First Five Years | Maryland Family Network

Heavy Metal Baby Food

Heavy metal is awesome. But not when it’s in your baby’s food. According to a Reuters news report, U.S. congressional investigators found “dangerous levels of toxic heavy metals” in certain baby foods. With some planning ahead you can make sure your baby’s diet avoids metal but still rocks!

Resources

Heavy Metals in Baby Food: What You Need to Know (Consumer Reports)

High Levels of Toxic Heavy Metals Found in Some Baby Food: U.S. Report (Reuters)

Bilingual Babies

Being bilingual connects one to their culture and family of origin. It opens up a world of travel and exploration. It also opens up a wealth of employment opportunities that single language speakers don’t have access to. Whenever possible, teaching our children more than one language makes their world richer and unites the larger world just a little bit more than it was before.

Resources

Bilingual baby brains: Never too early to expose kids to 2 languages (WJAX)

Raising Bilingual Children (Linguistic Society of America)

History Happens Now

It’s been one year since the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed in Maryland. Despite the risks, child care providers have remained open and caring for children as long as their government, their health, and their bank accounts would allow it. Some child care providers in Maryland have died from COVID in service to our children. Others got sick or risked illness to make sure parents could go to work. Most risked their livelihoods at great personal expense because they believed the maxim “we are all in this together.” Now they need help.

Resources

Caring in Time of Pandemic: Will Maryland's Child Care Survive? (MFN)

2021 Caring in a Time of Pandemic

Healthy Providers, Healthy Kids

Has your child care provider told you her plans for staying safe from COVID-19 over the holidays? Have you told her yours? Sharing your plans are essential to keeping your kids healthy.

Resources

Tips and Questions to Keep Child Care Providers and Families Healthy (Child Care Aware of America)

Tell Us About Telomeres

Being a parent can feel like it ages us 10 years in just 10 minutes. But the stress a parent experiences before getting pregnant can take it its toll on both mother and baby.

Resources

Mothers’ stress may lead to preterm births, faster aging in children (UCLA)

The Respectful Approach to Parenting

Helicopter parents take note: Sitting back and watching your child explore their world is good for your mental health and good for your child’s development.

Resources

Helicopter parents should step back and watch, study recommends (Science Daily)

A Quasi-Experimental Study of the Respectful Approach on Early Parenting Competence and Stress (Springer.com)

Too Many Tantrums

Tantrums are a normal part of a toddler's development. But you can help your child learn skills now that will help them cope well with all the disappointment and frustration that will come their way.

Resources

Yale Experts Think They've Found A Way To Manage Tantrums — Once And For All (Huffington Post)

Sometime it Hurts to Be a Baby

For an infant, going to the doctor can be a pain but it doesn't have to hurt.

The Sands of Time

Imagine parenting with wooly mammoths and saber tooth tigers hot on your tail! Listen to the story of one mom who did just that, now on the First 5 Years.