If you’re travelling by car, then your baby will have to travel in a rear-facing baby seat that is suitable for their weight and height. If your baby’s head is above the top of the back of the baby seat then the seat is too small and you’ll need a bigger one. Make sure it’s fitted properly – most places that sell baby seats will offer a free fitting service that acts as a tutorial so that you can learn how to fit it yourself.

Rear-facing baby seats must always go in the back, because airbags in the front can kill a baby in a baby seat. Some cars enable you to de-activate a front passenger airbag. If you’re worried that you won’t be able to see your baby if he/she is facing backwards in the back seat, then consider buying a mirror that fits onto the headrest of the back seat, and angle it so that you can see your baby’s face when you look in your rear-view mirror.

From the age of about 9 months your baby can travel facing forwards but still needs to be in a baby seat. The safest place in a car is the rear passenger-side seat. Remember that if you travel abroad you should swap the seat over so that it goes on the driver’s-side in the back. This keeps baby away from the fast-moving oncoming traffic.

If you’re going out in the pram then make sure your baby is safely strapped in (they may decide that the day you don’t strap them in will be the day that they learn how to roll or propel themselves forward…). Don’t overload the back, or it could tip over, and make sure the frame is properly rigid before putting your baby in.

Another thing you need to be aware of when going out and about with your baby is the strength of the sun. More and more children are developing rickets because their parents are slathering them in factor 50 sun cream at the slightest hint of sun and inadvertently depriving their children of vitamin D, which comes from exposure to the sun.

The best thing to do is keep your baby shaded until he/she is about six months old (consider buying a cover for your pram that filters UV rays) and from then on, use sun cream to uncovered areas like hands and face when the sun is at its hottest (normally 11am to 2pm, but in high summer this can be as early at 10am until as late as 4pm).

This task is a little easier for mums who are doing the regimented, feeding-baby-every-four-hours thing.  They can give baby a bottle and know that it will be another four hours before baby needs feeding again, so aside from the occasional nappy change there shouldn’t be much to affect the trip out.

Mums who feed their babies on demand will find this harder.  Most demand-fed babies are breastfed, so few women need to worry about warming a bottle unexpectedly and having to find somewhere to do so in a hurry (tip: take a flask of hot water and a jug to pour it into, to put your bottle in to warm wherever you are).  Breastfeeding mums need to be ready to sit down and feed their babies whenever and wherever necessary.  Pack a muslin square or two to hide your modesty if you’re worried about feeding in public, though most places are, thankfully, breastfeeding-friendly these days.

Invest in a bag that is easy to open with one hand, and that will fit under your pram or over the handles.  In it, pack:

-          Four nappies

-          Wipes

-          Small pot of cream*

-          Bottle/flask/jug/powder/water for bottle-fed babies

-          Spare baby grow

-          Carrier bag

-          Nappy bags

-          Muslin square for putting on changing tables/benches for nappy changes

*Rather than packing a heavy tub or large tube of cream for your baby’s bottom, decant a little bit into one of those small travel-sized tubs you can get for going on holidays.  There are some that are cylindrical, with compartments that screw into each other from top to bottom.

Don’t bother packing a whole spare outfit unless you’re going somewhere special that you want your baby dressed up for – if there’s a nappy leak, just change your baby into a baby grow and put the dirty clothes into the carrier to be washed later. 

Taking all of your kit and your baby out in a pram is certainly good for your back, as you can load everything on, in or under the pram, but it’s not always practical.  For example, if you want to go to the supermarket for a big shop, you’ll realise immediately that you can’t push a pram and a trolley around the shop.  The special seats attached to trolleys for babies are made of hard, moulded plastic and aren’t the most comfortable of things, so you might find your baby doesn’t sit well in them.  Either take a trolley and put your baby in the main section strapped safely into their car seat, or take your baby in a sling.  If you carry your baby in a sling, a good tip is to choose a shallow trolley as it is very hard to reach into the bottom of a deep trolley with a baby strapped to your front!

Next week we’ll look at safety measures you’ll want to take when going out with your baby.

After the first few days and weeks of having streams of visitors to the house, cards through the door and well-wishers phoning to ask how you’re getting along, your partner goes back to work, the calls and visits dry up as the novelty wears off, and you’re left in the house with your baby.

Whilst you will be keen to get to know your baby, learning countless new skills like how to tie a shoelace with one hand or how to eat your dinner in two minutes flat, it can quickly become rather lonely being a new mum.

Perhaps the group of women hardest-hit by this loneliness are women who have worked full-time – career women for whom work was a big part of their lives. Many of their friends, if not all of them, are at work and not available to chat or meet up during the day.

One of the first things you should do, as a new mum, is to get yourself and your baby out of the house and start making links, and friends, in your local community. Get to know what baby and toddler groups there are out there, and what places are child-friendly that you can visit with your baby. Try to get out and do something every day.

Remember that everything will take you at least three times as long as it did before you had a baby. Get used to this new pace – slow everything down, including your expectations of what you can get done in what time – and you will be happier for it. Your baby will be happier for it, too, if they are given the chance to stop and look at interesting things with you rather than being zoomed about the shops in a buggy.

Next week we will look at what sort of things can help you in getting prepared to get out and about, what sort of things you need to think about and what you really need to take with you. But it takes practice to make perfect and the more you venture out, the easier it will become.

Nappy rash can also be the result of a thrush infection (‘candida’) which is common after antibiotics have been taken by the baby – the antibiotics kill off the good bacteria that would normally keep the candida fungus in check. Babies can also develop a nappy rash if they are allergic to the nappy material (or, if they are using natural nappies, to the detergents used to clean them, or the elastic in the nappy covers).

You can normally treat nappy rash yourself by applying soothing creams bought over the counter. If you are unsure of which type to buy, then ask your pharmacist or health visitor for advice. If the rash appears to be infected in any way (e.g. if it is very inflamed, hot to the touch, oozes, or if your baby is generally unwell) then you should seek advice from your GP.

If the cream you have bought isn’t working, then see your GP if the rash hasn’t cleared up in a week, or if it gets worse or spreads to other parts of the body. If you think it’s caused by an allergy then ask your GP for advice in pinpointing the cause.

It’s better to avoid nappy rash than have to treat it. Sometimes it will happen no matter what you do, in which case don’t feel guilty about it, just get on with treating it.

To prevent nappy rash, change your baby’s nappy frequently (if nappy rash is developing, change more regularly still). Keep your baby’s bath temperature warm but not too warm, and avoid the use of soaps or bubbles. Apply zinc and castor oil cream after each nappy change – other commonly used creams are too drying – and if nappy rash is developing then try to keep your baby’s nappy off altogether as much as possible. Be sure to wash your hands before and after nappy changes to minimise infection.

Research this week has suggested that children – teenagers in particular – risk long-term problems with their backs because of their need to carry heavy bags at school all day.  No change there, then.

On average, a schoolbag apparently weighs between ten and fifteen per cent of an average teenager’s body weight, and on top of that they don’t have the muscle strength to support that because of their increasingly sedentary lifestyles at home. 

The researchers studied 1,400 children aged 12 to 17 and weighed them with and without their schoolbags.  They looked at the children’s lifestyle, height and any health problems.

Most (90%) carried bags weighing more than 7kg; just over half carried bags that weighed more than 10% of their bodyweight, and a fifth carried bags that weighed 15% of their bodyweight.  A quarter of the children reported having suffered back pain for at least 15 days in total during the preceding year. 

Seventy per cent of those children who were diagnosed with an actual back condition were found to have scoliosis, which is a curvature of the spine, though there was no data on whether this was a pre-existing condition that the children would have had anyway or whether there was a causal link with the bag carrying.

The results showed that girls were more likely to suffer back problems than boys, and the older the child, the more likely they were to have problems.

The message from the authors is for parents to make sure that their children are not carrying more than they absolutely need to, just because the child can’t be bothered to pack and re-pack their bags on a daily basis for that day’s lessons, or because the child is anxious about forgetting vital books.  Also, parents should speak to the school if they’re concerned, about getting lockers installed so that books can be left there rather than carried around the building.  Finally, if your child carries a bag to school, make sure it’s a backpack that is actually worn on the back and not over the shoulder – you may be fighting a losing battle there, since it’s so uncool to wear one’s backpack on one’s actual back, but you should still try.  You’re a parent, that’s your job.

According to research, this latter group of women tend to have babies who grow up to have higher IQs and do better at school. Children at eight years old who were fed on demand as babies perform better on IQ tests by 4 to 5 points compared to eight-year-olds who were fed on a schedule.
They also performed better in national tests like SATs at age 7, 11 and 14.

This was the finding by researchers from Essex and Oxford Universities.
The researchers took account of environmental factors like how well educated or wealthy the parents were, what gender and age within the year group the children were, and what their other parenting styles were like.

Most of the demand-fed babies were breastfed (it’s difficult to demand feed with bottles, especially if you’re out and about and not sure how much to take with you).

If 4 to 5 points on an IQ test doesn’t sound like much, one of the researchers said, “The difference in IQ levels of around four to five points, though statistically highly significant, would not make a child at the bottom of the class move to the top, but it would be noticeable.” So a child ranked at 15th out of 30 children might be more like 11th or 12th if they had been demand-fed.

The research also reported that mums who fed their babies to a schedule enjoyed being a parent more and got more sleep. The researchers commented, “There appears to be a trade-off: children who were fed to a schedule go on to do less well in attainment and IQ tests, at all ages from five to 14.”

Sleep apnoea is thought to occur in around 2 – 4% of children (it is much more common in adults) and is a condition where the airway becomes blocked temporarily, causing the child to stop breathing until they rouse sufficiently to kick-start their breathing again.  In adults it’s usually caused by obesity, but in children it’s normally caused by enlarged adenoids or tonsils.

The awakenings caused by sleep apnoea are too brief for the child to register and they won’t remember them in the morning.  But they can happen dozens of times each night and this leads to great tiredness and lethargy – and if the child is at school during the day their teachers will often notice that they are not paying much attention to their lessons and seem to be daydreaming a lot.

The latest research into the long-term effects of these two conditions (snoring and sleep apnoea) was carried out by Dr Karen Bonuck, who studied information provided about 11,000 children in the UK.    The information was gathered through questionnaires completed by parents.

Dr Bonuck, of the Einstein College of Medicine in New York, concluded that these conditions can harm certain areas of the brain which, in children, are obviously still developing, and that this might be responsible for conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The link might be because of less oxygen reaching the brain, or it might be because it interrupts the process of consolidating information that the brain normally goes through during sleep.  Or it might be upsetting the delicate balance of neurotransmitters (chemicals) in the brain.

Dr Bonuck said, “… this study shows clearly that symptoms do precede behavioural problems and strongly suggests that they are causing these problems.”

Vitamin D is particularly important for growing children in terms of muscle and bone development. The main source of Vitamin D for children is milk; however it can also be sourced from health shops in a chewy sweet form.

Lack of the Vitamin in a diet can have negatives effects on brain function, the memory, the immune system and muscle function. For adults Vitamin D can be found in the form of tablets, sprays, and capsules, or liquid form.

These symptoms are often put down to ‘colic’, which is a word used to describe a period that many babies go through in their early weeks then they will scream and cry and seem to be in great pain, usually on an evening. Colic is not, by any means, always down to a lactose allergy, but it is sometimes. And often it is only diagnosed after a period of ‘colic’ lasts for more than a month or so.

If your baby is losing weight and is ‘colicky’ you might want to explore with your GP whether or not he or she has a lactose intolerance or allergy. If he/she does, then the solution is easy: change formulas to one that is not based on cows’ milk, or (if you’re breastfeeding) stop consuming any lactose yourself so that it won’t get passed on to your baby. Many mums are advised to stop breastfeeding and put their babies onto non-lactose formula because some GPs and Health Visitors don’t seem to understand that there’s a difference between human milk (which does not contain lactose) and cows’ milk (which does).

Let us be clear. If you are breastfeeding and it is found that your baby is allergic to lactose, all you need to do is stop consuming lactose and your baby won’t consume any either.

Most babies grow out of their allergy over time as their system matures. It is an allergic reaction like any other – the body’s immune system is fighting something (in this case, lactose) that it thinks shouldn’t be in there. Lactose intolerance is an inability to digest lactose.

If your baby has a milk allergy, their symptoms might appear gradually over time (with diarrhoea, sickness, refusing feeds, colic, rashes) and may not be immediately associated with a feed.

Other babies might have symptoms that appear rapidly after consuming lactose (which makes it easier to diagnose), such symptoms being things like sickness, wheeziness, hives, swelling of the face or body, and blood in their diarrhoea.

If you think your baby has a milk allergy or lactose intolerance, speak to your GP who will rule out other causes before diagnosing either of these conditions. He will then refer you to a dietician who
can advise on the best way of ensuring that your baby receives proper nutrition without lactose in their diet. If you’re breastfeeding, the dietician can advise on how to ensure that you still receive adequate calcium in your diet without cows’ milk.

Moving house is understandably a stressful event – indeed, it’s said to be one of the most stressful events that can happen in a person’s life, alongside things like experiencing a death in the family, divorcing or getting married. But not much is known about the effect that moving house may have on children, with the general feeling being that children are adaptable and although they might find it upsetting at first, leaving behind their home and possibly school and friends, they will cope in the long-term.

Recent research, though, has examined the long-term effect on children that moving house may have. At first instance, it would appear that moving house can increase the risk of using drugs, cigarettes and alcohol to excess in later life, being overweight as adults, developing high blood-pressure and long-term illnesses and psychological distress. Whilst poor health was slightly more likely to be experienced by adults who moved house a lot as children, this result was not ‘statistically significant’ so was not proven.

However, the researchers at the Medical Research Council, Queen’s University and the University of Sterling plus Scotland’s Chief Scientist Office looked for other factors that might explain the results.

They found that the adults who had moved house a lot as children were more likely to have come from impoverished or socially-deprived backgrounds. They also factored in things like housing status (whether their parents owned or rented the homes), class, whether the parents lived together, and how many siblings there were.

The basic results were that about one in five people did not move at all during childhood; thirty percent moved once or twice, and one in five moved at least three times. Of these, if a person had moved three times during childhood, they were significantly more likely to use illegal drugs; those who had moved at least once had a significantly higher risk of developing psychological distress as adults; that there were ‘elevated’ (though not significantly so) risks of developing long-term illness if there had been at least one house move, and of drinking and smoking heavily if there had been at least three moves.

However, once factors like social deprivation etc had been taken into account, the only significant increased risk was that if an adult had moved frequently as a child, they were more likely to take illegal drugs.

The results could be explained by the fact that people who move house frequently tend to do so because of deprivation and family break-up, and quite often in such circumstances the child is forced to move schools as well as homes. This can impact on a child’s educational development and social development as they struggle to make and keep friends.