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Educational Toys for Babies – 0-6 Months

June 10th, 2021

As a parent it is natural to want the best for your children. You want them to grow up to be well rounded happy adults. Educational development is something that all parents are concerned about from the moment their child is born. This article focuses on educational toys for babies 0-6 months old and why they are important for your child’s development.

When a baby is born their vision is limited, they will be able to differentiate between light and dark but they will not see all colours. At about 3-4 months old babies start to distinguish between colour hues as their full colour vision develops. Newborns are able to see things directly in front of them but struggle to focus on anything further than about 12 inches away. Using finger puppets can help to develop your baby’s vision.

To perform this exercise position your baby either lying down or in a reclining seat so that they can see your face. Put a finger puppet on each index finger and slowly move them into your baby’s line of sight. Wait until they have focused their eyes on the finger puppets before carrying out a conversation between the puppets and your baby. Pause after each question as if your baby was responding. These educational toys not only improve your baby’s vision but also help their interactivity skills as they are included in the conversation.

Naturally babies are inquisitive and they want to experience the things they can see by touching them. Try rubbing different textures on your baby’s skin as this will help their touch sensitivity. Activity gyms are brilliant educational toys for babies aged 0-6 months. They can improve the hand eye co-ordination of your baby as the hanging parts will move as they are touched. Reaching for something and making contact will give your baby confidence.

Newborns don’t respond positively to loud noises but as they grow they begin to appreciate surprise sounds. To help develop your baby’s hearing you can encourage them to play with toys that are musical. This not only improves hearing skills but is educational; their sense of cause and effect is developed when your baby makes connections between hearing a sound and seeing what made it happen.

It is easy to transform household objects into educational toys for your baby. A simple hiding game can help your baby understand “object permanence”; knowing that something is still there even if you can’t see it anymore. In front of your baby put a favourite toy in a number of containers just like Russian dolls, and then ask your baby where their toy is. As you take off a layer repeat your question until you reach the toy.

Babies develop motor skills and their understanding of language much quicker than their ability to verbally speak. Baby signing toys are a great way of communicating with your child. Some parents are worried that baby signing will slow speech development but in actual fact it can improve language and vocabulary.

There are a variety of educational toys for babies 0-6 months old that will help improve the development of your baby’s senses. From finger puppets to activity gyms and baby signing toys, there is something for every parent and child.

Type 2 Diabetes – What Diabetes Educators Don’t Understand About Diabetics!

March 10th, 2021

One of the peculiarities of the field of diabetes education is that most diabetes educators are not diabetics. Many have never once pricked their own fingers to draw a blood sample, and they certainly don’t have a visceral understanding of how it feels to need to eat and eat and eat. They have some great information, but here are three things they aren’t likely to know to tell you.

1. Blood sugar testing can be painful, or painless:

If you have never pricked your own fingers, you may not know that the fleshy end of a finger has lots of nerves that pick up pain, and the sides of the fingers do not. You also may not know that pricking the side of your finger is a lot more important to keeping pain at a minimum than changing the sharp in your lancet every time. Of course, never use a lancet that has been used by anyone else.

2. Maybe you can’t control diabetes will a pill, but a pill really does make you feel better:

Your educator undoubtedly will tell you that a blood sugar level of 200 mg/dL (11 mmol/L) is terrible and you really, really need to bring it down. That’s absolutely right. If you don’t control your blood sugar levels better than that, your underlying disease, insulin resistance, is just going to get worse and worse, and there’s a very good chance you will also get fatter and fatter. However, what your educator does not know is that you felt really lousy when your sugars were running 350 mg/dL (19.4 mmol/L) and just taking the pill makes you feel a lot better. Nonetheless, you just won’t believe how good you’ll feel when they stay around 80 mg/dL (4.4 mmol/L).

3. You eat because it makes you feel good:

If you don’t like half a cup of Fiber One with skim milk for your entire breakfast, and an open-faced tofu spread sandwich for lunch, then you must be a slacker who doesn’t care about your health… perhaps your diabetes educator may infer this. Nonsense! Type 2 diabetics eat because their blood sugar levels are high and their cells aren’t getting the nutrients they need. Unfortunately, the more they eat, the less nutrition their cells get. It’s a vicious cycle.

Chances are you will need some pharmaceutical help to make your earliest improvements in blood sugar control. The lower and lower you get your blood sugar readings, however, the easier and easier it will be to keep your appetite in control. Try it. It’s easier than you might think.