Recycling (community business school listings) Old Baby Clothes
No commentsBy Irvin Mcclain
You’ve recently had a baby. It’s been a few months now, and the baby has outgrown virtually two full wardrobes. Sure it’s expensive, but there’s a whole other issue at hand. What is a mother to do with all of this extra baby clothes?
There are a number of ways to deal with this problem. First of all, there is the donation route. If you don’t have close friends with similar aged babies, you can put aside certain things for when they do, or in the event that you have another. The rest of the clothes can go to the Goodwill or Salvation Army. These are also a great place to find gently used baby clothes for incredible savings.
Special occasion attire like baby’s coming home outfit, first Christmas, and Baptism can be saved in a special place for passing on to a next generation. A great way to do this is by creating a memory box. Get a small trunk at a craft store and decorate it however you’d like. Fill it with small mementos like the baby’s hospital bracelet, first outfit and blanket. As the baby gets older you will have more things to add to it. This is a great way to preserve memories that your child may not have the foresight to think of now, but will appreciate very much later.
Using material from old baby clothes to make new baby clothes is a great way to save money and get a little more use out of the items that your child quickly outgrows. Making t-shirts into cute patchwork dresses, and pants into shorts are some quick fixes to pinch pennies.
Another way to use up material from old baby clothes is to make stuffed animals. Do you have a favorite t-shirt of your baby’s that his or her little arms just don’t quite fit right in anymore? Using the material to make a little stuffed bear is a great way to preserve that memory for yourself and pass something very special on to your baby. The same thing can be done, if a hobby persists, with socks and jeans as well. Soon all of your friends will be begging for little stuffed dolls made out of your baby’s old clothing.
If you are in fact creatively inclined, another great way to reincarnate your baby’s clothes is by creating a memory quilt. Save bits and pieces of your baby’s clothing and use it to create a full sized patchwork quilt for when your baby gets their own big bed. That kind of sentimental value also makes a great gift for a graduation or a wedding (if you can wait that long to show off your handy work).
If you’re planning on having another child, you have a built in way to get rid of all of the extra clothes. You can put away the clothes that your baby grows out of in a storage area. Just make sure you launder everything when it comes back out for round two. Sure, it stinks to get hand-me-downs, but it is unlikely your infant will notice, let alone care.
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What do Babies Eat?
By Irvin Mcclain
For the first four to six months of your baby’s life, his or her diet consists solely of milk, whether from breast or bottle. When it comes time to start feeding your baby solid food, many experts give conflicting advice about what the right types of food to feed your baby. Some of these experts are of course, right in your own family. Grandma, Aunt Bessie, your sister, and others will all want to help you out by telling you what is best. What they may not understand is that recommendations may have changed since they were the mother of a new baby.
Dr. Ronald Kleinman, chief of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at Massachusetts General Hospital, recalls nutritional guidelines that differ greatly from today’s recommendations. “Several generations ago, doctors were quite dogmatic in establishing the order of what came first, next, and next. For example, the pediatrician would say, ‘First, rice cereal. Then, peas. Then, introduce a yellow vegetable.’ There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to that dogmatism.”
Without that strict guideline though, it’s easy for parents to be confused about which approach to take. What type of food is the best to start with? How much should my baby eat each day? What types of food are bad or harmful to my baby? What if he’s allergic to something I feed him? There are also a lot of myths to confuse you even more.
Let’s explore some myths and facts about your baby’s diet;
Myth: The first food that your baby is fed must be rice cereal. Rice cereal is a great place to start, but not the only potential first food you feed your baby. Almost any soft, hypoallergenic food can be fed to your baby as their first food. Mashed sweet potatoes and applesauce are two examples.
Myth: You should not feed your baby meat as a first food. As long as the food is soft or mashed and is hypoallergenic, your baby should be able to eat it.
Fact: You need to allow some time after each new food you introduce to see if it causes an allergic reaction in your baby. Food allergies can cause reactions varying in severity from mild to serious, including anaphylactic shock. However, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI) reports that only eight percent of children under age six have adverse reactions to ingested foods, and that only two to five percent have confirmed food allergies. People often confuse reactions to food with food allergies. For example, if a child has a stomach bug, he may be lactose intolerant for a week. That is a negative reaction, but not an allergy. “There is a host of adverse reactions to foods, and allergies are a subset of those,” says Dr. Kleinman.
Fact; Your baby has a higher chance of being allergic to certain foods more than others, such as peanut butter, peanuts, egg whites, shellfish, fish, and tree nuts like walnuts and cashews. If your family is prone to food allergies you need to wait until your baby is at least three years old before introducing them to these foods. Even if your family is not prone to food allergies, there is no reason to start your baby on peanuts before age three.
Myth; If a baby refuses a food a few times, that means that she doesn’t like it. “There’s a lot of good research to show that children are notoriously stubborn about new foods,” says Dr. Kleinman. It’s often necessary to introduce the unpalatable food multiple times.
Leann Birch, head of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State, published a study on food preferences in children. In it, she found that parents must present a food six to eight times before a baby will accept it. Don’t force it, but don’t give up easily, either. You really do know more about nutrients, vitamins, and calories than your baby does, and he’s counting on you to persist.
Fact; As your baby begins to eat solid foods their motor skills will become more efficient and they will be able to begin feeding themselves. If you wish to speed the process along, start out by offering your baby finger foods after they have been on solid food for awhile, such as pieces of toasted oat bread, small pieces of well-cooked sweet potato, banana slices, or small chunks of avocado.
Myth; Commercial baby food is preferable to table food. Parents tend to believe that there’s something special about commercially made baby food. That’s a myth; in fact, most of the regular food on your table every night is probably just fine for your infant to eat. By pureeing food in a blender for your baby, you control exactly what your infant eats. “None of the baby food manufacturers have been found to be completely honest or accurate about what is in their products,” warns Dr. Charles Shubin, director of Pediatrics at Mercy Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Fact; You need to be extra careful when preparing food for infants and small babies. Practice good food hygiene. Wash your hands, scrub bowls and utensils thoroughly, keep food hot or cold as indicated, and cook food thoroughly. Make sure you keep the portions you feed your baby small enough for them to digest. Fruit needs to be stewed and strained to a creamy consistency to start out with, then you can move on to chunky, then bite sized pieces as you progress.
Myth; Parents should only offer a small varieties of bland foods. When your baby is 6 months old it’s okay to introduce food that has more flavor. Remember, what you enjoyed while you were pregnant may have given the baby for a taste for it as well. Babies learn flavor preferences from the adult feeding the baby.
Myth; It doesn’t matter what I eat, as long as my baby eats healthy. Babies and children learn by example. If all you eat is fried chicken and ice cream, they will want to only eat fried chicken and ice cream. If you do not want your child to be obese, set an example and eat healthy, so they will learn to eat healthy.
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Making Clothes for Your Child
By Millard Franco
At one point or another in your sewing career, you have likely put together a cute little outfit for your son or daughter, only to have it a little tight in the chest, or the arms are just a tad short. A lot of that can be avoided if you know how to take the right measurements prior to making the garments.
You don’t want to needlessly spend your time and effort on something that isn’t done right. If you are too big, then at least you can bring in the seams and try to fix the garment. But, too short, and you use up a whole lot of fabric. This article will describe how to take the proper measurements for a child, so you can get them into the outfit you have sewn.
Measuring for height - This is probably the simplest one to do - just as long as your child is not wearing shoes. Shoes can add between an inch and 2.5 inches to the height of the child - making your measurements way off. Have your child stand with their back straight against a wall. Measure from the bottom and back of the heel, to the crown of the head.
Chest - You should measure for the chest around the largest part of the chest. Not when the chest is expanded, but at the part where you will get the greatest measurement around this area. It is most often right underneath the armpits.
Waist - The natural waist is the best place to measure for kids, but figuring out the natural waist might be the toughest chore. This is usually the area about two to three inches above the top of the hipbone.
Hips - This one is simple. We all know where the hips are, so we need to measure around the fullest part of the hips. Without an accurate measurement in this area, our kids might not be able to pull up their new slacks!
Arm - To get an accurate measurement of the arm, you need to first measure from the neckline to the tip of the shoulder bone (towards the arm). Make a note of this measurement. Then give the arm a slight bend, and without releasing the tape (from the original measurement), measure all of the way down to the wrist. Subtract the shoulder width from the overall measurement and you have your most accurate arm length measurement.
Pant length - You need to measure both the inseam and the outside of the leg in order to get a good measurement for the pant length. The outside seam will be the overall pant length, and is the most important for the proper length. This is measured from the waist point to the length you wish the pant leg to be.
The inseam is for the proper fit in the midsection and crotch area. To measure the inseam, you need to measure from the crotch area to the length you want the pant leg.
Final tips and hints for measurements:
Don’t be afraid to err on the larger side. Unless you are trying to tailor something to fit perfectly then don’t worry. Also, kids are going to grow, so by making it 1/4″ bigger in one area isn’t going to hurt.
When measuring (especially for pant and arm length), you want to keep in mind the comfort of your children, over making it fit exact.
When choosing a pattern for your child, match the height of your child first, then the chest, and finally waist and hip measurements.
If your child has measurements that fit between two pattern sizes, go with the larger pattern size.
With a firm idea of how to make proper measurements on your children, you can now go ahead and tailor that new blouse, or a great set of summer shorts!
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Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 9:05 am and is filed under education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
