Are Gadgets as Bad as We Think for our Kids?

Before I gave birth, I promised myself that I will not let my child play with gadgets of any kind until he was older. Well, if you become a parent, and when your child starts to explore, you will definitely find it hard not to let him play with you iPad and other gadgets. Children nowadays (as young as a year and a half) would be able to explore your gadget and you'd be surprised that he already knows how to look for YouTube and exit applications from your phone. 

We tried to delay my son in playing with iPad, but there are just these instances when he is too fuzzy and nothing (aside from watching his Elmo show) could stop him from crying. At a year and 7 months, we decided to give him access to our iPad but of course, under our supervision and with limited use. 

Aside from attending Kindermusik classes during Saturdays, there's really not much activity that we do at home aside from playing, reading simple books and watching Sesame Street and other learning shows in YouTube. 

ABC Elmo that we have installed in our iPad

While we were eating breakfast last week though, I noticed that he was staring at the clock and started pronouncing the numbers that he could see. To tell you the truth, I never taught him to count and I'm pretty sure he got it from one of his iPad videos. At 1.9 months, I think he did well to be able to recognize and count from 1-10. 

Im not saying that we should allow our children to play and use iPads early, but with proper guidance, these gadgets do help is in our child's learning. 

Here is a few things we do when we let our son access iPad. 

1. No gadgets during meals - this includes us adults as well. To be fair, we always make sure that we don't use gadgets too so we are able to bond and socialize during this time.
2. iPad as a learning tool - we make sure that the contents of the iPad are for learning and not for playing games.
3. No iPads when we go out - we only use it at home and we make sure that whenever we go out, he is able to explore the places that we go to and interact with people we meet. This also holds true when we go on vacations, we make sure sure that we get to bond with each other and not with our gadgets.
4. Parents should set good examples - this is the most effective way to teach our children in every single aspect. We should not set double-standards and not make yourself an exception when it comes to teaching our children.

Share with us how you deal with your children and their gadgets, we would love to learn from you.

Lanna
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Mommy Corner: Philips Avent Bottle Warmer

Before I start reviewing on this, please don't get be wrong, I am currently mixed feeding my one-year old son and I have been trying my very best to provide my son with breast milk ever since he was born.  

For those mothers who have been storing milk for their little ones, it is very difficult to warm the milk especially when you just brought it out of the refrigerator. A lot of people have told me that running water will do the trick to warm the breast milk but since I am more of a environmentalist and wanted to conserve water, I use a bottle warmer to "warm" my milk. I just have to make sure that the temperature of my warmer is not hot enough to destroy the enzymes of breast milk and I time my warmer for 2-3 minutes, shut it off before soaking the milk for a minute or two. In that way, the milk is not compromised.

Bottle warmers have been a very helpful to a lot of mothers - not only warming milk but also warming food. I've had 2 kinds of bottle warmers, one was almost 30 years old lend to me by an aunt and my recent one was the  Philips Avent Bottle Warmer given by my mom. 

One thing I noticed about the new generation bottle warmer is the fact that they are conscious about mother who are breast-feeding their little ones so it has a gentle defrost function for breast milk.

Written on the box of Philips Avent bottle warmer

Unlike the older bottle warmers, Avent's warmer has a bigger opening to accommodate bigger bottles. Aside from the Avent bottles that my son uses, I also have the Pigeon Peristaltic Bottles (the shape is much wider than that of the Avent). It actually fits the warmer perfectly and still has room.

Wide mouth

I use it with a lot of bottles including my Pigeon Peristaltic

 It can also warm food - I usually bring this when we go out of town/overnights. I prepare my son's food good for two days and stores them in separate glass containers per meal so I just need to warm the serving that is needed and the rest is placed in the refrigerator. 

Not so sure about the price here in Manila but my mom purchased it in Hong Kong and it was around Php 1,800.00 converted.

Lanna
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Mommy Corner: Tiger Thermal Soup Cup for Toddler Meals

I have been a Tiger kid as long as I could remember. When I was younger, almost all of my lunchboxes were purchased in HongKong because there were a whole lot of lunchboxes made by Tiger that we could choose from. It's a good thing though that because there are a lot of people nowadays who use this brand, Tiger has been quite visible in almost all department stores in Manila.

Because my son's meals is very important (and I couldn't stress that enough). I always make sure that it is served hot even when we are eating out. Just recently, I was able to purchase this Tiger thermal Soup Cup from Lazada and I'm very happy because it was able to keep my baby's food warm for a long period of time. 

Priced at Php 1,500.00 and available in 3 colors (Green Pea, Red Tomato, Pumpkin Orange), Tiger's Thermal Soup Cup has the perfect size especially for toddlers. What I loved about it is that it has a fold-able spoon /fork that you can carry on the top container which makes it easier to carry around. The capacity of which is 380ml and it's inner body is made of stainless steel so it is very safe to hold your baby's hot meals.

Upper cover can be opened to store the foldable spoon/fork

Foldable Spoon/Fork

Lanna
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