Free life insurance for parents

We have just received the following offer from Sovereign Life Insurance.

To take advantage of this offer you need to go to chooseprecious.co.nz and enter the code "CP125" during the registration process.

Please note: DIYFather does not endorse this company or offer in any way. Parents are encouraged to check terms and conditions of this offer before signing up.

By DIYFather.com

Scotts Weekly Review - Safe and Sound Car Seat

This weeks product review is on Safe & Sound Car Seat, Pyper has just about grown out of her capsule, I'm a bit sad about that as it meant we had to buy another car seat ... so more money down the drain. But once again it's all about safety so there's no excuse really.

We got the Safe&Sound Car Seat as a gift and initially I thought "it's a good looking car seat". Here's what I found:



Pros

• Certified up to a weight of 18kgs
  
• Sturdy with lots of cushions and padding
  
• Pretty dirt resistant from what I can tell

Cons

• Needs hooks in the car to lock the seat in place
  
• Only reclines in the back facing position
  
• Quite expensive
  
• It has a 3 point (6 straps) harness - quite complicated to put on and secure

The dad life - happiness is ...

Happiness is:

Planes!

Being silly

Flying

Dancing with dad

Sharing food

Music

Dress ups

Having lots of balls

Bubbles!

The island of dad

(this is a collection of images I found on the web - if any of them belong to you please let us know so we can credit you or remove the image if you don't want it featured here).

-DIYFather.com

Indoor bowling DIY style

Here's a great game you can play with young children aged 18 months and up. It's your own version of 10 pin bowling except that you don't need pins or a bowling alley - all you need is a ball (any ball) and your little one's favorite toys (whatever they are in to at the moment). Here's what you do:

1. Clear some space on the floor (living room, nursery ... wherever you've got a few feet / yards of floors space)
   
2. Get a handful of your child's favorite toys and line them up in row
   
3. Grab a ball (e.g. soft ball, tennis ball, golf ball - whatever you can find in the house) and move away from the toys you set up - now roll the ball towards the toys to try and knock them over

What presents to give babies and young children (by age)

Non-parents or brand new parents sometimes struggle to find age appropriate gifts for babies and children. To make the present-finding process a bit easier, here's a table with suitable presents and gifts by age range.

Age range	Gift idea / suitable presents
Not born yet - 3 months	Resist the urge to give newborn baby clothes unless you know for a fact that the parents-to-be are not already drowning in baby clothes. If you can't resist at least buy clothes for older age ranges like 6months or 12months and up. Instead of clothes get any of the following as gifts (which you can never have enough): picture books, wall stickers / murals for the nursery, bath toys or nappies (if you want to be really practical).
3 - 6 months	Teething toys, bibs, floor mats (protective covers or to play on), picture books, baby gyms / activity sets or Lamaze toys
6 - 12 months	Soft balls, stacking blocks, cardboard books and flash cards, toy animals, dolls, shape sorters, bubble guns or bubble makers (shapes and bubble liquid)
12 - 24 months	Simple jigsaw puzzles (up to 20 pieces), play dough, crayons / chalk, doodle pads, simple musical instruments (e.g. maracas)
2 - 3 years	Story books, toy animals / action figures, jigsaw puzzles (up to 48 pieces), train sets, dolls and doll house, toy vehicles (trucks, cars), fancy dress costumes or accessories (like dinosaur tails or princess tiaras), large LEGO blocks (Duplo)
3 - 5 years	Children's kitchen sets, ball games, water color sets, kites, paper planes or toy planes, LEGO blocks, paddle pools, scooters and tricicles

With children 5 and up it's pretty much down to what they are in to at the moment. Find out what they really like - common themes include fairies, trains, princesses, Disney stories and characters, dinosaurs, animated movies and related characters.

Teething in pictures

If you have ever wondered what it looks like when baby teeth first emerge - have a look at the following sequence of images that show how baby teeth come out. For a description of the teething sequence by month (after a birth) - check out our article on the baby teeth eruption sequence.

Stage 1 - you will notice a swelling of the gums at certain areas of the mouth (usually at the front where the lower or upper incisors will appear). The actual teeth are not visible yet but you might see the hint of an opening in the gum.



Stage 2 - you will notice an opening in the gum and a tiny showing of the tip of the teeth. It is quite common for two teeth to emerge at the same time or shortly after one another.

Top child-friendly airlines in the world

Here's a list of top airlines and their child-friendliness (as rated by DIYFather dads). Send in comments or experiences about a particular airlines and we'll include it in the list.

Air New Zealand is the national carrier of New Zealand serving routes between Oceania, the US/Canada, Asia and Europe. The airline is part of the Star Alliance and cabin crew are generally quite kid friendly and accommodating. All AirNZ lounges have facilities or toy boxes for kids and you can use Star Alliance lounges (some of which have kids facilities) in airports where AirNZ doesn’t have a dedicated lounge. Air New Zealand hands out little game packs to children on board.

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China Airlines is the national carrier of the Republic of China. The airline serves destinations in China and routes to Europe, North America and Asia. The airline is part of the SkyTeam alliance so you can make use of SkyTeam lounges (some of which have facilities for kids).

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LAN Airlines is the national carrier of Chile serving routes between South America, North America, Oceania, Asia and Europe. The airline is part of the One World Alliance.

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LOT is the national carrier of Poland and the world oldest airline in operation serving European destination and long haul routes to the US/Canada, Asia and Africa. The airline is part of the Star Alliance so you can make use of Star Alliance lounges (some of which have facilities for kids).

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Air Canada is the national carrier of Canada serving routes between the Americas, Asia and Europe. The airline is part of the Star Alliance so you can make use of Star Alliance lounges (some of which have facilities for kids).

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Swiss International Airlines is a Swiss airline (owned by Lufthansa) serving European destinations and routes to the Americas, Asia and Africa. The airline is part of the Star Alliance so you make use of Star Alliance lounges (some of which have facilities for kids). Staff are generally more kid friendly than staff at the parent company Lufthansa.

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Emirates is the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates which operates an extensive network of routes around the planet. The airline is not part of any alliance but has codeshare agreements in place with Japan Airlines, Korean Air, South African Airways and Thai Airways International (among others).

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Qantas is the national carrier of Australia serving routes between Oceania, the Americas, Asia and Europe. The airline is part of the One World Alliance but also operates their own lounges in many key destinations. Qantas staff are generally very kids friendly and hand out ice creams and games to kids on the plane.

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Singapore Airlines is the national carrier of Singapore serving routes between Oceania, North America, Asia and Europe. The airline is part of the Star Alliance and operates its lounges in many key destinations around the globe. SIA staff are somewhat less kids friendly than other Asian airlines however the inflight entertainment is second to none so kids aged 3 years and up are easily entertained. The airline also hands out little game packs for kids.

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Royal Jordanian is the national carrier of Jordan serving routes between Africa, the Middle East, North America, Asia and Europe. The airline is part of the One World Alliance.

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American Airlines is a US based airline serving destinations in the Americas and intercontinental destinations to Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Oceania. AA is part of the One World Alliance so you can make use One World lounges (although not many of those have special facilities for kids).

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Dads choice awards: top free iPhone apps for toddlers

Here's a list of top free iPhone apps for Toddlers. Surprisingly there are actually not that many (useful ones). There are lots of variations of memory games, flash cards and sound apps but by and large they are all the same. The ranking of the apps below is determined by votes (one vote per day max). You can submit any other toddler apps to get them included in the ranking.

Kids can match - animals
Well designed an implemented "memory game" (matching pairs) app for older toddlers (2-3 years).
-Submitted by the Secret Panda Society

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Kids sing along songs
Nice little app with 5 common nursery rhymes - great for singing to your little one(s).

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I here Ewe - Animal Sounds for Toddlers
Simple animal sound app for babies and toddlers (great for ages 6-18 months)

-submitted by Raquel

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Shapes Toddler Preschool
Shape recognition app (and other quizzes) for older toddlers (18-24 months). Great for developing fine motor skills and hand-eye-coordination.

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Toddler Flashcards (free)
The name says it all - an app that displays flashcards to prompt toddlers to say (announce) the object / concept they see on the screen. Great for traveling and you'll never ever lose a cardboard flashcard again or have it chewed to bits by your dog.

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All you need to know about the umbilical cord

The following are the top 5 questions and answers dads have about umbilical cords:

1. What happens when the umbilical cord gets wrapped around the baby's neck during birth?
Having the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby's head, neck or limbs is not uncommon during pregnancy or birth. Sometimes these conditions are detected during regular check ups and your midwife or health care professional decides what to do about the situation. Drastic interventions are rare if the baby's vitals are fine - medical staff might suggest exercises to encourage the baby to shift position.

If this guy can become an involved and nurturing father, anyone can do it

One of our authors "Kelly Crull" has written a book about his experience of becoming a dad. Here's a little description about his book and an offer for a free download of the first few chapters - check it out!

Within weeks of getting pregnant, Kelly Crull's wife had a stack of parenting books waiting on his nightstand, complete with neat, hand-written bookmarks telling him which chapters he needed to read. In nine months, he had learned everything about his wife giving birth, becoming a mother, and how he could support her. What he actually wanted was a book by a normal guy telling him about becoming a dad. The last thing he needed was more expert advice, a ten-step plan or fancy pie charts. He just wanted someone to give it to him straight, “What was parenting going to be like for him?”. So he wrote a book on what it felt like to become a dad - it's called "Becoming Dad" and covers:

* visiting the gynecologist with your wife
* breaking a sweat in your wife's childbirth class