How to help kids to sleep with story massage

Photo: Hello Pinecone Photography

Happy Monday!

This daylight savings is often rough for us! Getting the kids to sleep earlier isn't easy. My four year old went to school late today as he just slept and slept. Story massage can help with sleep. Research shows that kids who were massaged before bedtime slept better - they fell asleep faster and their sleep patterns improved compared to the control group who was read a bedtime story but didn't receive massage. Read more why and how to try it tonight with your kids below!

Why story massage helps sleep?

1. Nurturing touch reduces stress hormones in the body (for both the one receiving touch and the one giving it!)

2. Story massage, nurturing touch, nurturing story and your mindful presence will create a safe space for the child to fall asleep. Feeling your hand on their back helps the child feel so safe that they can close their eyes and drift to sleep. It also helps the adult to stop after a busy day.

3. The safe space can inspire the child to share anything worrying them and help them fall asleep faster after getting the load off their backs.

Ideas for bedtime story massage:

• A story massage: This Day. Make up a story massage of the events of the day. 
• Use any story or nursery rhyme your child is already familiar with, or one you remember from your own childhood 
• Have children come up with their own stories and draw those on their back. 
• Print this bedtime story massage out and use it tonight: 

Night in the forestA tactile story for children by Sirpa Kaajakari

Follow the instructions below to draw the story on your child’s back to help them sleep, feel safe and to connect with them. Always ask permission before starting. Use gentle strokes avoiding pressure on the spine and kidneys in the low back.
A big old spruce tree stood in the forest. Its roots were planted deep in the ground, its trunk was thick and sturdy and its branches were wide and green. The sap from the tree smelled so fresh. (Using the palms of your hands start from the low back and draw a tree with lots of branches on the back.)

The tree was a home for birds and squirrels. They felt safe in the old tree and ate the seeds from the cones and the bugs that crawled on the trunk. (Draw small circles with the tips of your fingers on the back.)

Foxes hid under the tree when it was raining. (Rest your hands on the low back.)

Hikers who needed to rest their tired legs sat under the tree and leaned against the strong trunk of the tree and enjoyed the peace of the forest. (Stroke with your hands on both sides of the spine starting from the low back.)

At night stars were bright and the moon lighted the forest. (Sprinkle stars all over the back with your finger tips.)

An owl sat on the branch of the old spruce tree, alert and awake when everyone else was sleeping. Keeping an eye on everything so the others could sleep peacefully. (Gently squeeze the shoulders.)

The wind gently brushed the tree branches and whispered: You are safe. (Draw whirly wind all over the back.)

One star fell from the sky but the tree caught it and the star got stuck on the top of the tree. From there it shone brightly, bringing peace and happiness to everyone in the forest. (Stroke the head and run your hands down to the upper back and rest them there.)

Information about story massage classes in Los Angeles:

www.kaikulifestyle.com

Packing a healthy real food school lunch is super simple.

*** UPDATE: I don't know why the Blogger keeps sending this post to the subscribers of this blog! I will look into it! :) Sorry about extra emails. ***

Grilled chicken, olives, pomegranate and rutabaga sticks.

No-one brings lunch to school in Finland. The lunch is provided by the public school (most children attend public school) for free - well, not free, but paid by everyone's taxes. I grew up eating warm home cooked meal type school lunches in Finnish school cafeteria: Fish soup, ground beef soup, cabbage casserole, meat sauce and potatoes, meat balls and mashed potatoes, liver casserole, spinach pancakes and blood pancakes with lingonberry preserves (yes, you read that right). You can find a lot of those recipes from my other blog Rootlicious.

Here in the US I pack my children's school lunches and snacks (I still don't get it why they would need a snack in between breakfast they've had right before school at home and school lunch, it is just a few hours and the snack just spoils the appetite for lunch in my humble opinion). I pack them mostly paleo foods and the lunch consists of a protein (meat, mushrooms or nuts or seeds), a serving of vegetables and a serving of fruit or berries. Leftovers from last night's dinner are great. For snack I add one serving of veggies, fruit or nuts.

I use a bento box type lunch box with compartments to separate the different foods. My favorites are Planet Box and Lunch Bots. They are durable stainless steel lunch boxes with compartments and they are free from plastic (which I am afraid can contain chemicals that leach in to the food). I pack the stainless steel box in an insulated lunch bag.

Cucumber slices, spinach plantain pancakes,
water melon and blackberries in a Lunch Bots.

Packing a paleo school lunch is super simple. Even your children can do it themselves and save you a lot of work. They actually can find it fun to pack their own lunch starting from chopping vegetables or fruit. Even my three year old can chop most veggies and fruit with a knife. I like to give them sharp knives instead of dull ones (in fear of them hurting themselves) because the dull knives slip easier and can hurt them too. It feels good to use a proper knife and with supervision even very small children can totally do it. I also often leave vegetables or fruit whole, they don't always need to be chopped. An apple or banana are in perfect packages as they are!

Pick one from each category below and put them in a bento box. You can of course use two or more different kinds of fruit or berries or vegetables at once.

Spinach pancakes with apple sauce and
prosciutto wrapped grilled mushrooms

Category 1: Protein
I prefer to buy organic, grass fed and sustainable and without additives.

• Ground beef patty in lettuce wrap (fried the same morning)
• Mushrooms wrapped in prosciutto or bacon grilled in toaster oven that morning
• Nut butter with veggies or fruit
• Nuts or seeds
• Cooked/canned fish
• Larabar
• Epic bar
• Cooked chicken strips (alone or with a Paleo wrap and guacamole, ground beef is nice with the wrap and guacamole too)
• A grilled chicken drumstick
• Lunch meat, liverwurst or fried bacon (some healthy options can be found from US Wellness Meats)
• Cooked shrimp
• Paleo fish sticks (click for a recipe - the same recipe can be used to make paleo chicken nuggets)
• A boiled egg would be perfect if we didn't avoid eggs due to allergies.
• Paleo meat balls
• Peas
• Green beans

TIP: Use tooth picks to pin liverwurst, lunch meat or sausage pieces together with cucumber slices

Category 2: Vegetables
I like to use seasonal veggies.

• Spinach pancakes with apple sauce
• Baby carrots or carrot sticks
• Persian cucumbers (whole), or cucumber sticks or slices (a quick ranch dip can be made with coconut kefir, garlic, Herbamare, lemon, parsley)
• Raw rutabaga or turnip sticks
• Radishes
• Steamed broccoli
• Raw cauliflower florets
• Sea weed
• Guacamole (or is avocado technically a fruit?)
• Olives
• Salad
• Pickles
• Sauerkraut
• Other fermented veggies

Category 3: Fruit/treat/dessert (or snack)
I like to use seasonal fruit and berries.

• Blueberries/raspberries/blackberries/strawberries
• A whole apple/peach/plum
• Orange slices
• Pieces of melon
• A plantain pancake with Sunbutter (we use this one) or nut butter or homemade paleo "nutella" (add raw cacao powder to a nutbutter or use a recipe like this)
• Strawberries with paleo "Nutella"
• Apple sauce
• Fermented apple sauce
• Fruit salad with seasonal fruit
• Grapes
• Paleo muffins (Google for tons of recipes!)
• Coconut balls (kids love to make these themselves)
• Chocolate pudding from avocados
  
  

Remember to add an ice pack if you have packed meat. Don't forget water. We use stainless steel water bottles (we use this kind except always with a regular cap, sports caps and sippy cup caps worry me for mouth development issues). We pack a cloth napkin too. The kids can help sew those from leftover fabrics, or choose their own fabrics from the store. My son made a few spider napkins and they are his favorite. It is a nice touch to add a little love note, a joke or a fun fact for the kids who are learning to read. I make mine in our secret language, Finnish.

How to Keep Kids Busy So I Can Make Kombucha?

Someone asked me this week again how I have time to do all this cooking, fermenting and blogging. And do I put the kids in front of the TV to be able to do it. This is a question that comes up often so I thought I'd post a few ideas I have found useful to get to do my chores with small kids at home. 

(I do say though that there are moments I will have them watch a movie to get to do something but we have now limited screen time to weekends and days off. During the week we don't watch much TV except on some special occasions, I am flexible with rules :))

(I also want to say that things get easier when the kids get bigger. Mine are almost three and seven now and they just play together while I do other things. It is wonderful!)

(Oh and my personal choice is to choose cooking, fermenting over other things to do when the kids are asleep. It is my hobby. I use nearly all my free time in the kitchen. Apart from my daily short yoga practice. I don't have time to watch TV etc. that normal people do. I choose to ferment instead because I am crazy for food!)

Six tips how to get work done with kids at home (aka Alternatives to the Screen):

Borrowed this chart from Maria Montessori Facebook Page.

1. Ask the kids to help you in what you are doing. They love helping with real jobs. It makes them feel good too. There are many things in the kitchen the kids can help with. They can tear lettuce, chop vegetables (yes, I do give knives to even small children as long as they are supervised and they can't run around with them), hold the funnel while you bottle kombucha, measure ingredients, peel vegetables, grate vegetables, wash dishes etc. The little ones who are little enough can even just bathe in the sink (supervised of course) while you work next to them!

2. Have the kids busy with some other easy household chores while you do what you need to do: empty the dish washer, clean surfaces with a spray bottle of water and vinegar and a rag, fold towels or wash cloths, wipe tables, dust, mop the floors, vacuum, set the table, water plants, put toys away and so on.

3. I have noticed that if I am busy doing something, the kids often stay busy with their play as well. The moment I sit down to check my email they want something from me. But as long as I am on the move, they seem to stay happy in whatever they are doing too. On their own.

4. Little boredom feeds the creativity! The kids will most often come up with things to do on their own too if I need to finish something and they don't want to help with that. Maybe not right away and not without some complaints but eventually they do :)

5. My older reads books to the younger one. This is great because he gets practice in reading, the little one gets someone to read him to and I get to do my own things.

6. I can see our back yard from my kitchen window. I send them out to play in the sand box while I work in the kitchen and I can keep an eye on them the whole time.

I (we!) need more tips - please add yours to the comments!

Please no more Sponge Bob!

Last spring we spent a few days in San Fransisco and in the hotel I let my son watch tv (at home we don't have cable, we let him watch some carefully chosen dvd's but not tv). He watched Sponge Bob. I remember paying attention how he seemed to go wild after the program and was acting really fast and kind of aggressive afterwards. I thought: Never again Sponge Bob to my kids. I have stuck to that promise and I am glad because today I read this on Facebook:

SpongeBob impairs little kids' thinking, study finds

[...] "To test what those might be, Lillard and Peterson randomly assigned 60 4-year-olds to three groups: one that watched nine minutes of a fast-paced, "very popular fantastical cartoon about an animated sponge that lives under the sea;" one that watched nine minutes of slower-paced programming from a PBS show "about a typical U.S. preschool-aged boy;" and a third group that was asked to draw for nine minutes with markers and crayons.

Immediately after their viewing and drawing tasks were complete, the kids were asked to perform four tests to assess executive function. Unfortunately for the denizens of Bikini Bottom, the kids who watched nine minutes of the frenetic high jinks of the "animated sponge" scored significantly worse than the other kids" [...] Read the whole article from here.

Same day I also read from Mothering blog that a new study finds that early TV watching has detrimental impact on literacy and language skills. This is because there is then less contact and talking with the parents. I don't think this last study is such new information but still, reading these both harmful TV related news today made me decide that today Miio isn't watching any dvd's. I will have to restrict it even more and same applies to little Leo in future.

The Stay At Homer

My son Miio goes to Montessori school (and loves it by the way). His friend's dad writes a blog which is fantastic. Not only is it hilarious but it also makes you think. Just wanted to share the link with you here. :)

http://thestayathomer.com/