Kids & Screen Time: A Parental Conundrum

As parents, we are responsible for making sure our children get proper nutrition, plenty of exercise, a good education, and so on. We read articles and books on all sorts of difficult parenting topics, including the modern problem of managing screen time. Some of these articles give us a glimpse into how the experts handle screen time with their own children. It can be a very tricky balancing act!

Photo by Patricia Prudente on Unsplash

Case in point: my son is currently obsessed with learning Spanish using an app called Duolingo. Of course, I’m ecstatic that he wants to learn Spanish. We are already a bilingual Franco-American family, speaking mostly French at home, and now we are all “playing” Spanish on our iPhones and iPads. But I’m also worried about the amount of time this child would like to spend learning Spanish if left to his own electronic devices. 

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Severe Tongue-Tie Almost Derailed Breastfeeding My Second Child

Tongue tie and lip tie can be very troublesome, but totally treatable conditions that cause feeding difficulty for a lot more babies than you might think (3.5% according to this study.) Pediatricians and other infant care professionals are getting more savvy about diagnosing and treating these two conditions that are often found together. That said, the two different lactation consultants who checked on my daughter in the hospital when she was born did not evaluate her latch or examine her mouth. At first, everything seemed to be fine…

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash
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Amber Necklaces: Teething Pain Relief for Babies?

Teething is an adorable time, but can be so difficult to survive…

I’m a scientifically minded individual. I believe in science – even have a degree in environmental science. But I also love my fair share hocus-pocus, hippie dippy, crunchy granola, natural remedies – especially when they work!

When my son Sweetie Bird was about eight months old , we got him an amber necklace because I had heard it was a natural way to deal with teething pain. He still didn’t have any teeth, but we knew they were coming and everyone knows that teething is one (or several) of the most dreaded periods in a parent’s life.

Apparently, wearing amber against your skin causes your natural oils to absorb something magical and analgesic from the amber. Amber is not truly a gemstone like amethyst or quartz, it’s actually fossilized tree resin. Baltic amber, which is the recommended type for pain relief, contains 3-8% succinic acid – the magical stuff.

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