Talk to your kids about your divorce

Make talking about your divorce and how it's affecting your children an ongoing process, says our resident baby expert, Jenni Johnson. 

Get these and other top tips from her here. 

- As kids get older and become more mature, they might have questions or concerns that they hadn't thought of earlier. Even if it seems like you've gone over the same topics before, keep the dialogue open

- Mumps is a worldwide illness. People are infectious for about a week before and after they develop symptoms. Generally a mild temperature and a feeling of being unwell with swelling  and pain in the salivary glands is common, discomfort in swallowing may affect a child's appetite. A recent study showed that mumps is the second most common cause of viral meningitis in Cape Town. Immunization of mumps is not on the government schedule and needs to be done through a private clinic.

- When a baby is in skin to skin contact after birth, there are 9 newborn stages that happen in a specific order and they are completely instinctive for baby. The benefits of skin to skin contact are that babies are warmer and calmer: they can hear their mothers heartbeat and it normalizes heart and breathing rates. If you are pregnant I suggest you Google, ‘a magical hour’.

- Write and document all the cute, wise and funny things your child says from about 18 months of age. Carry on through all the childhood years -- they will love it and will often ask you to tell you about when they were younger.

* Catch Jenni on-air every day just after 10am with her tip of the day.

Jenni Johnson, our resident ‘Baby Whisperer’, has been a practicing child-care practitioner for 15 years, and owns a busy ante and post natal clinic in Durban. At Jenni’s ante and post natal clinic in Durban, parents are taught a system that gives them structure and routine to the baby and childhood years. Jenni has a nursing background. She’s a registered nurse, midwife, psychiatric nurse and a practicing child-care practitioner for the past 15 years. Jenni’s online clinic, can be accessed online via www.jennisays.com. For appointments, e-mail [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter via @JenniSays or on Facebook by 'liking' The Berea Baby Clinic.