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I never understood the importance of kick counting until I was introduced to the kickTrak kick counter. Doing a little research I found that an estimate of 26,000 stillbirths occur every year in the US. That was very disheartening to read. However, decreased fetal movement is associated with stillbirth as well as preterm labor and undetected growth problems. If a mother-to-be is able to keep a tab on her baby’s movement patterns, she can alert her healthcare provider of potential problems if she notices any drastic changes. Dr. Diep Nguyen, OB/GYN and kick tracking advocate, is dedicated to drastically reducing the number of yearly stillbirths which is why she has created the kickTrak kick counter.

Starting at 24-28 weeks into pregnancy, the kickTrak kick counter enables moms-to-be to document her baby’s kicks, turns, twists, swishes, jabs and rolls in daily sessions by inputing each movement as she feels them. Each session records ten movements. After the tenth movement is recorded, the kickTrak kick counter plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Healthy babies generally move ten times in less than two hours, with most completing ten movements in less than 30 minutes. Should mom-to-be notice any significant changes in her baby’s movements, she can alert her healthcare provider. I think every mom-to-be should have her very own kickTrak to support the well being of her baby. The device is affordable and very simple to use. I was fortunate enough to have a very active baby, so I completed my kickTrak sessions with ease!

To learn more about stillbirth prevention, visit BabyKick Alliance founded by Dr. Nguyen as well!

In the prenatal months, a baby’s brain is at its most receptive stage of learning. This would explain why pregnant women are constantly told to talk to, sing to, and play music to their bellies. When hearing the same sounds outside of the womb, babies tend to react to them positively. The sounds that they’ve heard inside of the womb help them relax once exposed to the world outside.

Daddy and I talk to my belly and in addition we use a product called BabyPlus. The BabyPlus is a device that introduces patterns of sound to a prenatal child. The BabyPlus is programmed with 16 one hour lessons that resemble the rhythm of a heart beating, a language that a baby recognizes best. The rhythms gradually increase when advancing to each new lesson. It is recommended that pregnant women start BabyPlus lessons at 18 weeks. At 18 weeks a mother should start on lesson one and should play each lesson for one hour twice a day for 7 days. After an hour has passed, BabyPlus will cut off automatically. BabyPlus comes with a chart which lists allow you to record your week of pregnancy, the day and times you had your lessons, and the baby’s response to the lessons. There is also a chart that tells you how many days to use BabyPlus according to the week of pregnancy you are in. So if you are past 18 weeks, you can still use BabyPlus!

Studies have shown that babies that have been exposed to BabyPlus prenatal curriculum are born more relaxed and alert. They are more responsive, interactive, and are ready to start observing the environment around them. Parents who have used BabyPlus have reported that their babies nurse more readily and self-soothe more easily. As they grow older they demonstrate earlier developmental milestones, have longer attention spans, and improved school readiness. Check out what parents have to say about BabyPlus.

BabyPlus can be compared to a prenatal vitamin. Prenatal vitamins encourage strong physical development and BabyPlus encourages strong, cognitive development. This being said, don’t expect BabyPlus to turn your baby into a genius; BabyPlus just simply strengthens the foundation for learning.

I started using BabyPlus at 24 weeks and I will admit to missing quite a few days due to being overwhelmed with business and tasks at home. Since I threw my BabyPlus schedule off so bad, I decided to start over because I wanted to do it RIGHT. I found that the best time to do BabyPlus lessons are while doing housework or exercising, that way the beating sounds are less distracting. It is said that babies inside of the womb may react while BabyPlus lessons are in session. Some babies will move to the rhythm of the beats and some may settle down as if they are observing the sounds. When I use BabyPlus, I don’t notice a significant change in Jayden’s movements. Jayden’s really frisky, so he twists and turns during BabyPlus lessons as he would when lessons aren’t in session.

This is my experience with BabyPlus thus far. I still have 6 weeks of pregnancy and 10 BabyPlus lessons to go. I don’t know if we’ll be able to determine the effect, if any, BabyPlus has on Jayden since he is our first child and we have nothing to compare it to. But of course we’ll be documenting all of Jayden’s developments here on Mommy Daddy Blog. So we’ll see!

This past Christmas, I was lucky enough to receive something I’ve wanted for a very long time: a camcorder. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted a camcorder of my own. I remember how I’d used to take my miniature toy T-Rexes and my miniature toy cars that came with plastic roads, and have the T-Rexes “terrorize” the city, crushing and demolishing every car in its path (ahh, the joys of being a kid!). That’s when I always wished that I had a camcorder of some sort, so that I could create “Godzilla-like” movies. But, that never happened. Since then, up until the past couple of years, my interest in camcorders sort of waned. But when the YouTube phenomenon began a couple of years back, and creating and posting videos became the thing to do, my interest in camcorders sparked again. I’ve watched numerous videos become famous on the internet, and I’ve always thought to myself, “Hey, I can do that!” After dropping a few (thousand) subtle hints to my family about what I’d like for Christmas, my mother and grandmother… uh, *ahehm* I mean Santa Claus came through and got me a JVC Everio GZ-MG155! I think I’m in love!

So, of course, over the past couple of weeks since Christmas, I did what basically anyone else who has just gotten a new camcorder would do; shoot hundreds of thousands of random, pointless videos! This thing comes with a 30GB hard drive and up to 37 hours of recording, so I’m taking full advantage baby! I’m not really too fond of the quality of the videos it creates in dark settings though. It comes with a light that you can easily switch on, but that only helps a little. Maybe if I play around with the settings a little bit, I can figure something out. So far, I’ve just been running it on auto (where all settings self-adjust themselves when appropriate while recording), and I have yet to run it on manual. The videos play pretty well on my computer, except in Windows Media Player. For some reason, the videos kept coming out extremely choppy for me in WMP. So I downloaded Media Player Classic and the videos came out perfect. I’ve read that a lot of people have problems playing the videos on their computer due to the fact that the videos are .MOD files when they are transferred onto a computer from the camcorder’s hard drive. This can easily be fixed by just renaming the .MOD extension to .MPG. I haven’t had this problem though. My video files already have the .MPG extension when I transfer them from the camcorder. The Everio GZ-MG155 is also capable of taking pictures, although I haven’t too much experimented with that part yet. We have about a gajillion digital cameras in the house, so another one really isn’t a big deal to me.

As for physical traits, the JVC Everio GZ-MG155 is extremely small and extremely lightweight. It fits in the palm of my hand and weighs about that of a can of pop.

All of the buttons and toggles and switches are located in easy to reach places (as if it were even possible to put one in a hard to reach place as small as the camcorder is).

Did I also mention how sexy it is? Yep, if this camcorder was human, it would be right up there with Halle Berry. (Mommy is gonna kill me for saying that.)

So overall, it’s a pretty damn decent camcorder! I’d recommend it to the Moms and Dads out there who want to capture those very special moments of your children’s lives. As for my current plans for it, I couldn’t have gotten this thing at a better time! Jayden is due in four months and that’s when the camcorder will definitely be used to its full potential. I also would like to start incorporating videos into my posts here at Mommy Daddy Blog, so be sure to look out for those!

So, what’s the one gift you received this past Christmas that you are just totally in love with? I’d love to know!