Bump, Bub and Beyond

Featured products, reviews and prizes. Visit www.pakmag.com.au/win for your chance to win!

Survive and Enjoy Your Baby Book

$29.95 - www.belindajoyce.com

This book covers all the essential areas you are desperately trying to find answers for as new parents. If you're googling it, it's probably in here! Belinda is an author, midwife, maternal & child health nurse and mother of four. She is all too familiar with the challenges and joys of parenting a baby. This book provides safe, evidence-based & non-judgmental advice and suggestions, with the aim of helping you find your own path to parenthood.

Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature Bottles 260ml Four Pack

$29.95 - www.chemistwarehouse.com.au

Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature's award-winning range of BPA-free bottles make switching between breast and bottle feeding easier than ever before. Tommee Tippee have designed the unique, easylatch-on teat shape with breastfeeding experts to mimic the natural flex, stretch and movement of a mum’s breast. Together with the bottle’s supersensitive valve, this encourages your baby’s intuitive feeding action for comfortable, relaxed feeding.

Ice Ice Booby

$49.95 - www.iceicebooby.com.au

Their remedial ice and heat packs have been designed specifically for women by an Australian Midwife. They provide affordable and reusable heat/ice for women to use during pregnancy and in the postpartum period, which can help ease general aches and pains associated with child birth and breastfeeding, help reduce time spent feeding and expressing and relieve blocked ducts.

All About Fine Motor Skills

STORY Mary MacKillop Childcare

Fine motor skills involve the use of the smaller muscles in the hands to grasp, hold and pinch. These skills are vital to carry out everyday tasks, as well as playing and learning. Developing these skills will not only improve the quality of the task outcome, but it will also help them complete it quicker.

Fine motor skills are needed for a number of things in life, including academic skills such as writing, drawing, colouring in and using scissors, playing with LEGO ® , puzzles, or dressing up dolls and self-care activities such as tying shoelaces, zipping up jackets, brushing the teeth and hair and using cutlery to eat.

Without the ability to complete the above tasks, a child’s self esteem can suffer and they can fall behind. Your child may have difficulties with their fine motor skills if you notice them being disinterested in the skills listed above, waiting for parents to brush their teeth or dress them rather than trying themselves or preferring

Helpful Tip

As soon as you become a parent, your focus shifts to taking care of your new bundle of joy. Each minute of your waking hours are consumed by taking care of them, playing with them and thinking about them. As difficult as it may be, self-care becomes especially important.

Try taking a quick five-minute meditation break

here and there, going for a walk in nature, listening to your favourite music, joining a book club or seeing if somebody else can take your little one for a few hours so you can go shopping or catch up with friends. passive activities that don’t require fine motor skills, such as watching TV or using an iPad.

You can encourage and help your child to develop their fine motor skills by offering toys that can be stacked or have interconnectable parts, offering creative materials and encouraging tactile play with materials like slime or play dough. Continue to cheer them on them while they learn. If your child continues to struggle or seems disinterested in advancing their fine motor skills, take them to the GP.

Did You Know?

Immediately after your baby’s birth, you’ll probably still look around 20 weeks pregnant. It’ll be two weeks until your uterus is small enough to fit back into your pelvis, and six weeks before it is back to its pre-pregnancy size. It’s basically shrinking from the size of a watermelon to a pear.