We talk about taming the Power Struggles and Temper Tantrums, How to get out stains, and how to tell if that research you read about is good or if it is just a scare tactic to get you to buy a product. Great Info!

Basic Baby Clothes Stain Removal:

Pre-treating stains is the best way to keep your baby clothes looking like new. Formula, diaper accidents, and brightly colored baby food can be difficult stains to remove from baby clothes, but taking the time to work on the stains before washing should improve your success rate. If stained clothing will sit for a while, try using a paste-type pretreatment that can sit on the fabric for up to a week. Otherwise, a spray-on stain treatment or laundry additive should handle most stains. For stains that don’t respond to basic treatment, you’ll need to take a more aggressive approach. Moms have been successful at removing stains by making a paste of Oxi-Clean and spray stain remover, putting baby clothes in a mixture of boiling water and Oxi-Clean, using Zout stain remover, and an other product called Quick’n Brite.

Stain Removal Guide
• Sponge stains promptly with cool water to prevent setting.
• Always test your stain-remover on a hidden part of the garment first to check for colorfastness and bleachability.
• Before laundering, pretreat or presoak stained articles with a detergent that eliminates both protein and oil-based stains. Remember, washing and drying without pretreating can set some stains.
• If pretreating with a powder detergent, add 1/2 scoop per gallon of water in a bucket or 1-1/2 scoops in your washer and check care label to determine warmest water for your fabric.
• Air-dry treated and washed items, since some residual stains are not visible when wet and heat from the machine drying may set them.
• Follow all safety precautions on stain-removal product labels.

ALWAYS SELECT the Right Water Temperature
Hot water is best for whites, items that retain their dyes (colorfast), heavily soiled clothes or greasy stains.
Warm water should be used for permanent press and other 100% man-made fibers, blends of natural and man-made fibers and moderately soiled items. It can also prevent dye loss and reduce wrinkling.
Cold water will help keep most dyes in dark or bright colored clothing from running (provided they are colorfast) and minimize the shrinking of washable woolens. Cold water is also good for lightly soiled clothing and clothes stained with blood, wine or coffee. (These stains may set if washed in hot or warm water.)

STAIN REMOVAL PRODUCTS we recommend
Quick’n Brite is a biodegradable cleaner that is environmentally safe, yet strong enough for the worst stains and messes. Best of all, Quick’n Brite is the perfect, all-purpose, household cleaner. This means that Quick’n Brite is entirely safe and requires no special handling like so many other household cleaners. There are no toxic fumes and it won’t irritate your skin.

OxiClean Baby Stain Soaker, is a non-irritating, 100% fragrance, chlorine, detergent, dye and residue free solution, so moms feel safe knowing it will not irritate their baby’s sensitive skin. It removes tough stains caused by just about anything your baby can get into.

Zout® Liquid was developed in the early 1960’s as a solution to fighting off hard-to-remove bloodstains from the uniforms of doctors and nurses. Zout® Liquid is water-based, non-corrosive, non-flammable & biodegradable. Zout® does not contains chlorine or bleach and is safe for all colorfast washable fabrics. You can purchase this product at most grocery stores. There is a store locator on their website.

Last option: Buy all white baby clothes and wash them with bleach!

Taming the Tantrum

Ken Patey is the father of 11 children and has traveled and lived in Canada, the United States, England, and the Middle East. Ken is the founder of GrowthClimate Therapy Services. Check out GrowthClimate to find out more about the amazing services that they offer to families and individuals. They have amazing online resources for family and personal growth.

The Terrible Twos can start as soon as 15 months but generally start somewhere between their second and third birthdays. Children appear to undergo a dramatic emotional transformation. While they have greater control over their bodies and continue to develop their speech, they also acquire a stubborn sense of independence. Your child is now acutely aware of the power of his voice and actions. At unpredictable moments, his actions seem as though he is on a quest to control his surroundings.
There is no way to prepare for this! The tantrum is not a reflection of your parental proficiency but a reaction to their awareness of powerful emotions such as anger, jealousy and disappointment. However, you can be a great mom and example to help your child and others around her.
So Why Do Tantrums Occur

1. Kids Love an Audience: Children sense the change in their surroundings and use this as an opportunity to demonstrate their spirit..
2. This is a step in independent development. Kids are learning how to deal with their emotions.
3. Children use their whole bodies to demonstrate their emotions.
4. She’s not yet equipped to process mature emotions and expresses herself in the only way she knows.
5. Children have frequent meltdowns when playing with other children because they want to completely control the situation or they are trying to demonstrate their superiority to their peers.

What Can we do to regain control of your upset child:

1. Remove from the direct situation to create a diversion and give the tantrum time to subside.
2. Be willing to leave the store.
3. Give your child a few minutes to regain his composure and then discuss what caused the behavior
4. Maintain your cool. This is a positive example to model for your child.

Some other tips.

1. Be prepared. Bringing items that will create a diversion often helps avoid a scene and gives parents peace of mind. Offering your child a second choice to their requests eases them and can prevent a scene.
2. Teach kids words or signs to deal with their emotions. You can help them express their emotions with words.

With your support, your child will learn that while you encourage her expression, she must choose appropriate actions. She will also realize she is not able to control and manipulate situations with her outbursts. With patience and understanding of what emotions your child is learning to handle, you’ll be prepared to address this stage in her life.

Research–Is it Fact or Scare Tactic

As a mom, there are so many things you need to know about and make a decision on so that your child is safe. For example, in the news lately are discussions of Plastic Bottles and whether or not they are toxic, whether vaccines cause autism, whether babies can eat a vegetarian diet, and whether or not cows milk or soy milk are good for your baby (for example, “experts” said that soy was good for us and now we find that it could cause early puberty and cancerous growths because it has so many estroidal compounds) So how do you tell what is good research and what is not.
There is no good answer, but I got some tips from my husband who is a researcher on how to tell if the research MIGHT be valid.
Signs of bad research:

1. Lack of references or data in the research. If there is no concrete info, it could be misconstrued or slanted.
2. Insufficient number of samples. If there is not a statistically significant number of test cases, it cannot be proven. Real research tells how many people participated and for how long. Pseudo research could be such a small pool that it is not significant. If the time period is not long enough, results could be biased.
3. Research was targeted to a specific audience and research is framed within the needs of this group. For example, some research on medicine is only done on male patients which means that it doesn’t take women’s special needs into consideration
4. HOW it is done. Is it a blind study or a opinion group or just anecdotal information. This does not mean that something is not good if it is anecdotal, but if it can be researched scientifically and is NOT being
5. Research gives only positives or negatives. It is a sign that the information is biased. There should be a bit of both
6. There are more than one group doing research on the subject.

 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 11:16 am and is filed under Developing Story, All in the Family, Inspect-a-Gadget, Podcasts/Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.