Crying

Crying is a child's way to signal to adults. It is not always pain or hunger. Learn your child's cues.

http://blog.essentialparenting.com/2011/07/take-crying-seriously-but-not-too-seriously/

Memorial Day Savings

For immediate release

CONTACT: Lauren Taylor

Local Childcare Coordinator

Cultural Care Au Pair

914-472-7658

Lauren.taylor@lcc.culturalcare.com

International au pairs support American military families

Celebrating Military Appreciation Month

Scarsdale, NY, May 25, 2011 -- The tradition of honoring our military on Memorial Day is a great example of American culture for au pairs who are experiencing life in the U.S. for the first time. These young people from overseas will attend parades, wave flags, listen to tributes and taps, and kick off summer with their host families. However, for some au pairs, supporting our military goes far beyond Memorial Day.

Simone Staudenmann from Switzerland is an au pair for the Liebold family which consists of mom Marian, infant twins, and LCDR Wayne Liebold, a deployed career Naval officer. Simone takes photos of developmental milestones of the children and posts them online so LCDR Liebold can see the twins sitting up, crawling, standing and walking. She also regularly shows them pictures of their father and helps them connect via Skype. “This way we can talk for a few minutes, even though I’m on the other side of the world. I can see them clapping, and playing and I know that they are happy and also that they haven’t forgotten me,” says Liebold.

Simone’s efforts are a tremendous help for a busy working mom and a priceless benefit for a deployed father. LCDR Leibold says, “Because of our au pair, I am able to do my job better. I know my family does not just have great childcare, but a family member who willingly has taken on the challenges of joining a military family with intuition, grace and an understanding of our needs and the needs of our children.”

For military families, childcare is especially critical to their stability at home and their ability to focus and have peace of mind on the job. Unfortunately, according to a recent study by The Pew Center titled “On the Home Front”, military families struggle with childcare due to relocation, deployment, and non-traditional work hours. They are also affected by wait lists at military Child Development Centers (CDCs) or do not live on or near official installations that provide childcare.

The au pair option is an attractive alternative for military families for many reasons. Lauren Taylor, a local childcare coordinator for Cultural Care Au Pair who works with families in the Lower Westchester area, shares how the program benefits parents in the armed services.

10 Ways an Au Pair Childcare Can Help Military Families

Quality childcare

All au pairs are carefully screened and trained and families receive attentive year-round support from local childcare coordinators. Cultural Care Au Pair goes above and beyond the strict guidelines that regulate the au pair program set by the U.S. Department of State.

Extra pair of hands

An au pair can provide extra help in the home in addition to childcare. Assistance with light household duties, homework help, and driving to children’s activities is particularly helpful following a spouse’s deployment.

Flexible scheduling

The flexibility of the au pair program allows families with unpredictable work schedules and non-traditional hours to set a schedule that works for them.

Assistance with moving

Having an extra set of hands gives parents additional time, energy and freedom for packing, organizing and all the logistics involved in getting ready for a move.

Help settling in

When everything else is changing – home, school, friends, job – having consistent childcare can make the transition to a new place smoother for everyone.

Staying connected

An au pair can help children stay connected with deployed parents through daily activities such as letter or email writing, craft projects, and video conferencing.

Peace of mind

Knowing that their children are being cared for at home by a trained, experienced au pair allows military personnel to concentrate at work and focus on the job at hand.

No waiting list

Like many day care centers, military Child Development Centers (CDCs) often have long waiting lists. Families can apply for an au pair and welcome a child care provider into their home in eight weeks and sometimes even sooner.

Network with other military families

Cultural Care Au Pair is proud to serve more military families than any other au pair program. Interested parents can be connected with other military families who have welcomed an au pair into their home.

Military discount

In honor of Military Appreciation Month and in celebration of Memorial Day, military families who apply in May are eligible for a $75 application fee and a $650 program fee discount. To learn more about au pair childcare and other seasonal discounts especially for families of those serving in the military, visit www.culturalcare.com/military.

Families interested in learning more about au pair childcare can call Lauren Taylor at (914)472-7658 or visit www.culturalcare.com for additional information on the Cultural Care Au Pair program.

# # #

About Cultural Care Au Pair

Cultural Care Au Pair is the leading provider of intercultural childcare in the United States. Since 1989, Cultural Care Au Pair has placed more than 85,000 au pairs in welcoming American homes. A U.S. Department of State regulated program, Cultural Care Au Pair is headquartered in Cambridge, MA, with their own extensive network of recruitment, screening and orientation offices worldwide and more than 600 local coordinators across the U.S. For more information about hosting an au pair, visit www.culturalcare.com or call 800-333-6056.

A Commercial

This commercial includes a home birth in a tub. How wonderful that Pampers has included this incredible option.

New baby party

After the baby arrives, everyone wants to visit and see him/her. This new style party to honor the baby works for parents and friends. Making sure the mother has help during the visitation is of utmost importance to insure that the baby is well protected and happy.

http://thsnews.com/step-aside-baby-showers-it%E2%80%99s-time-to-sip-and-see/325380/

Conception to birth

This video shows conception, embryonic and fetal development and birth. It's miraculous to watch.

Breastfeeding shunned

I think someone missed the mark here.

Friends are Important

UCLA Study "On Friendship Among Women"        By Gale Berkowitz

 A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. 
 They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our 
 tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help 
 us remember who we really are.

 By the way, they may do even more. Scientists now suspect that hanging 
 out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of 
 stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A 
 landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade 
 of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with 
 other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress 
 research--most of it on men--upside down.

 Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when 
 people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the 
 body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible, explains 
 Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Bio-behavioral 
 Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. It's an 
 ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across 
 the planet by saber-toothed tigers.

 Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral 
 repertoire than just fight or flight; in fact, says Dr. Klein, it seems 
 that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress 
 responses in a woman, it buffers the fight or flight response and 
 encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When 
 she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that 
 more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a 
 calming effect.

 This calming response does not occur in men, says Dr. Klein, because 
 testosterone---which men produce in high levels when they're under 
 stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen; she adds, 
 seems to enhance it.

 The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made 
 in a classic "aha" moment shared by two women scientists who were talking 
 one day in a lab at UCLA. There was this joke that when the women who 
 worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had 
 coffee, and bonded, says Dr. Klein. When the men were stressed, they 
 holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher 
 Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I 
 showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we 
 were onto something.

 The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist 
 after another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein 
 and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research, 
 scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress 
 differently than men has significant implications for our health.

 It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that 
 oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with other 
 women, but the "tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein and 
 Taylor may explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after study 
 has found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood 
 pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol.

 There's no doubt, says Dr. Klein, that friends are helping us live 
 longer. In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had 
 no friends increased their risk of death over a 6-month period. In 
 another study, those who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut 
 their risk of death by more than 60%. Friends are also helping us live 
 better.

 The Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that the more friends 
 women had, the less likely they were to develop physical impairments as 
 they aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. In 
 fact, the results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that 
 not having close friends or confidantes was as detrimental to your health 
 as smoking or carrying extra weight!

 And that's not all! When the researchers looked at how well the women 
 functioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in the 
 face of this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close friend 
 and confidante were more likely to survive the experience without any new 
 physical impairments or permanent loss of vitality. Those without friends 
 were not always so fortunate.

 Yet if friends counter the stress that seems to swallow up so much of our 
 life these days, if they keep us healthy and even add years to our life, 
 why is it so hard to find time to be with them? That's a question that 
 also troubles researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of /Best// 
 //Friends:// //The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's 
 Friendships/ (Three Rivers Press, 1998).

 Every time we get overly busy with work and family, the first thing we do 
 is let go of friendships with other women, explains Dr. Josselson. We 
 push them right to the back burner. That's really a mistake because women 
 are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And 
 we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of 
 talk that women do when they're with other women. It's a very healing 
 experience.