I’ve had so many parents ask me where to start with potty training. First of all let’s change those words to toilet training because the easiest and quickest way to toilet train your child is to skip the potty step. I’m just not a fan of the potty, it’s a bit gross and also it isn’t the end goal for your child – once they have mastered the potty, they have to start all over again.

Toilet training can take a matter of days if you start at the right time. A child needs to know that something is happening down there. This can sometimes be encouraged by putting underwear on your child, and therefore when they do their business they will feel it. If your child is showing an awareness while still in nappies they may hide when they feel the urge or they may start to walk funny or even look down.

Starting toilet training begins with you taking your child into the bathroom with you as a parent; the child needs to see what the toilet is used for. Depending on how tall your child is you may want to get steps. There are also special toilet seats made for little bottoms. Something that may work for your child is naming the toilet (Thomas the Toilet) and placing a picture near the toilet will remind him of his special toilet. Think about a star chart as well to encourage going to the toilet. I would suggest going straight into underwear and not to use pull-ups but this is entirely up to how brave you are. Make sure you have everything in place before starting the actual training as changing the routine may confuse your child.

Once all this preliminary work is done it’s time to train your child in using the toilet; this is just a matter of consistency. When your child wakes up encourage him to go to the toilet first thing and then change him into underwear (or pull-ups). Make sure your child wipes, flushes and washes his hands, this all sets up the routine (and we know children love routine). After this point remind your child to go to the toilet every 15-20 minutes, if they choose not to go at certain intervals ensure they go to the toilet every second time you remind them. Be encouraging and supportive!

Accidents will happen and when they do happen it’s important to not make a big deal of it, just remind your child to use the toilet and then change him into clean clothes. It may be frustrating for you but remember it’s also frustrating for your child – once they get into the routine and learn to control their urges it becomes easier

As well as water and milk, Rooibos tea has become a staple drink for my fourteen-month-old daughter. She has it with breakfast, lunch and dinner and thinks it’s DElicious. Rooibos, more commonly known as ‘Redbush’ in the UK – a direct translation from the Afrikaans “Rooibos” (pronounced Roy-Boss) – is a flowering shrub that grows in the Cedarberg mountain region in South Africa’s Western Cape, about 250 km north of Cape Town, and is thus popular in the region of southern Africa.

Point of information: If you want your saffa friends to think you’re the coolest, just say that you’re in to drinking Rooibos at the moment – it’s a sure friend winner.

Rooibos tea is a great alternative to sugary drinks; it is caffeine-free and is high in antioxidants, so a great immune booster. Traditional medicinal uses of Rooibos in South Africa include alleviating infantile colic, allergies, asthma and dermatological problems, and the tea is thought to assist with nervous tension, allergies and digestive problems. Rooibos tea is rich in minerals including iron, calcium, potassium, copper, fluoride, manganese, zinc, magnesium and alpha hydroxyl but what else makes it great for children (and adults)? OrganicFacts.net provides a breakdown; check it out:

• Polyphenols: Rooibos contains polyphenols that has anti-inflammatory, anti-viral and anti-mutagenic qualities.
• No Caffeine: Rooibos tea is totally caffeine-free, therefore it is recommended by doctors for insomniacs. A cup of rooibos beverage just before going to bed can help you sleep better.
• Good for Bones: Red tea is rich in calcium, manganese and fluoride minerals that assist in good bone structure and stronger teeth.
• Infant Relief: It can be useful for little infants who suffer from colic or stomach pains. You may add some sweetened milk to the tea for added taste.
• Good for Skin: The alpha hydroxyl acid and zinc contents in red tea are best for skin. You can also try applying some red tea powder directly to the skin to relieve acne, pimples, sunburns or related skin conditions.
• Kidney Stones: Even people with stone problem can drink as much red rooibos tea as they want as there is no oxalic acid in the beverage.
• Hypertension: Rooibos tea is said to bring relief to stress, nervous tensions and hypertension conditions.
• Anti-spasmodic Agents: The tea is rich in anti-spasmodic agents, which eases severe stomach cramps and abdominal pains.
• Allergies: In many parts of South Africa, red tea is used as an effective curative to treat allergies like eczema, hay fever and allergic bronchitis.
• Slows Aging: The anti-oxidants present in rooibos tea slows down human aging process and also boost the immunity levels of human body.
• Great Beverage: Red rooibos tea is an excellent thirst quencher and does wonders for active people including sportsmen, hyper active children and constant travellers. Most people love to drink rooibos tea in its natural form without any sweeteners.
• Rare Nutrients: Rooibos tea is said to contain rare nutrient contents such as Quercetin and Bioflavonoid that assists in good blood circulation and obstructs haemorrhaging.

If Rooibos sounds like something you’d like your child to try, it’s probably best to dilute it with quite a lot of water until your child gets used to the taste, and then you can make it progressively stronger. The tea can be drunk warm or cold – my daughter usually has it cold and gulps it down in no time!

For more info on Rooibos and its properties visit the official site of South African Rooibos at www.sarooibos.org.sa.

At one of our antenatal classes we were shown how to bath a newborn baby. Our teacher used a plastic doll who was, of course, obligingly still. In the hospital, the nurse demonstrated with our very own baby. In her very capable hands, bathing looked easy. When we got home, my husband took on bath duty so that I could have a bit of free time. (And in those early days, free time meant nap time.) Imagine our delight when Angelique was as still as the plastic baby when Hubby bathed her.

What nobody mentioned was that things would change drastically once our princess graduated to the big bath.

I’m seriously considering investing in a pair of knee pads but I’m not sure how to prevent the backache from bending over the tub. I have yet to find a bath toy that Angelique thinks more appealing than the face cloth. And I have completely given up trying to prevent water from getting into her ears. She has discovered the joy of splashing, wriggling, trying to roll onto her tummy in the bath, as well as the fun of general bath time mayhem.

But this is hardly worth mentioning compared to what I discovered at the end of Angelique’s first Big Bath Experience: getting the baby out of the bath is somewhat tricky. (They could have mentioned this at those antenatal classes.)

Through a process of trial and error I’ve developed a method that works well for us: I tuck the hooded part of the towel between my chin and chest, and pin each corner of the towel to the side of the bath with my knees (while doing some sort of semi-pliê). Then I pick Angelique up, holding her facing away from me, and manage to wrap her in the towel. Impressive, right?

The other day I explained this to my mother. “Oh,” she said, “I just used to put the towel on the floor.”

Some days it’s just not worth chewing through the restraints, you know? My princess is teething – of course, she’s been teething for weeks but those little buggers have yet to make their appearance – so her sleeping routine is all topsy-turvy. Once upon a time, my baby slept through the night and had nice, long midday naps. Now those days seem like a distant dream. Sigh.

Last night was particularly bad. Angelique woke up three times, refusing to return to sleep unless she was on the boob. Too bad I’m the only one in the house with any. By wake up call number three, I didn’t even try to fight her. I just stumbled into her room, managed to sit on the chair instead of collapsing onto the floor, latched her, and tried not to fall asleep before she does. Fun times.

Mid-morning, I put her down to nap, thought about the list of things I needed to do, then shut my own bedroom door and stretched out across the bed. After a nap that was depressingly brief, I got the princess out of her cot, changed her, and headed out to do some grocery shopping. As I was strapping Angelique into her car seat for the return trip, she started wailing and didn’t stop until we’d arrived home and I began undoing the straps.

And just when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse, I tried to give Angelique her lunchtime feed before naptime. Do you have any idea how difficult it is trying to get a screaming, writhing baby to latch onto your boob? It’s impossible. I rubbed teething powder on her gums, gave her a cool teething ring, gave her a small dose of Panado, rocked her, took her for a walk around the flat, sang to her, and seriously considered phoning someone, anyone for advice. Except I wouldn’t have been able to hear anything with Angelique crying in the background, so I kept rocking, singing, walking and praying.

An hour later, she was exhausted enough to pass out on my shoulder. I put her in her cot as gently as I could, tiptoed out of the room, and had some richly-deserved chocolate. After a quick lunch, I was on my way back to my bedroom for a nap when I heard whimpering from the monitor. The princess was ready for another round.

To end off the day, while I was running the bath water, Angelique was lying naked on her changing mat on her bedroom floor. She decided this was the best time to produce an enormous poop and decided it might be fun to roll around in it. (Any suggestions for getting poop out of a carpet?) At least Hubby was home by them and could help me deal with it.

But she’s asleep now, and I’m humming along to Annie. “The sun’ll come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun …”

Children are weird. Or perhaps it’s just my child (I blame the Irish gene). I have been changing my fourteen-month-old daughter’s nappy for – you guessed it – fourteen months. Logic dictates that, a year down the line, this daily occurrence would be a ‘wham bam thank you mam’ affair. Sadly, logic and toddler-brain are not two patterns of thought that mix particularly well.

Over the past couple of months I have come to learn that the whole ‘establishing independence’ thing also means that nappy changing is just so last year – in other words; wallowing in excrement is the current toddler trend. Amelia doesn’t always kick up a fuss; as long as I am singing “Old MacDonald” or I have a nappy on my head. Yes… a nappy on my head. Desperate times…

There is, however, method to my nappy-hat madness. One day whilst playing with my little lovely, I put a nappy on her head as a joke. She laughed joyously and paraded around our flat as if bedecked in the crowned jewels (I am going to have a lot of explaining to do one day). It there since came to pass that as I was chaning her nappy one day, she started to ‘assert her independence’. Tired of Old McD and his stupid song, I did what any desperately annoyed mother would do; I put a nappy on my head. And i’ll be damned; it worked! With strop shelved, and me looking like a mental person, I was able to change the nappy in relative peace.

Oh… life’s the small pleasures!

There are many things I love about breastfeeding. It’s a special bonding time for me and Angelique. It’s time to relax (because there’s not much else you can do at the same time). It also requires absolutely no preparation – no sterilising bottles, no mixing formula, and no worrying about whether there’s still enough formula in the cupboard.

Of course, there are some things I don’t love. Angelique doesn’t have teeth yet but she knows how to bite. Sometimes she has this look on her face that leads me to think she knows she’s about to inflict pain – and doesn’t care one whit. I have, on occasion, been reduced to tears by an unexpected attack. (I then promptly hand the baby to her father and seriously contemplate sending him out for a tin of formula.)

Angelique doesn’t like to be hidden under a blanket when feeding, so if we’re out and she’s hungry, it can become a problem. I’ve started parking underground when we go to the mall, so if I take longer than expected we can just slip out to the car for a quick feed on the backseat. Usually, this works out great but sometimes the car park fills up between the time I park and return to feed. Such was the case this weekend.

There we were, sitting in the backseat, trying not to melt in the sweltering summer heat. (Someone should really look into better ventilation for underground parking, you know.) The windows were open so I couldn’t put a blanket up for cover. As Murphy’s Law would have it, the family who were parked next to me decided that was the perfect time to return to their car.

Cue panic. Angelique showed no sign of being done anytime soon, so I awkwardly held up the burp cloth to shield my boob from public exposure. I don’t know if the family actually noticed me, but they seemed to take a really long time to load up all the kids and leave.

What’s the moral of the story? One open window is fine. Put a blanket over the other one.

At my baby shower, I was given a preggy roll by one of my friends. “What is a preggy roll?” you ask. Picture a large banana-shaped pillow. You sleep with one end between your legs, one end under your head, and the curve supporting your belly. It sounds a bit strange, but it’s amazing.

After the first night I used it, I couldn’t believe I’d spent seven months of my pregnancy without it. By that point I was so large and uncomfortable that trying to find a good position to sleep in was an exercise in futility. I’m still not sure how Hubby managed to sleep through my constant tossing and turning. (Probably the same way he sleeps through our daughter’s chattering on the baby monitor in the wee hours of the morning. On weekends he has the night shift, and I have to wake him to go settle the princess back to sleep.)

One afternoon I entered the bedroom to find Hubby trying out the preggy roll for himself. On waking, he proclaimed he also needed one. He’s used it several times since. I understand his envy – it really is comfortable to curl up with the preggy roll and drift off to dreamland. Our daughter is almost six months old and I’m still using the preggy roll.

Its use is not limited to sleep, however. The preggy roll makes a fantastic breastfeeding pillow. Sometimes Angelique gets so comfortable that I don’t need my hands to support her head, and as most moms know having the use of two hands at any time is a luxury to be appreciated.

You can also use your preggy roll to prop your baby up when she starts sitting. Angelique likes to lean back, her arms resting on the preggy roll and her legs crossed in front of her as if she’s on the beach. I have a feeling she’s going to love the preggy roll as much as her parents do.

But now it’s naptime. Excuse me while I go snuggle up with my preggy roll …

One has to wonder if George Romero had any children. I can easily imagine that he was inspired to create his zombies when he looked at himself in the mirror after a few consecutive sleepless nights. I know that when I looked in the mirror recently it was a few seconds before I realised the zombie staring back at me was just my reflection.

I once had a baby who slept through the night. It was bliss. For those few weeks I was happy and rested – and I should have known it was too good to last. Then, suddenly, for three awful weeks Angelique was waking up two (sometimes three) times a night demanding to be fed. Since she can’t actually tell me why she suddenly turned into an insomniac, my best guesses were: teething, a growth spurt, hunger, or a combination of all three.

I really wanted to breastfeed exclusively for six months, which is what the World Health Organisation recommends. But a few sleepless nights got me thinking otherwise. At the beginning of January I began introducing solids. Angelique didn’t immediately spit out her very first spoonful, but she pulled the funniest faces. Hubby, standing by with the video camera, caught every moment of that first feed on tape, capturing precious memories and providing us with blackmail material for the future.

Hubby bought me a baby cook book, so I’m feeling very industrious and homemaker-y as I steam, blend, puree and freeze. Even though Angelique isn’t yet convinced that the spoon entering her mouth is a good thing, she does seem to enjoy my Happy Eating Song. (Yummy, yummy, in your tummy/Chew and chew and swallow/Tasty and nutritious too/Sweet potato’s good for you!) I’ve learned that, mid-giggle, her mouth is open wide enough for me to stick the spoon in.

The good news is that she’s started sleeping better, so I no longer feel like the star of a zombie movie. Or the subject of sleep deprivation experiments. And I think this whole introduction of solids thing is going to be quite entertaining.

My poor baby girl is suffering from her first cold. At the first sign of sniffles I reached for the saline drops, confident and in control. Angelique seemed confused the first time I put the drops in her nose but she didn’t protest.

By the evening of the first day, I was also starting to feel the tell-tale symptoms that a cold was developing. I dosed myself with orange juice and chicken soup and climbed into bed. The next morning both of us were miserable, and when I tried to give Angelique the saline drops she screamed as if I was trying to murder her.

It doesn’t help matters that she’s teething too. Her hands are constantly in her mouth, rubbing her bottom gum. She’s drooling like it’s going out of fashion, and when I gave her a teething ring she tried to devour it whole.

One of the items I was told I absolutely must have is a nasal aspirator, also known as a snot sucker. The instructions on the packaging are quite straightforward. “Hold baby upright. Insert tip into nostril while squeezing bulb. Slowly release bulb.” What the packaging neglects to advise is how to hold a squirming baby’s head still while keeping her from wriggling off your lap and jabbing the tip of the aspirator too far into the nostril. The snot sucker should come with a set of extra arms so moms can actually use it.

I’ve given up on the saline drops for now. Bennetts has an Eazi-Breathe kit for babies which comprises of a vapour gel and nasal balm. I’m having more success getting Angelique to lie still while I rub her chest.

As for me, I’m stuck with orange juice and chicken soup. I can’t take any of the usual remedies because I’m breastfeeding. I’m sure there was a malevolent twinkle in the pharmacist’s eye when he told me that the paediatric Panado syrup was about the only safe thing for me to take. Thanks for nothing, dude.

I think I’m just going to lie on the couch feeling sorry for myself until Hubby comes home. Or Angelique wakes from her nap. Whichever comes first. And I hope we haven’t infected Hubby, because if he’s also sick I don’t know who’s going to cook supper tonight.

When babies are ill mommies are the best medicine. I am blessed with a healthy baby who is rarely ill. She had a dodgy week in August and that’s it really. But November has made up for a sick-free year, with an unpleasant cold that ended up being Roseola (aka fake measles), a vomitous stomach bug, a weird red eye that displayed no symptoms of an eye infection… and then a couple of new molars (are babies supposed to cut molars before the are 1?) to top things off.

I say “poor Amelia” with much gusto and then I say “poor me” with even more. One of the toughest things as a parent is to watch your child ill, uncomfortable and in pain, and know that there is relatively little that you can do about it other than offer plenty of kisses and cuddles, and not let the whinging drive you dilly.

This is particularly difficult if you have to work from home so that you can afford to stay at home with your child – and I can only imagine the hardships of a work-from-home parent with more than one child. But before I wallow too much in my own pity party – especially when I only have a couple of bad weeks to my name – I remind myself that I chose to become a mommy and dealing with the unpleasantness of illness is all part of the deal. And thank God in Heaven for my darling husband who keeps me sane. Kudos to single parents – I don’t know how you manage.

I adore motherhood but I am no bullshitter – there are times when I desperately wish that I was able to release myself from the shackles of a whining child. I am madly in love with my precious Amelia but sometimes she makes crazy. And she reserves that right, as a baby, and as my child. And I reserve the right to be Amelia’s nurturer and comforter for all days.