Kid’s Development | Grammy's Corner

Kid’s Development: Choosing Cloth Diapers

When my first child was born, I didn’t have a choice as to the type of diapers I was going to use. There was only one kind, CLOTH DIAPERS. Therefore, I had to make sure I had the diaper pail, at least two dozen pre-folded cloth diapers, plastic diaper covers, and bleach for the diaper pail. Now, the hardest job was folding the diaper small enough to fit a five-pound baby. The nastiest job was trying to clean it out in the toilet! And invariably, it didn’t matter whether I had on the rubber pants or not, they leaked and her clothes became wet. On about the third day, I hurt my back lifting the diaper pail to pour out the water to wash the dirty diapers. When Huggies came out with the first disposal diapers, I jumped at the chance to try them out, never looking back. The cloth diapers became burp cloths and the diaper pail went to the garage. When my next child came around, there was never a decision to be made, disposable diapers was the only decision!

Twenty years later, I find cloth diapers have returned for several reasons:

Why Choose Cloth Diapers

Most parents go through 6 to 8 thousand diapers per child, from birth to about age three. If we take an average of what those diapers cost, that equals to between 2000 and 3000 dollars per baby. Once those children are potty trained those diapers and money have disappeared. In comparison, enough cloth diapers to last for three years will usually cost between 3 to 8 hundred dollars.
What should be of serious concern to all parents are the toxic chemicals present in disposable diapers. Dioxin, which in various forms has been shown to cause cancer, birth defects, liver damage, skin diseases, and genetic damage, is a by-product of the paper-bleaching process used in manufacturing disposable diapers.
And least 18 BILLION disposal diapers a year, just in the U.S., require thousands of tons of plastic and hundreds of thousands of trees to manufacture. After a few hours of active service, these used diapers are trucked away to landfills, where they sit for several hundred years containing raw untreated sewage. They are the third largest single product in the waste stream behind newspapers and beverage containers.
Disposable Diapers have been linked to asthma related symptoms according to October, 1999, issue of the Archives of Environmental Health. Dr. Rosalind C. Anderson, lead author of the report, “Acute Respiratory Effects of Diaper Emissions,” explains that the diapers were tested right out of the package, and one at a time. Even in a mid-sized room, the emissions from one diaper were high enough to produce asthma-like symptoms.
The increased use of single-use diapers may explain the increase in male infertility over the past 25 years, suggests a study in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. The research shows that single-use diapers lined with plastic significantly increase the temperature of the scrotum when compared to the scrotal temperature of boys using cloth diapers. Temperature is critical to normal testicular development and sperm health.

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Child Development: Stages of Educational Toys

Boys Playing with the Metropolis Train Set

With the Christmas season fast approaching, I begin to wonder about what to buy my grandchildren. Christmas is the time that I usually buy them toys to play with during the year. Walk through any toy store and you see walls and walls of toys that are loud, toys that require batteries, have flashing lights, or that look like your child’s favorite movie character. Many of the boy’s toys have swords, bayonets, and guns to simulate wartime and violence. But what about those of us who want to raise children with imagination and curiosity? Toys are the tools children use in play; and play is the way they practice growing up. Toys can be divided into several groups, depending on the part of the child it helps to develop.

Toys for physical or muscle development such as wagons, bikes, or boxes, puzzles, blocks, brooms, and shovels.
Toys for sensory (touch, sight, sound, taste, smell) development such as water toys, musical instruments, bubbles, play dough and sand toys.
Toys for make-believe and social development such as dolls, dress-up clothes, cars, trucks, games, and books.
Toys for creative and intellectual development such as clay, crayons, paints, books, paper, and scissors.

Children need a balance of toys from each of these groups to ensure their whole development. (The Creativity Institute, Inc, 2010) Children need to have direct experience with the world in order to make sense of and learn about it. They learn about people and the world. They learn all these things by playing with toys.

I have been concerned in the past about the number of Chinese toys containing excessive amounts of lead entering the United States. Fortunately, Congress responded with the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. The three-year-old law did not merely stabilize the CPSC by providing funding to build up the lab capacity and surveillance presence at ports. It increased the agency’s authority to issue civil penalties against those responsible for toxic toys and other dangerous products. And it also required makers of certain products aimed at children to first send those products to independent laboratories for safety testing. Products that are new as of August 14, 2011 will have to comply with the stricter lead standard of 100 parts per million. Older products have to meet only a standard of 300ppm. (U.S. Politics Today, Getting the Lead Out: Protecting Children From Dangerous Toys, September 2, 2011)

Nursery Rhyme Revolving Bookcase

Knowing that CPSC makes sure we have safer toys, I choose toys for my grandchildren by thinking about their ages and interests. Infants are interested in looking at toys, touching them with their hands and mouth, fitting pieces of things together and making sense of their worlds. I try to choose toys for them to look at, feel, chew on, hold, and drop. Infants like push and pull toys as they begin to crawl and walk. Appropriate infants toys include: rattles, squeak toys, blocks, crib mobiles, stacking toys and rings, push-pull toys, stuffed animals or dolls, nested boxes or cups, books with rhymes, simple picture books, noise making toys, small soft toys for throwing, strings of beads, and music making toys. Babyiture offers a Push Along Play Cartthat puts a tracking maze, a play xylophone, and a shape sorter all together into one adorable toy that is made of solid wood. On top of all of that, kids get to push it around from room to room as they play!

Push Along Cart

Toddlers are active and enjoy climbing, running, and jumping. They need toys to meet these needs. They also are interested in doing things with their hands as the small muscles in their fingers become more developed. However, toys for this age group should be simple and require little coordination. During this period, toddlers become interested in playing with others and in imitating grown-up activities. Toys like dress-up clothes are great for this! Toddlers also are interested in sensory materials such as paint, play dough, crayons, and chalk. One of the best ways to allow them to be creative is with an easel. Babyiture has a Child’s Easel with all the fun features of a regular easel, but takes up much less space. Give this to any young artist and they’ll be thanking you as they get hard to work on their next masterpiece. It has a chalkboard surface on one side and a dry erase surface on the flip side. Wooden strips hold the paper in place and it includes two plastic paint cups and an eraser. The easel folds for storage.

Child's Easel

Preschool age children are interested in active physical play. They have more control of their muscles at this age and this can be seen in the move from a tricycle to a two-wheel bike. They enjoy realistic toys such as farm and animal sets, grocery store prop boxes, model cars, and trains. As hand coordination increases, so does the child’s interest in simple construction sets and more difficult puzzles. Some children at this age also are busy learning to read and write, give them play equipment that encourages these interests.

Early school age children start collections or hobbies. Toys occupy less time for this age group because children spend more and more time playing with friends in groups. Early school age children start to show more awareness of what girls and boys are supposed to do. Girls may play with dolls as ‘babies’ and pretend they are doing real housekeeping. The Uptown Espresso Kitchen provides girls the opportunity to play house with all the features that mom has available to her. Often boys enjoy electric trains and construction sets. This is the age of active games, such as ball games, biking, hiking with the group.

Uptown Espresso Kitchen

No matter what the age, no house can have enough books. Children need to be read to from the day they are conceived all the way through their years in school. I always buy each grandchild a couple of new books each year for every occasion to add to his library. A mix of fiction and non-fiction is very important in a home. I bought them their own special chair, Time to Read Rocker, to sit in while reading. It has a Special Message: Time to Read Backrest that includes a working clock to keep track of little one’s reading time (Uses 1 AA battery – not included) and a charming poem on the seat back: Once upon a Time I took a look and found my world was full of books Now I love to sit and read each chapter Rocking and Reading HAPPILY EVER AFTER . The chair comes with a comfy, removable padded seat cushion and includes a sturdy attached rack to keep books up and off of the floor. By choosing the right books, the right toys, I can nurture creativity in my grandchildren; offering them the tools for success in life.

Time To Read

Kid’s Development: Language Skills By 24 Months

Toddler Talking On Phone

As I reflect on the last two years, I wonder what happen to the days, weeks, months as my granddaughter has grown. As she now approaches her second birthday, each day that I am with her is such a joy. Miley called the other night to say ‘Gamme, nigh, nigh’ and ‘lu u’. Now, as a grandmother, I know exactly what she’s trying to tell me. Afterwards, her mother informed me that she wouldn’t lie down until she had called me, that it was her own idea. A few nights later when it became time to leave, she said ‘No, Gamme house’ , and began to reach for me. For the first time, she verbally voiced her desire to sleep over at my house instead of going home with her mother. Also, on the days we drive into town, Miley sings ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ all by herself. Miley can speak and be understood about half the time(it’s the other half that leads to exasperation) and may even be able to carry on a (very) brief conversation….which leads to some not so pretty forms of expression, such as whining, screaming, or maybe even tantrums. All of this happening within a month of her second birthday has left me in awe of the developmental stages Miley progresses through at her age.

Children develop at their own pace, so it’s impossible to tell exactly when your child will learn a given skill. The following developmental milestones will give you a general idea of the changes you can expect by the time your child reaches 24 months:

she enjoys simple stories, rhymes, and songs, even to the point that they will try to hum or sing the song.
she uses 2-3 word sentences
she says names of toys
she enjoys looking at books,
she points to eyes, ears, or nose when asked
she repeats words, using 50 or more recognizable words appropriately
she is interested in learning how to use common items

We have read to Miley since she was born, knowing that the best way of promoting language development is through books. She enjoys watching me read books. Through watching you, and reading with your child, she quickly learns reading behavior, which is how books work: turning pages, following pictures, and print, etc. The other day I discovered Miley ‘reading’ a book. She held the book appropriately, just a jabbering. I could only understand about every third word, but the book’s main character was a dog, and she repeated dog frequently. Miley had heard the story enough times that she was trying to retell it, practicing language development as well as cognitive skills.

Reading To Toddler

From age two and above, it is the most important age for speech development as your child begins to link two and three words to communicate his needs. Use fact and story books that reflects his everyday activities…for example… getting dressed, mealtime, bath time, bedtime, playtime, etc. are important to emphasize and introduce the idea of a sequence of events. There may be single line text, which describes the pictures … for example…under the bed, on the chair. This can help develop his vocabulary and understanding of positional words. Prints in his story books need to be large and bold. As he begins to speak, his vocabulary grows and becomes more fluent for slightly longer books, which may have a simple story… one that has a beginning, middle, and end. He can cope with a small number of characters. Pictures need to be large and colorful. Allow him to get actively involved in playing or reading books but always be gentle in handling them. If children would learn to value books at an early age, they can be successful through school and life.

As your child’s collection of books grows, provide a safe, easy accessible place for him to store his books. At two years of age, he is never too young to learn to properly place his books on bookshelves, in book totes, or whatever you may design for him to use.

Time To Read Revolving Bookshelf

One creative design of bookshelves, made by Levels of Discovery, revolve around, taking up very little space, but very user friendly. They come in many innovative designs and fun themes such as the Rock-It Spaceship Revolving Bookshelf or the Alphabet Soup Revolving Bookshelf. They provide easy accessibiliy for the toddler to take his books on and off the shelf. Other unique bookshelves made by Teamson Design Corp. feature carved hand painted shelving units such as the Frog Bookcase.

Frog Bookcase

This frog themed bookcase features an all wood, three shelf unit sized for a toddlers room. But no matter what you use, as long as your child knows there is a special place for his books, and to always put them up when he finishes with them, your child learns not only language development, but responsibility.

How To Teach a Toddler To Talk