by Nicole Johnson

Are you ready for Halloween? That’s one fun thing about October, but October is also an important month because it’s SIDS Awareness Month. In 2005, 2,230 babies died of SIDS and while it’s not preventable, there are things you can do as a new parent to reduce the risk. Here are some SIDS facts:

What is SIDS?

SIDS is the diagnosis given when an infant under one year of age dies suddenly and there is no other medical explanation for the death after a complete examination.

SIDS is most likely to occur in infants between one month and 12 months of age with the majority of deaths occurring between 2 and 4 months of age.  The risk of SIDS diminishes significantly after the first year.

How to Reduce the SIDS risk:

• Place babies on their backs to sleep. If baby falls asleep on his tummy, gently roll baby onto his back.

• Baby should sleep on a firm, flat mattress. Avoid using soft, fluffy or loose bedding that can increase suffocation risks. Consider using a sleeper or other sleep clothing as an alternative to blankets. (See the Merino Wool Baby Sleeping bag as part of our giveaway.)

• Keep baby’s room temperature warm but not too warm. Overheated
  babies are more likely to go into a deep sleep from which it may be hard to wake up.

• Babies with mothers who smoked during pregnancy are three times
  more likely to die from SIDS. Exposure to passive smoke around babies can double their risk of SIDS.

• Good prenatal care and breastfeeding can also help lower the risks of SIDS.

Please forward this valuable information to people you know to save lives!

Now for some Babble Soft news:

The Ultimate Guide to Baby’s First Year of Sleep
Win a $75 Target Gift Card, $50 Target Gift Card, 3-Month Subscription, and more!
Babble Soft Is Staying Home

The Ultimate Guide to Baby’s First Year of Sleep

We know that many of you find your way to Babble Soft because you are trying to help your baby get on a schedule and possibly sleep better, too. Using Baby Insights helps you do both and now we have more ways to help! Now when you purchase a subscription to Babble Soft, you not only receive a subscription to Baby Say Cheese, your very own online baby album, but you will also receive a free copy of the book The Ultimate Guide to Baby’s First Year of Sleep! Inside the book you will learn the primary ways to help your baby sleep through the night, how much sleep he really needs, how to help him nap better, tips for keeping up your tracking in Baby Insights, and more! The book also has sample schedules for each month of age to compare against what your baby is doing. To purchase a subscription, please go to the Purchase Page, now!

Win a $75 Target Gift Card, $50 Target Gift Card, 3-month subscription, and more!

In recognition of SIDS Awareness Month, Babble Soft is co-sponsoring a giveaway on the Pick Nick’s Brain website and providing 3-month subscriptions to three lucky winnsers! There are a variety of prizes available including a $75 Target Gift Card and $50 Target Gift Card. Who doesn’t need some money in time for the holidays? To enter the giveaway is very easy and takes just a few seconds of your time, so head over now by following this link: Enter Giveaway!

Babble Soft Is Staying Home

Awhile ago, we announced that Babble Soft was looking for a new home and for all intents and purposes, we’ve found one! But, it’s not too far from the current home, so you might say we’re staying home. I have decided to take on the operations at Babble Soft! Helping parents with their babies is near and dear to my heart and I have a lot of passion for it, so it made sense for me to take it over and run with it. Aruni has taken the company to an amazing place and she is an amazing woman, but with all the things on her plate right now, she needed to confidently let someone else see to the day-to-day details. Aruni is still part owner and Babble Soft will always be near and dear to her heart. I know that I wish her well in her next endeavors.

Have a great weekend!

Originally published on http://www.entrepremusings.com

This is a guest post from the ex-general counsel at Expedia, Mark Britton. I wish I had known about his site, Avvo, before I experienced my Traffic Court Tribulations!

Being the ex-general counsel at Expedia and now running Avvo and its free legal advice Q&A forum, I get a lot of questions about travel-particularly travelers’ rights and responsibilities. As a parent of three rambunctious little boys, I offer this post to help traveling parents everywhere. On that note, I am reminded of one of Expedia’s great early ads which said something like, “Whoever said getting there is half the fun has never gotten there with a screaming two year old.”

So, in that spirit, here are some nuggets of knowledge for your next child-laden trip:

1. Traveling with kids doesn’t give you special legal rights. A lot of people assume that because they are traveling with kids they have special rights and preferences granted by the Federal Aviation Administration or some higher authority. The reality is that your rights-with or without children-are largely whatever the airline chooses to give you. Don’t think you can be involuntarily bumped with children? Oh yes, you can. Outraged that the airline denied you early boarding with your pokey young children? Tough beans. Not able to avoid your child’s tantrums by letting her run up and down the airline aisle? It’s the flight staff’s call.

2. Add 30-60 minutes to get to your gate. Let’s face it, kids take their time. That dead cockroach en route to your gate may be disgusting to you, but it absolutely requires closer inspection by a five-year-old. I learned long ago that rather than trying to whip your kids into an adult pace, allowing more time to get to your gate preserves family harmony. Just going through security is stressful for a kid-take it slow and make it fun.

3. Reserve the allowed seats for your kids. One place that the feds do get involved is where your children may sit on a plane. They may not sit in an exit row, and if they are in a car seat, they must sit by the window. So don’t think you will book your young child in an exit row and the airline will have to live with it-they won’t. The flight attendants will move you-I see it happen all the time. Also, don’t book two aisle seats-one for you and your car-seated kid. Just take it for granted that your child will be sitting by the window and you will be sitting in the middle by the big hairy guy who hogs the armrest.

4. No need to smuggle your baby food. Keep in mind that while you are not allowed to take liquids on a plane, you may take liquid-based baby food. Many people don’t know this, and so they attempt to come up with creative ways to smuggle on formula or the always-popular peas and carrots. Stow your criminal tendencies, and simply declare the baby food. You can take up to one-day’s supply on board, but I have found that TSA personnel are always very sympathetic and accommodating when it comes to food for your infant.

5. Kids can get the boot too. Finally, keep in mind that an airline can deny you boarding-or even ask you to deplane-if your kids are disorderly, abusive or violent. This goes for adults too, but people are always surprised that it pertains to kids.

I could go on and on (bring a DVD player with headphones, seat your child behind a parent, etc.). However, I think I have already exceeded my word limit. Of course, if you have any more legally related travel questions, we are always here to answer all of your questions. You can go directly to our free legal advice Q&A forum to ask your personal legal questions- anonymously if desired-and real attorneys will answer them.

Travel sanely.
Mark Britton
Founder & CEO
Avvo, Inc.

Learning how to properly swaddle a baby can make life much easier in those first several weeks after your baby is born.  When we were in the hospital, the nurses could practically swaddle a baby in their sleep.  If the baby wasn’t hungry they would almost instantly calm down after they were swaddled.  It took us a few weeks to master the technique because our kids always seemed to wriggle out of their swaddles but after a while we were pros. 

You’d think we would remember the fine art of swaddling after having our first but with 2 1/2 years between them we had to re-learn the technique.  After a few months, they would break loose because they did not want to be swaddled anymore.  Parents.com has some nice illustrations on how to swaddle your baby using The Quick Wrap or The Burrito Roll style.  If you are looking for some great blankets to swaddle your baby in, check out Mr. Bobbles’ Blankets! 

 Our daughter with a professional nurse swaddle a day or so after she was born:

Our daughter in her co-sleeper at home with a not-so-professional swaddle. We called her the one armed sleeping bandit. 

Aruni
Founder, Babble Soft

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These tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers.  Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby.  If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger(at)babblesoft(dot)com.  Please check the ‘baby tips’ or ‘baby advice’ categories to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted.  If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip.  We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because ‘everything is relative!’  We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and a link back to their site!

Here’s a tip on breastfeeding a newborn:  Use TWO boppies.  When I had my son in 2002, I received a boppy (breastfeeding pillow) at my baby shower.  I really liked using it but discovered that I often had to put cushions or pillows beneath it to get our newborn son at a comfortable position for feeding.  The cushions would slip out or somehow (I don’t know how) he would kick them out.  I would then find myself hunching over and my back aching a bit after a while.  When my daughter was born in 2005, I received another one and happened to try stacking them and putting them both around my waist.  It was great!  Since I’m a bit short-waisted having the two breastfeeding pillows made me sit up straight thereby forcing me to maintain good posture (a plus).  Having two boppies was helpful to me in the cradle, cross-cradle, and football positions.  In the football position, I would put both boppies stacked on each other to my right or left and then I would place my daughter with her head toward me and her body/feet behind me resting on one of the sides of the boppy.  I used two for the first probably 12-16 weeks of her life.

Of course it’s not that easy to take a boppy with you when you are breastfeeding/nursing-in-public so on those occassions I propped them on our big, fat diaper bag because I always had it handy.

If you can’t afford another boppy, try to find a really sturdy/hard cushion that you can place under the boppy for the football position.  You’d have to find two slightly firm cushions if you want to use them for the cradle and cross-cradle positions.  You can also ask a friend if they are done with their boppy…I just gave one of ours away to a friend.  We also used our boppy for tummy time, sitting support, and all sorts of fun things that I’m sure you are not supposed to use it for.

Aruni
Founder, Babble Soft

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These tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers.  Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby.  If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger(at)babblesoft(dot)com.  Please check the ‘baby tips’ or ‘baby advice’ categories to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted.  If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip.  We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because ‘everything is relative!’  We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and a link back to their site!

For the newbie parents out there, here’s a tip on diaper changing: use a liner on top of your changing pad/cover for those inevitable messy situations.  It will help you avoid having to wash your changing pad cover 5 times per day.  We had 2 changing pad covers (terry cloth) with our son and 3 with our daughter and let me tell you if you don’t have a liner you will be doing laundry twice a day!  We used PeeWees Disposable Multi-Use Pads and found them to be thin enough to put on top of a changing pad, easy enough to take with us when we were traveling, and very cost effective.  They were so useful that you might even want to check out the 3-pak because you’ll probably need them for at least the first 6 months of baby’s life. 

Aruni
Founder, Babble Soft

 ***

These tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers.  Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby.  If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger(at)babblesoft(dot)com.  Please check the ‘baby tips’ or ‘baby advice’ categories to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted.  If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip.  We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because ‘everything is relative!’  We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and a link back to their site!