Weight Management Before Pregnancy

Weight management is critical to a healthy pregnancy. You should be within 15 pounds of your ideal weight before pregnancy, and that also applies to your partner (why: an overweight partner may have decreased testosterone leading to depressed libido).

Do birth control until you are read y for pregnancy. Hormonal contraception may take months for fertility to return to normal. Natural family planning is the way to go.

Do boost nutrients for a healthy pregnancy. Important nutrients include the following:

Calcium (why: avoiding back and leg pain, insomnia, and irritability)—eat figs and raw leeks.

Folic acid (why: avoiding structural defects)—eat chives. Chives are a nutrient-dense food low in calories but high in nutrients. Always use a sharp knife to cut chives (why: avoid bruising the herb), and add chives to any dish near the end of cooking (why: avoid losing its flavor).

Iron (why: healthy growth of baby)—eat chives.

Magnesium (why: cellular development; over-coming early pregnancy discomfort, such as constipation)—eat chives.

Manganese (why: baby’s normal skeletal development)—eat raw leeks.

Vitamin B6 (why: avoiding nausea and morning sickness; metabolizing proteins, carbohydrates, and fats)—eat raw leeks.

Vitamin C (why: proper absorption of iron)—eat fresh fruits and vegetables.

Vitamin K (why: healthy bone growth and proper blood-clot formation)—eat raw leeks.

All the above nutrients and vitamins are especially important not only for pre-pregnancy but also for the first trimester of pregnancy.

Do get sufficient sleep (why: research has shown that the more sleep you get,  the less time of labor may ensue; getting less than 5 hours of sleep may even increase the chance of having a C-section for delivery. Do set a schedule for your sleeping hours to help your body get on a set schedule of sleep. Do go to bed earlier.

Do take herbs to increase fertility (why: drink clover flower tea and nettle tea to increase female fertility).

Do avoid unpasteurized milk and blue-veined cheeses.

Do cook all your food thoroughly.

Do help your partner to enhance his fertility. According to a Danish study, overweight men have fewer sperms. According to State University of New York, placing laptop computers on laps may decrease sperms (why: due to accumulation of heat). Certain drugs on men’s hair loss, high blood pressure, and ulcers may also affect the quality of sperms. Do increase his intake of folic acid, vitamin C, and zinc to enhance the quality of sperms.althy

Have a healthy pregnancy!

Sally Smart

Preparing Your Infant to Read

If you want your child to become any early reader—as early as, say, three or four years old—you must prepare his or her reading readiness even when he or she is only one-month old. Education should start from the first days of an infant's life: that is, the time when you start shaping his or her life. You can begin teaching your child reading before he or she can read, just as you can teach your child talking before he or she can talk. Parents can always teach their children ahead of their development. Remember, you are not forcing your child to learn: you are merely providing him or her with the opportunity.

Developing Motor Abilities and Sensory Perceptions

The development of motor abilities, closely  integrated with  that of sensory perceptions of your child, provides the  basis for your child’s future reading readiness.

Motor abilities

Try to open and loosen the fist (the first month).

Gently, stroke and massage your child’s fists on both sides until he or she opens his or her fists. Without the loosening of your child’s fists, your child cannot learn the grasping reflex, which is vital to learning to hold a pen to write.

Create the grasping reflex (the first month).

Make your child open his or her fists and then place your finger into his or her hands such that your child will grasp it. Alternately, using your own hand, open and close your child’s fists until he or she learns and masters the grasping reflex.

Stimulate the deliberate and active grasping (the second month).

Place various bright objects within the movement range of your child’s hands. Do not place them directly into your child’s unclenched fists, but rather guide them so that the grasping becomes incidental.

Sensory perception

Develop visual perception (the third month).

Teach and train your child to follow moving objects with his or her eyes by increasing the speed of the moving objects and the range of their movement. Also, teach your child  to follow these objects from various positions.

Develop the coordination of hearing and sight (the third month).

Show your child  the  connection  between  what  he or she  sees  and hears simultaneously: your child must learn that when he or she hears a sound, the object that makes the sound is where the sound comes from. That may look relatively simple to parents, but not to infants.

Provide abundant auditory experience (the third month).

Supply your child with human voices, singing, music, sounds from toys, animal sounds, everyday sounds, such as running water from a tap, a doorbell ringing, and clapping hands, among others. Express delight in all the different sounds you hear.  The association of sounds with satisfying experiences prepares your child for his or her subsequent language and speech development.

Yes, you can start teaching and preparing your infant to read as he or she develops or grows up. Read my book to find out all the 29 steps to teach your child to read, beginning as early as in the infant stage.

Stephen Lau

How to Teach Your Child to Read

Most parents are keen on helping their children learn to read; and all teachers, who are responsible for the literacy of children, want their pupils to be able to read and write. Some children hardly need any reading lesson and they learn how to read before going to pre-school; others progress slowly but steadily; unfortunately, an alarming number of them remain illiterate all their lives. Whether or not children become early readers is not as important as that they eventually become proficient readers.

Teaching children to read is a fun thing, and one of the most rewarding experiences for parents. Look at the following 29 steps to see how I taught my daughter to read when she was only three-and-a-half-years old (that happened three decades ago, and now she is an attorney).

THE 29 SMART STEPS

STEP 1:   Developing Motor Abilities & Sensory Perception

STEP 2:   Initiating Imitation

STEP 3:   Developing Thinking

STEP 4:   Pointing at Things

STEP 5:   Developing Active Speech

STEP 6:   Familiarizing with the Orientation of Print

STEP 7:   Teaching Perception and Discrimination

STEP 8:   Teaching Visual/Perceptual Consistency

STEP 9:   Auditory, Visual Sequencing, and Memory Skills

STEP 10: Introducing Finger Painting

STEP 11: Beginning Writing Skill

STEP 12: Introducing Nursery Rhymes and Lullabies

STEP 13: Introducing Picture Story Books

STEP 14: Teaching Prediction

STEP 15: Teaching Word Recognition

STEP 16: Teaching the Alphabet

STEP 17: Teaching Pronunciation

STEP 18: Developing Independent Reading

STEP 19: Learning Sounds and Their Letters

STEP 20: Encouraging Printing

STEP 21: Lap Reading

STEP 22: Shared Reading

STEP 23: Paired Reading

STEP 24: Teaching Language Irregularities

STEP 25: Extending Sight Vocabulary

STEP 26: Encouraging the Use of Symbols

STEP 27: Exploring Different Modes of Discourse

STEP 28: Creating a Proper Writing Environment

STEP 29: Teaching the Sentence

See if the above 29 steps can help you teach your child to read. 

Stephen Lau