Parenting Resources

While there is no doubt that breast milk is best for the baby, it will always be true that for one reason or another, a small minority of mothers will not be able to adequately breast feed their babies and will have to resort to feeding by bottle or a cup. Usually a four to five month old baby can …

You are planning to have a baby. But you are worried that you will get marks on your stomach. Well, stretch marks are something that may be unavoidable. Nearly every pregnant woman gets them. Actually the number of marks you will have depends entirely on the pliability of the skin on your stomach. The skin has elastic fibres underneath which …

When my sister was carrying my nephew, all she did was look in the mirror and complain at the amount of weight she was putting on. Although she did go for walks in the evenings, her efforts were half-hearted as she was afraid of over-doing the exercise routine. She thought it might harm the baby. After consulting her gynaecologist, she …

I remember being spanked, but I don’t remember for what. The lessons were lost. My teacher was blissfully unaware that you cannot teach any lesson by spanking. What she did manage to teach is that it is acceptable to be a bully if you are bigger. And I always fantasied about becoming big – bigger than him – and beating …

A green hedge encrusted with white mountain roses – the smell I carry in my nostrils to this day. Pure and heady. I was three. It’s a snapshot of memory. I put a name to the memory much later. Lansdowne, a quiet and picturesque cantonment town set in the hills of Uttar Pradesh. My father had arranged the trip. He …

It is impossible for a child to smother himself by lying face down on a bed with no pillow or getting under the bedclothes. He will come up for air when he needs to. What you need to be worried about are thin plastics since they are both airtight and clingy. If your child puts a plastic bag or a …

Have you developed some dark patches on your cheeks? Don’t worry. Pigmentation is a very common symptom in pregnancy, though noone knows what causes it. But the patches usually fade away after childbirth. The skin on the abdomen and breasts stretches as the uterus grows in size. So does the skin on the arms and thighs if you have put …

The day your child sits up, he has achieved something big. His horizon becomes larger and this too is not achieved in a day. You prop him up with pillows and cushions, but he is not ready for it yet. Remember, you cannot hasten his development. You will have to wait till the particular part of his brain responsible for …

Maya cannot forget her first pregnancy. She was young and careless. She preferred to go shopping than go for her regular checkup. She hated staying at home when her husband was away at work. But all this took its toll on her baby. In her ninth month, she realised that her baby was not moving. A trip to the doctor …

Most children with low self esteem keep trying hard to prove they are unlovable and incompetent. A number of children I worked with had been with other tutors previously. When that tutoring hadn’t proved successful, the children felt like failures-hopeless, discarded. When their parents contracted for them to work with me, it felt like they were now going to have …