Parenting & Family | Blog Category Archives | Meraki Lane

35 Healthy After School Snacks for Kids | Looking for simple, clean eating snacks for children to keep them full until dinner? We’re sharing our favorite make ahead snack recipes, easy grab and go ideas, self-serve snacks and options for older kids, and gluten-free recipes for kids with allergies. From a delicious trail mix with chocolate chips, to super simple DIY granola bars, to almond butter energy balls, even your picky eaters will love these recipes! #afterschoolsnacks #makeaheadsnacks

Easy and Delicious: 35 Healthy After School Snacks for Kids

11 Problem Solving Activities for Kids | If you want to help build your child’s social, critical thinking, conflict resolution, and anger management skills, these fun and effective ideas are for you! We’ve included worksheets, team building activities, task cards, and other creative challenges for small groups that can be used at home with parents or as a team in the classroom. #problemsolvingactivities #conflictresolution #selfregulation

Critical Thinking: 11 Problem Solving Activities for Kids

Baby Led Weaning for Beginners | Starting baby with his or her first foods at 6 months can be scary, especially if your babe has no teeth! It used to be that starter foods consisted only of purees - baby oatmeal and mashed banana and sweet potato – but many moms are opting to go straight to table foods. If you want to know how to get started with BLW, as well as the best beginner foods and recipes to start with, we’re sharing 25 tips and ideas to inspire you! #babyledweaning #BLW #starterfoods

Baby Led Weaning for Beginners: 25 Tips and Recipes for New Moms

How to Make Homework Less Stressful | Looking for tips to make learning at home fun for your children? Whether you have kids in elementary, middle, or high school, these homework hacks will help maintain motivation and avoid power struggles with your kids. From creating a dedicated homework station and a planner for greater organization, to establishing a good homework routine, to teaching time management tips, these ideas really work! #homeworktips #homework #parentingtips #backtoschool

How to Make Homework Less Stressful: 11 Tips for Parents

15 Natural Ways to Boost Your Energy | Want to know how to kickstart your energy naturally? We’re sharing 15 tips and ideas to help you feel more energized in the mornings and beyond without relying on coffee and other sources of caffeine. Diet and fitness are great natural energy boosters, but there are tons of other simple tweaks you can make to your daily routine to help you feel more alert and productive. Click to find out more! #energybooster #wakeup #wakeuprefreshed #havemoreenergy

Energized and Awake: 15 Natural Ways to Boost Your Energy

How to Be a Happy Mom | Whether you’re a stay at home mom, or you work outside the home, you probably look at other mothers (and families) and wonder what their secret is. How do they maintain a positive attitude no matter what life throws at them? How do they get their children to behave so well? Where do they find the time and energy to do fun things with their kids everyday? If you want to be a happy mom (and wife), these parenting tips are for you! #happymom #momlife #parentingtips

How To Be a Happy Mom: 9 Tips to Find Joy in Parenting

How to Get Kids to Stop Sucking Their Thumb | Perfect for toddlers and older children, these thumb sucking alternatives and behavior strategies will teach you how to get your child to stop sucking his or her thumb (or fingers) once and for all! From reward charts and products that make it impossible for kids to get their thumbs in their mouths, to less invasive DIY gloves and solutions to help curb bad habits over time, these parenting tips work! #thumbsucking #parentingtips #positiveparenting

How to Get Kids to Stop Sucking Their Thumb: 11 Tips that Work

27 Tips for Flying with a Baby | Baby’s first flight can be overwhelming if you’re not prepared – especially if you’re a new mom traveling alone! From packing lists and travel products for your carryon luggage, to travel tips to avoid ear pain and how to survive flying with a baby on your lap, to our favorite travel toys for babies age 6 to 12 months, this post has everything you need to make traveling on airplanes with little ones as easy as possible. #babytravel #momhacks #babysfirstflight

Baby’s First Flight: 27 Sanity-Saving Tips for Flying with a Baby

How to Get Kids to Stop Biting Their Nails | If you’re looking for natural tips and remedies to stop nail biting, we’re sharing 7 tips that actually work! We’re also sharing all the facts about nail biting, including common causes and recommended alternatives you can use to help replace the habit with something healthier. No matter how severe your child's nail biting gets, rest assured it can be fixed! #bitingnails #stopbitingnails #naturalremedies

How to Get Kids to Stop Biting Their Nails: 14 Tips for Parents

How to Get Rid of the Pacifier | Getting children to give up their beloved pacifiers can feel like an impossible task. While a paci can be very helpful in getting a baby to calm down quickly – and it can help prevent SIDS – there is no benefit to toddlers and older kids continuing to use their pacifier. In fact, it can be quite damaging to their teeth! If you want to say ‘bye bye’ once and for all, we’re sharing 7 tips that help! #getridofpacifier #pacifierweaning #pacifierweaningtips

How to Get Rid of the Pacifier: 7 Pacifier Weaning Tips for Parents

Summer Routine Ideas for Kids | Summer should be fun for families, but it can be difficult for even the most organized mom! From planning fun activities to keeping your kids leaning to finding a little alone time so you don’t lose your mind, it can be overwhelming! If you’re looking for daily schedules and chore charts you can enforce at home during summer vacation to keep your child on some sort of routine, we’re sharing 10 tips and strategies we swear by. #summerroutine #summerschedule

How to Survive Summer Vacation: 10 Summer Routine Ideas for Kids

How to Create a Stay at Home Mom Schedule | Whether you have a newborn baby, toddler, school age kids, or all 3, the key to parenting like a boss while still having time for organizing, cleaning, housekeeping tasks, meal planning, a daily workout, kids activities, and self-care is proper time management. We’re excited to share 21 tips to help you create a daily plan as well as sample morning, afternoon, and evening stay at home mom schedules! #stayathomemom #stayathomemomschedule #momschedule

How to Create a Stay At Home Mom Schedule to Save Your Sanity

11 Working Memory Games for Kids | Looking for inexpensive (and free!) working memory activities for children with developmental delays like ADHD, executive functioning disorder, and autism, as well as students with learning disabilities like ADHD? With 7 strategies and 11 activities designed to develop a child’s memory, planning, and organization skills, this collection of fun ideas will help make learning fun at home and in the classroom! #workingmemory #workingmemorygames #specialeducation

Don’t forget! 18 working memory games and strategies for kids

13 Unique Gender Reveal Ideas | Throwing a gender reveal party? Need creative games and activities to help surprise your guests about whether you’re having a boy or a girl? These DIY ideas will inspire you! From food and decorations, to balloons and party favors, there are so many gender reveal themes you can create on a budget, and we’re sharing 13 of our favorites for a simple, classy, and memorable celebration you’ll never forget! #genderrevealparty #genderrevealideas #genderrevealgames

Boy or Girl?! 13 Creative and Unique Gender Reveal Ideas

14 Team Building Activities for Kids | Looking easy and fun ways to teach team work, inclusion, social skills, communication, and problem solving in the classroom? These cooperative games and activities will inspire you! We’ve included indoor and outdoor ideas, ‘getting to know you’ icebreakers for the first day of school, and activities you can enjoy with your students all year long to encourage ongoing collaboration and team work. #teambuilding #teacherresources #teaching #classroom

14 Fun and Engaging Team Building Activities for Kids

Art Therapy for Kids | Perfect for emotional healing, anger management, helping kids deal with feelings related to trauma, grief, and divorce, and for kids with mental health challenges and special needs like autism, ADHD, OCD, and anxiety, this collection of simple and creative art therapy projects and crafts will help your child deal with their emotions and heal. #arttherapyforkids #arttherapyprojects #arttherapyactivities

Art Therapy for Kids: 22 Activities to Help Your Child Cope and Heal

How to Discipline a Toddler | Parenting is hard enough as it is, and when you throw tantrums into the mix, it can be downright overwhelming. Whether you’re the mom to sons or daughters, the toddler years will leave you wondering how to get your kid to behave without yelling or time outs, and this collection of 10 simple positive discipline ideas will teach you how to do just that. #tempertantrums #positiveparenting #positivediscipline

How to Discipline a Toddler: 10 Tips that Actually Work

20 Weaning Tips for Breastfeeding Mothers | If you want to know how to stop breastfeeding a baby, one-year-old, or toddler, these tips and ideas for mom is a great place to start! Whether you want to stop nursing at night, you need to stop nursing cold turkey without pain, or your little one is showing natural signs starting solids is the way to go (hello, baby led weaning!), this article has it all! #weaning #stopbreastfeeding #selfweaning

How to Stop Breastfeeding: 20 Weaning Tips for Breastfeeding Mothers

15 Hand Strengthening Exercises for Kids | If you’re looking for activities, toys, and exercises to help develop fine motor skills in children, this collection of fun ideas is a great place to start. Designed to strengthen the fingers and help with muscle coordination, these simple and fun ideas can be used in occupational therapy, in the classroom at school, and at home to help kids who struggle with writing and other fine motor tasks. #handstrengthening #finemotor #occupationaltherapy

Fine Motor Development: 15 Hand Strengthening Exercises For Kids

34 Breastfeeding and Pumping Tips for New Moms | If you’re looking for breast pumping tips and hacks for beginners, this post is for you! We’re sharing everything you need to know, including how to choose a breast pump, the best portable manual and electric pumps (and don’t worry – we go above and beyond Medela and Haakaa!), 16 breast pump accessories, how to increase your milk supply, and how to get on a pumping schedule! #breastfeeding #breastpumping #milksupply

Pumping 101: 34 Breastfeeding and Pumping Tips for New Moms

13 Balance Activities for Kids | If you’re looking for ways to develop your child’s gross motor skills at home, in the classroom, in occupational therapy, and beyond, this collection of fun games and activities are just what you need. Perfect for parents, teachers, and therapists, these core strengthening ideas will help build your child’s static and dynamic balance, while also helping with bilateral coordination. #balanceactivities #coordinationactivities #grossmotoractivities

Gross Motor Skills: 13 Core Strengthening Balance Activities for Kids