This is quite normal because your child will not have sufficient judgment to control her strength of will or the language to express herself clearly, but as her knowledge and experience of the world broaden, the occasions when her will is pitched directly against yours become less frequent.

A tantrum may be brought on by such feelings as frustration, anger, jealousy, and dislike. Anger is brought on by not getting her own way; frustration by her not being sufficiently strong or well coordinated to do what she wants. It will usually involve your child throwing herself on the floor, kicking and screaming.

The best thing you can do is to stay calm, since any attention on your part will only prolong the attack. If she has one in public, take her away from too much attention, without fuss.

At home, an effective technique is simply to leave the room. Explain to your child that, while you still love her, you have to leave the room because you are getting angry.

Never confine her in another room because this denies her the option of coming back and saying she’s sorry.

As she gets older, she will acquire new skills and enjoy anything that tests them- building and knocking down, or constructing and taking apart. Household items such as plastic containers and cardboard tubes will stimulate her creativity and imagination. Drawing, painting, making shapes with clay or colored dough, and fitting together puzzles encourage creativity. Long before she’s able to write or draw formally, your child will love scribbling and using colors, so give her crayons and lots of paper. A box of colored chalks and a blackboard and easel, set up at her height, will be useful because she’ll be able to draw, then rub out her work, and start again.

Children love being part of the domestic routine. A small child can be given a little bowl with some flour to mix each time you bake; she can help also with carrying, and use a small dustpan and brush to help with the cleaning.

The first sign that your child’s bladder control is developing is when she becomes aware of the passage of urine, and she may try to attract your attention and point to her diaper. As her bladder matures and is able to contain urine for longer, you may find that her diaper is dry after a nap. Once this is happening regularly, you can leave off the diaper during the nap and encourage her to empty her bladder beforehand. When she can do this and can let you know when she wants to use the potty, you can start leaving off diapers completely during the day, provided she is able to wait for a few minutes while you take down her clothes to let her to use the potty. When you are out, you might find it useful to carry a portable potty; these come with disposable liners.

At this stage your child can’t hold on to a full bladder for any length of time, and accidents are inevitable, so try to take them in stride, and never scold your toddler for them. Just clean up, change her clothing, and say, “Never mind. Better luck next time.”

Do

• Praise your child and encourage her to regard control as an accomplishment
• Let your child set the pace. You can help your child along, but you can’t speed up the process
• Suggest that your child sit on the potty, but her decide
• Let her be as independent as she likes, going to the toilet or using the potty, and praise her independence
• Use training pants to give your child as a sense of independence

Don’t

• Insist that your child sit on the potty, ever
• Show any disgust for your child’s feces. She will regard using the potty as an achievement and will be proud of them
• Ask your child to wait once she has asked for the potty, even for a moment –she can only “hold on” for a very short time.
• Scold mistakes and accidents

When she’s finished, wipe her bottom (front-to-back for girls) then flush the toilet paper and the contents of the potty down the toilet. Clean off any trace of faces and rinse out the potty, using disinfectant. Wash your hands afterward, and encourage your child to do the same. If she doesn’t want to use the potty when you suggest it, forget it for the moment and try again a few days later.

An overly authoritarian parent can do untold harm, even at an earlier stage, and may be responsible for problems in later life. Imagine the scenario: an insistent mother is bending over her child, telling him that he can’t get off his potty until he’s performed. He can’t understand what she means, because he is unaware of passing urine or stool – his bladder and nervous system are still too primitive. Even if he did understand he has no “control” as we think of it. He can’t figure out why something so natural to his is so important to her. And so he has no idea how to please his normally loving mother. When he gets up the mother gets unusually rough, he can’t cope, and he cries. If she goes on like this now he will certainly use her obsession with training as a weapon against her later. He sees his stools as something she wants and he will withold them when he is pitting his will against hers. The answer is to be flexible. At no point should you pressure or scold. Praise every success. Let little boys see their father passing urine. Children who are pressure into early training tend to be bedwetters, and more engage in pica (eating nonfood substances) and soiling than those children who develop at their own speed.

An early sign of celiac disease is bulky stools – that is, more in the stools than your baby took in as food. This is because the stools are very fatty. In addition they’re a creamy putty color. Because of their fat content these stools float on water. It’s Calso said that they’re foul-smelling, but I’ve never found that to be so. If celiac disease goes undiscovered your baby will not thrive on solids, and his buttocks will be small and slack – a diagnostic sign.

It’s extremely important that a baby with celiac disease be properly diagnosed, otherwise, all development could be showed down. Equally worrying, many dietary deficiencies will develop, and his resistance to infection will be lowered. If you suspect celiac disease, ask your pediatrician about it immediately. The disease can be treated very simply; your baby will have to eat gluten-free foods. There are lots of gluten-free products available, even in supermarkets. Foods cooked with gluten- free flour are just as delicious as ordinary foods – I once attended the birthday party of a celiac child and couldn’t tell the difference from the usual party treats.

A girl will tend to wet the diaper at the center, or toward the back if she is lying down.

• Disposable daytime and nighttime diapers are designed differently to take this into account, with the padding at its thickest where it is needed most
• You may want to buy decorative or frilly pants to cover cloth diapers; these look pretty under a dress for a special occasion.

Boys’ Diapers

Boys tend to wet the front of the diaper, and boys’ disposables are designed to handle this, with extra padding toward the front.

• Fold cloth diapers in such a way that more of the fabric is at the front, particularly at night
• Boys often urinate when they are being changed, so cover the penis with a spare clean diaper as you take the soiled one off
• Always tuck the penis down when putting on a clean diaper to avoid urine escaping from the top of the diaper.

They are convenient when you’re traveling as you need fewer diapers and less space to change in, and you don’t have to carry wet, smelly diapers home to be washed. You will need a constant supply, so buy them in large batches.

Never flush disposable diapers down the toilet as they inevitably get stuck. Instead, put the soiled diaper in a strong plastic bag. The bag should be firmly secured at the neck before you throw it out.

Digestion The food is broken down by enzymes. Digestion starts in the mouth, then continues in the stomach and the upper part of the small intestine.

Absorption Once the food has been reduced to simple molecules, it is absorbed into the bloodstream as it continues its path through the small intestine. In the passes through the large intestine, where any water is absorbed by the body.  The waste products pass on to the rectum as feces.

Elimination Feces are stored in the rectum and expelled through the anus. A baby cannot control the reflex that causes the rectum to empty – even for a second. Young babies generally have bowel movements with each feeding, due to the gastrocolic reflex, which stimulates the rectum to empty every time food enters the stomach.

The bowel system After food has been digested in the stomach and small intestine, the waste is passed as feces.