Stressed about the holidays? Here are Jo’s top tips staying sane over the Christmas break!

Can you believe another year is coming to an end? I can’t! The years are just flying by and the babies are all getting bigger. I also can’t believe that in 2014 BabyBliss will have been going for 10, yes 10 years! Wowsers! In those 10 years, we have seen and helped thousands and thousands of families all over Australia and the world. It has been such a pleasure to help you all in even a tiny little way, to make those early years a little bit easier. So thank you to ALL the BabyBliss families and we hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and holiday season.

May 2014 bring you everything you wish for.

Jo xx

Top 7 Tips for holidays

Are you going away this holiday season? Are you stressed about how your baby will respond? Here are my tips for lowering the stress of travelling with babies.

1. Maintain your sleep rituals: Remember that we are all creatures of habit and so babies and small children really respond well to ritual and maintaining your routine. So if you are in a new environment or travelling a bit over the holidays, really try and maintain good rituals, particularly around sleep times. Keep the same ritual and routine you have had at home: a bath, a bedtime story, a particular song – all these things can make a baby feel comfortable.
2. Maintain your routine even if you have to be flexible: try and keep nap times as close to what they have at home but if you can’t, try and make sure they get one good sleep in a cot (for younger babies still on two or more day sleeps) and make sure they are going to bed by 7pm, particularly if the days are busy and full of excitement.
3. Remember to take comfort items: try and take with you items of comfort to your child, like the same swaddle or sleeping bag, their comforter (dummies, soft toy, music etc), and you can even use the same cot sheets if they have a particular pattern.
4. Keep it dark: when you’re in a hotel or holiday house, you don’t know what the sleeping conditions will be like. Removing stimulus by keeping it dark is a huge help. If you need to block out windows, garbage bags are a great way of doing this. So don’t forget to pack them along with some masking tape.
5. Try to avoid new settling techniques on holiday: If you are staying with friends or relatives, or have the baby in your room when they usually don’t sleep there, then a baby’s sleep can be disturbed. Try not to introduce too many new things to settle your baby overnight.
6. Try to avoid going backwards: If you have already dropped night feeding, try not to resort to that to help your baby settle overnight. If they do need some assistance, just pat or soothe them until they fall back to sleep and know that after a couple of nights the sleeping usually returns to normal.
7. Remember to relax and have a great time! If things do go a bit pear-shaped they can easily get back on track once you are home.

Happy holidays!