Blog : Little Lilypad Co

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I mentioned a few weeks ago about the litte one getting "water wobbles" during her swimming lesson and it was really interesting to learn about different stages of babies development and the seperation anxiety that they can experience.

The Water Babies (Wbchasetheball) team, as always, were super helpful in reassuring me (and the little one ) that it was a phase and it would pass. The whole theory was genuinely interesting to me though and whilst the Water Babies team were totally right about it soon passing, I wanted to find our more about plateaus.

It is facinating to learn that it is quite common for toddlers to decide not to take part in an acitivity they have previously enjoyed, with a regression in the progress and in some cases, a complete change in attitude towards (in our case) swimming. These are all signs that they may have hit a plateau! This plateau can arrive at any time during their "toddler" years from age 11 months to 2.5 years and toddlers can experience several plateaus in their early years particularly when language is developing.

The Water Babies team give some great advice on dealing with this and suggest the following:

• Take time to explain the activities to your child and encourage them but do not push them!
• Allow them to watch others; they will pick up what is going on even though they are not taking part at that moment
• Allow your child to lead, rather than be lead
• Encourage your child to be independent in and out of the water

But my particular favourite is:

• We do not learn in straight lines; so a child may go forward, then back a little, then forward again! (This sounds like me!!)

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I can't believe it is March already and Easter is weeks away. Wasn't it Christmas last week? Where has the year gone?

I actually like spring, I think that there is something innocent about it and it is a time when we tend to look at redecorating or even moving, so whilst we are spring cleaning our houses, it is probably a good time to spring clean our finances too.

Having children means that Christmas is always over indulgent (although I have always loved buying presents, so maybe I just have more of an excuse these days) and Easter is no different. I will happily add chocolate egg after chocolate egg into my shopping trolley and put money in cards for my god children without thinking how much money I am actually spending. I always intend to budget but this goes out of the window more often than not. (do you think I could be addicted to shopping??).

I am a regular reader of the MyFamilyClub website and they have some fabulous budgeting tools available but I particularly liked their suggestions on How to Spring Clean your Finances. There are some really simple suggestions and even an avid spender like me can make a difference if I just take half an hour to go through my monthly expenditure.

I have always said that shopping is my hobby and if I can spring clean my finances, maybe this will mean I may even have a little extra at the end of the month ..... for a new pair of shoes :-)