This is such a fun period developmentally!

Your baby learns to laugh, to roll, and is busy building relationships with the people in her life.

At this stage your baby is getting his first taste of independence – he might be experimenting with solid food, sitting up, holding a cup or utensils; he may even be creeping or crawling!

There are lots of advantages for children who play in nature – from improved cognitive awareness and decreasing stress to improved physical fitness.

But if you’re the kind of parent who really prefers the indoors, how do you go about engaging your children with the natural world?

Your baby is probably crawling like a pro (who knew a baby could move that fast!), pulling himself up to standing and, at some time during this period will probably take his first step.

Type “Baby Sleep” into Google and a staggering 274 million entries come up. Yes – million.

That gives you an idea of how many stressed-out, sleep-deprived moms there are looking for something, anything, to help get their newborns off to the land of nod.

Ah, “the schedule.” A true savior for some parents, and a hindrance for others.

Figuring out a daily routine (or lack there of) is less about what works for your neighbor down the block, and more about what will work for your family so you can be happy and stress-free.

Bren Underwood describes how she decided to build a schedule for her son.

Screens get a lot of bad press; they create kids who are “antisocial,” “addicted,” who can’t concentrate. Even Steve Jobs famously limited his children’s screen time!

So is screen time all bad?

If you love books it’s natural to want to build that interest in your little ones too!

The good news is that from your Tot’s youngest days you can start exposing them to books and build a love of literature. Here’s how…