53% of couples don’t know the best time of the month to conceive (it’s one or two days before ovulation)
Source Clearblue Fertility Monitor

33% of dads took more than two weeks paternity leave in 2005
Source Office for National Statistics UK

59% of parents say their kids behaviour in the car ruins their concentration when driving
Source Kia Motors

31% of parents think their pre-schooler would like to be a performer when they grow up.
Source lunar Jim C Beebies programme

5 hours and 41 minutes a day is the average time new mums spend staring at their baby
Source Babies R Us

59% of parents have been given baby gifts by strangers
Source Toys R Us

45% of babies say “daddy” first while 35% say mummy first perhaps because they hear women saying “daddy” more often
Source Pampers

44 million toys are thrown away in the UK every year ... read more >>

Well nappy rash isn’t a very aesthetic looking thing and the only problem being it must be painful rubbing up against her skin and the nappy! So we have a few options, and since we found out that Pyper like most little people get nappy rash.

We had a product called sudocream and this is an zinc based product that treats the affected area well ,but we still found after a few times it still didn’t clear up the infected area.

But we came across a new Nappy rash cream called Weleda Nappy Rash Relief Cream, of which it has worked a treat.

It’s hard to give it a real rating with pros and cons but compared to Bayer Bepanthum which is also another relief cream, then it’s fantastic. ... read more >>

Today I'm reviewing another one of those journal websites you can use to tell everyone about your baby and share recent developments with friends and family. This month's candidate is called "totspot.com".

The site has a friendly appeal and the registration process is straight forward - except that I was a bit puzzled by the choice between creating a "Child Account" and a "Grown-up Account"? In the end I tried both and still couldn't work it out. I actually thought the grown-up accounts are used for friends and family but there was no obvious method for connecting the "child account" with all my baby's details to a grown-up account. The only option is to "invite a friend" and connect that way but it didn't seem to offer any advantages like being able distinguish between family, friends and others. ... read more >>

Even when you've shown your little crawler or walker hot to go up or down the stairs it's still important to secure them. It's one thing to watch your toddler climb up or down stairs with you behind them ready to step in as soon as they look like they are about to fall but another thing altogether to let them do this by themselves. So make sure you've got safety gates in place and don't remove them too early.

There are lots of baby product brands who offer safety gates such as Kidco Baby Gates, Evenflo, Cardinal, Guardian Angel, Dreambaby and many others. So there's bound to be a selection of gates at your local baby store. Make sure you measure the width of your staircase (wall to wall) before you go out to buy them. When I went to buy ours I got the measurement completely wrong and we had to go back for an extension. ... read more >>

Another great movie that focuses on a father and his daughter is a movie called “Dreamer Inspired by a true story”.

It’s about a man trying to save a promising race horse that has broken its leg, and get it back up to scratch so that he can breed from it. His bad luck continues though as the horse turns out to be infertile and the farm he lives on is being foreclosed on.

What is nice about this story is that the father is willing to risk everything to make sure he can still be a role model for his little girl, even though he doesn’t feel like it and feels as if his own father has let him down somewhat!

If you are looking for a feel good movie to sit down and watch with the family or your little girl keeps asking for a horse then watch this movie its great!

- Scott

A Podcast hosted on International Dad featuring show hosts Scott Lancaster and co-hosts Eric Mooij and Stefan Korn from DIYFather.com.

DIY Father review the month of May.

The DIY Fathers review May.

Everything from first birthday to belly buttons.
Join the dads.

We recently found out about a reminder service for gits called SomeoneSpoilMe.com. A good idea? Certainly. The site is well put together and features daily gift ideas as well as a reminder service (although the navigation is a bit cumbersome and it seems there are still a few bugs left to tidy up). The site design and imagery is clearly targetting women - which is fine of course. Unfortunately Father's Day (in the US) seems to bring out the worst in stereotypes and generalisations about what fathers like and someonespoilme.com is no different in their approach. So they end up being another site that strengthens the image of fathers as the "dim-witted parent who is really only good for bringing home the bacon (see below)".

Example of the day from someonespoilme.com:

"Cheers to Dad! (Posted Monday 9 June 08) ... read more >>

Bubbles and I don’t mean alcohol or champagne substitutes either – i simply mean bubbles that float in the air!!

Recently Pyper and I spent some time together as you do when your a full time father, and I found a container that had bubbles in it. So decided to play with her and see how she faired.

She loved it and also loved being able to catch the little bubbles, initially there were only handfuls and she didn’t really understand what was going on.

But as more and more came out and I even got her in the eye with a few which isn’t the hard to do or wise, then she became very intrigued and really wanted to catch them. All you have to do is full them up with half water and half dish washing detergent and you have a cheap toy to entertain for hours!

- Scott

This week I’m coming to you live from my office like I do every other week, but this week we are talking about learning toys and there are a few out there. Something that we got lots of when Pyper was born it probably seemed the likely choice. It takes into account lots of different learning abilities for the child.

If you are thinking of buying a development toy for your baby then I think you should look at price vs practicality vs size. In this case yes size does matter if it covers the floor then it’s not a learning toy it’s an expensive glorified mat.

Pros:
• They come in all shapes and sized and wonderful colours (make sure your not hung over when operating them, colours may cause confusion)
• Great for developing fine motor skills
• Each toy does a different developmental operation for your baby
• Primarily aimed at babies up to 24months

Cons ... read more >>

Looks like web2.0 is moving into the parenting space - enter kidmondo.com, another baby journal website that was launched recently.
What does it do? In a nutshell: "Kidmondo is a personalized online baby journal that helps parents to easily chronicle their child’s life and share it with friends and family in a safe environment."

As someone who is building websites I have to say the site is put together well - the design is pretty slick and stylish, so full marks for that. The overall structure of the site is also reasonably simple and very user friendly. In general kidmondo seems to have taken a no-fuss approach to almost everything. It's very easy to sign-up and add stuff. The basic version is free but you'll have to put up with ads - the paid-for accounts are ad free but set you back $5 / $10 per month depedning on features and storage space. ... read more >>