10 Secrets of Great Moms: Part 6

Recently I got a newsletter from WebMD with some parenting articles that they thought I might be interested in. The first was an item from Redbook called “10 Secrets of Great Moms” (published April 11, 2008). The author basically got advice from 10 moms on a variety of topics from bringing baby home to sleeping to feelings to homework. I thought it might be fun to share my advice on the same topics.

Banish Boo-Boo Fears
If kids are good at one thing it is falling, getting scrapes and generally hurting themselves one way or another. Their reaction to getting hurt very much depends on yours. If you freak out then they’re going to freak out but if you’re calm and approach it matter of factly then they will still cry and be upset but not nearly as much.

The mom from the article gave some advice on dealing with blood. She suggested using a dark washcloth so that you can’t see the blood. She also suggested storing them in plastic bags in the freezer. Both are great pieces of advice and I don’t think I can offer better for those things.

When I was a nanny, my second job was working with a baby. He was about 9 months old when I started. He was just starting to stand up and trying to walk, and, needless to say, there was a lot of falling down and “going boom”.

My reaction when he fell was to say in a silly voice, “Oh, poor baby! Did you go fall and go boom?” It would completely diffuse his crying while acknowledging that he’d fallen. We would move on after a quick examination to make sure he hadn’t actually hurt himself and a hug/kiss.

As first time parents, his mom and dad would freak out every time he fell – they’d run over to him, franticly pick him up and check all over to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself while he cried and cried. They learned quickly not to do that anymore and there was a lot less anxiety in the house while he learned to get around on his own two feet.

This technique has worked with kids of all ages, including some grown ups. Another thing to do, especially if you have to clean up a wound or do other stuff to the site of the injury, is distract them with some jokes or talking. Strangely enough, this works for the hiccups too! Though my dad always insisted that the best cure for hiccups was to talk about purple elephants with pink polka dots. YMMV!