Dos:

• Your babies may develop language skills more slowly than the singletons because of prematurity, birth weight or other factors. Speak and read regularly to each baby to help prevent the delay in language development.
• Encourage individuality. Give them distinctly different names.
• Spend time alone with each twin so that they know they are important as individuals and not just as twins.
• Try giving them their own toys and encourage sharing as they become older.
• Give your twins separate gifts and cakes on their birthday.
• Unfortunately, many twins are born before their due dates. If your twins are born premature, be sure to maintain regular health care appointments and keep an eye on their nutrition, development and growth.
• Expect to go on a bit of an emotional roller coaster, which is perfectly normal. In time, your emotions will begin to settle down. Be sure to find time for sleep and take every opportunity to rest.
• Talk to your partner about your feelings and problems
• Find other parents of twins to talk with as you can get many helpful tips from them.You may also want to subscribe to books and magazines about taking care of twins.

Don’ts:

• Avoid addressing them as “the twins”. Refer them by their names as it will help them to learn that they are different individuals. Do not pick names that rhyme or sound alike.
• Avoid dressing them alike, for the same reasons above.
• Do not make comparisons between the twins as it may create competition between them.
• Do not forget the older siblings in the family. Try to set aside time regularlyto be alone with them.

Taking care of yourself Oh Mom:

To provide the best care to your babies, it is crucial to take care of yourself. Mothers of twins are more likely to suffer from “baby blues” or “postpartum depression” than the single mothers. You may feel a little depressed, easily upset or worried, lose appetite or find that you cannot sleep well even when your babies are asleep. If you experience any of these symptoms, seek your doctor’s help.

Source: Dr. Sonia

Infant developmental stages involve sitting, standing, walking and running. Fine motor skills allow a child to use his hands to eat, play and write. These skills are developed over a longer time span. The development of a child also involves development of social skills. It is never too early to inculcate social skills in a child. As a child grows, he learns to interact with others. He learns to form relationships with people beyond his immediate family. He responds to loving care and encouragement from parents and family members. This is also another important facet of his overall growth.
You will be amazed at the pace with which the little infant grows in first year of his life. The baby will double his weight in about 6 months and nearly triple it by the first birthday. It is a treat to be part of this developmental stage, one in which you can play a very important role. All babies are different and follow their own growth and developmental pattern.

There are various facets of the developmental process – motor skills, speech development and social and emotional growth. Here we outline broad baby developmental stages. These follow in a sequential order. This helps you predict the time frame within which your baby is likely to pick up a particular skill.

3 months to 6 months: The baby will be able to roll over, hold his head up and sit and squeal with laughter at your antics. The infant can take toys from you and in all probability put it in his mouth. You are likely to hear experimental sounds and plenty of laughter.

6 months to 9 months: The baby is going to get mobile at this stage, so watch out. Movement will begin by crawling on all fours. It might embark with shuffling movements and then lead to actual crawling. He might move over and sit back and examine things. It will then be only a matter of time when the baby is going to propel himself up by holding on to pieces of furniture. This is the time to talk plenty to the little kid. You will be rewarded with imitations of sounds you make. It will be a momentous day when your little baby says ‘mama’.

9 months to a year: At this stage, your baby is very likely to be standing without support and even walking. Keep talking to him and play nursery rhymes and playful songs. It is that stage of development when the child learns to wave ‘bye’ and understand a few rudimentary instructions.

Our baby developmental milestones section will focus on various growth stages of a child. We take a look at various aspects of a child’s development – physical, intellectual and emotional. Monitor your child’s development with our informative baby developmental milestone guide. This can be of immense help in taking an active role in your baby’s development.

Source: Dr Jain

Helping Your Child Develop Better:

Playtime is one of the most fundamental parts of child development.  Children play in a variety of ways with a number of different toys.

Each activity has a different effect on development. Toys and other objects are important extensions of a young child.

Children have played with toys throughout history and in all cultures. So development toys promote children’s well-being. Toys have main role in children’s play with one another and help them develop in public.

Toys are vital tools that help foster the mental, physical, emotional and social development of boys and girls. Toys are basic instruments for the development of children’s fantasy, thoughts and creativity.

Playtime is fun. Young children love to explore and discover new things about the world around them and about themselves.

Tips For Buying Toys For Children:  

•  Look for toys that are age appropriate for the child playing with the toy.
•  Read toy instructions before buying the toy to ensure that instructions are clear and review warnings and according to age group.
•  Buy educational toys that require directions, cooperation and rules are important in learning, sharing and social skills.
•  Check toys often for hazards like loose parts, broken pieces or sharp edges, and repair or discard any weak or broken toys.
•  Choose a ride on toys that suits your child’s age, size and abilities.
•  Good toys engage your child’s interest and passion for fun, while they develop his physical, mental, and emotional self.
•  Look for toys that fit your child’s interests, and then add some surprises to expand his world.

There are no doubts that it contains a lot of useful solutions for parents and their kids. First of all, it is important to say that interesting educational iPhone applications can be perfectly used for entertaining children. Thus, using these iPhone apps for kids you can easily keep kids busy. Educational process is interesting if it is organized as a good game. When it comes to the best educational apps for kids it should be noted that children find it interesting to educate if they play great games. As you can see, iPhone games for children are available in a wide variety. It means that parents can find a lot of applications for their kids, which can be used effectively both for entertaining and educational purposes at the same time. So, all that you need to do is to find the list of the best educational apps for kids and just take advantage of it! It should be pointed out that educational iPhone apps for kids are available at affordable price. So, if parents don’t have a lot of money to buy expensive toys for their children, just keep in mind that the best educational apps for kids can always become a good alternative in this case. Having small amount of money you will manage to download high amounts of iPhone games, which will be undoubtedly interesting for your kids.

Both teachers and parents can say that the best educational apps for kids have a very positive impact on development of children. It should be noted that the best educational apps for kids provide an easy and interactive way of learning letters, new words, numbers, names of animals and many other things. Puzzle iPhone games for kids become more and more popular these days. The list of benefits, which the best educational apps for kids can bring to development of their children, can be continued more and more. This article is going to concentrate attention of readers only on the most important ones. If you are going to entertain or educate your children, it doesn’t matter because you can always make use of the best educational apps for kids!

• When newborn gazes into your eyes. Communicate with her by simply gazing back into her eyes.
• Hug and cuddle your newborn as much as you can. There is no stronger form of communication which says, “I love you,” than a hug. By doing this you are communicating to your newborn that they are important and loved.
• Speak to your newborn in a fun and musical voice which is often called “motherese.” Newborn babies show a strong preference for this and seem to really like it.
• Respond quickly when your newborn cries. This communicates to your newborn that she can trust the world to meet her needs. Having her needs met by you is a very powerful means of communicating your love for her.
• Newborn babies benefit greatly when you talk, sing and read to them. By communicating with your voice your newborn will learn to associate the sound as comforting and ultimately it will help her identify objects with specific sounds. Essentially, by talking and communicating with your newborn you are laying the foundations for language development.
• Sing lots of nursery rhymes (in case you can’t remember the words we’ve listed a few in the learning section).
• Smile back when your newborn smiles at you (newborn babies first smile happens at around 6 weeks of age.)
• Give your newborn a variety of objects and toys to explore and talk to her about them. How they feel and sound.
• When you are going about your daily jobs tell your newborn what you are doing. Even do this while changing her diaper. You can simply say, “Oh look you have a dirty diaper. I’m just going to change it now. Let’s wipe you clean.” Do this while feeding and bathing her as well. Talking is such a valuable communication tool – it would be a shame not to use it.
• Show your newborn the world by taking her for mini walks around the house or backyard.
• Cuddle, cuddle and offer some more cuddles! Affection and attention is like food to a newborn.
• Use the language of touch by massaging and stroking your newborn babies back, shoulders, arms and legs.
• Communicate with your newborn by repeating her sounds back to her. This will encourage your newborn to verbalize sounds in the future which is vital for language development.

By Mr. Sam Suri