Early years

Kathryn Mayle tests Aveeno® Baby products on her baby son who suffers from dry skin and patches of eczema.

The few weeks in the summer before starting school are an important time to prepare your child for school, writes Anne Coates.

Parents, children, experts and Disney Junior have come together to create How to Make Friends and Influence Five-Year-Olds, a video guide on how to make friends after research revealed “making friends” was a top concern for parents and guardians when it comes to their child starting school. Plus Linda Blair gives her top tips for parents.

Today, Aardman the Oscar winning animation studio behind family favourites such as Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep launches Learning Time with Timmy, a fun and interactive learning series teaching English for children aged two to five. Plus they commissioned Dr Sam Wass (The Secret Life of Four and Five Year Olds) to reveal his top tips to parents on how to tell good from poor quality online video content for young learners.

Naomi Mckeri has tested out a range of oat based products Aveeno has created for babies, recently introduced to the UK. She was impressed. 

The Flavour-led Weaning Cookbook by Zainab Jagot Ahmed reviewed by Naomi Mckerl.

For babies and young children consistent companionship, affection and playful communication provide the foundation for their emergent emotional, social and language development. How a child manages their emotions in difficult situations shapes pathways in the brain, which in turn create the "blueprint" for future emotional responses and behaviours, explains Mine Conkbayir, author of Early Childhood and Neuroscience.published by Bloomsbury.

Naomi Mckerl has just begun the weaning process with Elspeth and, wanting to know exactly what her daughter is eating, was delighted to discover the Babyease range of baby foods.

Are you worried about your toddler’s touchscreen time? The National Literacy Trust gives reassurance and top tips on how to make technology beneficial for your child’s early learning.

Laura Molloy, Founder of one of the UK’s leading baby swim class companies, Swimbabes, discusses the importance and advantages of teaching children to swim as early as possible.

The Infant & Toddler Forum (ITF) has revamped its online resource to create a user-friendly, visual guide on how much food to offer young children. The guide is now accessible on all devices including mobile, tablet, and desktop computer.

 

A new guide, Childcare for families with disabled children, launched today by legal experts Irwin Mitchell and charities Contact a Family, Every Disabled Child Matters and the Family and Childcare Trust will help parents with disabled children seek redress if the childcare system fails them. It forms part of the charities’ new campaign ‘Levelling the Playing Field’, calling for equal access to childcare for disabled children.

The children’s continence charity ERIC (Education and Resources for Improving Childhood Continence), launches a national campaign called "Let’s Talk About Poo" to raise awareness of childhood constipation among parents of two to four year olds and health and education professionals working with this age group.

As the new term starts and even very small children are learning about computers, child psychologist Dr Amanda Gummer urges parents to understand and embrace mobile technology and gives some top tips.

From September 2014, all four to seven year-olds in England will be eligible for a free lunch at school that is healthy and nutritionally balanced – not only will it also help save parents valuable time preparing school lunches, but it’s estimated that it will help parents in England save up to £400 per child, per year.

In part three of her series of top tips for using music in you child's life, Liisa Henriksson-Macaulay, founder of the early music education programme Moosicology and author of The Music Miracle discusses the role of clapping in tips five and six.

Liisa Henriksson-Macaulay, founder of the early music education programme Moosicology and author of bestselling parenting title The Music Miracle: The Scientific Secret to Unlocking Your Child's Full Potential gives her top ten tips on how to engage with your child through music. Here are tips three and four: Tap and clap; Get into the Waltz mode.

A survey commissioned to mark the publication of the latest edition of the First Aid Manual, written and authorised by the UK’s three leading first aid providers, St John Ambulance, St Andrew’s First Aid and the British Red Cross, reveals that a third of parents have been in a situation where their child has started choking and worryingly, half of parents did not know the correct procedure. Here we have the new infant choking technique and guidelines.