I'm a full-time mummy

In case you are new to my blog, I just want to let you know that I am very very passionate about anything related to breastfeeding. As a mother of 2 kids, I am still breastfeeding my 42 months old boy and 1 year old girl. So, of course I'm all for anything related to breastfeeding! Here goes my review for the "Gentle Goodnight" book:

Title: Gentle Goodnight
Author: Lyssa Armenta
Publisher:  Lyssa Armenta
ISBN:  9780578089621
Paperback:  61 pages

Description from the product page:
"Feeling like you have no control of your baby or toddler’s wake or sleep schedule? Gentle Goodnight will get it back for you in a beneficial way for you and your baby. Gentle Goodnight will guide you through a step-by-step sleep method that will have your baby or toddler to sleep in less than 25 min. You will have control over nap and bedtime at home or on the go; keeping you on the schedule you choose throughout the day; giving you the time you need for yourself day or night. Dancing your baby or toddler gently to sleep has many important benefits including getting the baby weight off quickly. Throughout Gentle Goodnight you will find tools that will help you bond and gain the trust of your baby. Conscious parenting starts here to nurture a child who knows they are safe and loved. Because the way we raise our children shapes their future, start them off with a Gentle Goodnight!"

The book is so cute and appealing, its size is small and easy to carry and I love that it is not thick at all, so it makes a light reading!

This book is broken down into 13 chapters, starting from the sleep options, moving on to the introduction of the dancing method and its benefits, all the way to the preparation required to execute this method. I also like that the author provides alternative options in the event our baby wakes when we put them down or baby is not ready to sleep or wakes up easily and so on.

I totally love the note from the author! I immediately felt the connection when I read that this book is written with the nursing mother (checked!) who is co-sleeping (checked!) with her baby (checked!) or toddler (checked!) in mind. I mean, it's great to read a book where the author practises what you are doing, at least you really know for sure they know what they are talking about!

Now back to my personal experience on how I get my children ready for their nap and bedtime. What I normally do is I will close our room curtains, turn on some light music (my favorite is the "God Bless My Boy" album, prepare my bottle of water, get ready the pillows and blankets for my children and make sure the room is not too cold or stuffy.

For my 1 year old girl, I will usually nurse her either sleeping sideways on our bed (few minutes if she is very sleepy or tired, though there are a couple of times she refuses to sleep when she hears her elder brother's voice in the room) or I'll be sitting on my chair and nurse her till she's asleep (less than 10 minutes)

As for my 3 years old boy, I will usually wait till my girl is asleep before I sleep next to him (we all co-sleep), tell him stories and pat his back, sometimes when he asked for his feed, I will nurse him for a few minutes (yes, I still breastfeed my 42 months old boy!) If my girl is still awake, I will get my hubby or mother in law to take care of her while I get my son to sleep. It can take up to half hour for him to go to sleep sometimes but if he's really tired or I tell him what to expect (for example our family swimming outing) when he wakes up, it may take him just 10 minutes or so to go to sleep.

What I find myself doing which is similar to the Dancing Method in this book is whenever one of my child wakes up in the middle of their sleep, I will try to soothe them back but if they still stirs or cries, I will pick them up, carry them out of bed and danced. Just carry them and move around the room, humming songs and patting their back. My hubby and I will do this (usually just me but there are times we both had to dance when both our kids cried at the same time!) and just danced around slowly in our bedroom.

So, yes I can attest to this method that it works. Although we only applies the Dancing Method in the middle of our childrens' sleep (and not before) I do agree that this method is calming, gentle and beneficial as well.

You can get this book from the author's website at http://www.gentlegoodnight.com/

You can also read a sample chapter here.

I am so excited to be able to hold this giveaway for my lucky blog followers and readers! TWO of you lucky people are going to win a copy of this awesome book! Now, let's read below for the giveaway terms and conditions OK?

To enter the giveaway, kindly read and follow the instructions as stated in the Rafflecopter form below.

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I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

I was really really excited to be able to review this app! My 3 years old boy is very much into skeleton stuff at the moment and I know I just had to review this app with him when I saw the review pitch of this app with the icon of half a child and half a skeleton figure! And yes, this app does not disappoint, in fact, we love it so much that I started recommending it to other friends of mine! Anyway, my review as below...

* Title: This Is My Body (Anatomy For Kids)
* Price: $1.99
* Category: Education
* Released: Apr 21, 2012
* Version: 1.0
* Size: 38.5 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: urbn; pockets
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPad.Requires iOS 5.0 or later.

Description from the product page:

"Created by a team of medical doctors, educators and parents "This is my body - Anatomy for kids" features informations about all important aspects of the human body – all within in a beautifully designed and illustrated app! The main areas your child will discover and learn about:
* You are unique and yet we are all very similar to each other
* Growing - how fast do we grow and how long
* The skin - and how to protect it
* Senses - how do we see, hear, feel, taste and smell
* Digestive system - why are we hungry
* Respiratory system - your body needs oxygen constantly
* Circular system - your heart beats constantly
* Muscular system - exercise is good for you
* Nervous system - how are informations transmitted
* Skeleton - how do bones look like and why do you need joints

 This is my body - Anatomy for kids follows a playful yet working learning methodology that entertains children while learning."

What's good?

* I really, really love this engaging and interactive app! To be honest, I learned new stuff when I go through this app with my 3 years old boy!

* Firstly, kudos to the app developer for putting in the options for us users to select the gender of the child as honestly, I feel that my child relates himself to the character more if it is the same gender as him, so it is no surprise that my boy chose the boy character (with the blue shirt which is his favorite color at the moment)

* Another awesome thing to note is that we can adjust the setting of the app whether to show the child figure in the app wearing underpants or not as according to the app, there are parents who are not comfortable with letting their child see the genitals of the character. I for one, am very happy to be able to turn off this setting as I do want my child to learn and be exposed to learning this. Please don't get me wrong, my opinion is I would want my child to be comfortable with his own body.

* There are about 9 topics to be covered in this app, among our favorites are the senses, heartbeat, nervous system and skeleton topics.

* There are some pages which I also used the opportunity to teach my boy about manners, such as wiping his nose when he sneezes (or when he has runny nose) 

* I was actually surprised to see my 3 years old boy nodding, listening and watching intensely as I explained to him how the food we ate and what we drink goes through our mouth, throat, body and so on. At the sight of this, I did get excited about the future plans in our learning lessons! So so so much potential and many more things to learn!

* My boy's favorite part of this app has got to be the skeleton puzzle game! I am surprised he can actually matched some of the bones structures correctly as I was only explaining to him about our skulls and bones in general prior to this!

Other Things to Note:

* It actually took me a while to figure out how to change the settings for the child figure's underpants - was looking for the setting all over the app until I remembered there is another setting on the iPad screen outside the app.

* I also have a bit difficulty reading the cursive style of text info on the pages so perhaps the developer can look into making the text easier to read?

You can purchase the "This Is My Body (Anatomy For Kids)  " app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

My 3 years old boy loves looking at miniature models. Whether it is houses, malls or other buildings, as long as they are tiny and small, he's all eyes over it! He can just stand there looking and looking and yelling out what he sees in the models.

Whenever we go to this mall near our house, he will surely tug our hands asking to be brought to the showroom unit in the mall. There are a bunch of housing and mall projects developed by the same developer that built the shopping mall we went to. So this showroom has a bunch of models of condominiums, bungalows, shopping malls etc.

I too love looking at miniature stuff like this, imagining tiny little humans living in those small little houses, cruising in the small little cars on the roads, tunnels, etc.

I remembered when I was about 12-13 years old, I got my dad to buy me this bunch of tiny fishes and I actually arranged and stacked some rocks and pebbles, put them nicely in an ice cream container that I have. I'd make bridges, paths and filled them up with water and put the fishes in. Then I'd sit there watching at the fishes swim around as if I'm the mayor of the fish city hahaha...

I guess my boy might have inherited my habit. We'll see if he ever gets to the fish part one day! It might make a pretty interesting activity / hobby!