Whispers @ MysticHut.com

To plan the Siblings

Babies are the best thing to happen to a couple and why only couple the entire family attached to them. No wonder babies are called god’s gift. 

Going by the old adage “more the merrier” does it apply to having more babies too? And if you decide to have more than one, then what do you think should be the ideal age gap between them? 

By the way just after I typed in the above question a very important question comes to my mind: Is there anything called ‘ideal’ age gap? 

It’s a very relative term and depends on the couple. There are certain factors that govern the decision of having another child either back to back or at a gap of long years.

I’ve come across couples who had preferred having children spaced at around 6-7 years and they are quiet happy with their decision. They think that since the elder one is already at a stage where he understands things better makes a better elder sibling to the younger one. Some factors that they swear by are: 

>Sibling rivalry doesn’t take place because of un-divided attention.

>The gap provides time to the parents to properly concentrate on each kid.

>The elder one learns to give, care and hand-hold the younger one.

>The younger one has someone to look up to other than parents.

>The physical strength of the mother is recuperated in the mean while.

>The elder one is potty trained, sleeps through the night and doesn’t need much attention of yours. 

On the other hand I’ve had couples say exactly the opposite of the above. Like, they had preferred children as early as back to back-with an age gap of 1 year only. They’ve their own reasons behind this decision and let’s see what these are: 

>The experience and knowledge of dealing with kids is fresh in your mind.

>Children who are born back to back to grow up together in harmony.

>Chances of them becoming each others’ best friends are higher.

>They learn to share and care.

>The elder one doesn’t take advantage of being the elder one per say.

Medically, as your OBGYN would also suggest, you can conceive around 6 weeks after your first delivery. Mentally, it’s individual case and can’t be generalized. But whatever decision one makes it is very important for the child bearer to be totally prepared for another bumpy ride for 9 months because as long as she is happy all is well!

And let’s not forget the age. The age of the woman matters too. So as long as you’re not on the other side of your 30s you still have chance to make a choice!

All in all both sides look greener to me. Tough choice, isn’t it? ;) What’s your take? Do you think there is something called an ‘ideal’ age gap?

5 Must-Learn Habits for Kids

Bringing up a child is no cake walk; we have already known this fact, haven’t we? For non-mothers and mothers-to-be, don’t get stressed already, you’re yet to arrive but a little bit of mental preparation is not bad for your health, is it? :D

So when you have a kid you want him/her to be the best person on the face of mother earth. You want best education, best clothing, toys, food and a easy, stress free life, right? And every set of parents strive to be the best providers of all such things to their children. Amidst all this there is a basic learning that we have to provide to our children and that is ‘good’ habits. Of course in due course of time while your children are growing up you keep teaching them as per time and situation requires but to begin with what are the ‘basic’ habits that every child must know of?

I’ve tried to list a few that I think are a must to learn. Please add to my list.

1. Cleanliness: A very broad category of several habits like-brushing your teeth before and after bed, washing hands before eating, after using the loo, after coming from park, after playing with the dogs and even after having done a clean activity at home like paper crafts. Of course cleanliness does mean keeping your room clean, your wardrobe in order and your books sorted but let’s not burden children with perfection right now, let them be children, okay?

2. Please, Sorry & Thank you: In my opinion these are the three words that are really important for any child to know and to understand their meaning clearly. As in a sorry means ‘I’ll not do it again’ and that has to be practiced religiously. So, children need to be taught to say sorry and mean it not for the sake of saying it. Thanking someone for a tiny help also makes his/her day. And we all know what effect does adding a ‘please’ to a sentence has. These humble words if learned early will go a long way with a person.

3. Honesty: Didn’t we learn ‘honesty is the best policy’ in our moral science classes when we were kids? Yes, same lesson has to be taught but if this lesson is taught by exemplifying it, it will work wonders, I’m sure because any given day a real life example does more good as compared to theoretical knowledge.

4. Healthy eating habits: This is a must or else later you’re in for trouble. Children who don’t eat properly and timely in their childhood tend to pick up bad eating habits, unhealthy & less nutritional foods as compared to the children with right eating habits. And as parents we certainly want our kids to eat healthy and be healthy!

5.  Sharing: It is very commonly found that children don’t like sharing be it their toys, books or parents. But sharing is what they have to do when they grow up. If taught at the right time, it would be easy for a child to share his/her toys with play mates, books with classmates and room with roommates when he/she grows up. And it’s not only helpful when your child is around other children but when he/she has a sibling. Sharing doesn’t come easily but once it is understood that sharing doesn’t mean to part ways with something but it means to share the pleasure and see that on others’ face!

At the end of the day we must remember that a habit is nothing but a pattern of behavior a human being shows. And as bad habits are easy to pick so are good ones only difference is we need to invest time and hard work in teaching children to sustain the good ones! These are not the only good habits that a child should learn but these are important ones to begin with. Parenting becomes rewarding as the child progresses in life and is praised and called a ‘good’ person and in a way that praise is for you, the parents cause you are the one who shape your child’s life! So, get set go J

by Nupur, for Whispers @ MysticHut.

Parent to Parent

Just few days back I was chatting with my friend who is a mother to a 1 and half year young girl. And she generally asked me, a comparatively new mother, how is parenting going? How simple this question sounds, no? Just like ‘how is your job?’ ‘How is your life?’ and the likes. But when I attempted to answer it I was wordless. I could not construct a sentence describing my current situation.

I’m a 10 months old mom. Since the birth of my daughter I’ve been learning many things about being a mother, about parenting. I’ve been reading lot of stuff available on the Internet and in the books. Arriving at this stage with some experience I’ve realized one thing that no book can teach you ‘how to be a good parent’. It’s something very private between you and your child exactly like the decision to have a baby is very personal matter between you and your partner.

That said I don’t deny the help available on the Internet about child psychology, parenting, food habits and general medical guidance. It certainly is helpful and one should not just discard the knowledge if one can easily access it.

Coming back to the question my friend asked me. ‘How is parenting going on?’ huh like I said there is so much learn and much more to explore while being a parent. I’ve felt in all these months that parenting is like a school which never ends. You don’t graduate just at some particular point on completing certain years of your studies. Parenting just goes on and on and on to the point where it might not even be required, but the parent in you refuses to stop being the parent, yeah?

My little lady teaches me so much in a given day that I’ve to sometimes make mental notes of those learning. The first and foremost thing that I learnt from my princess is ‘patience’ and cultivating enormous patience. Yes why I say cultivating because that’s what I feel I’m doing these days. I’m effortlessly trying to build my own patience hub inside me which will last me for a life time now. When I say patience, anger management, introspection and toning down the expectations fall in this category. Anger management for a simple reason-I’m not supposed to get angry on anything and everything. Introspection for I have to introspect if I’ve gone wrong or think through if I could handle certain situation differently and toning down the expectations in terms of having some mercy on self. Sometimes I expect a lot from myself and end being unhappy which isn’t good for my patience hub, right? ;)

So if someone asks me how is parenting going on I would answer in detail about how I’m building a new person inside me-a patient, mature and calmer person! What about you? Hows parenting going at your end?

Leaving you with this picture :)

Post by Nupur, for Whispers @ MysticHut.

Spank your Kids - Yay or Nay?

With kids in tow there comes a time when you run out of patience. It is believed that you can convince anyone in the entire universe but your kids. So what happens when you, a grown up elder, run out of all the patience that you possibly have? Does spanking your child come to your mind? Do you think that once in a while it is okay to adopt that route?
A lot of moms would say ‘guilty’ when encountered with this question. Yes, we are humans and we tend to get angry with kids and sometimes even spank them, though we might not be planned to do so. But what does it result into? Do we get what we intended to get?

If you want to discipline your child and he or she refuses to listen to you at that time what do you do? Spanking or domestic corporal punishment is never advised. Studies say that parents should not spank, instead they should approach the problem in a different manner. Agreed, so what is this ‘different manner’?

The first thing that comes to my mind when I talk of this issue is ‘why would you want to spank?’ May be your child has tested your patience? May be you are already upset about something and your child has spiced it up by misbehaving? Or just that you’re in general short tempered and can’t handle nagging?

There could be umpteen reasons as to why one tends to spank. There are parents who say that once in a while spanking is a must to keep the children in line with discipline of the house. But have we considered the repercussions of this act? For almost every child his/her parents are the first and best role model. Whatever we do, our children note it and later follow it too. A child may register that being an elder gives him/her the license of spanking. He/she might use it on his/her younger sibling.

So what am I saying? Basically, there could be several other ways to handle misbehavior. Of course we are not here to tolerate or encourage nonsense in any which way.  Let’s see what could be these ‘several ways’ to overcome the urge of spanking:

• Letting go at that moment.
• Trying to control your frustration at that moment
• Instead of punishing physically taking away a favorite toy or book.
• Conducting one on one discussion with the toddler.
• Giving examples of other children who have misbehaved and have landed in hot soups.
• Points that can be enchased in the form of extra playtime, weekend beach time or plus one book to read etc.

Of course these are not sure shot tricks that would work for every child. Don’t we all know that every child is a unique one? So the trick to handle each one has to be different too, right? Who said parenting is a cake walk, ha? :)

Pink for girls and Blue for boys, huh, can we move on?

Recently I was shopping for my little lady. I wanted to buy her some sleep suits. Just as when I started looking for some the salesman [SM] approaches me. This is how the conversation between us goes thus:

SM: Good morning ma’am, how can I help you?
Me: Hey! I was looking for some sleep suits.
SM: oh ok, for a girl or a boy?
Me: uh! For a girl.  But how does it matter?
SM: No, accordingly I’ll show you the colors.
Me: Oh but I want to see all the colors that are available.
SM: *not very pleased with my demand shows me all the colors*
ME: Cool, you guys have a good collection. Please buy these 4 sets for me.
SM: Ma’am, I think you should buy at least one of these pinks and floral prints. All you have bought is fish, dinosaurs and horse prints with colors like blue and its family.
Me: So? I liked them hence I’m buying them!
SM: But didn’t you say you’re buying them for your girl?
Me: huh!

The emphasis on the term ‘girl’ made me go mad, no really! I really started wondering why this whole hype of boys wearing blue and girls wearing pink. You ask for gift for a new born and the first question that’ll be thrown at you would be ‘is it a girl or a boy?’ I mean why oh why? Why can’t a baby be just a baby, you know? Why color divide right from its arrival in this world? Oh wait, not even arrival even before that…from the 3rd week of the pregnancy to be precise!

I decided to turn to our very own Google aunt for answers and I found that I’m not the only one questioning this color divide. There are great people researching on this issue [oh is it an issue? any way!]. And one such study that I came across says that it’s not cultural but a biological basis. The study experimented on several females and males across the continents and found that females preferred the colors like red and the shades of it in the whole wide color spectrum.

I feel it is somewhere instilled in our mindsets and that has to be removed. Why can’t babies wear gender-neutral colors and play with such toys. Just imagine a boy wearing a bright orange romper or a baby girl wearing soft baby blue color skirt. Did you even for a moment felt the oddness in the colors when you imagined these babies? Did you not only see how beautiful and lovely these babies are looking in these bright colors?

Any given day if your son wears pink shirt would you stop loving him? Or for that matter your daughter insists that she wears only blue and its shades, would you deny her clothing? Aren’t we teaching children some kind of gender divide already? I might be inviting lot of flak but let’s see what you’ve to offer me on this one!