Playground Chatter: Keeping Baby Warm This Winter 01/12/2011

Much of the country is blanketed in snow, turning into a winter wonderland. As magical as it might be to watch your baby witness her first snowfall, keeping our little ones warm is always a top priority for every parent. We recently asked our community on Facebook and Twitter for their tips on how to keep their little ones toasty during the cold months. Here are some of their suggestions for chasing the chill away:

Heather suggests, “Stay inside watching Baby MacDonald over, and over, and over, and over again! .” Sheila and Ruby agree that staying inside is the best solution.

Sarah adds, “Stay home as much as possible and if we have to go out we bundle up big time!!”

Anna finds it’s best to, “bundle her up head to toe with her snowsuit hat gloves boots but we stay inside only go out if need be.”

When venturing outside is necessary, Jennifer says, “I use a bunting bag in the infant seat and if going for a stroll in the fall and its chilly i put the bundle me in the stroller and keeps my son warm with out the use of a bulky snow suit and its much safe to but a baby in the car seat with out a big coat they could slip out of the harness because u can get it tight enough on them.” Karie agrees.

Pamela’s must-have for car rides is “a cover for the carseat.”
Renee shares her technique: “I use an infant snuggler and a bunting bag over the car seat as well as bundle him up but there is not need for a heavy jacket with those items. It is wonderful.”

Now that her son is a bit older, Janie says, “loved the infant carrier seat bags for winter last year, now I pretty much have to put my 18-month old in his snowsuit for stroller walks, which took some getting used to for him (he still doesn’t love it!). Just a jacket, warm hat, mitts & boots for the car tho….”

Thanks to our Facebook and Twitter community for sharing all your wonderful suggestions! From car seat covers to infant snugglers, snowsuits to just plain staying in, there are plenty of great solutions to help keep your baby warm this winter. Do you have a tried and true technique? Feel free to add your two cents in the comments!

Discovering The Colors Of Fall With Your Baby 09/24/2010

Happy Fall everyone! Now is a wonderful time to bundle your baby up and head outdoors to explore all of the colors and new experiences that this season has to offer. Plan a strolling adventure with your little guy to discover all of the fun of fall together. You can get your him psyched for your adventure by looking at pictures of the season at home first. Watch Baby Monet- Discovering the seasons together. Describe the colorful leaves, new critters and sounds that you are about to experience. Prepare your little adventurer with his own special leaf sack to bring along and print a few photos of colored leaves and head on a mission to find leaves that match the photos.

Once you get outside of course the #1 thing to take advantage of are the beautiful autumn leaves. A natural rainbow to share with your little sidekick is right at your fingertips. As you walk hand in hand help your baby collect as many different colored and shaped leaves as you can find and save them to explore later at home. If he needs a hand bring along a sticky lint roller brush that he can use to roll on the ground and “magically” collect leaves. Keep your eye out for big pine cones as well. I’ll explain why later. If your baby is too young for his own adventure, not to worry you can still make your fall walk fun. Just grab his stroller and get ready to play tour guide. You can enjoy a relaxing walk and spend the afternoon explaining all of the new changes that are happening with the fall season.

If you want to stay close to home you can make your fall adventure productive and even more fun by getting your little guy’s help with raking. Head to your front yard and make the biggest pile that you can together. Let your inner child loose and jump in it together. Not only will you be having a blast, but you will be discovering new textures as well.

After your fall adventure go home and take time to explore each shape, color and texture of your collection together. Feel the scratchy texture and smooth lines on each leaf, you can show the similarities in the lines of the leaf with the lines on your palm. Look around your living room and grab examples of household items that match the bright red, yellow, and orange of the leaves. If your baby is old enough have him show off his stuff and tell you what color leaf you are exploring and pick out other examples around the house. Now you have a table full of leaves…what do you do? With a little creativity you and your baby are in for an afternoon of fun. Here are a couple quick ideas to bring the fall indoors with fun projects that you can do together.

Happy Leaves
You can use your toddler’s new collection as a canvas for painting. Lay out a mat and spread out the leaves. Grab 2 paint brushes along with non-toxic tempera paints (any color will do) and get painting. You and your little artist can paint faces or you can make a leaf extra special by personalizing with his name. Let dry overnight and you will have super special leaves to remember your day of fall adventure.

My Tree
Your toddler can make their own tree with their new leaves with a little help from you. Take a light colored sheet of construction paper and draw a tree trunk, try your best. You can then let your toddler pick leaves and tell you where he wants them to go. You take the lead and with non toxic glue stick them on the paper until you’ve made your toddler’s special tree.

Yummy Pine Cones
Tis the season to channel your inner Martha Stewart with fall crafts. While on your adventure you hopefully found a few nicely sized pine cones. When home set up a work place for you and your helper. Take the pine cones and spread peanut butter over them. It doesn’t have to be pretty, just try to get as much to stick as possible. Next, put out a shallow plate and spread birdseed across the plate. Let your toddler get a little messy as he rolls the pine cones in the seed. Voila easy bird feeder! Place the homemade feeders in a tree near a window where you and your lil guy can sit inside and see who’s coming along to nibble on your tasty treat.

Indoors and outdoors this fall there are so many fun ways for you and your baby to bond, be active and get discovering.

Happy Fall!

Baby Einstein at the Click of your Mouse 09/01/2010

Hey moms and dads,

We wanted to let our new blog readers know that there’s even more Baby Einstein available online. Check out our official YouTube channel with your little one for clips of your favorite programs, fun videos, wacky puppets, tips and more. You can preview DVDs that you may not have seen yet and share videos with fellow parents to friends. So check it out and prepare for a few giggles out of you and baby!

Special Children, Special Discoveries 08/30/2010

We share your dedication to bringing a smile to your child’s face every day. Lucky for us we have awesome parents that are always giving us feedback to help guide us in what you want and need.

Recently we’ve been hearing quite a bit from parents of children with special needs. Of course, the issues and children’s ages vary, but we are always pleased to hear from parents that our products bring happiness to their child’s life. Your positive feedback made us want to share Baby Einstein with parents of a child with special needs who might not have explored our DVDs yet with their child. That’s when we thought, what better way than a sampler!

We are offering a free DVD sampler featuring a taste of 3 of our popular DVDs with almost 20 minutes of free content and expert advice. Parents can register for a copy now through December 31st. After you watch together we would love to hear from you. Your insight helps us create the best products possible for all children.

As always we promise to put your child first in everything that we do. We hope that this is one more way that we can work together to make sure that every child has a great experience with Baby Einstein.

Visit http://www.babyeinstein.com/specialdiscoveries for more information.

Parents Know Best: What to add to your registry 08/02/2010

We recently asked our social media moms and dads for their advice on which Baby Einstein product they would recommend as a must have for an expecting mom to include on her registry. They gave us tons of great suggestions on Facebook and Twitter!

Since you may be asking the same question, we thought we’d share some of their tried and true recommendations for the products mom, dad and baby can’t live without.

Frannie08 tweeted, “any of the dvd’s r great for my almost 2 y.o when we are traveling! She loves the World Animal Adv.”

Jane Lewis said, “My son loved Baby Galileo. I’d recommend the Tug and Teethe Pals too! And of course the puppets. The cow puppet is really cute.”

Imperfectmomma tweeted, “The nighttime cd & the traveling cd too . . . best investments we ever made.”

Mica McDole Wiemann said, “Definitely the exersaucer- my 9 month old still loves it.”

MommyLiving tweeted, “My 16-month-old can’t get enough of the Numbers Nursery DVD when going for a drive. She loves watching it over & over.”

Lori Bassford de Leon said, “The Baby Einstein Jumper! My youngest loved playing in it.”

Ruth Kobrin said, “Your music CDs . . . my boys love them and they’re now 5 and 3.”

LKWHTMomFound tweeted, “The board books are my fave; colorful, sturdy and eye-catching.”

Still not sure what to get the new mom-to-be? Try the You’re Expecting gift set or use our gift finder to discover the perfect gift.

A big thank you to all those who gave these great suggestions. We are sure that fellow parents will be grateful for the tips. And congrats to our expecting moms on your new arrival!

It’s Together Time Tuesday, Baby Einstein Style! 07/27/2010

It’s Together Time Tuesday! Baby Einstein DVDs give you a great reason to cuddle up on the couch and just relax together for a dose of quality time. Make your watching more interactive by talking to your baby through what you see. It’s as easy as naming the cuteness you see onscreen and pointing out objects. If he is a little restless place him in your lap and bounce along together to the music. Watch Baby Einstein founder (and mom) Julie Clark share some of her tips on making the most of your DVD-watching experience.

Enter The Baby Einstein: All About Baby Sweepstakes Today! 07/21/2010

We’ve just launched the All About Baby Sweepstakes! Moms and dads can enter for an amazing chance to win a $2,000 U.S. savings bond for the little one in their life along with special Baby Einstein product package prizes. You can enter now through August 20th. Winners will be chosen at random.

One grand prize winner will win a $2,000 Series I U.S. savings bond
One first prize winner will receive a $500 Series I U.S. savings bond
Two 2nd prize winners will receive Baby Einstein Product packages valued at $300 each
Five 3rd prize winners will win Baby Einstein Product Packages valued at $100 each

Baby Einstein has even more exciting news! Fans are also invited to visit the new Baby Einstein Facebook Page. This, Baby Einstein Company’s first official Facebook Page, is a place where parents with a passion for sharing the arts with their baby can share real life experiences and tips. Baby Einstein will also regularly post useful advice for encouraging discovery, information on new products and exclusive offers.

Baby Einstein, loves babies and creates DVDs, CDs, books, toys and activity items with every baby in mind every day. Enter the Baby Einstein: All About Baby Sweepstakes today for a chance to nourish your baby’s tomorrow.

© The Baby Einstein Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Baby Einstein is a trademark of the Baby Einstein Company, LLC. EINSTEIN is a trademark of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Sweepstakes open to legal residents of 50 U.S./ D.C., & Canada (excluding Quebec), 18+ (not a minor in state/ province of residence) and be or sign up to become a registered member of the Baby Einstein site. Sweepstakes begins 12:01 p.m. PDT, 7/19/10 & ends 12:01 p.m. PDT, 8/20/10. Subject to the Official Rules. Sponsor: The Baby Einstein Company L.L.C., Burbank, CA.

Calling All Moms & Dads- Join the Parent’s Panel today! 07/07/2010

Hey Parents,

Have you ever held a Baby E toy and thought “if only it could do THIS?” We want to hear your ideas! After all, who knows what your baby likes more than you?

Baby Einstein was formed from the imagination of Julie Clark, a real mom that wanted to nourish her baby’s imagination in a new way and we know that our best new ideas come from real parent like you. We promise to make the best products that evolve with your family and create memorable together time with your little one.

We invite you to be part of our Parents Panel. When you join, you’ll be part of a network of real moms and dads ready to share ideas and tips, test new products, get special Baby Einstein offers and more. Imagination is everything and together, we can help develop creative babies who are inspired for a lifetime!

Newest Addition to the Baby Einstein Family 11/04/2009

Last month, we released the second edition to the Baby Einstein World Music series, the World Animal Adventure DVD. This visually and aurally appealing video debuts adorable and interesting animals (Asian pandas and Australian kangaroos—oh my!) from all 7 continents, interacting with their natural environments. With ethnic music as interpreted by the Music Box Orchestra, this DVD is highly engaging. We continue to make our products even more interactive—the DVD’s “Grow With Me” section offers more words for parents to try out with their children and the “Select-A-Segment” section allows parents to really customize their Baby Einstein experience.

-The Baby Einstein Team

New Baby Einstein DVD! 09/25/2009

We’re always thinking of interesting ways to bring the amazing diversity and beauty of the world to young kids. Baby Einstein has always been inspired by colors (just look at our logo!) and over the past year, we’ve spent a lot of time exploring this theme. Namely how babies come to identify all the different hues they see. It occurred to us that there are so many vibrant, bold colors represented across the globe, why not introduce those shades as represented by different cultures? That’s how we came up with the concept behind World of Colors, our newest DVD coming in 2010!

We just completed filming World of Colors and will keep you up-to-date with some fun behind-the-scenes images and stories of our adventures!

-The Baby Einstein Team