baba baa Blog

5 Challenges To Expect When You Become A New Parent

Congratulations! After surviving a challenging nine months, you and your partner have managed to oversee a successful delivery and the arrival of a healthy baby. And now that you’re reading this, there’s a huge chance that you’re a first-time parent! 

Even so, being a first-time parent doesn’t mean that you’re unaware of the many new and thrilling challenges awaiting you. This might make you anxious, scared, or even excited. But don’t fret. You really don’t have to worry as long as you anticipate what’s coming and prepare well for the days, weeks, months, and years ahead! This list will feature five of the most expected challenges faced by new parents today, and some quick tips on how to deal with them.

5 Ways To Keep Your Kids Occupied When You’re Super Busy

The modern-day parent is an extremely busy individual. With already so little time to attend to job responsibilities, household chores, and other personal commitments, it’s also unsurprisingly hard to manage babies and children with limitless energy.

Yes, we all know it’s good for us to take a moment every now and then to play with them or tend to their requests when they’re bored. But sometimes, there’s just so much to do that we unfortunately can’t break away from the task at hand.

When this happens, we struggle to think of things to do or ways to keep them preoccupied and usually resort to letting them do whatever they want—which most of the time involves a huge mess, an injury, or time wasted in front of a television screen.

But it doesn’t always have to be this way. The following are five simple methods that you can use and recycle over and over again to keep your kids engaged whenever you find yourself too busy to do parenting stuff.

5 Reasons Why It’s Important To Read Stories To Your Kids

The mind of a child is full of possibilities and endless adventure. Remembering when we ourselves were young, most of us can recall times where we pretended to be heroes or heroines in our favourite stories told to us by our parents, grandparents, and teachers. Even today, many of us can still remember how these stories played out and the excitement and thrill we got from escaping to a made-up world, even if just for a little while.

Yes, most of us have been raised with amazing stories and it’s no surprise that we’ve continued the tradition by reading them to our little ones before bed or using them to teach valuable life lessons daily.

But aside from being fun and memorable, what else is so great about the act of storytelling? And more importantly, how do they benefit a child’s development during the early years?

5 Amazing Ways Music Helps Babies and Toddlers Develop

While bringing up our babies and toddlers, most of us instinctively love to sing them songs and use music to keep them entertained or help them learn new things. This is a timeless trend that goes as far back as we can remember, and one that will no doubt stick around long into the future.

But even though we know music is a great tool for nurturing babies and toddlers, what exactly are the benefits of exposing our little ones to music such as nursery rhymes and other children’s songs? What makes listening and singing along to tunes such a valuable element in the formative years of a child?

Let’s look at just a handful of the important ones…

5 Things You Can Do To Be A More Present Parent

baba baa interviews Sarah Lee: Raising A Child With Empathy & Reason

On the ceaseless journey that we call parenthood, it’s sometimes easy to find ourselves in need of a little inspiration. At times we wonder if we’re making the right decisions in raising our kids—were we too harsh, or were we not assertive enough? While other times we make a chore figuring out ways to make things more manageable and fun at home.

This month, we speak to Sarah Lee—a mommy from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia now residing in Sydney, Australia, and a co-founder of a men’s bespoke fashion brand (@suitmisura)—about her parenting journey and her approach to taking care of her 3-year-old girl Zara, including their favorite activities together, discipline, and making life just a little bit more fun.

You can follow Sarah on her Instagram profile (@lala_lee) and keep up to date with her journey as a mommy to little Zara.

5 Reasons Why Books Are The Absolute Best Gifts For Babies & Toddlers

We think that when it comes to giving a child a gift, books are the best way to go. Here’s why. 

Whether it be for a birthday, a baby shower or a just a simple show of love for a child (be it yours or someone else’s), the options you’re faced with when it comes to picking up a children’s gift are almost impossible to count. Head out to your nearest shopping mall or look online and you’ll see hundreds of options for clothes, toys, education materials, and other childcare products. 

But no matter what the occasion, you can never go wrong with a good children’s book. Gifting a child a book benefits them greatly in many areas, including helping them in their early education journey, to helping them understand life, to forming better relationships with their parents. 

How exactly?  

A Reminder Why Reading Is So Important For Your Baby (Or Toddler)

By now we all sort of know that reading is extremely important and beneficial to a child’s upbringing. 

We know that children who are exposed to books from young tend to perform better in life compared to those who don’t. 

Over the years, countless studies have demonstrated that kids who read or get read to by their parents experience a much more colorful childhood and understand the world around them better as they grow older. 

But what is it about reading children’s books exactly that bring about such a positive effect on young toddlers and babies? Some parents right now might be reading to their children unaware of what it is exactly their accomplishing, but to help you out, here’s a few insights into the actual benefits. 

baba baa interviews Ally Leong: Why I Let My Kids Be Their Own Bosses

As parents, it’s easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of daily life, sometimes getting so caught up juggling work, home, and being good role models to our kids until we forget how to parent properly and find ourselves asking if we’re doing things right. 

We all need new perspectives sometimes, so it’s nice to hear from other parents about how they approach daily life, taking care of kids, and the things they do to make it all just that much more enjoyable. 

This week, Ally Leong, an Instagrammer and full-time mommy from Malaysia talks to us about her approach to parenting, managing her household, and how her method of setting flexible schedules helps her out as a mother. 

Mother’s Day 2020 Special: 6 Instagram Mommies On Motherhood, Coping During COVID-19, and Tips To A Happier Life

Why It’s So Important To Teach Kids Local Nursery Rhymes Like ‘Rasa Sayang’, Especially In The 21st Century

3 Tips For Quality Parent-Child Bonding During The COVID-19 Outbreak

From indulging in a good children’s book to doing house chores to playing games together, social distancing during COVID-19 has served up plenty opportunities for parents to reconnect with their young ones.