Sleep During Pregnancy

In early pregnancy, most women are so tired that they can fall asleep almost anywhere and in any position. Unfortunately, as your pregnancy progresses and you become bigger, finding a comfortable position at any time can be a challenge, especially when even lifting a cup of tea is a major effort.

However, finding the right position can help immensely. Hannah Hulme Hunter suggests ways which make you more comfortable in later pregnancy.

- Try to sleep on your side rather than your back - this is to prevent pressure on the large blood vessel that runs up your back returning blood to your heart which can cause dizziness and fainting.

- If you find it very uncomfortable to lie on your side, tuck a pillow under your back, to one side, so that your body is tilted.

- Alternatively, put a thin pillow - or small cushion, folded towel or rolled baby blanket - in the small of your back whilst lying in bed to give extra support to this area.

- If you'd rather lie over on one side, try placing a pillow in front of your legs and bending your top leg so that it is supported by this pillow.

- Alternatively, you could put a pillow between your legs to keep the legs slightly apart and so reduce strain on the joints of the pelvis.

- Put another small pillow under your bump, to reduce pressure on your abdominal muscles. If all else fails, there's nothing wrong with nodding off in a comfortable armchair.

There are also many maternity cushions and pillows that help make sleep during pregnancy more comfortable. The Doomoo buddy body cushion is available in the Babyworld shop (and provides full length support for your body during pregnancy as well as a feeding cushion after the birth). Also worth a look is the Super size maternity and nursing pillow.

Bump Turbulence
You've got your bladder under control, your body propped with pillows and you're ready to catch up on some much needed sleep when baby decides it's time to play. "Babies have a wake/sleep pattern, just as adults do," says Hannah. "The main difference is that babies in the womb sleep for much shorter periods of time; an hour or so at most, before waking up for a wriggle around." Unfortunately for many pregnant women, many babies seem to move more at bedtime.

This is often because their mothers have recently eaten, or perhaps because this is a time when their mothers are relaxed," Hannah explains. Unfortunately there is little you can do to stop baby moving but it might help to remember the following:

- Your baby's kicking is not a sign of discomfort; it is a sign that she is wide awake, happy and full of energy.

- Enjoy your baby's movements.

- This is a good time for you and your partner to talk to your baby.

The Busy Mind
Many women find that it takes time for them to adapt to the emotional upheaval brought about by pregnancy. You may have many worries, concerns and anxieties both in your everyday life and in your pregnancy and these can suddenly come crashing into your conscious mind just as you're trying to sleep. Hannah says, "Doubts, worries and feelings of excitement that are submerged during the busy-ness of daily life may find expression in dreams, or may keep you awake at night. This may be particularly so if you are waiting the results of antenatal tests, or have other specific causes for concern."

Sleep expert Mary O'Malley says, "Pregnancy brings up positive and negative feelings that you'll digest through your dreams.

"Dreams are also more likely to change in pregnancy because disturbances often disrupt REM sleep, the time when you are dreaming." Hannah also says that often the physical changes of pregnancy are to blame for nightmares.

"For example, indigestion or a full bladder can cause restlessness and discomfort without actually waking you up, resulting in vivid dreams." Try to relax and clear your mind by;

- Learn a simple relaxation technique and practise it frequently.
- Keep a "worry list" by writing down your thoughts and concerns then leave it to deal with in the morning.
- Try to get out and about at least once a day. Physical exercise has proven benefits in terms of relieving tension, clearing the mind, and promoting wellbeing.
- If your workplace had a rest room consider taking a catnap at lunchtime if you really need to catch up on sleep.
- Avoid looking at the clock and try not to get too stressed over your lack of sleep - it'll only make it worse.

Dr Jo Lee adds, "Try not to worry about your sleep pattern. If you can slow down in the daytime, this will make it easier for you to cope while your sleep is disturbed."

Latest News on Cord Blood Usage

The promising field of stem cell research is prompting more and more parents to store their newborn’s umbilical cord blood for possible use in treating future disease. Cord blood is rich in blood-forming stem cells and is currently used in transplants for some patients with leukemia, lymphoma, immune deficiencies and inherited metabolic disorders. Most infusions come from unrelated donors, partly because of concerns that receiving one’s own defective cells may cause the same diseases to return.

Now, early research shows that cord blood may be able to safely regenerate other types of cells in the body, fueling optimism that doctors may one day routinely use a patient’s own stored cord blood to treat such conditions as cerebral palsy (CP), stroke, spinal cord injuries, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. (Last March, toddler Dallas Hextell, diagnosed with CP at 8 months old, made headlines after his skills appeared to improve following an infusion of his own cord blood.) “We’re moving from depending on surgeries and pharmaceuticals to being able to harness our own cells to cure conditions,” says David Zitlow, senior vice president of public affairs at Cord Blood Registry, a private cord blood bank based in San Bruno, Calif.

However, only time will tell how stem cell research pans out and if cord blood is the best source, notes Jeffrey Ecker, M.D., an associate professor of OB-GYN at Harvard Medical School in Boston. It’s also unclear how long stored stem cells are viable.

How to choose a bank

For information on donating cord blood for use by anyone who needs it, visit marrow.org. If you’re considering private banking, do your homework:

- Ask around. Seek advice and recommendations from your friends and physician.

- Check credentials. How long has the bank been in business? Is it profitable? (If it goes out of business, you could lose the cord blood.) Does the bank have experience with successful transplants? Is it accredited by a group such as the American Association of Blood Banks? Some of the bigger private banks include Cord Blood Registry, ViaCord and Cryo-Cell.

- Compare costs. Collection fees range from $1,000 to $2,000; payment plans and, occasionally, gift registries are available. Storage generally costs $100 to $150 a year.

Private or public?

Leading medical groups encourage parents to donate cord blood to one of the nation’s more than 30 public banks if possible rather than banking it privately, because they say the stem cells are more likely to be used this way. However, you cannot get your baby’s cord blood back, nor is there any guarantee of a match if the cord blood is needed later. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urges (and 21 states now require) doctors to discuss the pros and cons of private vs. public banking with patients and remains conservative, citing odds of 1 in 2,700 that privately banked blood will be used by a particular family.

Feb/March 2009

Getting Baby to Sleep Through the Night

Getting your baby to sleep can be one of the most frustrating and exhausting tasks of parenthood. Most mums and dads look forward to the night they can lay their baby down and get some uninterrupted sleep for themselves. Unfortunately, the reality is that getting your baby to sleep isn't usually easy and some baby sleep training is required. Here are some of the most popular sleep training methods.

Getting baby to sleep: the Ferber sleep method
One of the best-known baby sleep training techniques is the Ferber sleep method, Dr. Richard Ferber is director of the Centre for Paediatric Sleep Disorders at Children's Hospital Boston and author of Solve Your Child's Sleep Problem.

On day one, using the Ferber sleep method, put your baby to bed while she is still awake but tired and ready to sleep. Then leave her room. She will probably not fall asleep on her own and will cry. Wait five minutes, and then re-enter your baby's room. Try to console your baby, but do not pick her up or stay for more than a short time -- about two or three minutes.
The second time the baby cries, wait a little longer -- 10 minutes -- before re-entering the room to console her. Again, do not pick her up or stay more than a short time.

The third time the baby cries, wait 15 minutes before going into the room and offering the basic comfort used the first two times.

Repeat the process as long as needed on the first night, waiting 15 minutes between intervals. Eventually, the baby will fall asleep on her own during one of those time periods. If she wakes up during the night after falling asleep, begin the schedule again, starting with the minimum wait time for that day and working up to the maximum wait time.

On the second night, use the same procedure but start at 10 minutes for the first time interval. Then progress to 15 and then 20 minutes. For every night after, extend the intervals by five minutes. In time, the baby will learn to fall asleep on her own.

Parents wishing to try the Ferber sleep method should be well-rested before they start sleep training. That's because, in the early days especially, they will be spending a lot of time over the course of the night listening for their baby's cries, checking their watches, and entering and exiting their baby's room. Dr Ferber would say that most babies are sleeping through the night or only waking once by 3 months old and then definitely sleeping through the night by 5 months.

It's easy to become frustrated getting your baby to sleep, particularly if progress isn't immediate. But avoid picking your baby up or, if she is used to sleeping in her own room, taking her to your room because that will undo any progress made up to that point.

Getting baby to sleep: the gradual parent removal method
Parents who don't want to leave their baby while she is still awake may opt for the gradual removal method. According to this technique, sit in a chair next to your baby's bed and wait there until she falls asleep. Do this for two nights. Then move your chair two feet away on the third and fourth nights and five feet away from the bed on the fifth and sixth nights. By the seventh night, sit in the doorway, and on the ninth night, stay in the hallway. Shortly after this, by the 10th night or by the end of the second week, the baby should be able to fall asleep by herself.

Getting baby to sleep: the 'cry it out' method
This method is simple. Put the baby down and let her cry herself to sleep without any additional comforting. Experts caution, however, that parents using this method might ignore their crying baby when there is some other real, not sleep-related, problem.

This method can also be a great test of parents' will. It is difficult to do nothing while your baby wails away. But by giving in after 15 minutes, a half-hour, or even more, the baby learns that her parents will come and get her if she persists, making sleep training more difficult.

Getting baby to sleep: the scheduled awakenings method
This method asks a parent to do something that seems contradictory and, on the face of it, counterproductive - wake up a sleeping baby.

With the scheduled awakenings method, observe and record your baby's natural waking times during the night for a week. A pattern of regular waking times should emerge. Then, following this schedule, wake the baby 15 minutes before each of those natural awakening times and soothe the baby back to sleep each time. After the first week, each day extend the waking times by 15 minute intervals. The baby's "unscheduled" awakenings - those that don't follow the regular pattern - should gradually stop. Eventually you should be able to phase out the "scheduled" awakenings until she is able to sleep through the night.

For infants who routinely wake up at predictable times during the night, the scheduled awakenings method can be a gentler alternative to the Ferber, or crying it out, methods because there’s often less crying and parents feel that they have more control. However, it can be hard to bring oneself to wake up a sleeping baby. Some experts are firmly against this method and question whether it actually works, saying that a baby’s waking schedule is too varied for this method to work effectively. Also, this method can take rather a long time – up to three or four weeks.

Getting baby to sleep: some things that won't help your baby sleep
Desperate times can call for desperate measures, but don't even bother with some popular but ineffective ways to get your baby to sleep through the night.

These include:
- Giving your baby solid foods at an early age in the belief that she is waking during the night because she is hungry. There's no research to support this, and you'll just condition her to want to eat during the night.
- Eliminating naps during the daytime. Don't do it. This risks making your baby overtired, which will make it harder for her to fall and stay asleep.
- Putting your baby to bed later. Like eliminating naps, this will probably make your baby overly tired, making it harder for her to fall asleep. Over-tired babies become more distressed.

Getting baby to sleep: which method works best?
A recent study in the journal Sleep said that most behavioural intervention techniques work, but there's not enough information to recommend one over the other. What you decide will most likely come down to personal preference.

10 Principles of Good Parenting

Introduction to Healthy Parenting
Raising a happy, healthy child is one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs a parent can have. Yet many of us don't approach parenting with the same focus we would use for a job. We may act on our gut reactions or just use the same parenting techniques our own parents used, whether or not these were effective parenting skills. In his book The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting, Laurence Steinberg, PhD, a distinguished professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia, provides tips and guidelines based on some 75 years of social science research. Follow them and you can avert all sorts of child behavior problems, he says.

What You Do Matters
Whether it's your own health behaviors or the way you treat other people, your children are learning from what you do. "This is one of the most important principles," Steinberg explains. "What you do makes a difference...Don't just react on the spur of the moment. Ask yourself, What do I want to accomplish, and is this likely to produce that result.

You Cannot Be Too Loving
"It is simply not possible to spoil a child with love," Steinberg writes. "What we often think of as the product of spoiling a child is never the result of showing a child too much love. It is usually the consequence of giving a child things in place of love -- things like leniency, lowered expectations, or material possessions."

Be Involved in Your Child's Life
"Being an involved parent takes time and is hard work, and it often means rethinking and rearranging your priorities. It frequently means sacrificing what you want to do for what your child needs to do. Be there mentally as well as physically." Being involved does not mean doing a child's homework -- or correcting it. "Homework is a tool for teachers to know whether the child is learning or not," Steinberg says. "If you do the homework, you're not letting the teacher know what the child is learning."

Adapt Your Parenting to Fit Your Child
Keep pace with your child's development. Your child is growing up. Consider how age is affecting the child's behavior. "The same drive for independence that is making your 3-year-old say 'no' all the time is what's motivating him to be toilet trained," writes Steinberg. "The same intellectual growth spurt that is making your 13-year-old curious and inquisitive in the classroom also is making her argumentative at the dinner table.

Establish and Set Rules
"If you don't manage your child's behavior when he is young, he will have a hard time learning how to manage himself when he is older and you aren't around. Any time of the day or night, you should always be able to answer these three questions: Where is my child? Who is with my child? What is my child doing? The rules your child has learned from you are going to shape the rules he applies to himself. "But you can't micromanage your child," Steinberg notes. "Once they're in middle school, you need to let the child do their own homework, make their own choices, and not intervene."

Foster Your Child's Independence
"Setting limits helps your child develop a sense of self-control. Encouraging independence helps your child develop a sense of self-direction. To be successful in life, he's going to need both." It's normal for children to push for autonomy, says Steinberg. "Many parents mistakenly equate their child's independence with rebelliousness or disobedience. Children push for independence because it is part of human nature to want to feel in control rather than to feel controlled by someone else."

Be Consistent
"If your rules vary from day to day in an unpredictable fashion or if you enforce them only intermittently, your child's misbehavior is your fault, not his. Your most important disciplinary tool is consistency. Identify your non-negotiables. The more your authority is based on wisdom and not on power, the less your child will challenge it."

Avoid Harsh Discipline
Parents should never hit a child, under any circumstances, Steinberg says. "Children who are spanked, hit, or slapped are more prone to fighting with other children," he writes. "They are more likely to be bullies and more likely to use aggression to solve disputes with others."
"There are many other ways to discipline a child -- including 'time out' -- which work better and do not involve aggression."

Explain Your Rules and Decisions
"Good parents have expectations they want their child to live up to," he writes. "Generally, parents over-explain to young children and under-explain to adolescents. What is obvious to you may not be evident to a 12-year-old. He doesn't have the priorities, judgment, or experience that you have."

Treat Your Child With Respect
"The best way to get respectful treatment from your child is to treat him respectfully," Steinberg writes. "You should give your child the same courtesies you would give to anyone else. Speak to him politely. Respect his opinion. Pay attention when he is speaking to you. Treat him kindly. Try to please him when you can. Children treat others the way their parents treat them. You are modeling behaviors that your child will emulate. Your relationship with your child is the foundation for her relationships with others."

Rewards of Good Parenting
Good parenting helps foster empathy, honesty, self-reliance, self-control, kindness, cooperation, and cheerfulness, says Steinberg. It also promotes intellectual curiosity, motivation, and encourages a desire to achieve. Good parenting also helps protect children from developing anxiety, depression, eating disorders, antisocial behavior, and alcohol and drug abuse.

Expect Bumps, Spots & Rashes

There's nothing quite like the soft, delicate skin of a baby. And nothing like a cranky infant irritated by diaper rash, cradle cap, or another skin condition. While your baby is perfect, your baby's skin may not be. Many babies are prone to skin irritation in the first few months after birth. Here's how to spot and treat common baby skin problems.

Newborns Are Prone to Rashes

The good news about your newborn's rashes: Most cause no harm and go away on their own. While caring for baby's skin may seem complex, all you really need to know are three simple things: Which conditions can you treat at home? Which need medical treatment? And how can you prevent baby from experiencing skin problems to begin with?

Avoiding Diaper Rash

If baby has red skin around the diaper area, you're dealing with diaper rash. Most diaper rashes occur because of skin irritation due to diapers that are too tight; wet diapers left on for too long; or a particular brand of detergent, diapers, or baby wipes. Avoid it by keeping the diaper area open to the air as long as possible, changing your baby's diaper as soon as it's wet, washing with a warm cloth, and applying zinc oxide cream.

Pimples & Whiteheads

Baby acne gets its start in the womb, where baby is exposed to mom's hormones. Those hormones boost oil production, clogging baby's oil glands. Pimples on baby's nose and cheeks usually clear up by themselves in a few weeks. So you don't need to treat baby acne or use lotion.

Baby Birthmarks

Lots of babies have birthmarks — more than one in ten as a matter of fact. Birthmarks, areas of skin discoloration, are not inherited. They may be there when your baby is born, or they might show up a few months later. Generally birthmarks are nothing to worry about and need no treatment. But if your baby's birthmark worries you, talk to your pediatrician.

Atopic Dermatitis or Eczema

Eczema is an itchy, red rash that occurs in response to a trigger. It is common in children who have a family history of asthma, allergies, or atopic dermatitis. Eczema may occur on baby's face as a weepy rash. Over time it becomes thick, dry, and scaly. You may also see eczema on the elbow, chest, arms, or behind the knees. To treat it, identify and avoid any triggers. Use gentle soaps and detergents and apply moderate amounts of moisturizers.

Baby's Dry Skin

You probably shouldn't worry if your newborn has peeling, dry skin – it often happens if your baby is born a little late. The underlying skin is perfectly healthy, soft, and moist. If your infant's dry skin persists, talk to your baby's pediatrician.

Excess Oil Causes Cradle Cap

Cradle cap can show up during baby's first or second month, and usually clears up within the first year. Also called seborrheic dermatitis, cradle cap is caused by excess oil and shows up as a scaly, waxy, red rash on the scalp, eyebrows, eyelids, the sides of the nose, or behind the ears. Your pediatrician will recommend the best treatment for cradle cap, which may include a special shampoo, baby oil, or certain creams and lotions.

Prickly Heat Causes Irritated Skin

Showing up as small pinkish-red bumps, prickly heat usually appears on the parts of your baby's body that are prone to sweating, like the neck, diaper area, armpits, and skin folds. A cool, dry environment and loose-fitting clothes are all you need to treat prickly heat rash — which can even be brought on in winter when baby is over-bundled. Try dressing baby in layers that you can remove when things heat up.

Infant Skin Doesn't Need Powdering

Babies can inhale the very fine grains of talcum powder, which could cause lung problems. So it's best to avoid using talcum powder on your infant. A corn starch-based powder is considered safer. But yeast, which can cause diaper rash, feeds on corn starch. So to protect baby skin, you're better off skipping the powder.

Newborn skin: White Bumps (Milia)

As many as one in two newborns get the little white bumps known as milia. Appearing usually on the nose and face, they're caused by skin flakes blocking oil glands. Milia are sometimes called "baby acne," but baby acne is related to hormonal changes. In this case, baby skin care is easy: As baby's glands open up over the course of a few days or weeks, the bumps usually disappear, and need no treatment.

Baby Yeast Infections

Yeast infections often appear after your baby has had a round of antibiotics, and show up differently depending on where they are on your baby's skin. Thrush appears on the tongue and mouth, and looks like dried milk, while a yeast diaper rash is bright red, often with small red pimples at the rash edges. Talk to your pediatrician: Thrush is treated with an anti-yeast liquid medicine, while an anti-fungal cream is used for a yeast diaper rash.

Laundry Tips for Baby Skin Care

Avoiding skin rashes will keep your baby smiling and happy: Use a gentle detergent to wash everything that touches your infant's skin, from bedding and blankets, to towels and even your own clothes. You'll cut down on the likelihood of baby developing irritated or itchy skin.

Yellow Skin Can Mean Jaundice

Usually occurring two or three days after birth, jaundice is a yellow coloration that affects baby's skin and eyes. It's common in premature infants. Caused by too much bilirubin (a breakdown product of red blood cells), the condition usually disappears by the time baby is 1 or 2 weeks old. Treatment for jaundice may include more frequent feedings or, for more severe cases, light therapy (phototherapy).

Infant Sunburn

The sun may feel great, but it could be exposing your baby's skin to the risk of damaging sunburn. Avoid baby skin problems by protecting from sunburn: keep your infant out of direct sunlight during the first six months of life. Later, use a strong baby sunscreen, hats, and umbrellas. For mild infant sunburn apply a cool cloth to baby's skin for 10-15 minutes a few times daily. For more severe sunburn, call your child's pediatrician.

Baby Sunscreen and More

Apply sunscreen to the areas of baby's skin that can't be covered by clothes. You can also use zinc oxide on baby's nose, ears, and lips. Cover the rest of your baby's skin in clothes and a wide-brimmed hat. Sunglasses protect children's eyes from harmful rays.

Avoiding Skin Problems at Bath Time

Remember, newborn skin is soft and sensitive. Keep baby's skin hydrated by bathing in warm water for only three to five minutes. Apply a baby lotion or moisturizer immediately after bath while skin is still wet, and then pat dry instead of rubbing.

Baby Massage

If rashes or other skin conditions are making your baby irritable, try baby massage. Gently stroking and massaging baby's skin can not only help boost relaxation, but it may also lead to better sleep and reduce or stop crying, according to a recent study.

When to Call the Pediatrician

Most baby skin rashes and problems aren't serious, but a few may be signs of infection — and need close attention. If baby's skin has small, red-purplish dots, if there are yellow fluid-filled bumps (pustules), or if baby has a fever or lethargy, call your pediatrician for medical treatment right away.

Week 23

Turn on the radio and sway to the music. With her sense of movement well developed by now, your baby can feel you dance. And now that she's more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound (about as much as a large mango), you may be able to see her squirm underneath your clothes. Blood vessels in her lungs are developing to prepare for breathing, and the sounds that your baby's increasingly keen ears pick up are preparing her for entry into the outside world. Loud noises that become familiar now — such as your dog barking or the roar of the vacuum cleaner — probably won't faze her when she hears them outside the womb.

Week 22

Forget about ounces, baby. This week we're talking a whopping weight of 1 pound and a length of nearly 8 inches, about the size of a small doll. But your doll is a living one - with developing senses, including touch, sight, hearing and taste.

What's your baby touching? He may grab onto the umbilical cord (there's not much else to hang onto in there) and practice the strong grip that will soon be clutching your fingers (and pulling on your hair).

What your baby seeing? Though it's dark in the uterine cocoon - and even with fused eyelids - fetuses this age can preceive light and dark. If you shine a flashlight over your belly, you might feel your baby react, perhaps trying to turn away from the bright light.

What's your baby hearing? The sound of your voice and that your partner, your heartbeat, the whoosh-whoosh of your blood circulating through your body, those gastric gurgles, the dog barking, sirens, a loud TV.

And, what's your baby tasting? Pretty much everything you're tasting


My feeling over the week:
I love the feeling of my baby moving inside me... it makes it so real and it tickles sometimes :)

Thank you dear Lord for taking care and looking after my baby . I hope Lord Jesus will continue to shine His magic upon him. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

TAG HEUER

After much research (since last year), debate, thinking and comparing... finally, we decided that was it! :D I decided to buy the watch for my sweetie for his 31st birthday this year which will be coming very very soon. So, I guess this year he will be receiving his birthday present very early this year :)

Looking back at those two watches which (also) I bought for him (Guess & Casio) in the UK 10 years ago (money well spent ;-) ), I must say it's time to change! :) If it wasn't because the casio watch had died (even after we brought it for repair in two different outlets, according to the salesmen my hubby's watch had gone haywired... it cannot be used anymore.. even replacing it with a new battery..) & the Guess watch bracelet which was always loose according to him.... I think my hubby still hesitate to get a new one for himself. As for me, I think the salesgirl gave me a very good bargain for the watch and I think the new watch suits him very well :)

Well, hope he will cherish the present I bought for him and enjoy using it as long as he wants... heheh... BTW, this piece of watch cost more than thos two but it's an automatic watch which means you do not need to change battery and the bracelet locked in very tightly and safely (no loosing here and there after sometimes). All those two worries were solved in one watch! :D

Below were the product specifications for the watch which I bought for his birthday present -
TAG Heuer Men's Aquaracer Automatic Watch:
Dial window material type: scratch-resistant-sapphire
Clasp: fold-over-clasp-with-safety
Case material: stainless-steel
Case diameter: 40 millimeters
Case Thickness: 11 millimeters
Band material: stainless-steel
Band length: mens
Band width: 20 millimeters
Dial color: black
Bezel material: stainless-steel
Bezel Function: unidirectional
Calendar: Date
Movement: swiss-automatic
Water resistant depth: 984 Feet

Baby Strollers - Part 2

Here are some of the stroller which fancy my liking. Which one do you think I should buy for my dearest baby?

Taga 2-in-1 stroller bike - BP 1549


Quinny Speedy XS3 wheeler - BP250


Chicco for me stroller - BP299.99


Graco Vivo system - BP249


Baby jogger city single 3wheeler - BP280

Bugaboo bee - GBP 491


Do visit the site below for more info on baby stroller. It's an interesting piece of research done by University of Dundee, Scotland:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/talking-to-baby-in-the-stroller/

Baby Stroller - Part 1

Here are some useful tips (especially to those first time parents like me) when considerations which kind of stroller/pushchair suitable for you and your baby needs. Happy shopping! :)

5 questions to ask before you choose a pushchair

1. How old is my baby & will I be pushing one or more?
Until three months, newborns need a lie-flat option to support and protect their backs. Choose from a two-in-one, travel system or 3-wheeler. A forward-facing pushchair is only suitable if it can be laid flat. If you're having twins or will be pushing a toddler as well as a newborn, a two-seater is the answer. A side-by-side pushchair is great for twins; a tandem (one seat in front, one behind) is best for a toddler and a baby (the baby goes in the lie-flat seat at the back). When your baby is between three and six months, you can choose a lightweight stroller.

2. What will I use the push chair for?
If you prefer the car to pounding the pavements, choose a lightweight model - a two-in-one may suit more than a 3-wheeler which is heavier to lift in and out of the boot. A travel system would be ideal for getting in and out of the car with minimum disturbance to you baby. If you do a lot of shopping on foot, you'll need a large shopping basket underneath, such as those on a two-in-one or forward-facing pushchair. Strollers give you little room for purchases. Pushability, manoeuvrability and a smooth ride are essential for country walks and can be a plus for uneven city pavements.

If this is your lifestyle, choose a 3-wheeler. If you use public transport or hop on and off planes for holidays, a lightweight, easy-folding, compact pushchair is important - check out the forward-facing options.

3. Where will I keep my pushchair?
Consider the size of your home. You need to make sure you can get your pushchair through the front door and up or down any stairs. You'll also need space to store it. And check your car-boot size. Sounds obvious, but if you can only just squeeze the pram in there, where's all your shopping going to go? Check the fit before you buy. If size and weight is an issue, move on to a stroller as soon as your baby is old enough.

4. How long will I use the pushchair?
If you plan to pass it on to your next baby, invest a little more for durability. A two-in-one, 3-wheeler or a travel system may be your best bet. If you want to move to a stroller at three months, don't spend quite so much.

5.How much can I spend?
The more you spend, the more features you'll get, and if you go for top-of-the-range, both looks and functionality will be maximised.

First Respond

Today, in the afternoon while I was taking my usual afternoon nap, I felt my baby was trhing to hold my hand (!!) :) Well, the story goes like this...... While sleeping, I put my hand at the left hand side of my stomach then suddenly I felt a kick / bump pushing my hand up... I was suprised and smile... I think my baby is trying to hold my hand or he wanted to play :) Oh my sweetie pie, mummy & daddy love you so much... hope you are doing well inside mummy's little tummy.. :)