Preschool Nighttime fears — like being afraid of the dark or of bad guys — are typical at this age. Shortly after Farrah Schwartz’s second child was born, her elder daughter, Julia, then three, began to resist going to sleep. “She said was scared of monsters under the bed,” the Toronto mom recalls. While it occurred to Schwartz that this could be a strategy to push back bedtime, Julia’s distress seemed genuine. Read more: What you need to know about night terrors> Nighttime fears crop up...

Mosquitoes taking a bite out of your fun? Here’s how to protect your family. With this summer looking like a banner year for mosquitoes, Toronto mom Helen Dinh* is investigating ways to keep them from snacking on her daughter, who experiences an unusually strong response to bites. “She welts up like crazy,” Dinh says, explaining that the skin surrounding her daughter’s bite swells up like a red, hot, itchy balloon. (Such local reactions aren’t uncommon, but bona fide allergies to mosquito...

Preschool New research on the gender divide finds that we’re unconsciously spending more time reading with our daughters than we are with our sons. You may have heard about the phenomenon some have labelled the “boys’ crisis in education” — the disparity between girls’ and boys’ achievement levels. A new Canadian study hints that this gap may actually begin at home, when children are preschool age and younger, and can be linked to how we’re unintentionally parenting our kids based on their...

It’s normal to be a little freaked out about giving birth, but there are ways to work through your biggest labour fears. During her pregnancy, Jen Parsons found that when she started thinking about her upcoming birth, certain labour possibilities made her feel anxious. “My biggest fear was that I would have to have a C-section,” the first-time Toronto mom recalls. Imagining a cold, bright room where her baby was whisked away immediately, “definitely kept me up at night, and even brought me to...

Worried about potential harm to their baby, many moms-to-be skip dental visits — which could be even more dangerous. True or false? It’s perfectly safe to visit your dentist while pregnant. If you answered false, you’re wrong—but you’re not alone. According to a recent US survey, most women received no routine dental care during their pregnancies, and half of moms-to-be with obvious dental problems, like pain, didn’t seek care because they believed that having oral health problems during...