Guest Post: 10 Tips for Living with Infertility

Infertility is unfortunately the reality of 1 in 8 couples. It’s hard, lonely and painful. After being on our road to our baby for two years, I’ve learned a few things. Honestly, I’m still a rookie in the infertility department, but after learning these things, I’ve found so much more peace and happiness in our journey than before I started applying these things to my daily life.

Guest Post: Alexa, Cortana, Siri and Google Assistant: AI in your home

We are excited to have Carrie Rogers-Whitehead from Digital Respons-Ability back for today's guest blog post.

Have you recently bought a virtual assistant for your home? Another word for a virtual assistant is an artificial intelligence, or AI. These tools are convenient for remembering numbers, sending reminders, purchasing items and more. More and more of these devices are coming into homes. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners reports a growth of 200% in these devices from 2016 to 2017. Amazon is currently dominating the market and "won" the 2017 holiday buying season.

Guest Post: Preparing Your Home for Parenthood When You Live with a Disability

Nesting is the act of preparing one’s home for the arrival of a new baby or child. Typically, nesting involves things such as painting a nursery, buying a crib, baby-proofing the house, and making sure everything is as clean as possible as the due date approaches. However, when you are a parent living with a disability, your nesting process is generally more intense.

Guest Post: Parenting Hack: Bright by Text

Hello! My name is Amanda Butler and I blog over at becomingextra-ordinary.com. I have a two year old daughter and another little boy on the way and life is crazy! Like many moms, I am strapped for time and lack creativity when it comes to thinking of new activities to do with my toddler. (I mean, there are only so many times I can pretend to feed a stuffed frog). I'm also not always sure what kinds of activities are appropriate for my daughter's age and development. That's why I was so excited to be introduced to this new text line and to be asked to review it for you. This is seriously the best mom hack ever.

Guest Post: Take a Tech Break

We are excited to have Carrie Rogers-Whitehead contribute to our blog this week. She is the founder of Digital Respons-Ability. 

A recent Common Sense Media report said that mobile screen usage has tripled among young children in four years. Children 8 and younger spend 48 minutes a day staring at a mobile screen and almost half of children this age are reported to own their own tablet.

Guest Post: Parenting Tips to Reduce Holiday Stress

During the holidays, we dream of making sentimental, joyful memories, but our realities often don’t measure up.  Juggling work and parenthood is challenging on its own. Once you throw the holidays into the mix, tensions can easily flare and blood pressure rises. Fortunately, there are many ways to reduce your stress, enjoy your family, and make those dreams become reality.

Guest Post: Reading to your Children

We all can remember those special times when a story was read to us, whether at home by somebody we love, at school, or maybe at the library. The story came to life, and we were enthralled with the words. The magic of story reading is a powerful tool.

At least 55% of Utah's parents read to their children ages 0-5 everyday compared to 47.9% of the nation, according to a survey conducted by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention National Center of Health Statistics.

Guest Post: Post Pregnancy Body Positivity

 I knew a lot of things would change when I became pregnant. What took me by surprise was what my body would look like after I had the baby. I mean I had heard about the weight gain, the saggy breasts, the stretch marks, but seeing those things on myself was a completely different story. And by different I mean utterly disappointing.  But worse than that, was the self loathing and body hate that started to infiltrate my thoughts soon after. That was something I hadn't been warned about.

Snack Hacks: Healthy snacking to save you time and money

From growth spurts to picky eaters to busy schedules, it’s hard to raise children without a stockpile of ready-to-go snacks. Here are a few snack hacks that will save you time, money, and most important, give those growing bodies the right kind of fuel.

Homemade snack packs: Start by making a grocery list before you get to the store, and try not to go shopping on an empty stomach. Don’t be afraid to grab the big bags of snacks, they are usually cheaper and you can divide them later. Don’t forget to make a run down the Tupperware section and grab some snack baggies, sandwich zip-lock bags, and very small Tupperware (for dipping sauces).

Guest Post: 3 Simple Ways to Prepare Your Kindergartner for Handwriting Success

Tera Robinson, OTR/L is a Utah wife, mom and pediatric occupational therapist who loves working as hard as she plays with all the kids in her life! You can visit her blog, yumstheraplay.com, or follow Yums Theraplay on Facebook or Instagram to learn more!


Summer break is just beginning and it always flies by too fast! It pains me to say it, but school will be starting again before we know it. Take advantage of summer time to brush up and prepare your child for the next school year!
As an occupational therapist, I often work with children to develop fine motor skills for activities such as handwriting and cutting. Even in our digital age, paper, pencils, crayons, scissors and glue will be used daily in your student's school day. Current research indicates that good, old-fashioned handwriting improves learning of letters, reading and helps retain information better than typing. Parents can implement some very simple, yet very effective strategies at home to prepare their child for handwriting success in kindergarten and beyond!

Guest Post: Understanding Your Child’s Problem Behavior

Samantha Corralejo is a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University.  Her research topics include parent training, time-out, and parenting interventions for Latinx families.  She has applied experience as a behavioral therapist and parent trainer in a variety of settings.

Why do they do that?

Ever wonder why your child is acting up?  Most parents have seen a range of undesired behaviors from their children like whining, tantrums, hitting, and… more tantrums.  Often your child’s motivation is clear, like the infamous grocery store meltdown because you said “no” to the cookies.  What if I told you that understanding why your child is misbehaving is the key to helping to change it?  I’ll review a few of the common reasons children act out and the tried-and-true ways to help change your child’s behavior for the better.  These methods have been used by families all over the world and are backed by research.

Guest Post: 10 Tips for Having Difficult Conversations, Part 2

We're excited to bring you part two of Amy Lund's 10 tips for having difficult conversations with your children!

Use their words
Of all the things you do, this is probably the one that will make the biggest difference. Using our child’s words shows them that we are listening and that makes them feel validated. A great way to do this is to say, “What I understood you to say was ____” and then use as many of their words as you can remember. Take this one step further by then asking if what you understood was what they meant. When we use their words to clarify, we are sending a powerful message that we not only care what they are talking about, but we want to understand their view and concerns, and that speaks volume to them.

Guest Post: 10 Tips for Having Difficult Conversations, Part 1

Help Me Grow is excited to have Amy Lund of SmarterParenting.com lend us her advice on having difficult conversations with your children. Part two will be posted soon, so stay tuned!

My mom was always waiting up for me, book in hand, when I came home at night. Often we’d spend the next hour or two talking about life and the problems I was facing. During those late night talks we discussed everything, nothing was off limits. Topics ranged from heartbreak over a boy, my latest crush, how to have a healthy self-image, what to do when I felt uncomfortable in a situation, sex and drugs, and how to deal with peer pressure.

Guest Post: Bests for Baby—Nutrition, Food Safety, and Homemade Baby Food

Photo Credit

Across the state, USU Extensions offer various classes to Utah families. The Utah County head of Family and Consumer Sciences, Cathy Merrill, wrote this post for us about infant nutrition and baby food.

WE LOVE OUR BABIES! From the very first moment, we want the best for our children: the best food, the best education, the best love. As new parents quickly discover, “best” for the baby often means “work” for the parents, but the kids are totally worth it! Few "bests" seem to take more work than making sure baby has the best food possible. Baby food, including formula, is expensive, and sometimes very confusing. Here are some basics about nutrition, as well as a simple way to make baby food at home to save money while still giving your child the best!

Guest Blogger: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression

Lizzie Langston is a mom of two by day, and a singer-songwriter by night. She loves to connect with other moms via instagram, follow her @lizzielangston In this blog post she shares her personal experience with Postpartum Depression (PPD) and Postpartum Anxiety—how they first presented, how she recognized them, got the help she needed and healed.

Lizzie’s also shares this story in a video on YouTube. View it here

The creepy thing about postpartum depression and anxiety is that you can seem completely fine to people who aren't around your for more than a short conversation. I remember family coming to visit me while I was in postpartum recovery at the hospital; they left thinking I was doing great, everything normal. But I was overwhelmingly lost and struck with fear on the inside. At the time of this photo (about three months after giving birth to my second child), I was facing paralyzing anxiety regularly. I was still having panic attacks every 2-3 days (some in the middle of the night--the worst), and I felt out of control. Panic attacks and regular anxiety were completely new to me, and the most mind-boggling part was: I did not have a clue why it was happening. But it was. And it was starting to become an exhausting way to live.

Guest Post: Want the Best? Be a Dad.

 

Photo Credit

We are excited to share Von Jessee's excellent post on Fatherhood written exclusively for Help Me Grow Utah! Von is a Program Specialist at Help Me Grow's National Center in Hartford, Connecticut.

This blog post is for the men (…but, women, you should probably read this too). Just like mothers, grandparents, and teachers, fathers want what is best for their children. That is why we work to support a household in all different kinds of ways. These activities are critical to provide a comfortable environment so that children can play, learn, and grow, but there is more that children need from us. As researchers learn more about children and how they develop, they have discovered that fathers help their children in different ways than mothers.

Guest Post: Go With The Grain: It's Not What You'd Think

Photo Credit

In wood-working or carpentry, there's a common phrase used as a general rule-of-thumb: "Go with the grain".  This principle holds true while processing raw materials, cutting specific pieces, sanding, and even finishing a project. In all of these instances, the recommended action protects against the wood splintering, unsightly grooves and scrapes that cut garishly across the visible grain, and subtle waves and brush-marks in the finished product.  In each case, the idea is to work with the natural strengths and vulnerabilities in the wood to minimize damage and maximize the appeal and integrity of the final product.  In many pockets of modern society, fathers are often regarded as the primary disciplinarians of the family.  It seems common to hear the phrase, "Just wait until your father gets home".  Even if nowadays the phrase is used mostly in jest, the sentiment behind it remains common enough.

Guest Post: Read 1000 Books Before Kindergarten!

Many libraries around the United States are implementing a program called 1000 Books Before Kindergarten. This program encourages parents and caregivers to establish a habit of reading to their kids from birth.

We know that reading with children helps them develop an early and enduring love of reading and learning. Many studies have shown that reading with children from an early age helps them be successful in school. The early years are essential, as a child’s brain develops more during the first three years of life than at any other time.

Guest Post: How to Reach Out to Grieving Parents

In 2013 the U.S. had 23,440 infant deaths.  Infant deaths are those that take place before the child turns one.  This does not include those that experience miscarriages and stillbirths.  Losing a baby, no matter at what point, is very difficult for a family.  For family and friends around them, it can also be very difficult to know what to do to show love and support to the grieving parents. I found myself in that exact situation just over a year ago when my friend Hailey gave birth to her son at 24 weeks.  We were hopeful that he would make it, but 32 days later, he passed away.  Hailey was willing to share her experience and how you can support grieving parents....

Guest Post: The 5 P's of Successful Breastfeeding - Part 2

We are excited to share part two of Breanne Clinger's hit post, "The 5 P's of Successful Breastfeeding", and her "6th P" written especially for Help Me Grow! Breanne is a Labor and Delivery Registered Nurse, Prenatal Educator, and author of the blog Mommy To Be Prep.

4. Patience with your Baby and Yourself While Learning and Mastering Breastfeeding
When working with mothers on breastfeeding, I have noticed the babies sense and mimic their mother’s emotions! If the mom starts becoming frazzled or stressed that the baby is not latching
appropriately, the baby will become frazzled too. When the mother is able to stay relaxed and calm, it helps to sooth the baby, and the two can work better as a team. Remember, you are both learning together.