Miracle Babies Foundation’s National Awareness Month

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Miracle Babies Foundation is Australia’s leading organisation supporting premature and sick newborns, their families and the hospitals that care for them.

Every year in Australia around 44,000 newborn babies require the help of a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) or Special Care Nursery (SCN). 25,000 of these babies are born premature and up to 1000 babies lose their fight for life.

For families, the experience of having a baby come into the world not as expected or planned is life changing. Without support, this overwhelming and traumatic experience can have lifelong effects on the emotional well being of these miracle families.  It affects the entire family unit.

Since 2005, Miracle Babies Foundation has been passionate in developing and providing vital programs and resources to support and enhance a family’s experience from a threatened pregnancy, hospital journey with a premature or sick newborn, the transition to home and beyond.

Australia is home to 22 state of the art intensive care units designed to meet the unique and critical needs of our earliest and sickest babies. Working with health professionals on the joint agenda of better outcomes for families, Miracle Babies provides informative education and insight on a family’s experience and funding for equipment, resources and research.

CLICK HERE TO GET INVOLVED

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

Mum looking at premature baby in humidicrib

Nourishing lip & body butter recipe by Maria Hannaford @ Econest

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What you need….

  • Cacao butter -  is the oil extracted from cacao seeds (and the main ingredient in white chocolate). It contains plenty of vitamin E to soften the skin, and stearic acid which helps with skin repair. It’s a little pricey, but most worthy as it doubles as a healthy alternative to butter in cake recipes etc.
  • Coconut oil - contains all sorts of goodies (capric and lauric acids) that act as antimicrobial and antifungal agents, protecting your skin from microbes as well as dryness. This is especially good for lips!
  • Macadamia oil - is an emollient, which means it reduces the evaporation of water from your skin, making it feel more conditioned and softer. It’s very stable even at high temperatures  meaning it won’t oxidise (go rancid) so is safe for your skin (and to cook with).

Make sure what you’re buying is cold-pressed and organic if possible.

    lip & body butter… in a reused blush container

First thing’s first, you need to get the consistency right-  cacao butter is super solid at room temperature but melts at body temperature. Coconut oil is sorta semi solid at room temperature, and macadamia oil is liquid pretty much all the time. So you mix all three at the ratios above to get a balm-y consistency that stays sorta solid at room temperature. Make sense? If you’re in a very hot climate, you might need to use a little less macadamia oil. If you’re in a super cold climate, you may need to use a touch more. I live in Melbourne, which can be scorching hot one second and 20C cooler the next, and I find these ratios keep the balm solid enough to store a small container of it in my bag without it leaking everywhere.

Quantities…

  • I used about 3 tablespoons of cacao butter
  • 1 tablespoon of coconut oil and
  • 1 tablespoon of macadamia oil to make enough balm to fill a small emptied blush container, and a little left over that filled a small condiment dish (which I keep in the bathroom). So you make as much or as little as you like. Just work with those ratios and you’ll be right.

What to do…

  • Melt a piece of cacao butter over a low heat.  Remove from heat.
  • Add a tablespoon of coconut oil and melt through (the residual heat should be enough to melt it).
  • Add the macadamia oil and stir well to combine. Feel free to use any other plant oil you like. Almond oil is nice. So too jojoba, or olive oil, or carrot seed…
  • Want it smelly? Feel free to add a few drops of your favourite essential oil at this point. Totally optional.
  • Pour the mixture into a spill-proof container and allow to set overnight on the bench (or you can speed up the process by popping it in the fridge).

Use the balm to condition your lips and skin. Also great for nails!

-Eco Nest

G Magazine ~ Baby Safe Washing Detergents

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By G Magazine

  • Pure soap flakes or one of the green laundry products (Aware, Earth Choice, Orange Power, ecostore, etc) are usually gentle enough for sensitive skin.
  • Favour fragrance-free products and make sure you choose the right product and dose size for your machine, be it a top loader or front loader.
  • Soap flakes and powders can be easier to use if you pre-dissolve them. Remember that using ‘twice as much’ does NOT mean ‘twice as clean’ and your wash is more likely to leave residue detergent in the fabric, even after rinsing.
  • Extra rinse cycles, though using more water, can help with particularly sensitive skin. You might want to do separate washes for baby things.
  • It’s a good idea to spot-treat stains with a green stain remover rather than using a more chemically intensive detergent for the whole wash. Simple detergents and thorough drying will make your clothes hygienically clean.
  • While bleaches and optical brighteners can make washing look cleaner, they add to the environmental impact of the detergent you’ve used and they can irritate sensitive skin.

Tips For Teaching Kids About Compassion

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By Become A Nanny…

Helping your child learn to feel compassion and empathy for others is one of the most important lessons you can instill in them as a parent. As bullying and cruelty become more prevalent, and children and teens are resorting to extremes to find relief from the torment of their peers, helping your child to understand how important it is to respect the feelings of others can make a very real difference in the world around her. While it’s not always easy to help a child grasp such an abstract concept, there are steps you can take, as a family, to make the concept of being compassionate more understandable.

  • Model Compassionate Behavior – Just as your child learns to mimic your mannerisms and speech patterns, she’ll also take most of her cues about how to treat her peers, elders, animals and the environment from you as well. Making a conscious effort to model compassionate, altruistic behavior in everyday life is one of the most effective ways of ensuring that your child also learns to behave in such a manner. When your child sees you treat the world around you with compassion, she will instinctively follow the shining example you’ve set for her.
  • Take Opportunities to Talk about Caring for Others – When your child is confronted with images of violence, cruelty or bullying through television, movies and even her everyday interactions with the world, it’s important to take the opportunity to talk about how she thinks the victims of those actions feel and how she might be able to help. With these examples to examine as points of reference, a largely abstract notion can become more concrete and easier to understand. Take the time to discuss empathy and compassion every day, especially when events or images bring the issue to the forefront.
  • Volunteer as a Family – Spending time as a family performing volunteer work can give your child not only an up close and personal view of compassion and empathy in action, but also the satisfied feeling that comes with making a positive difference in the world. Making an effort to choose volunteer activities based upon your child’s existing interests, the age-appropriateness of the tasks involved, and her ability to immediately see a perceptible difference due to her actions can help your child understand that helping others is both important and rewarding. Working together as a family can also strengthen bonds, give you an opportunity to continuously model compassionate behavior, create talking points for later discussion, and allow you to monitor what she’s exposed to in the course of her volunteer work.
  • Teach Kids to Stand Up to Bullying – While your child should understand that it’s never acceptable to approach a bully in a confrontational or violent manner, and that retaliation isn’t a solution to the problem of bullying, you should also encourage her to make an effort to stand up to school bullies in a compassionate and productive way. Reporting harassment of another child to school authorities, making an effort to befriend children that aren’t easily accepted by their peers, and never engaging in bullying activities are all effective ways of combating the problem without retaliation. It’s also important to explain that standing aside and doing nothing to assist a victim of bullying or laughing at cruel pranks is the same as condoning the treatment her classmate is receiving.
  • Donate Outgrown Toys and Clothes – When your child outgrows her toys and clothing while they’re still in serviceable shape, it’s a good idea to get her involved in the sorting and packing process, and then let her accompany you when you go to make a donation. Seeing that the belongings she no longer needs are finding good use in a needy home can instill the importance of charitable giving, and ease any pangs of separation anxiety she feels.
  • Practice Random Acts of Kindness – Keeping your eyes open for small acts of unexpected kindness that you and your child can perform together can not only help her understand the concept of altruism, but can also help to make it an everyday practice. Look for ways that you and your child can help whenever you’re out together; in no time, she’ll be spotting potential random acts of kindness herself.

While it’s not always a popular notion with harried parents, allowing your child to keep a pet can provide her with an everyday incentive to be compassionate and caring for a living being that needs her help to survive. Smaller pets, like fish or hamsters, can be just as effective as dogs or cats. Depending on your living situation and schedule constraints, adopting a pet for your child to take responsibility for can be another very effective way of passing along a lesson in compassion.

-become a nanny

Give women and girls living in Sierra Leone access to an education!

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One Girl is a non-profit organisation which gives women and girls living in Sierra Leone access to education.

A girl born in Sierra Leone is more likely to be sexually assaulted than she is to attend High School.

They are currenting supporting 150 girls who are attending Primary and High School as part of the Girl’s Education Program. Each year, they need to raise enough money to keep their girls in school. That includes school fees, books, bags, uniforms, medical care and stationary.

Do It In A Dress will ensure that 150 girls have their entire education paid for (not just one year at a time) – whether they start in grade 1 or year 10. Secondly, they will be working with their schools to learn how they can make the environment more ‘girl friendly’. They are currently looking at building more toilets and classrooms to ensure girls can stay in school.

A majority of women in Sierra Leone don’t have a hygienic way of managing their period. Women may use five pairs of underwear, kitchen sponges, old cloth and other makeshift materials to manage their menstruation. Using cloth and other materials to manage your period is also embarrassing. Girls in developing countries will miss out on up to one week of school EVERY month because they’ve got their period.

CLICK HERE TO GET INVOLVED!!!!!

CLICK HERE TO DONATE!!!

New Arrivals ~ Mini Rodini

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Check out our new arrivals from Mini Rodini!

Mini Rodini is one of Scandinavia’s fastest growing children’s wear brands. Selling in some of the most prestigious department stores and independent shops world-wide, from Harvey Nichols in Kuwait to Little Fashion Gallery in Paris. As of now, Mini Rodini is represented in over 250 selected locations aside from the two fully owned stores and the successful web channel.

They believe it is of great importance that children have clothes that match their own mood and creativity. Mini Rodini is a tribute to all children, their imagination and sense that everything is possible. While the aesthetic of their designs – playful and humorous – may speak to children, the quality is equally important. Sustainability is one of their strongest aspects in their whole design process. They design modern children’s clothes that speak to modern and conscientious parents.

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