Fablog

Can you remember playing a part in your nativity play at school? I have vague recollections of being trussed up in an old bed sheet and having a tinsel-covered coat hanger strapped to my head to imitate a halo. Ah, the good old days.

According to reports from department store Debenhams, it seems that the homemade costumes of yesteryear aren’t, well, as fashionable as they used to be.

‘Manger chic’ is the latest craze among parents, with some shelling out as much as £150 on their child’s school play costume!

Ed Watson, a  spokesman from Debenhams, has suggested that parents simply don’t have the time or the necessary skills to create an outfit for their child, so throwing money at it is the next best thing.

What do you think about the ‘manger chic’ phenonmenon? Have you bought your child a costly outfit for their school play, or do you think it’s a waste of money? Tell us here.

Christmas is fast approaching and hundreds of children around the country will be busy writing their letters to Father Christmas. Countless trips to department store Santa’s grottos will be undertaken and endless requests for favourite toys made.

But what do you do when your child asks you how Mr Claus can make it down every chimney around the world in one night or why they’ve seen five Santas on your afternoon shopping trip?

Just today my nephew told me he’d spoken to Father Christmas on the phone to ask him for a bicycle – I’m not sure what I’m going to tell him when he finally asks how Santa gets a mobile phone signal from his grotto in Greenland.

There will come a time when your child’s sense of logic outweighs his or her belief in the bearded toy bearer and while you don’t want to rob them of the magic of Christmas, you probably don’t want to lie to them either.

Do you have any suggestions for explaining Father Christmas to your children? Do you think they should be told the truth about Santa, and if so, at what age? Tell us here.

How many of you take your children to a private nursery? I’m guessing that quite a few of you do – it’s not cheap, is it?

Now, on top of what some consider already extortionate fees, some nurseries are charging fines of up to £300 an hour to parents who are late to collect their kids.

And it doesn’t matter if you’ve missed your train or you’re stuck in traffic – they’ll still charge you!

However, the National Day Nurseries Association says that at least two members of staff are needed to comply with child protection and health and safety regulations, so nurseries are justified in charging parents for the extra time they spend taking care of their children if they’re late to collect them.

Some parents are complaining that the nurseries use the late collection fees to make a profit and are taking advantage of people who are already struggling financially.

What do you think about late collection fines? Should nurseries be allowed to impose them to stop parents taking advantage? Is it right to charge parents who are late for a genuine reason that’s out of their control? Tell us here.

If you’re a parent it’s quite likely that you have come across the Baby Einstein DVD range, you may have even bought the odd one in the hope that it might help your child’s development.

It is thought that the Walt Disney Company makes around £125 million a year from the Baby Einstein brand – some of which the company has recently offered in the form of refunds to its American customers because the DVDs failed to turn their children into, well, little Einsteins.

Much of the research that the brand built its original success on has now been disputed or disproved, including a study on the Mozart Effect, which claimed that spatial scores in babies increased after listening to the composer’s music. Apparently the same effect can be achieved by reading a Stephen King novel to your child (we don’t advise this!).

Unfortunately British parents are currently not being offered the same sort of conpensation as their American counterparts – what do you think about this? Should parents in the UK be given a refund on Baby Einstein DVDs? Tell us here.

Now that the weather’s turned it’s a bit too cold for those Sunday afternoon trips to the park, which means more time indoors.

Taking your toddlers to play outside doesn’t require too much thought as there tends to be plenty of things to occupy them (fallen leaves, conkers, swings, the neighbour’s dog etc), but what do you do to amuse them when you’re spending longer periods inside?

Here are a couple of simple ideas to get you started:

1) Homemade musical instruments

Take one washed out plastic drinks bottle and fill it one third full with either rice or small beans – put the lid back on tightly (or superglue it on if your little one knows how to open bottles!) and voilà! One homemade maraca! Turn some saucepans upside-down and use a wooden spoon as a drumstick to complete the band.

2) Make a tent

All you really need to make this indoor ‘tent’ is a large blanket and the sofa or a few chairs. Making the tent is easy – simply tuck one side of the blanket down the back of the radiator and drape the other over some chairs or the back of the sofa. It might not sound very exciting, but your toddler will love it – trust us!

What sort of activities do you do to keep your toddlers occupied? Do you have any good suggestions for other parents? Tell us here.

What did you want to be when you were seven? I remember watching a programme on TV about archaeologists and from that moment on I told everyone that that was what I wanted to be when I grew up. As it turns out, I became a journalist – and it’s just as well because I’m not a huge fan of the great outdoors!

This week Schools Secretary Ed Balls announced that primary schools would offer career-related learning to children as young as seven.

Mr Balls thinks that 14 is too late in a child’s life to be thinking about their career prospects and that the process of nurturing these ideas should come at a much earlier age.

The scheme will aim to harness the ever-growing world of social and viral media to offer career advice as well as opportunities to experience university life and the world of work.

What do you think about this new scheme? Is seven too young to be thinking about a career? Or should our youngsters’ hopes and dreams be nurtured from an early age? Tell us here.

Two weeks might not sound like much when it comes to spending time with your newborn baby, but the Equality and Human Rights Commission has found that almost half of working fathers do not even take their entitlement when it comes to paternity leave.

Of the 4,500 fathers who took part in the study, nearly 50% said that they felt unable to take time off work as they couldn’t afford to live on the £123 a week that is currently provided.

20% of the men questioned also felt that asking for flexible working hours could be potentially damaging to their career.

The Commission is calling for paternity pay to be raised to 90% of fathers’ income and also for parents to be able to share four months of parental leave between them and for it to be paid for eight weeks at 90% of salary.

Are you a dad who has taken paternity leave? Do you think working fathers should be entitled to more flexible working hours to help take care of their children? Tell us here.

If you were to ask anyone how many weeks there are in a month they are more than likely to tell you that there’s four.  But this isn’t strictly true and can mean that calculating your baby’s age can be a confusing process.

Take February for example, it is the only month that is made up of 28 days (four weeks) – all the other months in the year have 30 or 31 days. This means that every four weeks of your baby’s life doesn’t equal one month.

Confused? Here’s a handy chart to help you work out your baby’s age:

* 4 weeks = a couple of days shy of 1 month (it will depend on which month your child was born in)
* 8 weeks = almost a week shy of 2 months
* 12 weeks = one week shy of 3 months
* 13 weeks = 3 months old
* 16 weeks = about a week and a half shy of 4 months old
* 17.5 weeks = 4 months old
* 20 weeks = about 2 weeks shy of 5 months old
* 22 weeks = 5 months old
* 24 weeks = 2-2.5 weeks shy of 6 months old
* 26 weeks = 6 months old

Some parents may let out a sigh of relief when their little one reaches the age when they can be packed off to school for the day while others feel that the day comes far too soon.

British children can begin primary school as young as four years-old, a much younger than some of our European counterparts.

In Finland, for example, children don’t start school under they’re seven (yes, we said seven) – that’s nearly three years later than kids in the UK – spare a thought for the parents!

Six is the age that most other European countries require their children to start school, but even that seems late in comparison.

The Cambridge Primary Review is the biggest report on primary schools for over 40 years and one of its main arguments is that British children are starting school too early.

But how would parents in this country cope if they had to spend up to three years longer looking after their little ones 24/7?  Modern day life is more stressful than it used to be – often both parents have to hold down full-time jobs, not to mention juggling their other children’s needs.

What do you think is the right age for children to start primary school? Do you think you could cope if you had to have your kids at home full-time for an extra three years? Tell us here.

Humpty Dumpty, Baa Baa Black Sheep and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – they’re all timeless classics that most of us enjoyed when we were growing up – but are they in danger of dying out in modern times?

A recent poll of 2,500 parents conducted by the Institute of Education found that a quarter of participants could not remember a single nursery rhyme from their childhood.

The study also found that parents are opting to sing pop songs to their children because they find the traditional nursery rhymes boring and dated.

Do you still sing classic nursery rhymes to your kids? Or do you think they’ve had their time and we should move on to more modern music and songs? Tell us here.