Would you know what to do if your child started choking?

We spoke to Sarah Kohn, mother of son Leo and founder of Early Bird First Aid, to get some information on basic skills that could save a child’s life. Sarah feels strongly that first aid skills are as vital to a new mum as information about weaning or immunisations.

“Being a new mum made me realise how grateful I was to also be a first aid instructor”, says Sarah. “My skills gave me confidence and the feeling I could cope in an emergency. New mums have enough on their plates and it meant that I had one less thing to worry about.”

Leo is now 21-months-old and I spend my spare time (what little I have!) teaching other parents essential first aid skills. I set up my business, Early Bird First Aid, about a year ago, as I really believe that basic first aid skills are essential training for anyone looking after children. They should be as much a part of becoming a parent as attending antenatal classes or an NCT course.  

Obviously not everyone can find the time or money to attend one of these courses so I have put together a list of five emergency situations that could occur at home and how to prevent and deal with them.

The first thing I will say in any emergency is: don’t panic! Try to remain calm and use your common sense. I hope readers find this useful, but there is no substitute for practicing these skills and techniques for real so if you want to come along to a course or schedule a course for you and your friends please let me know!

Falls
Unfortunately young children do fall over and get bumps and bruises as they learn to walk, but being aware of potential risks can help you avoid serious injuries. 

Babies can easily roll off the edge of a changing table, bed or sofa. Toddlers quickly learn how to climb and explore and it is very easy for a child to fall off a piece of furniture, down the stairs or even out of a window or balcony. 

• Make sure your baby cannot roll off the changing mat.
• Do not put baby bouncers on tables or beds
• Fit locks/restrictors to upstairs windows and keep balcony doors locked
• Keep chairs and other climbing objects away from windows and balconies
• Fit safety gates at the top and bottom of stairs.

What to do

If your child does bump his head hold a cold compress/ice pack on the bump for 10 minutes (if you can keep him still long enough!).

Take your child back to the accident and emergency (A&E) department of your local hospital if they:

• are unusually sleepy or you cannot wake them
• have a headache that is getting worse
• are unsteady when they walk
• are repeatedly sick
• have a seizure (fit)
• develop a squint or blurred vision, or they start to see double
• lose consciousness

Go to A&E if your baby has a minor head injury and continues to cry for a long time.

Trust your instincts, if you feel your baby or child is not acting normally after a fall seek medical attention

Choking

Babies and young children can choke on small objects such as marbles, grapes or small toys. To help prevent choking

• Keep small objects out of the reach of small children.
• Choose toys that are designed for the age of your baby or child
• Encourage older children to keep their toys away from your baby.

What to do (for babies)

1. Look in the baby’s mouth and carefully remove any visible objects.
Do not feel blindly down throat

2. Position baby face down on forearm supporting head and neck with your hand

3. With the infants head slightly lower than body deliver up to 5 firm back blows between shoulder blades with heel of hand

4. If choking continues perform 5 chest thrusts. This technique can be learnt and practiced at a first aid course www.earlybirdfirstaid.com

Burns and scalds
A child’s skin is much more sensitive than an adult’s and hot water can scald for up to 15 minutes after it has boiled. Hot bath water is the biggest cause of severe and fatal scalding injuries in young children.

• Always place hot drinks out of children’s reach
• Do not drink anything hot with a child on your lap or in your arms
• Use a cordless kettle
• Use the back rings on the cooker whenever possible and turn saucepan handles away from the edge
• If possible, keep young children out of the kitchen
• Before bathing your baby or child, check that the water is not too hot 

What to do

• Flood the area in cold running water for at least 10 minutes.
• Do not break blisters or interfere with the burn
• Do not apply any creams, lotions, butter or fat
• Do not use any adhesive dressings
• Cover the area with cling film or a clean pillowcase to help avoid infection.

Suffocation and strangulation

• Keep plastic bags, nappy sacks and balloons (non-inflated or burst) away from young children
• Curtain and blind pull cords should be kept short and out of reach of children.
• Beware of clothing with cords, dummies on necklace cords and bag straps
• Keep cats out of your bedroom – if they jump into cots or beds and fall asleep in the wrong place they could suffocate your child. Attach a net over cots if necessary.

What to do

• Remove cause of suffocation/strangulation if possible
• Start CPR on an unconscious, non-breathing baby or child

Attend an Early Bird First Aid CPR/First Aid course to learn how to resuscitate your child if they have stopped breathing. You will also learn and practice other skills such as how respond to choking and how and when to put a child in to the recovery position.

Contact Sarah at sarah@earlybirdfirstaid.com, 07967 598 338, www.earlybirdfirstaid.com

There€™s a bloggers€™ guest post day happening today, organised by Little Mummy. angels & urchins blog was thrilled to hear it had drawn a swap with Very Bored in Catalunya. She€™s got a lot to say from her expat home in Spain, despite professing that all she writes about are the €œUtterings and mutterings of a stay at home mum with far too much time on her hands€. I love her blog because it gives an insight into something I€™m always itching to do more of, namely live abroad. Here, she gives a first-hand account of the differing (and sometimes startlingly similar) parenting practices between the UK and Spain.

Bringing a child up in another culture does have you questioning who is right and which approaches are best. Are we as Brits over-cautious, or are all these Johnny foreigners too carefree or just downright careless?

You€™d imagine that there would be many differences between the Spanish way of raising children, and the British way of doing things. Indeed, there are some definite cultural differences, but so many things are just the same.

Ear-piercing springs to mind. A much balked over affair in the UK, with most mums preferring to leave it as late as the obligatory battle of wills allows. Over here, it€™s done routinely by the midwife shortly after giving birth. I can only think of one girl in Joseph€™s school who doesn€™t have her ears pierced. One of these days, I must remember to ask her mum why not. Most babies (male & female) also seem to wear lots of baby jewellery, necklaces and bracelets that in the UK would be considered a huge choking risk, I can€™t say that I€™ve ever heard of such an incident. There is also such a thing as Baby Cologne. I€™m going to go all Peter Kay on you and say €˜Baby€¦ Cologne? Cologne€¦ for Babies?€™ Indeed!

On the other hand the Spanish could be accused of being overprotective towards their newborn offspring. Newborns are rarely seen out. Not unless the weather is just right, by that I mean relatively warm, and even then the babies seem to have too many clothes on. Surely it isn€™t necessary to wrap a baby in so many layers when it€™s 25ºC? Again, I doubt you€™ll find many a horror story of overheating being written about in the media, unlike in the UK where there are a couple of such incidents every year. British babies are generally bundled up and taken out much earlier in their little lives regardless of weather. I think however this is due to the grandparents playing a much larger part in day to day life in Spain, whereas most British women have to take the baby with them should they need to go out, Spanish women have good reliable babysitting options.

All the baby books tell us that it€™s imperative that the child€™s bedroom be kept at an ambient temperature of 18ºC. Well guess what, you€™d probably find that only a couple of weeks a year would the air temperature actually be OK for you to heat or air condition a room to such a precise temperature. I wonder how all the babies born in hot countries ever survive? Ooh I know, maybe it€™s because it€™s all they know, and they get used to it very quickly. Joseph€™s bedroom temperature ranges from 15ºC to 26ºC over the course of the year.

There are some other practices that I don€™t approve of, the use of biscuits in milk, especially for bedtime.  But hey, are they any worse than rusks that us Brits regularly give our little dears to chomp on?

Then there€™s the old gem of bedtimes and naps as they get older. You would imagine that all the children have a two-hour siesta, and are then up running around until 11pm every night. I certainly did. However on speaking with some of Joseph€™s school friend€™s mamas it turns out that they don€™t nap anymore in the afternoon and are usually in bed for about 8pm, a little later on weekends and fiestas. Sounds familiar€¦

Well food then, that must be different. Surely all the local children will be tucking into sardines, paella, chorizo etc, with lashing of salad on the side. Huge lunches and then late, late dinners? Actually, nope! Whilst they will generally have their main meal at lunchtime and then sandwiches for tea, Spanish three-year olds it seems are just as fussy and picky as our own. Who would have thought it?

Attitudes to nurseries are probably one of the major differences between British and Spanish mothers. Over here no-one bats an eye when you put your child into nursery. There is certainly none of this working mother guilt trip that attacks most British mums. Although it€™s generally not done before they reach their first birthday, practically every toddler will go to nursery fulltime regardless of whether their mother works or not. When you consider that our local village nursery costs just ‚¬90 a month for full-time childcare, it€™s not surprising that the parents queue up the night before to ensure that their child can get a place on registration day. Also, there is only one intake a year, so if you miss that you have to wait until the following September.

Schooling is different too. While not compulsory until six, everyone sends their children to school at three, where they will begin a formal classroom-style education for five hours a day, with some homework at the weekends.

Toilet training takes place very early on. Most kids are dry by their second birthday, our policy of leaving the child until they are fully ready would probably be considered lazy, and a waste of money on nappies. I guess when the children start school at three you€™d be unwise to leave it too late to tackle in case they weren€™t fully toilet trained by the time they started school. I know of one daft English woman who left it until a couple of weeks before school term started before she started her son€™s toilet training, and it was still a bit hit and miss for the first couple of weeks. Yep, that daft woman would be me.

Other parenting issues such as smacking and general discipline varies as you would expect from parent to parent but on the whole children are taught right from wrong and to be respectful to each other and their parents. Just as good British parents do.

The one resounding difference however is the general attitude towards all children over here. Children are much loved by all. The saying it takes a whole village to raise a child is very much a living and working thing here. Every mother knows the names of not just the children in her son or daughter€™s class but the whole school. Shop keepers will have supplies of lollipops or sweets to give to the children (the dentists must do a roaring trade). Sadly back in the UK children are still considered by many as a nuisance, pests, things that should be seen and not heard.

Alice Griffin is a freelance writer, owner of perpetually itchy feet and author of Tales from a Travelling Mum (and we have a SIGNED COPY TO GIVE AWAY – leave a comment for your chance to win), a travelogue based around trips she embarked on during the first two years of her daughter’s life. Alice lives in England aboard a boat with husband Scott, daughter Isabella and their dog, Milla and is busy working on her second book, Travellers€™ Tales. She explores the world whenever she gets the opportunity! Visit her website here and pick up plenty of tips on travelling with children.

What gave you the idea for the book?
I€™ve always been an avid traveller, and when I fell pregnant with my daughter, Isabella, I decided that once she was born, as much as possible I wanted to continue the more independent style of travel I had always enjoyed. However it wasn€™t until we sold up and opted out of our city life to go travelling around Europe in a campervan that writing specifically about travels with a baby crossed my mind.

I had decided to blog about this life-changing travel experience and as I began to connect with readers, I found that many were specifically interested in approaching such a trip with a then one-year-old. Due to this surprising interest I decided to contact some baby magazines with a view to writing about our experiences and from this came several articles.

When I began talks with my publisher about a possible travelogue, she suggested I consider a €˜how to€™ guide on travelling with a baby. I was unsure as to whether I could write a whole book in this guidebook format and decided that if I simply shared our experiences as a family on the road, practical advice on how to approach different situations would naturally come from that. The result is a travelogue about the trips we embarked on during the first two years of Isabella€™s life, peppered throughout with tips and advice. My hope is that this will give readers a more laid-back approach to travelling with children, rather than a formulated guide.

Life in the slow lane, by mule in Portugal

How old is Isabella now, and is there anywhere you wouldn€™t take her?

Isabella recently turned three. I try to never wonder about why we should do a trip without Isabella, instead I always think about how we can do it with her. It is my belief that children should become part of their parent€™s life and that most things really don€™t have to be out of our grasp just because we now have children. Having said that, of course I am realistic and would never knowingly put my daughter in danger, or have her take part in a pastime that is inappropriate – bungee jumping in New Zealand is probably out at this stage – and I consider carefully what I feel she can deal with before planning a trip. This is partly the reason why in her first three years we have stayed within Europe, but in December 2010 we will be heading to Thailand for three weeks back-packing, because I believe that at three-and-a-half she will be ready for this destination and will gain a great deal from it.

Have you always had itchy feet? What was your first experience of being abroad?
My first holiday was to Madeira when I was five. At the time, my dad worked for an airport, and we were able to bag a cheap deal. I can still remember the unbelievable excitement of going on a plane, seeing faces and places that looked different; hearing new voices and sounds. After that trip I would often stare longingly at the atlas pondering all the places to go in the word.

As I grew older this desire to see more of the world became stronger, but it wasn€™t until my early twenties, when I had the opportunity to spend six months in Japan, that I became preoccupied with how I could make travel a permanent fixture in my life.

I have to say that my feet are as itchy now as they were at five and I still stare longingly at the Atlas €“ or Google maps €“ but these days I try to manage and be more realistic about my desire to travel, especially now I€™m a mum and wife with commitments to others and not just myself.

What is the most important thing that you think travel gives children?
For me, there are so many good reasons to travel with children, but if you were to ask me the most important then I think I would have to say how it connects them with the human race. All over the world there are many cultures, people and ways of life and I believe that by exposing our children to the diversity of this world we teach them about understanding, compassion, acceptance and wonder. I want nothing more than for my daughter to be happy, and I believe that the path to happiness lies in realising that life is a gift, and this earth is a gift, so we should enjoy it if we can, and learn from those with whom we share it.

It€™s interesting that your book started as notebook diaries, then moved onto a blog. Do you think a blog is a good launchpad for anyone wanting to write a book?
The journey towards my first book is quite strange. I have written in notebooks my entire life about what I see around me and what I experience. It€™s really something that I can€™t control: I see something, I learn something, I experience something, and I immediately feel compelled to write it down. However, I was always quite skeptical of blogs as I saw them as public outlets for writing about the inane private happenings of our lives, and I couldn€™t understand why anybody would be interested. However, when we headed off on our road trip across Europe I decided that it might be a good (and easy) way to keep my friends and family up-to-date with our journey, so I bit the bullet and started blogging.

What I found, quite unexpectedly, was access to an incredible community of people across the world and a whole host of inspiring individuals to share ideas and experiences with. This excited me greatly, and continues to do so. So the one thing that I would highlight is: blog because you enjoy it, blog to connect with readers, blog to simply force yourself to write on a regular basis, and if it brings other writing opportunities then brilliant, but don€™t just blog with that in mind as you may be in danger of becoming too formulaic and impersonal.

The Griffin family in Andalucia

The main message in your book is, €˜parents, keep travelling!€™ Though there must have been times when it hasn€™t been plain sailing? What€™s the trickiest scenario you€™ve dealt with?

There are always tricky situations: exploding nappies on the plane, having to face fellow guests in the breakfast room after Isabella has kept the entire b&b awake all night screaming, and certainly waiting to check-in with a huge backpack, toy bag, nappy bag, raisin bag and a grumpy two-year-old who insists on wrapping herself around the nearest barrier pole with the reins I carefully picked out to €˜aid€™ our travel experience €“ are all none too pleasant. But they are all funny stories to tell at the end of the day and nothing can take away from the warmth I feel at showing my daughter new places and sharing these experiences with her.

If you were only allowed to pack five things (apart from a toothbrush each and lots of pants!) what would you take?

Favourite comforter toy

A good book each (pop-up, sticker or activity book for Isabella)

One spare outfit

Sleeping bag

Tent

NB: I would layer all of us in as many useful clothes as possible for the flight/crossing ie: cagool, warm jumper, long trousers, thermals, hats, gloves, gillet!

With all of the above I can guarantee a fabulous family holiday. Everything not on the list you can buy on the road!

Where next (and can we come too)?!
We are off on a mini camping-and-city-break road trip through France, Belgium, Holland and Germany in May, then we fly to Norway in July for a short stay in Bergen before heading North to stay in a log cabin, row boats on stunning lakes, explore rugged mountains and take a train across this magnificent landscape. We are also busy planning Isabella€™s first back-packing trip to Thailand in December.

Of course you can come€¦ but only as my SIXTH item and you€™ll have to bring your own pants!

 Tales from a Travelling Mum is available on Amazon, and we have a FREE COPY to give away.  Alice has kindly agreed to sign it for the recipient. For your chance to win, simply comment below (not forgetting to leave your email address when prompted – it won’t appear in public, or be used for anything other than to get in touch, should you be the winner).

Blogger Littlemummy is hosting a guest post day as one lesson in her 10-part weekly Mum E Blogger Course. It’s free to join (though if you would like to receive the course all at once, it’s available for £8.99) and is extremely useful, whether you’re a seasoned blogger, or a newbie just learning the ropes.

The idea of the guest post day (which was officially held on Friday 5^th March, and I€™m sorry that Sleep is for the Weak and I are a little bit late with our swap) is to forge links between bloggers, and help teach about the virtues of reciprocal links. Josie, who writes Sleep is for the Weak, doesn€™t need an introduction to many in the parent blogging world. Currently ranking at number five in the Top 100 Parent Blogger€™s index, she€™s an inspiration to many with her weekly creative writing prompts. She€™s also the founder of Judith€™s Room, an online writing forum for women. We€™re thrilled to have her posting at angels & urchins, and know her post will have resonance for many of those reading.

Why I am proud to be a Mummy Blogger

I pause at the door, listening to the soft sounds of my son’s breathing as he settles to sleep, my own deep sigh of relief mingling with his. It has been a long day. It’s always been a long day.

I shut the door and tiptoe down the stairs. My (well-trained) husband has already made me a cup of tea and it waits by my laptop along with quiet space, interrupted time and a whole other world, a whole other life. One in which I’m not the tired, washed out housewife I see when I look in a mirror, struggling with confidence and doubt and worry.

No. Here I am something else. Writer, Blogger, confident deliverer of witty banter and someone, it seems, that people actually quite like to know.

To say that blogging saved my sanity is an understatement.

What began, 10 months ago, as a bit of fun, a way to de-stress after a hard day and try to get my ‘porridge brain’ back into some kind of working order, quickly evolved into something else entirely. I got to write out whatever was in my head, some of it was funny but a lot of it was raw and sometimes painfully honest. I didn’t always like being a mum and writing seemed to make me want to be honest about that. Motherhood for me seemed mostly about feeling tired and overwhelmed, struggling with a ‘challenging’ toddler whom I adored but who left me feeling completely out of my depth most of the time. Extreme sleep deprivation, tantrums, developmental worries. I wasn’t entirely sure how I was supposed to feel about it all.

But by writing it out, somehow it lost its hold. Because, you know what? Turns out a lot of people felt the EXACT same way.

That was the surprise. Because the off-loading? The random writing about whatever I happened to be mulling over that day? Turns out people read this stuff! And commented! And, oh my goodness wait a minute… THEY wrote blogs too! Wonderful blogs, full of humour and variety and written by a multitude of inspirational and intelligent mums and dads.

I was hooked. COMPLETELY.

Blogging began to be the thing that got me through a stressful day. The golden chalice of nap times and long evenings where I could escape my humdrum mummydom for a moment and flex my creative muscles. It began a love-affair with words and writing that had simmered, forgotten, since I was teenager, and that encouraged me to change my study plans, my life plans actually, and take up Creative Writing as a degree. That in turn led to me starting a weekly writing workshop on the blog as a way for me to connect with other would-be writers and which, surprisingly, people loved, somehow managing to tap in to a shared need of many bloggers wanting to develop their writing but struggling to find inspiration. And THAT in turn lead to the creation of Judith’s Room, a space for women writers specifically, who, more than their male counterparts, often seem so riddled with low confidence and a difficulty in claiming and being proud of their achievements. It’s led to new projects, new opportunities. Genuinely a whole new world for me.

It’s been quite a ride. And one that has been increasingly shared with many new friends along the way. REAL friends, many of whom I now can’t imagine my life without.

It’s not all cake and ice cream though, it has to be said. Like all ‘communities’, blogging has its ups and downs. Finding your way in such a rapidly growing field of interest can be a bit mind-boggling at times. Things like stats, the promise of PR pitches (even if they are for silly things like liquorice), and an inevitable desire to achieve recognition and make your voice heard, can sometimes leave you prone to what I usually refer to as the ‘bloggers wobble’. It’s easy to feel like a little fish in a very big pond, easy to feel like the new kid on the edge of the playground, longingly watching the cool kids play.

But the freedom (and the fun) comes when you realise we’re ALL cool kids in this playground. Because we’re all in it together, muddling our way through parenting our children and figuring out what on earth we’re supposed to be doing. Read enough blogs, connect with enough people and you’re ALWAYS going to find someone you can relate to, who makes you feel less alone, less incompetent. Who makes you laugh or makes you think. Who just makes you feel BETTER. You are going to come away feeling good about yourself, as a person and as a parent.

And that’s what I love.

OK, so blogging isn’t going to make me rich. In monetary terms anyway, but it is enriching my life, my friendships, my self esteem, inspiring my creativity and my ambition, in ways I never could have imagined.

It’s making me a better person, and a better parent.

 So, that’s why, quite frankly, I think it’s ace and why I’m going to keep on doing what I’m doing.

 Viva la Mummy Blogolution. Long may it continue.