Author: Scottish Mum

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A Little Bit of Basic SEO Terms

SEO

I think lots of us do things very differently when it comes right down to a little SEO.  I guess in simple terms, it really comes down to how we write and manage our blog information and content.

I don’t always get these right (who does), but it’s nice to remind myself how it should really go to maximise those good old search engine results.

What I think it best practice for blog writing SEO.

Unique Content

Search engines love content these days.   The phrase that many come up with is “content is King.”  Whether we like it or not, Google had decided that content is the way to go and who are we to argue with Google.  Good quality content gets better ranking placement which means more readers sent our way.  Try to avoid duplication of content as although it is unlikely to get you banned, it may get your post lowered down the ratings if another website hosting almost the same content is chosen as the one to rank higher.

Be Consistent

If we only post a couple of times a year, we’re not likely to have our websites crawled often for updates in the search engine directories.  If our content isn’t in them, it can’t be found.  Try to build a community of loyal readers who want to keep coming back for more of what you share, and they might even pass it on to their friends.

Social Media

For any blog that wants to be noticed, or wants visitors, sharing on social media is a must.  Many people recommend Addthis, but I found it sadly seemed to slow my WordPress install down so much that I found it frustrating to use, but I would love to have kept it as it was really good.

The WordPress Jetpack share options seem to be working well and it gets our information started on a good many social media platforms.  On social media, it doesn’t just mean broadcasting our wares and hoping people will listen.  It takes time and effort to get to a place where we create online virtual relationships with our mutual follows.  Social media is about trust, reliability and not always likeability.  Who cares which one you prefer most, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google +, Digg, Tumblr, Reddit or any others.  It’s the one you enjoy that you should stick to, unless you are a business as then you need to go where your customers are.

Word Count

This is quite important really.  Some online content networks ask for between 400 – 800 words for a reason.   Anything above about 250 words is acceptable, but go far too far over and few people will stop and read the whole post as the length of the text is just too much for them.  Not too short and not too long should be the order of the day.  As much as you need to get your message across.   This post will be slightly over, but not by much.

Keywords

Keywords help.  In lots of cases, they are simply common sense, and thinking of what you would search for in Google to look for your topic can make how you craft your content slightly differently.  I once saw a local hairdresser with simply their keywords written into about 4 paragraphs on a page endlessly.  It was horrific to see and read.  Don’t overstuff your keywords.  Using about 3 – 6 in an 800 word post is probably enough.

I’ve noticed some people adding random keywords into their page or post meta descriptions and titles.  Think about what you are doing as Google isn’t silly.  If you add words into your seo descriptions and tags that are not in your content, they’re not going to like it.  You could well be seen as trying to manipulate the reader.

Comments

There was a lot of talk a while back about bloggers turning off comments and being unapproachable.  Only the individual blogger can decide if that’s the right route for them.  Google likes to see frequently updated content, and comments work for that too.  It also makes you look approachable and shows interaction with your readers.  It’s also very impolite to never answer your commenters.  I’m not perfect and I miss a few, but I try to catch them all.

Links

If you’re serious about blogging and want to rise and rise and rise, you either have to be very popular, create fantastic content that nobody else does, or build some great links.  Remember that not all links are equal and that some links could do you some harm.  I blog for fun, but if you’re blogging for a future potential business or to turn it into a commercial enterprise, links in are a must.

Google have guidelines for using links that are not illegal, ie taking money for sponsored posts is not illegal, but Google does not like anyone paying or being paid for links that pass any page rank to another website.   Any of us who take the risk, also risk a potential ban from Google.  Building links naturally from relevant other websites that Google approves of is the best way to go forward.  That comes from great content, guest posting, and using social media well.  It is ALWAYS illegal to take money for a post or page and not declare the relationship.

Good luck as building a huge link base is really time consuming.

Tags

Tags are just like categories but for the net.  The search engines pull them up and they can be useful for having people sent your way.  A good blog post with some relevant keywords might just not need to put their tags on, and I do sometimes forget, but I think they are useful.

What they do is allow your content to be indexed much more quickly and hence perhaps a higher rank.  I still see people putting invisible text in websites, hoping that search engines will pull them up, but I suspect that would go against you as the text would be classed as hidden.   In fact, hidden text could get your blog de-indexed altogether in Google.

Some people have tag clouds on their front page in the hope that the words will be picked up from there, but I think that it totally unnecessary and a waste of front page space.  Others will disagree with me.   If you look at tags as the same as your keywords, it makes them easier to understand.   They should be made up of up to three word phrases and accurately describe or reflect the post or page that they are attached to.

 

 

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Review: Walkers New Baked Hoops and Crosses

According to my kids, there are no crisps like a Walkers crisp.  I suspect it has something to do with the Gary Lineker ads that they think are really funny.   The person who designed those should have a gold badge for innovation, long-lasting interest and public approval.

With our family history of crisps, who could ignore an e-mail asking us to review a new Walkers product?

Walkers 3

With the arrival of  “Monkey George,” along came Walkers Roast Beef Hoops and Crosses in a  lovely box with a book to tell us all about them.   If I’m honest, I’d have to say the Roast Beef are better than the Prawn Cocktail that we’ve had before.

We’ve called the monkey that came with our review Hoops and Crosses George, which is a family tradition due to a besotted nephew who has carried a fluffy monkey since he was a nipper.  All soft toys that look like a monkey have been named George from that time to this.

Hoops and Crosses come in three flavours – all suitable for vegetarians (prawn cocktail, roast beef, salt and vinegar)

Walkers 2

The Nutritional Content

  • Each bag has 85 calories.
  • Each bag consists of 56% wholegrain corn meal.
  • Hoops and Crosses are made from wholegrains, have no artificial colours or preservatives.

Any Walkers Prawn Cocktail fans wouldn’t be disappointed though as they taste exactly like the Prawn Cocktail crisps, which my kids say is a great selling point.

What I do like about the new Hoops and Crosses is the wholegrain content that kids can’t taste at all when they eat the crisps.

Eating a diet that includes wholegrain can help our health along nicely by providing a rich source of fibre.  Getting fibre into my children so easily has to be a good way to go.

Walkers 1

I know friends of my kids who eat no wholegrain at all, so as a wholegrain snack, it is perfect for lunchboxes and trips out.  We didn’t get a chance to try out playing x and o’s on a piece of paper as the bag was dived upon by children desperate to eat them.  We’ll just have to wait until the next time we have them in the house.

I can see these being a staple in our house for snacks and lunchboxes, although my kids would like to see them in Tomato and Cheese & Onion flavours too.

This is a sponsored review.  I was not obliged to review positively.  

 

 

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What would you do with an hour back?

My kids beds have been changed more often than I’d like.

Middler is quite hard on his, and tends to use his as a trampoline, which means a slatted version of any bed is just completely out of the question for us.

I think two of my kids are now past the bouncy bouncy stage, although TV adverts showing teenagers having pillow fights on their beds really just not make for a happy mum when the kids copy it.  If the production and acting teams has to clear up the mess after a pillow fight, I’m sure there wouldn’t ever be one again – anywhere.

I remember when my kids were really little and I put them to bed.  I thought they were quiet and the rascally dog sneaked in beside them.  Deciding to open a bag full of nappy bags, cream and talc, the kids and the dog decided to throw it all over the room.

I heard the laughter and barking, only to find myself greeted at the door by a plume of white powder and mess everywhere.

This led back to reminiscing about the early days and restful sleep for us all.  There’s nothing better than a great night’s sleep, and Dreams, the bed retailer got in touch at the time of the clocks changing and asked me what I’d like to do if I had an hour of my time back.

I could have gone for a new haircut, my nails done, or a massage, but all I could think of was that I’d like to sit in peace with my kids and enjoy a film with them all sitting in the same place.

I thought I’d pick something for me, but there you go, I put the kids first – as lots of us tend to do.

Dreams sent us a fabulous pack of goodies with blankets, sweeties, popcorn and a copy of The Hobbit to watch.   I don’t have to say that my kids find it hard to sit still, but the film had enough twists and turns and slapsticky stuff that kept my kids entertained.

Movie Night 2

The man was out for the night and we sat and started to munch through the most massive bar of Dairy Milk that my kids have ever seen.   I’d said to Dreams that I like Dairy Milk, but the kids pinch it, so the bar they sent through could have fed a dozen people with chocolate.

I left it in the cupboard overnight and strangely enough, the next morning, the box was still there, but the chocolate had disappeared to where the chocolate fairies always take it.

We have very naughty chocolate fairies around here.

Dairy Milk

Thanks to Dreams for our amazing Movie Night.  We appreciate it.

Have a think to yourself and ask the question – what would you do if you could have an hour back?

 

 

 

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Haddock & Mange Tout Fish Pie Recipe

Haddock is a pretty reliable and easy fish to work with.  It would have been the dish that my grandparents and their parents mostly lived on as they grew up.

As versatile as it is, a fish pie is really an easy option to make with it.  I swithered between a fish pie and fishcakes, and this time round, the fish pie won for ease of simplicity.

This is another recipe for our Healthy Happy Hearts campaign with fish is the dish.

Lesley Smith

Haddock and Mange Tout Fish Pie Recipe

Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 20 minutes
Servings: 6
Course: Mains
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 5 lb Potatoes Peeled and suitable for mashing.
  • 5 Haddock Fillets Ours were quite large.
  • 1 Lemon
  • Salt & Pepper
  • Milk For the sauce.
  • Cornflour 3 Tablespoons mixed in a little cold milk.
  • Butter I use a knob of butter, but not too much to make the sauce and the same to mash the potatoes.
  • 500 g Mange Tout
  • 200 g Peas I like petit pois for the sweetness.
  • 1 pinch Nutmeg
  • Rapeseed Oil

Method
 

  1. Put the potatoes on to boil before creating the fish and sauce for the pie. They need to be cooked in some salt and left to simmer for approximately 20 minutes to be suitable for mashing.
  2. Wash and dry the fish. The fish can be dried in kitchen roll, or simply rolling in a little plain flour.
  3. I put the fish in a pan on a low heat for a few minutes in rapeseed oil to allow it to slowly cook while I prepare the white sauce. Put the oven on to approximately 120 C.
  4. In a pan, mix 1 - 2 pints of milk and a knob of butter. When the butter is almost fully melted and the mix is almost at boiling point, remove from the heat and stir in the cornflour and milk mixture. As it thickens, return it to the stove until you have a smooth white sauce. If it isn't thick enough for you, simply add a little more cornflour to it.
  5. Add the sauce to the fish along with the mange tout and the peas. Allow the mix to simmer on a low heat with a pinch of salt and pepper to taste, and add the nutmeg.
  6. Mash the potatoes using a little butter and milk. You want the texture to be manageable without being slimy or runny.
  7. In a large dish, put your fish in sauce, and cover fully with your mashed potatoes.
  8. Put your fish pie in the oven, and cook for approximately 30 minutes, or until the potatoes turn golden on top.
  9. Serve and enjoy.

Notes

For this recipe, I use rule of thumb quantities to go with how much fish I have.  I've not put dedicated amounts as that depends on what you are cooking with your fish pie.  Almost anything goes, so make it up as you go along.

 

 

 

 

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5 Things to Remember when Baking with Kids

This is a guest post from Chris who writes for one of the child sponsorship charities, World Vision UK..   I’m already linked to World Vision as one of the bloggers who does a sponsor share for a child through their sponsorship scheme.  You can find out more about what we bloggers did for that here.   Interestingly, Chris has chosen to blog about baking with our kids.

—————————————————————————————

cherry cake slice

Baking with kids should be many things, fun, entertaining, enjoyable and should hopefully result in some tasty treats.  I will offer five small things to remember when baking with kids to ensure you make the most of the experience.

Be Generous

I think being generous goes hand in hand with baking, don’t try and limit the ingredients, I find a nice mix of ingredients makes the baking experience that much more enjoyable.  If it’s cookies you are making why not buy a variety of ingredients to make different flavours, a nice selection always works better in my experience. You could use white chocolate, milk chocolate or caramel chunks; basically any sweet treats that you think will add to the taste should be included.

Be Creative

Following a recipe is initially advisable to make sure you have got the basics right but add your own creative touch, in fact encourage the kids to add their own style, this will help get them involved and should add to the enjoyment of the exercise. If its small cakes you are making, Smarties, chocolate chips or multi coloured icing should help them use their creative touch.

Be Prepared

It may seem obvious but making sure everything is prepared can go a long way in ensuring a successful days baking, having the ingredients to hand can help avoid any disasters amidst the potential chaos that may ensue. If you are thinking about baking two or three different treats prepare your time especially for this, it should go a long way to making sure everything comes out as planned.

The Kids are Always Right

My favourite thing to remember when it comes to baking and something I’m sure the kids will agree with is that the kids are always right. Aside from the key basics there are generally no fixed rules which means all sorts of variations will work. Deciding how things are decorated and what is mixed is all part of the experience, fingers crossed the cakes and cookies come out well.

Have Fun

The most important thing to remember in my opinion, baking should be about having as much fun as possible.  If you are doing it as a family then great, make it as enjoyable as you can; don’t be too worried if the presentation is not perfect.   The main thing is getting the kids involved; let them make a bit of a mess, after all that usually means there will be plenty of fun being had.

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Help the Scottish SPCA in Scotland

SSPCA
Image Credit: SSPCA

 

“Mummy, mummy, mummy, can we put some money to the starving doggies.”  a small child cried many years ago.

Looking up the RSPCA, I clicked on how to sign up for a monthly payment.  The adverts in the sidebar showed a little picture of an emaciated dog which looked incredibly in pain.  I don’t usually click on adverts for things and my instincts took over.

Such was my introduction to the very under advertised SSPCA – the wholly separate charity for the safety, care and rescue of animals in Scotland.  Any money subscribed to the RSPCA goes South of the border only.  Happy that I had the right place, I signed up to pay my £4 month.

The RSPCA has no place in Scotland as it does nothing here to help our animals.

The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is what we need for the animals in Scotland.   I think there is still a lot of misunderstanding, and like me, many people subscribing to the RSPCA when they live in Scotland and would want that money to go to local animals.  Our SSPCA is a smaller charity than the RSPCA and needs all the donations it can get.

I mistakenly believed that the RSPCA was a UK wide charity that helped animals in Scotland.    Our SSPCA may be smaller, but it has more powers than the English version as our animal welfare charity can investigate animal abuse and submit to the prosecutors at the Crown Office in powers given to it by the Scottish Executive.

It’s not enough to just have the power to help animals, our local charity for the welfare of animals needs much more help.  It needs to get the word out that in Scotland, the money has to go to the SSPCA.  If you can help and would like to carry a post with the information, please feel free to get in touch with me via my contact page or on Twitter as @scottish_mum and I will link you up to this blog post and give you a lovely link for helping to spread the word.

If you can spare another few pounds to help out the animals in need, go to the SSPCA Website.  You can join for as little as £4 a month, or simply make a one off donation.   If you join, it’s £1 a week to help relieve the suffering of an animal, many of whom have been abused, neglected or lived lives of misery.  The SSPCA can give those animals care, hope and a new life.

We pay our £1 a week, and my kids love that we can afford to do something little to help.

There are lots of other ways to help.

  • Volunteering
  • Fundraising (packs available)
  • Wedding Favours
  • Collection Boxes
  • Recycle
  • Petplan
  • Donate Food
  • Join or Donate
  • Sponsor a Space

If you can help, please do, even if it’s just to do your own post for it.

 

 

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Do you like your chips baked or fried?

McCain Oven Chips

Waking up coughing, I looked on as the door of my bedroom opened and the most gorgeous man I have ever seen in my life walked in through the door.  Dressed all in his fireman togs, I was then completely unaware of the rancid black smoke that wafted around him.  The hero of my ten-year old future dreams always played out with a macho fireman whisking me away from my dangerous foes.

Looking back, well before the days of oven chips in their dozens stocking supermarket shelves, we used to have to fry anything that needed chip style cooking.   My mother can make a mean roast, but she’s never been an adventurous cook, so all I learned from her was the basics.

We used to have a big ordinary pan as a chip pan, 16-year-old brother managed to come home steaming drunk and fall asleep while he heated up the fat for a late night feast.  Needless to say, both occasions ended up in a visit from the fireman and a grounded teen, but only one ended up with the macho fireman at my bedroom door.

We had no chip pan from then on and even though I do have one now, and it has a thermometer and a lid, it only ever comes out for Xmas Day and the Tattie Balls that my family refuse to do without.  I even do my roasties in the oven.

McCain Oven Chips 1

The rest of the year, we make do with oven chips, or just plain old regular potatoes.  The man keeps threatening to pull out the fryer and use it more often, but that means he would also have to clean it, so it’s never actually happened despite the threats.    The kids do like chips though and we go through a fair few bags over the space of a year.

The kids current favourite is McCain Oven Chips, so I was happy when they asked us to sample some of their Healthier Chip Range and the 5% fat, straight cut oven ready chips, made with just a dash of sunflower oil.  It was a bit of a no brainer here as they’re the popular ones anyway.

With 6 people to feed, the big bags are what we need and we were happy with the level of crispness from the oven that all chips should have.  I really dislike soggy chips.   I did have to cook them for longer than it said in the instructions in my oven, but it was no big deal.

I’d like to give the 3% fat rustic chips a go, so I’ll have to keep an eye out for those next time I am in the supermarket.

Thanks McCain, the chips got the thumbs up from the kids.

 

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Kangaroo and Buffalo Burgers

Buffalo Burger Cooked 570

My favourite online butcher, Andrew Gordon Butchery and Fine Foods has taken in some wonderfully unusual meat for burger making.

He now frequently has Kangaroo, Waygu, Buffalo and Zebra burgers, as well as a few Springbok ones in stock.   I was in past and came away with some Kangaroo and Buffalo burgers.

Buffalo Burger 570

The man seemed initially skeptical of the contents or taste of the burgers, but once cooked, he was highly delighted and ate two whole massive 200g Buffalo Burgers to himself.

A quick shallow fry in a frying pan in some rapeseed oil, popped in a bun with a cheese slice, lettuce, tomatoes and radish.

Buffalo and Kangaroo Burgers Cooked

Fabulous.

 

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Retro Prawn Cocktail Recipe

Making a prawn cocktail is something that the man of the house does quite often.    We had king prawns to hand and since we are doing the Healthy Hearts campaign with Fish is the Dish, it seemed a good idea to make a King Prawn Cocktail in the old-fashioned way.  We don’t use Worcester sauce so ours misses that out.

Lesley Smith

King Prawn Cocktail Recipe

Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 10 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes
Servings: 6
Course: Starter
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 800 g King Prawns
  • 270 g Mayonnaise
  • 150 g Tomato Ketchup
  • 1 Iceberg Lettuce To Serve
  • Salt & Pepper
  • Tomberries To Serve
  • 10 ml Lemon Juice

Method
 

  1. Mix the tomato sauce, mayonnaise, lemon juice and a very small pinch of salt and pepper in a bowl to create a Marie Rose Sauce.
  2. Wash the King Prawns, dry them (I used kitchen roll) and add them to the mix. Ensure are fully covered with the Marie Rose Sauce you made.
  3. With your serving dishes, decide whether to shred your lettuce, or layer it in your dish. I layered this version.
  4. Serve on top of the lettuce, add tomberries and a little seasoning if desired.

 

 

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WordPress Brute Force Attack Advice

None of us can sit totally on our laurels and think we’re safe from any hack on any website.

The hackers don’t care if we’re large or small, they just want to use our webspace.   There’s been a lot of talk about what to do to protect ourselves from Brute Force attacks, and while we can do as much as we can, I don’t think it’s possible to protect ourselves from everything.

If we’re attacked by a botnet of about 90,000 addresses to choose from, we do need to try and do something to mitigate the risk to our blogs.

WordPress itself has done a lot of work to help us with this, and Matt Mullenweg who is the creator of WordPress has released a statement that outlines a fix we can all use to help ourselves.

What he said is more of less that WordPress 3 allows us to use custom names when we install our blogs and that we should be changing the default “Admin” username.

He said:

 “Almost 3 years ago we released a version of WordPress (3.0) that allowed you to pick a custom username on installation, which largely ended people using “admin” as their default username. Right now there’s a botnet going around all of the WordPresses it can find trying to login with the “admin” username and a bunch of common passwords, and it has turned into a news story (especially from companies that sell “solutions” to the problem).

Here’s what I would recommend: If you still use “admin” as a username on your blog, change it, use a strong password, if you’re on WP.com turn on two-factor authentication, and of course make sure you’re up-to-date on the latest version of WordPress. Do this and you’ll be ahead of 99% of sites out there and probably never have a problem. Most other advice isn’t great — supposedly this botnet has over 90,000 IP addresses, so an IP limiting or login throttling plugin isn’t going to be great (they could try from a different IP a second for 24 hours).”

Looking at his advice, he recommends changing any username from admin to something else and making our passwords stronger.  If Admin is the weak link, then change it we must.   The admin login is set when we set up our blogs, and changing it is actually really easy.

I do have a login limiting plugin with Wordfence which I like, but it clearly isn’t enough on its own.

To Change your Admin username, or make a new one, simply follow the instructions.

Username 1

  1. Login as your Admin User Account.
  2. Make sure your WordPress version is up-to-date.
  3. Click Add New on the User tab in your dashboard.
  4. You will need a new e-mail address to set up a new user.
  5. Choose “Administrator” as the Role.
  6. Don’t choose a username that you are known by elsewhere.  For me, choosing Lesley as a username would be weak as it’s my name and it’s on my blog for anyone to find.
  7. With your password, choose a difficult one with a mix of letters, numbers, symbols and both uppercase and lowercase letters.
  8. Don’t click to send the password by e-mail.  The fewer places it goes online the better.
  9. Click “Add User”.
  10. Logout of your Admin Account and login as your new user.
  11. Go back to your User tab in your dashboard and click “All Users”
  12. Go to the Admin User and Hover above the name.  You will see the option to edit or delete.  Click to delete.
  13. It will give you the option to attribute all posts by the Admin User Account to another username.  Choose your selection.
  14. Click “Confirm Deletion”.

That’s all you have to do to help keep your website a bit more safe from the Brute Force attack.   If your logins are weak or easy to guess, go change them as fast as you can.

 

 

 

 

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Chicken Mayonnaise Panini with Lettuce

One of the pieces of equipment that does live in a drawer in our house and gets used fairly frequently with growing boys is our panini press.  We tend to get our chicken from our local butcher Andrew Gordon Butchery and Fine Foods nowadays, so I know it’s all good stuff.  I buy the lighter mayonnaise and add some herbs to make it more interesting, and a favourite standby food is always a panini.

My Kenwood panini maker actually reminds me a lot of a George Foreman grill, and if I had one of those, I’d be tempted to try making paninis with one of those.

I often make my own bread, but in emergencies, it has been known to be a shop bought loaf, or even the ready made panini bread from Costco, which I’ve used for this chicken and mayonnaise panini.

We were out of much in the way of vegetables, and with only a sad lettuce in the salad drawer, it just had to be added for the health option.

Lesley Smith

Chicken and Mayonnaise Panini with Lettuce

Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings: 6
Course: Panini, Snack, Toastie
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 4 Chicken Breast Fillets
  • 3 heaped tablespoons Mayonnaise
  • Lettuce
  • Butter
  • Salt and Pepper

Method
 

  1. Set the panini maker on to heat up.
  2. Simply cut open the panini bread and butter the inside. You don't need to butter the outside of the bread with a panini maker, but I know some people still do. My eldest doesn't like butter, so his is made without any butter at all.
  3. Dice the chicken breasts and cook them fully, whether in a frying pan, in the oven, or steamed. This is also a good recipe for left over chicken from the previous day.
  4. Mix the cooked chicken breast with the mayonnaise and fill the opened panini. Add salt and pepper if you wish. Top it with the lettuce and close as you would a sandwich.
  5. Pop into the panini maker, close the lid and leave for approximately 5 - 10 minutes.
  6. Garnish and serve.

 

 

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Sponsored: A great night’s sleep guaranteed.

Sleeping Child

Every parent knows that establishing a regular “bedtime” routine for your kids is far from the easiest task in the world.  In her new book Sleep Solutions: Quiet Nights for You and Your Child, celebrity nanny Rachel Waddilove stresses that a regular bedtime routine is absolutely crucial.

She provides some useful tips on how to manage children’s sleep habits in a manner that is beneficial to parents and children alike. Waddilove points out that it is best to avoid confrontations with your child. Gradually starting a new bedtime routine is a good way to address the situation. Here are a few of her key suggestions:

Switch-off:

Winding down and having a moment of calm before bedtime is a great way to establish a routine.  Think about switching off computers and video games at least 45 minutes prior to bed, and any TV shows or films should also be either switched off or turned down.

Let your child set their own alarm clock:

Giving your child small responsibilities can heighten their awareness of the importance of bedtime, and give them a sense of pride in their ability to manage their own sleeping habits.  Gift them an alarm clock when they are in pre-school. (Teach them how to use it, of course!)  This will help them to establish not just a waking routine but also teach the importance of going to bed on time.

Choosing the right bed:

Littlewoods Bed 1

A quality bed goes a long way to guaranteeing a sound slumber. When choosing a mattress, try to find one that is cotton-based for the best comfort. A softer mattress is also recommended, as it is the best for a child’s growing body. A little planning can help give your children a healthy and comfortable bedroom environment.

For more ideas, why not take a look at Littlewoods’s collection of children’s beds and furniture. It’s a great range which is affordable, safe and fun for kids.

This post was brought to you in collaboration with Littlewoods.