Blocking noise in the home can sometimes be one of the best things you can do to ensure your little ones get the sleep they deserve. I have found this to be true even more so now with two children in the house. My youngest goes to bed about an hour to hour and a half earlier than my oldest, and with the Brookstone Tranquil Moments Sound Machine set to the “white noise” setting, my youngest doesn’t get disturbed by anything else that is going on in the house. I started using this machine for bedtime and naptime pretty much from the moment I brought my babies home from the hospital. It essentially became one of the triggers in the bedtime routine. As soon as I turned it on, my kids knew that it was time for bed. I now have two of these, one in each of the boys’ rooms. Even grandma has one at her house, for those times when we are over and the kids need to take their naps. Another great feature of the Brookstone Tranquil Moments Sound Machine is that it is small enough that it can travel with you. When we went on vacation to Europe and Florida, we packed our sound machine and used it everywhere we stayed.

The Brookstone Tranquil Moments Sound Machine for Baby has 6 different sound settings: white noise, prenatal, lullaby, dolphins, car ride, and heartbeat. I personally have mainly used the white noise setting for sleep, but the heartbeat and lullaby settings worked well when my kids were newborns. There is another version of this sound machine marketed for adults, which has 12 pre-programmed “nature” sounds, including the “white noise” setting. My husband and I have this one in our room to help us sleep as well. For more information about Brookstone’s line of sound machines please visit Brookstone.com.

Popularity: 5% [?]

I bought Potty Training for Dummies a few months before my son’s second birthday in anticipation of the challenge of potty training which lay ahead of me. It was totally by accident that I found this book in the bookstore. I didn’t even know they made one of these “Dummies” books for things like this, and since I was always a great fan of the other “Dummies” books, I just had to pick it up. Well, I ended up devouring this book in less than a day. It is funny, witty, and has a lot of great tips and ideas for potty training your toddler. I started implementing several of the tips as soon as I had read the book in order to start getting my son ready for “potty training weekend”. By starting some of the techniques right away, I was able to get my son to be daytime potty trained pretty much in 4 days, about a week before his 2nd birthday! Minor accidents are few and far between, but can and still do happen. When they do, I just use Potty Training for Dummies as a great reference to get things back on track. Nighttime is still being worked on as my son could sleep through a nuclear war, so he doesn’t wake up for going to the bathroom yet either. But it will all come in time!

Potty Training for Dummies is written by a mother and daughter team, who have raised their fair share of children. The daughter is also a doctor, so she gives some good medical perspective about the fine art of potty training your toddler. They offer expert advice on how to decide if your child is ready, choose the right time to start, say the right things with positive reinforcement, when to switch to training pants or underwear, and also how to cope with special cases and children with disabilities.

Potty Training for Dummies is available online at Walmart, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon, as well as some local bookstores.

Popularity: 5% [?]

My 2 year old recently got over quite a bad illness where his temperature was soaring above 104. My husband and I had to monitor our son’s temperature constantly because he has a history of febrile seizures - about every four hours we would have to take my sons temperature. Worst of all, this bug lasted well over 2 weeks and my youngest son caught it as well! We were lucky enough to have bought the Exergen Temporal Artery Thermometer a few months ago to have on hand. Our children would never be able to sit still enough for either a rectal or underarm reading, so with all the many temperature readings we went through just recently, it was nice to be able to non-invasively and quickly read our children’s temperatures.

The Exergen Temporal Artery Thermometer uses infrared technology to allow you to sweep the thermometer gently across the forehead and get a very accurate temperature reading in less than a few seconds. It’s also extremely quiet, letting off very soft “beeps”, so typically it won’t wake your child up when using it while he or she is sleeping. It takes a few tries to get the hang of how to use the thermometer accurately, but once you do it becomes the easiest and quickest way to measure your child’s temperature day or night.  Also, because the Temporal Artery Thermometer is used externally it is sanitary, reduces the spread of germs, and is easy to clean.

For more information about the Exergen Temporal Artery Thermometer, please visit the Exergen Website.

Popularity: 5% [?]

I never gave a second thought to the everyday products I used to clean my house prior to having children. However, after my son was born I started to realize that it was practically impossible to keep my son from coming into contact with the toxic chemicals in these cleaners. So, it was with great excitement and relief when I heard about cleaning products that are non-toxic, organic, and 100% safe to use around children, namely Babyganics.

Currently, my 8 month old is teething and has the need to chew on everything - toys, furniture, remote controls, you name it and he’s chewed on it. So, my dilemma was how to clean my house and the items with which he comes into contact, without exposing him to harmful ingredients in the standard brand-name cleaners that we use. Plus, everytime I washed my floor, I had to make sure to rinse it several times in order to try and get rid of any residue left by the standard household floor cleaner, which certainly took quite a long time to do. When I first used Babyganics, I noticed that my cleaning time was cut in half - no more need to rinse and rinse and rinse. Best of all, the Babyganics line of cleaners worked even better than the brand-name cleaners I had been using! The shine on my oven and microwave was streakless and perfect! My son even helped me test out the All-Purpose Household Cleaner when he delightfully took a crayon to my countertop. The crayon just wiped right off - no scrubbing, just Babyganics and a plain old rag. This line of cleaning products is truly fantastic and it is 100% safe!

Babyganics has four different cleaners available for all types of cleaning jobs: Tub & Tile, All-Purpose Household, Floor, and Glass & Surface. Babyganics products are available nationwide in retailers such as Babies “R” Us and in select Wal-Marts and Target stores, or you can purchase them directly from the Babyganics Website and use coupon code “hbb10″ for 10% off your entire order and free shipping on orders $30.

Babyganics is also available for purchase through Amazon.

I highly recommend Babyganics cleaners to everyone so that we can keep our children safe and healthy, and so that we can do our part in helping to reduce toxins in the environment.

Popularity: 5% [?]

When I breastfed my children, I needed to pump breastmilk in order to increase my supply and also to store some for times when I would not be home. I had tried the electric pump while in the hospital, but for some reason I wasn’t able to express much milk and I could never find a setting which seemed comfortable. I then decided to purchase a manual pump so that I could control the rate of pumping, the flow, and the comfort. I decided to try the Avent ISIS manual breast pump since I already had the Avent bottles, and I knew the two were compatible with one another. After trying it for the first time, I realized that I was more relaxed because it seemed more comfortable to use, and thus I was able to express more breastmilk. I then used the Avent bottles to store the milk in the refrigerator - it was super simple! Plus the Avent ISIS was so much more quiet and discrete than the electric pump.

The Avent ISIS breast pump features a trademarked Let Down Massage Cushion for faster and easier let-down and has been clinically proven to be as effective as an electric breast pump. The pump is interchangable with the Avent bottles, which allows you to pump, store, and feed from the same containers, reducing time and cleanup. For more information, please visit Avent’s website.

Popularity: 4% [?]