What To Expect From A Twin Pregnancy

Think about this for a second. Normally when you wish for a child it is just for one baby right? Now imagine that wish coming true and being doubled? You end up with twins! It has been shown over the last few years that twin pregnancies have increased. Here are some answers to questions that you may have regarding your own set that is to come!

How Do Twins Come To Be?

There are two kinds of twins that one can have. There are identical twins and fraternal twins. With identical twins the egg is fertilized, and will split into two cells. Each cell carried identical DNA, and so both children will look exactly the same way except for some differences in things like height and birth marks. Fraternal twins are not identical at all. With fraternal twins two eggs are fertilized by two different sperm at the same time, so that they can have different physical characteristics, along with the possibility of being the opposite sex as well.

What Are The Early Signs Of Twin Pregnancy?

Extreme fatigue and a huge case of morning sickness are often early signs of twin pregnancy. Morning sickness is something that is quite common with all pregnant mums out there, but those with twins, and multiples often experience it more than usual. It is also common for pregnant mums to experience exhaustion. Mums who are expecting twins are said to experience it at a much higher level. Twins are hereditary, and therefore here is something to think about it. If you are feeling nauseous quite often, more exhausted than usual, and if twins run in the family, you could be giving birth to more than one at the end of this pregnancy!

Twin Pregnancy Facts and Tips:

Twins mean double the trouble, so be prepared! That means more weight will probably be gained by you compared to a mum with a single pregnancy. Due to the extra weight, a twin pregnancy can often be very uncomfortable, and things such as severe headaches, back pain, and exhaustion are to be expected. So get that sleep, and rest whenever you can because it is needed! A pregnancy massage can also go quite the long way as well! You may also have to prepare yourself for having a c-section since when one has multiples it is often the most common way to give birth to them. Because twin pregnancy is considered to be a high risk pregnancy, you may need to consult with your obstetrician very often compared to one who has a regular pregnancy.

Think of twin pregnancy in this way. Having two children at one time is an amazing thing for anyone to go through. However the pregnancy can be a tough road to go down so make sure to take care of yourself during the ride!

- See more at: http://www.mumzone.com.au/what-to-expect-from-a-twin-pregnancy-abcs-of-multiple-birth/

Working During Pregnancy: Tips to Make You Feel Better

Because of the financial impact of bringing a baby into the world more women are now choosing to work until the last trimester of their pregnancy. Money reasons aside many women are now place equal importance on their careers to that of having and raising a family. They believe that they can do the roles of mother, wife, and job woman. There are women out there who work right up until they deliver the baby into the world. This is quite different from the tradition of women leaving after they immediately find out about the pregnancy. This was said to be the reason for the idea that women should not advance high in the work force compared to their male counter parts.

The fact is that it is very possible for a woman to work through pregnancy. She just has to remind herself about keeping healthy. However this can be a bit of a challenge since pregnancy has its own share of hardships and pain. For example think of morning sickness. Nausea can threaten a woman at any time during the day but it has mislead many women to believe at only occurring at a certain time of day. It can particularly strike during the first trimester but it can continue to any point during the pregnancy.

Woman can also tire easily and become uncomfortable whole pregnant. Their bodies are coping with something that is very different and job stress can aggregate pregnancy stress. Conditions in the work field can aggravate a pregnant woman and be dangerous for mom and child. These can include shift changes, physical task, long commutes, standing, and lifting of heavy objects. All in all it can be a stressful thing.

Therefore if a woman wants to work during pregnancy changes will need to be made. These changes are to ensure the health of both mother and child throughout the time period. Therefore here are some pregnancy tips that a pregnant woman can follow who is working. Everyone wants to have a happy mom and more importantly a healthy one.

1) Avoid things that can trigger nausea and make sure to get lots of fluid.

Have a nice supply of crackers, water, ginger ale, and candy on hand to help ease nausea attacks. It can also be good to have ginger tea as well. It can all go a long way after all.

2) Pregnant women can get tired quite easily.

The energy levels will fluctuate during the day and therefore sleep will be much needed. Women should be able to get short and frequent breaks during the day for their pregnancy. Therefore you might have to make some changes to the work schedule in order to compensate for certain things. You might also have to hold back on activities inside and outside the home as well when it comes down to chores. Make sure you have a comfortable chair on standby along with pillows to support the back and a nice area to rest those feet.

3) Exercise has been known to work wonders during pregnancy.

It does good for health of mom and baby. It has a positive effect on things like mood, sleep, and helps ease the aches and pains. It goes a long way in preparing your body for childbirth by building on muscle and endurance. Exercise can also help a woman get back into shape once the baby is born. Constipation, fatigue, and circulation problems can be dealt with as well through exercise. Certain exercises that a pregnant woman can do include swimming yoga, walking, and simple aerobics. Kegel exercises can help out as well. These work out the pelvic floor area which includes the bladder and uterus. Both areas go under a lot of strain during pregnancy.

4) Bending and lifting can be a hassle during pregnancy as well.

Your back can be spared when you stick to proper form. Bend at your knees and keep all loads close to your body. Lift with your legs as well. If you can try to avoid twisting your body at any time. If a load is simply too heavy ask for help.

- See more at: http://www.mumzone.com.au/working-during-pregnancy-tips-to-make-you-feel-better/

Raising Bilingual Children: Is It Too Late To Start Now?

‘I spoke nothing but french to my one year old for seven weeks now, and all of the new words he has now is in french. It seems that he also understand me completely!’. Two months into her campaign in raising her children to speak both french and english, Sheila had noticed a dramatic difference in the progress of her two children. Her oldest one, 3 and half years old. Is resistance. She found it a lot trickier to get through her. Even though she only talked in french, her daughter always replies back in English. It did seem like she understands about 70% of what Sheila was talking about, but frankly Sheila was worried that for her 3 year old, she’s too late to become a fluent bilingual.

Another example would be two different families. Agnese started with the child very fluent in her mother’s Italian tongue language, but as soon as the child enters school, she starts to forget, and is now scared to use the second language in fear of using it wrong. The second scenario, was Sienna tried to use both language from birth, the child was so confuse that she was not able to speak for a very long time. As soon as her parents started using English, she blossomed. Afterward, then only the family started inserting the second language, and she was able to have two languages. Both scenarios, children are not fluent in their second language and prefers English, they are able to understand and speak in the second language enough to communicate, but are too afraid to use the minority language especially when they are around people who speak it fluently.

Nowadays, in a culture where we feel that if our offspring do not attend to a ballet lesson or violin when they’re two or three, they’ll be too late, we do sometimes feel scared of missing the boat. However, although there is no doubt that their optimal moment to start learning languages is at birth, it is also possible to achieve fluency later in life. In fact most bilingual people started with one language first. Later in life, the more language interaction that you provide them, the more dramatic the progress will be, and the more easier for the child to learn.

Even older children are still kids, they are generally chatty, and unhampered by self-consciousness. Transitioning into multilingualism requires motivation, and is a very big challenge for the family. English is usually the easier language, mostly because most of the TV programs, shows, games are in English, therefore they are used and is exposed to English no matter what their first language is. The biggest challenge is to teach your children a different language rather than English, especially if you live in an English speaking countries such as Australia.

Below are several tried-and-true tips for parents who are up for the challenge!

You know that ‘why’ question whenever you tell them to do anything from bedtime to tidying up their own bedroom? Expect to get the same reaction when you try to introduce this new language program. ‘Why do I have to say it in Vietnamese if I already know how to say it in English?’ This is a fair question, and you’ll need to answer with the necessity, in flattery or come up with a fun answer.

Some possible answers are:

‘Because all your cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents are speaking Vietnamese’, ‘Because you did it so well yesterday!’, ‘So you can teach your baby sister when she’s a big girl like you!’, ‘So we can have our own secret language!’, ‘So you can understand this book/game/show’, and the list goes on.
The next step after the explanation and when your child had agreed to learn the second language, speak only in the minority language yourself. Translate it, whenever you get that confused and glazed look. Be reasonable, accept replies in the primary language when you first start out.

• When you feel that your child knows a particular word, but is struggling to remember, help provide the first syllable to jog his memory.
• Don’t dampen their enthusiasm by making the second language an inflexible rule or something that becomes a nightmare for them.
• Say ‘Yes’ whenever your child answers in the community language, but then repeat the sentence in the minority language.
• Try to find the balance between the rules you set up and the reality. For example, when you’re child is just asking for a snack or a glass of milk, remind them to ask it in the minority language, but if you’re child is too excited to tell you what happened at today’s excursion to the zoo, just listen, and repeat and ask them back in the minority language. That way, you still provide them with more vocabulary knowledge, but in a positive fun way.
• Last but not least, as always, praise them. Endlessly. Even when you’re the one who is providing them with translations, or if they just made tons of grammatical errors in the shortest sentence. The fact is that children under three, would not understand it even if you try to correct them. The best way would just be to repeat the words correctly (this process is called modelling). Alternatively, you can also make a joke and say ‘Oopsy! That came out wrong’, laugh and then provide them with the correct way of saying it. Try to make it playful rather than corrective.

A lot of parents have asked, ‘Now that the child have the vocabulary to understand the second language, how do we stay firm?’. Sticking to the language strategy is essential, if you don’t, you’re back to square one, which is the primary community language that you started with.

Let’s look at it this way. Think of all the things that no matter how much you’re child whines, begs and throw tantrums at but you will never ever let them do? Things like not brushing their teeth, crossing the road by themselves, and not using a seat belt? By you not negotiating about the use of the minority language, just as you don’t negotiate about the things above, your children will get the picture eventually. Give it at least 6 months, you’ll see that your persistence will be richly rewarded.

Sheila, says that she now see that all her trouble has is well worth it, and has stopped worrying when things are too late. Agnese, and Sienna had also started to enforce using the minority language back into their household, and are seeing better result. Instead of looking on how she should’ve done things, she now look at the great achievements her little family had done so far!

- See more at: http://www.mumzone.com.au/raising-bilingual-children-is-it-too-late-to-start-now

The Why and How of the Birds and the Bees Discussion

When children are picking up subtle clues and is sensing that the topic makes their parents uncomfortable, they will avoid the subject, and this could lead to parents actually loosing that precious discussion window. Sometimes, parents are also concern that talking about sexual information, will heighten their children’s interest to experiment. However, many studies have actually shown, that information and education about sex does not encourage the activity, in fact it will help the raising children to make better decisions in regards to their sexuality. Especially, when they feel that the subject is not a taboo at home.

When we make our children feel good about their sexuality from the beginning, we’re actually making it easier for them to ask questions throughout their lives. Taking sometime out to talk to your children to make sure that they have the right kind of sexual information, is very important, and here are some of the reasons why:

Pregnancy and AIDS

Nowadays, the rise of HIV infections is adding the urgency of proper sex education.

Sexual Abuse Prevention and Protection

Sexual predators are everywhere. Statistics says that most of them are not strangers, instead they are more often people that your children know and trust. The more a child feels confident about themselves, understand about their rights of their body and how to seek help, the better you are at protecting them against the unimaginable.

NSPCC comes up with ‘The Underwear Rule’, an easy to understand way to teach children about sex abuse without mentioning the scary word of SEX. They also have a simple guide for parents, as well a child friendly guide for your children. Below is another important source. This is video that may help your children to have a better understanding on sexual abuse.

As important as it is, this topic can get awkward and might not be something you’ll talk about in an instant. Especially, if you have a curious one. Below are some of the keypoints that you’ll want to remember when talking about sex:

An Ongoing Process

 

It would be best to answer the questions naturally in an age-appropriate fashion, step by step. You know your child’s personality, maturity and interest best, it would be best to address their need for a sex education in accordance to that. If your children have a great interest in science, and you think is mature enough to handle, you can try to explain sex from the science angle. My daughter loves science, since she was three she knows the details in full, all apart from where the sperm comes from. It started from hours and hours and weeks after weeks of seeing videos of dinosaurs egg hatching, then on to any kind of eggs, then to any kind of animals giving birds, and then on to animals in the womb, and then on to human sperm to fetus skipping the birth and then on to the big baby. It all comes naturally, based on her appetite for knowledge. She even had a pregnancy app on her iPad so she can know the stages of the fetus growth each month. She knows all that, but she keeps on asking where the wiggly (sperm) thing comes from. I told her it’s from the dad to give to mum, and we leave it at that.

Be a Good Role Model

Children learn from what they see you do and say. Model the lesson through your own behaviour.

Know Your Facts

Children asks a lot of questions, and most of the time, ‘dumb’ the answer just does not cut it. It will only lead you to further problems in the future. I prefer to state the facts, I dumbed out the ‘words’ I use, but the information is correct, even if it means that I have to take some time to research the correct answer first.

Give Facts

Because children can’t always distinguish between facts and beliefs, try to not let your personal judgement influence the facts that you tell them. You can impart your personal belief, but start by saying that it is your opinion.

Encourage Your Child

 

Better informed curious children tend to be self-confident children in general because they can overcome peer pressure easier. Teach them self confidence by giving them lots of praises when they achieve even the smallest thing. .

Listen Carefully

Don’t overkill. Answer their questions without going into the unnecessary details. When it comes to your children’s sexual activity, never jump into conclusions, they might overheard it at the playground instead of experimenting it themselves.

Positive Feeling

Try to create a positive feeling about the topic. Young people who feel positive about their sexuality are more likely to protect themselves against unintended pregnancies, sexual abuse and STDs.

Be Patient

Try to not pass judgemental comments, criticise or nag when your children ask you questions that is embarrassing, or upsetting. They will stop asking.

Assurance

 

Build their self esteem by assuring your children constantly of how proud you are of them and how much they are loved. Stress that it is normal for everyone to be different and that no question is strange. A child is vulnerable, and can easily be carried away by external source. Impart them with proper understanding about sexuality, and be open to them to keep your child safe.

- See more at: http://www.mumzone.com.au/the-birds-and-the-bees-discussion/

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