Development - 5 Years

At this age you can expect your child to dress himself, brush his teeth without help, play cooperatively with other children, play board and card games and follow the rules, name colors, hop, walk down stairs alternating feet, skip, talk in 4-5 word sentences, sing songs, listen to stories, shares things spontaneously, recognize letters of the alphabet, print letters, know his phone number and address and his speech should be fully understandable.

Development - 4 Years

At this age you can expect your child to dress himself, brush his teeth without help, play board and card games and follow simple rules, name 4 colors, hop, walk down stairs alternating feet, talk in 4-5 word sentences, sing songs, listen to stories, shares things spontaneously, count to 4, and his speech should be fully understandable.

Treating Bug Bites

When your child has a mosquito bite or chicken pox, lighten her mood by letting her paint herself with calamine lotion. Give her the cotton ball and help her apply the calamine, and then let her go to work painting her bumps pink.

Trust yourself about health?

Do you feel like something is wrong with your child, despite the fact that the doctor isn´t finding anything wrong? Trust your intuition and seek additional opinions. Your child´s health care is your responsibility and you must not rely only on your pediatrician´s opinion. You know your child best and must trust your own judgement.

Chiropractic care

Worried about the bumps and bruises your child accumulates from active play? Consider taking him to a chiropractor. Chiropractic care is safe for young children, and even for infants. Treatment is drug-fee and natural in scope.

Weighing an uncooporative kid

We know that height and weight measurements are a necessary part of children´s doctor visits. If your child is scared and refuses to step on the scale, try another approach. Hold him and step on the scale yourself with your child in your arms. After you have determined the weight, put your child down and weigh yourself alone. Subtract the second number from the first and you have your child´s weight, without forcing him on the scale alone.

Hygenic Toys

Some options for disinfecting toys are:

* Warm soapy water; dry in sunlight

* Commercial disinfectant, rinse and dry well

* Bleach, rinse and dry well

* Dishwasher for toys that can fit/stand the heat

* Washing machine with hot water for fabric toys - dryer or sunlight as available.

Development - 3 Years

At this age your child is becoming more independent and you can expect him to dress himself and button clothes, brush his teeth with help, stack 9-10 blocks, draw circles and squares, use scissors, walk up steps by alternating his feet, jump from a step, hop, walk on his toes, pedal a tricycle, play with imaginary friends, have a very large vocabulary and use 3-4 word sentences and his speech should be 3/4 understandable. Over the next year his speech will become fully understandable.

Help fight doctor phobia

Many preschools are frightened and uncomfortable at doctor appointments. Help relieve your child´s anxiety by expaining exactly what is going to happen during the visit. Call ahead and find out if shots are scheduled and what the visit will entail. Relay this information to your child and help facilitate the order of things during the appointent. Your child will feel more confident if s/he knows what to expect.