Anak Tak Mahu Duduk Dalam Carseat?

Baru baru ni viral mengenai isu "Ibu Pangku Bayi Semasa Memandu".  Tak perlulah pautan pada artikelnya, gunakan je encik Google pasti terjumpa artikel tersebut di FB mahupun di blog-blog media yang lain. Membaca justifikasi ibu tersebut, memang tak dinafikan bahawa hati seorang ibu kadang kala tersentuh bila anak menangis tak berhenti-henti di belakang.  Sudah pasti tangisan anak sedikit sebanyak mengganggu fokus si ibu semasa memandu.  Justeru, memang aku faham perasaan ibu tersebut dan aku pilih untuk tidak menghakimi perbuatan beliau.  Sebaliknya, apa yang aku boleh buat ialah kongsikan pengalaman aku sendiri semasa melatih anak-anak memakai carseat  di bumi kanggaru ni.

Australia mengenakan peraturan yang ketat berkenaan aspek keselamatan kanak-kanak di dalam kenderaan.  Lihat di SINI untuk merujuk panduan mengenakan child restraint di Queensland.  Hukuman yang dikenakan berkenaan dengan penggunaan carseat di sini adalah agak berat.  Pelancong-pelancong Malaysia yang ingin memandu sendiri di Brisbane dan Gold Coast juga boleh merujuk entri kali ini berkenaan dengan peraturan penggunaan carseat di Queensland.  Berkenaan dengan hukuman yang bakal dihadapi akibat kegagalan dalam menggunakan carseat semasa memandu di Queensland, rujuk kepada keratan artikel di bawah yang diambil dari Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads:

"The driver is responsible for making sure all people travelling in their vehicle are correctly restrained. Drivers risk being fined $341 or more and 3 demerit points for each incorrectly restrained child in the vehicle. A separate penalty of $341 or more and 3 demerit points will apply for each unrestrained or incorrectly restrained child.

An additional 3 demerit points will apply if more than 1 seatbelt offence occurs within a 12-month period. The additional demerit point penalty will apply to driver-related offences for seatbelts.

For example, if you commit a driver seatbelt offence where you failed to wear a seatbelt, you will be allocated 3 demerit points for that offence. If you commit a second offence where you drive a vehicle while a passenger is not restrained, within 1 year after the first offence, you will be allocated 3 demerit points for the second offence. You will also receive an additional 3 demerit points for it being within 1 year after the first offence. This means you will have 9 demerit points allocated to your traffic history, which may result in a driver licence sanction."

Dua minggu pertama kami tiba di sini merupakan tempoh yang agak mencabar dalam pemanduan kenderaan.  Mujur Napi yang memandu.  Walaupun anak sulung sudah dibiasakan dari kecil semasa di Malaysia lagi, pada waktu itu yang bongsu masih baru lagi nak mengenal carseat.

Antara kaedah-kaedah yang aku guna masa tu:

1. Kenyang perut, suka hati. Sediakan botol air dan makanan ringan di dalam kereta.  Kalau boleh biskut-biskut yang sihat, dan tidak mencomotkan fabrik carseat.  Untuk baby, cuba berikan baby biscuit yang dibuat sendiri ataupun yang dibeli di kedai. 
   Tips: Kadangkala, carseat akan menjadi comot dan kotor. Tapi jangan risau, cuci sarung carseat kerana ia memang direka supaya boleh ditanggalkan dan dibasuh. 
   
2. Apakah hobi atau permainan yang menarik minat anak-anak? Sediakan permainan yang diminati oleh anak-anak.  Tidak kiralah tablet, buku, anak patung dan sebagainya. Kalau pilihannya terlalu banyak, letakkan satu kotak kecil di sebelah carseat supaya anak boleh capai dan pilih sendiri. 
   Tips: Semestinya kalau dicampak-campak mainan tersebut akan kotor.  Basuh permainan-permainan yang berjenis fabrik.  Untuk permainan lain seperti tab atau buku, lap permainan tersebut menggunakan tisu basah dan keringkan terlebih dahulu sebelum diberikan semula kepada anak-anak. Utamakan mainan yang lembut2 agar kurang risiko untuk cermin kereta pecah, atau sakit kepala bila anak-anak memiliki kecenderungan untuk baling-baling.  Pasangkan tablet dengan soft silicone cover untuk melindungi fizikal tablet dari hentakan kuat. 
   
3. Sayang anak, tengok-tengokkan. Jika anak masih menangis selepas dua tips di atas, bertenang.  Berhenti sebentar di mana-mana untuk memeriksa keadaan anak.  Boleh jadi pemakaian tali pinggang keselamatan carseat terlalu ketat, anak kelaparan atau kehausan akibat kehabisan makanan atau minuman, keadaan suhu yang panas, sudah sampai masa untuk ke tandas, ataupun pelbagai lagi faktor lain yang menyumbang kepada keadaan anak yang tak selesa duduk di carseat.  Fahami punca kepada tangisan anak dan selesaikan punca tersebut sebelum menyambung pemanduan.
   Tips: Pilih tempat yang selamat untuk berhenti kerana dalam apa keadaan sekalipun, keselamatan pemandu dan penumpang adalah paling utama.  Elakkan kawasan yang sunyi, gelap dan merbahaya selagi boleh.  Biar lambat asalkan selamat.


4. Sediakan payung sebelum hujan. Laburkan sedikit duit untuk memasang window shade atau window cover di sekitar carseat anak-anak.  Berbanding Brisbane, Malaysia memiliki cuaca yang panas sehingga kami sepanjang masa menggunakan penghawa dingin kereta.
   Tips: Aku lebih gemar Window Sox berbanding window shade, sebab anak tak mudah cabut.  Cuba cari di EBay atau di kedai-kedai aksesori kereta.  Lebih handal lagi, cari material bersesuaian yang berjenis stretchable dan breathable, ambil ukuran pintu kereta dan kemudian jahit material tersebut mengikut ukuran yang dah diambil.  Meskipun hujan, kebiasaannya material berjenis stretchable dan breathable ini mudah kering bila dijemur.
   

Kalau tak silap ingatan, inilah antara usaha-usaha kami semasa nak membiasakan anak-anak dengan penggunaan carseat.  Alhamdulillah sekarang anak-anak dengan sendirinya duduk di carseat bila masuk kereta.  Kadang-kadang terjadi juga situasi yang menyebabkan anak-anak tak mahu menggunakan carseat.  Antara punca kepada situasi tersebut adalah emosi atau mood anak yang tidak gembira, keadaan kesihatan anak, dan sebagainya.  Andaikata terjadi situasi begini, gunakanlah kebijaksanaaan dan pengalaman kita sebagai ibu bapa yang memahami kelakuan anak-anak sendiri untuk memujuk mereka.  Biar lambat, asalkan selamat..

Pernah kena Mummy Thumb?

Korang bertabah lah untuk baca artikel ni ye.. Memang panjang ya amat..

Tapi aku rasa aku pernah kena Mummy Thumb ni masa lepas lahirkan Hanif..

Hampir berbulan-bulan gak kena, cume tak sedar bila hilangnye..

Rupa2nya memang ada simptom ni.. teringat lagi dulu minta Napi urut2kan sebab tak tahan sgt sakitnya..

The Baby May Be Giving You the Mummy Thumb

by Dawn Fallik
Wednesday, December 8, 2010

provided by

Contributing to the Rise in Cases: Heavier Children, Lower Cribs, Older New Mothers, and Frequent Smartphone Scrolling.

Tara Heglar was picking up her son from his crib when the pain started, a searing sharpness on the side of her right hand.

It began when Charlie was about a month old and continued to worsen over the next half year. The snap of pain would return when she used her iPhone, lifted her son or even cradled his head while he nursed. "It felt like I had bruised my bone," says the 38-year-old Ms. Heglar, a business analyst in Concord, N.C.

Orthopedic surgeons estimate that between one-quarter and one-half of new mothers experience symptoms of De Quervain's. When common pain relievers don't ease the inflammation, patients are getting steroid injections, splints and even surgery. Ms. Heglar says she wore a splint after getting a cortisone shot and hasn't had problems since.An orthopedic surgeon diagnosed Ms. Heglar with mommy thumb, formally known as De Quervain's tendinitis, an inflammation of the tendons below the thumb down to the wrist. Although the condition has been around as long as parents have hoisted their children, doctors say a combination of heavier children, older new mothers, cribs that are lower to the floor and frequent scrolling and typing on smartphones has sent the number of cases skyward.

People with De Quervain's typically experience pain on the thumb side of the wrist that radiates up the forearm. Sometimes the symptoms start during pregnancy. Doctors aren't sure why, but they believe that swelling adds pressure to already stressed tendons, exacerbating the irritation. For many women (and some men), it gets worse when they are constantly lifting a child, bending down into the crib, putting their hands in an "L" shape under the child's armpits and lifting so that much of the weight is on the thumbs.

In a study published last year that looked at more than 11,000 cases of De Quervain's culled from a large data base of military personnel, researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine found that the condition occurred more than four times as frequently in women as in men. The study also found that people over 40 years old were more than three times as likely to get De Quervain's as younger people.

Rachel Rohde, an orthopedic surgeon in Royal Oak, Mich., says most of her patients with De Quervain's are mothers, but she also sees some fathers, grandparents and nannies with the condition. As the mother of a newborn herself, Dr. Rohde said she's careful to put a pillow under the baby's head while nursing so the weight of the baby is not resting solely on her hand and straining her thumb. She also says she tries to use a "scooping" technique to lift the baby out of the crib. By placing the weight in the palms or on the forearms, it avoids putting the thumb out of alignment to the rest of the hand and stressing the tendons, she says.

Still, Dr. Rohde says, the automatic motion for picking up a baby is usually to lift from under the baby's arms, which places the strain on the thumb. "Sometimes you can't avoid it," she says.

Children are getting heavier, on average. In 2004, 10.1% of children aged 6 months to 2 years were overweight, compared with 5.7% in 1980, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Katy Lawson, 29, of Lantana, Texas, says she never had problems with her hands until her son was about a month old. She began noticing sharp pains down her hand when she tried to lift him or grip something, and a bump was forming on her wrist. Although Ms. Lawson's son is not particularly heavy, she says he often sleeps in a portable playpen that is low to the ground. Many cribs also are now lower to the floor for safety reasons, and doctors say that creates more stress on the hand when lifting a baby.

Two months later, Ms. Lawson says she went to see a hand surgeon. When he asked if there was a new baby in the house, she said, "It's funny that you mention that." She says she has received two cortisone shots on the wrist, beneath her thumb. She was also given a splint to wear for a few weeks.

The treatment hasn't helped, and Ms. Lawson says she is scheduled for surgery this month. She says her thumb doesn't hurt as much when she picks up her son, because she is careful about she lifts him. "It just hurts randomly. Sometimes when I'm just lying in bed it catches," she says.

Mommy thumb mainly affects two tendons—the abductor pollicis longus, or long thumb abductor, and the extensor pollicis brevis, or short thumb extensor. The tendons come into play when the thumb is moved in a different plane from the hand, as when placing hands flat on a table and lifting the thumb toward the ceiling.

If ice and anti-inflammatory drugs don't help, most patients are fitted with a splint that prevents them from moving the thumb and given a steroid injection, which decreases the inflammation, says Stephen Troum, a hand surgeon in Bedford, Texas, and a spokesman for the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, a doctors' association.

Dr. Troum, who treated Ms. Lawson, himself had hand surgery for De Quervain's when he was a resident after aggravating his wrist doing a lot of surgery. He says that if patients don't feel relief after one or two steroid shots, he usually recommends surgery. Too many injections can weaken the tendons to the point of rupture, he says.

Michelle G. Carlson, a hand surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, developed De Quervain's herself after giving birth. "I thought I was really cautious, but when I had my first child, I started feeling sore and I made myself a splint right away," she says.

She says mommy thumb is the main reason she sees De Quervain's patients, although others can develop it from tasks that repeatedly stress the tendons around the thumb. "A lot of people will say, 'Oh my child is so heavy,' " Dr. Carlson says. Heavier children tend to start walking later so mothers are doing a lot more lifting for a longer time. "You don't see this develop when the child is 3 and they're walking on their own," she says.

Artikel Best : Baby and Sleeping

A Helping Hand: My Baby Won't Sleep

by Diana Hartman

My five-month-old won't sleep by herself. She exhausts herself to sleep with screaming and crying. She doesn't even like her car seat. It's just getting worse even though I am doing the same thing every night. She doesn't even like it when I pick her up. I don't know how to teach her to sleep on her own without fighting it.

A baby who isn't the go-right-to-sleep type isn't going to become the type no matter what you do. Put that thought out of your head so you can move on. For your own peace of mind, do also dismiss any stories you might have heard from friends and relatives about how well their babies slept.

They didn’t “teach” their babies to be easygoing – their babies were born that way. Lucky them. Just because they had easygoing babies doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your or your child. If anything, it means those other people couldn't have handled anything other than an easygoing child. Thusly, they are in no way qualified to judge you or your child or to advise you.

Parents of easygoing babies are often heard to say you can spoil a child by holding them too much. This is not true. They think this because their child was so easygoing. They would change their tune if they had had a child who wasn’t easygoing. You can no sooner spoil a baby than you can spoil a car by driving it all the time. Babies are born to be touched and held. This is why babies don't walk until close to their first year of age.

Babies have lots of brain cells, but those brain cells are no good unless they're interconnected. The nerve fibers connecting these cells are called dendrites. The only thing that develops dendrites is touching. There is a direct connection between the development of a baby's brain and how much they are held.

As the mother of one ADHD child and two other children — all grown — I can tell you that while you may spend the first year of that child's life holding her, you will spend the next 10 years chasing after her and the next 10 years after that waiting for her to come hang out with you. She will always come back to you, but only if she knows from her first year of life that you're a consistent, reliable, and loyal source of love.

Read more: http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/a-helping-hand-my-baby-wont/#ixzz0ndvsVjJi

P/S: Masa cam ginila kita nak pelok anak kita puas2.. tak lama, setahun je.. Peluang begini datang sekali je bagi setiap anak.. Rugi rasanya kalau tak manfaatkan sebaik-baiknya..