Chic Galleria » parents

Book Giveaway: Sleep Myth Busters

Editor — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 07:23:05 +0000

Sleep Myth Busters: The Sleep Lady Sets the Record Straight
By Kim West, LCSW-C,
Author of The Sleep Lady®’s Good Night, Sleep Tight: Gentle Proven Solutions to Help Your Child Sleep Well and Wake Up Happy

#1 If I skip my child’s nap, he will sleep longer at night. Also, the later I put my child to bed, the later he’ll sleep in the morning.

Sleep Lady: The more overtired you allow your child to get, the more wired he’ll get — making it harder for him to get sleep and stay asleep.

#2 Children not sleeping through the night for the first year or two is a fact of life.

Sleep Lady: Healthy babies 6 months or older who are growing well can often sleep 11 hours at night. Although teething, illness and developmental milestones can disturb sleep at various times, they’re only temporary interruptions.

#3 Newborns sleep all the time and know what they need. You don’t need to schedule their sleep times.

Sleep Lady: Even very young babies benefit from scheduling and consistency at night time and nap time. It cuts down on their crankiness and crying and lays the groundwork for learning how to sleep through the night once they’re a little older.

#4 Children know when they’re sleepy and when they should go to bed.

Sleep Lady: Not once they learn to fight sleep for your company! Children need our direction and guidance with a soothing bedtime routine to help them slow down and transition to sleep. Once you get your child on a consistent schedule, you can plan your own day better and can count on having a happy awake child.

#5 Some children, including babies, don’t need as much sleep as others.

Sleep Lady: Very few children need less than the average amount of sleep for their age. They need enough good quality sleep to grow and learn at the incredible rate they do! They need us to protect their need for sleep.

#6 If I let my child “cry it out” at bedtime, I can do whatever it takes (rock, walk, nurse, bottle feed , etc.) to get him back to sleep in the middle of the night.

Sleep Lady: Once your baby is over 6 months of age, you must be consistent at bedtime AND all night wakings. If he becomes accustomed to being fed, rocked, walked, etc. during the night, that is what he will need and expect each time he wakes up in order to go back to sleep. He won’t understand why you are doing it sometimes and not other times.

#7 I will have to give up all forms of co-sleeping if I want a baby with good sleep habits.

Sleep Lady: Not true. Consider an alternative middle ground called “room sharing” — where you keep your baby in your room in a crib or co-sleeper for months or even a year. You can easily feed your baby, its gives you the peace of mind of having her close by and you don’t have to worry about the safety challenges of bedsharing. Most importantly you can begin to put your baby down “drowsy but awake” at nap time so she can learn to put herself to sleep independently and you are still near by. This will make the transition to her own crib and room one day much easier!

#8 If I feed my baby late at night, he will sleep longer.

Sleep Lady: A baby will sleep for a longer stretch when he no longer needs to eat at night AND if he knows how to put himself back to sleep without being fed.

#9 Feeding my child formula rather than relying on breast feeding in the evening will help her sleep longer.

Sleep Lady: It may help her sleep longer since formula takes longer to digest, but it won’t make a difference if she doesn’t know how to put herself back to sleep without nursing or bottle feeding.

Kim West, LCSW-C, known as The Sleep Lady®, has helped thousands of tired parents gently teach their babies and children how to go to sleep and stay asleep. West has appeared on Dr. Phil, the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Good Morning America, TLC’s Bringing Home Baby, and CNN, and has been written about in a number of publications including The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Parents, Baby Talk, Parenting, the Baltimore Sun, USA Today, and the Washington Post. West hosts the sleep section of The Newborn Channel, played in maternity wards in hospitals across the country. She is the mother of two daughters and a licensed child and family therapist, practicing for over seventeen years. She lives with her family in Annapolis, Maryland.

In addition to The Sleep Lady®’s Good Night, Sleep Tight, West is also the author of 52 Sleep Secrets for Babies and the upcoming, Good Night, Sleep Tight Workbook.

Visit Kim West at www.sleeplady.com.

Chic Galleria is pleased to give away a copy of Good Night, Sleep Tight to one lucky reader! Just leave a comment on this article and answer this question: “Does or did your child have trouble sleeping?” A name will be drawn at random from the list of comments and the winner will be announced on December 21, 2009. Good luck!

Congratulations Jennifer T.

Giveaway: Celebs Love Special Feelings Toy

Editor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:45:40 +0000

Kimochis is a truly dynamic and innovative brand that is growing as we speak. A brand run by mom entrepreneurs! With an already strong following, even celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Gwen Stefani and Jennifer Garner can’t resist.

Plushy Feely Corp. has just released Kimochis {www.kimochis.com} … Toys with Feelings Inside. Awarded the Creative Child Magazine 2009 Seal of Excellence and Best Vacation Products by Dr. Toy.

Are you a Kimochi Cloud? A Kimochi Bug or Kimochi Huggtopus?

Kimochi (KEY.MO.CHEE) means “feeling” in Japanese and each 13 inch Kimochis character comes with 3 plush “feelings” and a how-to- Feel Guide with tips for parents on connecting with their kids during emotional moments. Feelings can be messy…Kimochis can help!

Kimochi’s goal is to create compelling stories and loveable characters that will build confidence and self-esteem in our children and serve to strengthen parent-child connections. The toys are for everyone and help with parent-child connections: children with autism to a child who wants to play, the adorable characters help children express their feelings more easily. Younger children can use Kimochis to learn to identify feelings while older children can use the Kimochi to work through communication challenges.

The stuffed toys are revolutionary in that they’re not just stuffed toys. Kimochis is helping kids learn to express their emotions in POSITIVE ways, in hopes of possibly helping to prevent future tragedies. They are meant to teach children and parents how to interact with each other and express themselves, developing their emotional intelligence with the Kimochis Feel Guide book – teaching parents on connecting with their kids during emotional moments. The bag of emotions (happy, sad, grumpy) allows the child to relate and easily express their emotions to their friends, parents , teachers – holding an emotion and describing what they’re feeling and why.

Now is the right time to invest in the emotional intelligence of our children. With Kimochi, all children and adults can relate to them and it opens the opportunity for communication and education.

Nina Rappaport-Rowan, Kimochis Founder and mompreneur, was struck with the horrible Columbine High School incident, thinking how could something like this have happened? It made her dig deep and question why. What is missing? What are we not doing right with our children that they can be so disconnect and so self destructive? This very thing was the inspiration that drove Nina to create the Kimochis. The goal is to get parents and kids talking to each other. Creating original children’s products and animated family entertainment, the company wants to create compelling stories and loveable characters that will build confidence and self-esteem in our children and serve to strengthen parent-child connections.

Nina was the perfect person to launch such an idea! She is a leader in the field of animation. Producer of the 1998 Academy Award winning Best Animated Short Film, Bunny, Nina is known for her expert knowledge of computer animation and her skill in developing teams that can tackle innovative and complex CG projects. She is primarily know as a Producer in the family entertainment industry overseeing children’s books, animated feature films and animated TV projects. She has other amazing moms on the Kimochi team, helping build the brand.

Nina and her team are reaching out to kids and families in hospital situations, for social workers, adoption and special needs. Kimochis is a toy for everyone with the added benefits!

Chic Galleria and Kimochi is excited to be giving away a Cloud character to 1 lucky Chic Galleria reader. Just leave a comment on this article and answer this question, “What is Cloud’s favorite color?” You will probably have to visit the website to find the answer! The winner will be chosen at random from those who leave a comment and the winner will be announced November 16, 2009. www.kimochis.com

Congratulations Kiley Smith!

What is Virtue?

Gabrielle & Paul Krake — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 07:01:00 +0000

virtue |ˈvər ch oō|
noun
1) behavior showing high moral standards : paragons of virtue. See note at goodness .
• a quality considered morally good or desirable in a person : patience is a virtue.
* a good or useful quality of a thing : Paul was extolling the virtues of the car | there’s no virtue in suffering in silence.

I
ask this question often of myself. I wonder what truly makes a person
virtuous. Am I virtuous or self righteous? Do I stand up for what is
right or am I simply judgmental of others? What are the qualities I am
modeling for my children? My husband Paul wrote an article recently
about mentoring
and it has had me thinking ever since about what I truly bestow upon my
kids. When I grow impatient and snap at them or when I do not stand my
ground and hold them accountable, am I falling short of my duties as a
parent? The questions could go on and on but I want to seek out where
we stop as parents and destiny begins…

It all comes back to
one thing for me as a parent, spouse, friend or neighbor; do I really
care about those people I come in contact with? A quote attributed to
Elsie de Wolfe states, “Be pretty if you can, be witty if you must, but be gracious if it kills you.”
I must first care and then I can love and then I can sacrifice, but I
have to start by desiring the heart of a person. Over the years, it is
the hearts of my children that I want above obedience or performance.
Therefore I am transitioning that desire into the other relationships
in my life. My goal is to be gracious, to embody virtue, to be the best
person I can be.

How about you, what is your personal heartfelt goal for your relationships?

Mentoring Our Children

paulkrake — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:37:00 +0000

When we are either surprised by the blessing of having kids or have planned it out to the most minute detail the last thing on our minds is any kind of plan to be a mentor.

Sure, we worry about what kind of parent we will be. We think of the obvious changes in our life style that begin with a pregnancy and continue on as we have additional children. You suddenly realize that “someone” very small depends on you for everything!

In this life change, we realize that we will have an everlasting influence on these little people. In some cases this is for the positive. In other cases we would like to have a redo. That’s life, really. My wife and I have joked on occasion that our first son got to be the experimental probe. Try this, great it worked! Try that, oops that didn’t work so well. Try again and so forth. Hopefully we have improved with each successive child and become wiser in how we relate to the children as a whole unit as well as individually.

We marvel at how different they all are, that they have very unique aptitudes and interests. Some personality traits become evident and you realize that no matter how much pressure you put on yourself, you can only hope to be a good mentor by your example.

Give your children a strong, positive foundation. Be a mentor in how you approach things and take on challenges. Give your kids the opportunities to figure out what it is that they really have a passion for, what it is that they really feel Joy in doing! If you can help them to discover this about themselves then I believe you have become the Mentor you should be.

The most profound suggestion I have; truly appreciate each child’s uniqueness and abilities. It has taken me a while to realize that they are not all going to like what I like or what my wife likes. At first this made me angry! They should like what I like – I’m their Dad and that’s reason enough! Ha ! Ya know what? The fact that some of them do and some of them don’t is the best blessing of all and really makes them that much more interesting. It makes me reflect on how we have all been created to be truly unique individuals. We all have free will to make choices as we grow. These will also shape us as we grow throughout our lives.

So as parents we need to stop, be quiet, watch our children and appreciate every second of every day that we have them, as life itself is very fleeting. The best way to mentor them is to accept them, show them how as fathers we love our wives. We are here to protect and correct them as our children and to let them know that they are given precious individual gifts that they are responsible to cultivate into the best they can be. As parents we are to help shape our kids for a greater purpose.

Get A Daily Dose Of Mommie Email

Editor — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:47:12 +0000

Mamaista – the chic little daily for moms – announced today the launch of its national edition for style-conscious moms, just in time for Mother’s Day.

Each day, subscribers will receive a bite-sized email featuring only the latest, most cutting-edge products and services for babies, tykes, tots and moms. All recommendations are made with an eye to helping savvy, recessionista mamaistas find products that are not only stylish, but also versatile investment purchases that will last for many years to come.

Developed in response to the demands of modern moms who don’t have time to search thousands of blogs, read through long email newsletters, and spend hours trolling message boards for product advice, Mamaista allows its powerful audience to separate the hip from the hype with just one short and chic daily email.

Offering one product recommendation per day, Mamaista will feature the latest developments in children’s toys, clothing, gear, food and health-related products, as well as stuff just for moms. With a team of veteran cool hunting mothers from across the country that road-tests the most exciting new products and services, Mamaista then chooses the best of what’s out there and delivers it directly to the inboxes of its subscribers free of charge, Monday through Friday.

According to Elina Furman, Mamaista’s Publisher and former Editorial Director of WomansDay.com and Seventeen Online, “Mamaista is like that mom in your lunch club who can feed her baby, send out 10 emails, tell you all about the latest technology in high chairs and still manage to look like just she stepped off the pages of Cookie magazine all at the same time.”

Furman came up with the idea to start Mamaista after giving birth to her son. Suddenly, the Daily Candy emails alerting her to the latest boutiques, restaurants and nightclubs seemed irrelevant. “Seemingly overnight, I became a lot more interested in strollers and nursing bras than in handbags and lingerie,” says Furman. “The problem was that there was not one daily email that delivered practical and stylish product recommendations for moms in a fun, concise and well-designed format.”

After searching for weeks and coming up empty handed, Furman realized that there was a real need in the marketplace and enlisted her sister, editor and published author Leah Furman to help her start the company.

With plans to roll out several local editions in the next few months, including New York and Los Angeles, the founders are thrilled to introduce the first daily email newsletter to target this exclusive and influential market.

Subscriptions to Mamaista are free and require only an email address. Visit http://www.mamaista.com to sign up.