parent is the one who understands the needs of the kid. Keeping a balance is what is needed to make sure that you are giving the best upbringing to your child.

 Posted by at 3:30 am  Tagged with:
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