Ways To Get Your Baby To Sleep

There is nothing harder on a new mother then listen to the cries of a baby who can't get to sleep at night. Here are some tested and true ways to lull your child to sleep that you can try.

Try rocking your child in a rocking chair. Holding a child in your arms while rocking back and forth is one the most traditional and effective ways to get a child to sleep.

Consider taking your child for a ride in a car. Strap the child in his or her car seat and drive around the block. This automatically puts many babies immediately to sleep. Singing a little also seems to help, even if you are a bad singer. The lower the voice the better.

Relax your baby before it is time for bed by giving him or her a warm bath. This helps to naturally make the baby drowsy. Massage his or her muscles gently before laying the child in the cradle.

Breast feed or feed the baby warm milk just before it is time for the baby to go to bed. Warm milk contains tryptophan, which is a natural sedative. It's the same stuff that makes us feel drowsy after we eat a big turkey dinner at Thanksgiving.

5Try holding the baby and humming. Place baby in the neck nestle position (nestle baby’s head against the front of your neck with your chin against the top of baby’s head. The vibration of a deep voice lulls baby) and rock your baby to sleep.

Make sure the baby's bedroom is dark. Sometimes it is light from the windows or from an open door that is keeping the child fussy and awake.

Turn on a rhythmic sounding machine that makes a white noise of some kind. Machines like this include dehumidifiers, air conditioners or air cleaners.

Try perfuming your baby's room with lavender. Lavender can have a sedating effect on infants. Vanilla and orange are also soothing scents. Don't make the room smell like a brothel however as that could irritate the child even more. Use a light touch when using room sprays.

Make sure the baby's diapers are changed and that his or her skin is not irritated by diaper rash. If diaper rash is a problem try taking the baby's diaper off.

Make sure the room is neither too hot or too cold. Sometimes a baby is crying because he or she is too warm or shivering.

The key is to make the baby as comfortable as possible. If I find any more techniques I will be sure to print them in this blog. I am sure there are a lot of sleep-deprived parents out there who need all the help that they can get

Fun Food Garnishes for Children

Hope Mason of Spiritual Books gave me the following ideas for garnishing food so that it is more interesting to children.  They make food more fun to look at and them more fun your food is the more likely your kid is to eat it. Use your cookie cutters for something other than making cookies.

Small cookie cutters can be used to press shapes (heart shaped for instance) out of carrots, cucumber coins, apple slices and any other vegetable that can be sliced thinly or flatly. 

Having trouble getting your kid to eat green or red peppers? To add a special touch to a pasta dish take a star shaped cookie cutter and press it into the flesh of slices of red or green pepper. Then place the stars on the plate of pasta to add visual interest. 

To make a vanilla or tapioca pudding more interesting consider drooling a spiral shape on the top of the pudding made out of some kind of fruit puree. Mango puree goes particularly well with tapioca pudding. Mango is also good for kids because it has lots of vitamin A in it. 

To give a glass rim an usual 'frosting' try dipping the wetting the rim of a glass and dipping it in Jell-O powder. This looks especially nice on cocktails. It can also tempt a kid to drink a glass of juice if the rim is sugared with a bright color of powdered Jell-O. 

To add charm to a drink, alcoholic or not, that has pineapple in it try rimming the glass with finely flaked coconut for a unique effect. This look also suits a bowl of chocolate pudding. 

Cucumber balls are a nice surprise in a salad and make a delicious departure from the ordinary. In order to make cucumber balls simply slice a cucumber in half and then use a melon baler to scoop out the contents into ball shapes (exactly the same way you would a melon. 

To make a strawberry fan, use a paring knife to slice thee strawberry from a point slightly below the top stem to the bottom. Continue making thin slits from one end of the strawberry to the other. Gently spread the segments of strawberry apart to create the strawberry fan. 

To make a tomato rose simply pick a tomato of any size. Make sure it is a gel variety like a Roma tomato. Take a very sharp knife and start peeling it like you would an apple. Keep peeling until you have the longest length possible and then coil the peel into a rose shape. Using pink, red and orange tomatoes can create a lovely bouquet for a centerpiece. 

To make carrot curls simply use a vegetable peeler to cut a long strip off of the carrot. Spear each curl with a toothpick and then chill them in hot water until they are ready to use Can't get a kid to drink his milk?  Try garnishing it with a red licorice stick and see what happens. Red licorice goes well with milk.