In partnership with Renew Life.

Feel like you’ve got a lot on your plate these days? Despite packed schedules and never-ending to-do lists, it’s important to find ways to be good to your body—whether that’s finding zen in a yoga class or choosing sleep over social media “doomscrolling.” Another simple way to support health and wellbeing is to give your microbiome some love with a daily probiotic.

Renew Life® Women’s Care Probiotic 25 Billion promotes everyday digestive, immune, urinary and vaginal health*. Get 10% off + free shipping on all Renew Life products by using code TINYBEANS10

Wait… What’s a Microbiome?

According to the Mayo Clinic, the lining of your gut is covered in microscopic creatures, mostly bacteria. But don’t panic—many types of bacteria are helpful. These organisms create a micro-ecosystem called the microbiome. And the key to a healthy microbiome is creating a balance among the different species of bacteria in your gut

Probiotics Add Good Bacteria to Your Body

Probiotics are foods or supplements that contain live microorganisms intended to maintain or improve the levels of "good" bacteria in your microbiome—restoring balance and making you feel better. Adding some balance to a busy life? Yes, please!

Renew Life® Women’s Care Probiotic 25 Billion promotes everyday digestive, immune, urinary and vaginal health*. Get 10% off + free shipping on all Renew Life products by using code TINYBEANS10

Go With Your Gut

Women’s health runs the gamut. You may be dealing with tummy troubles or worried about what’s going on down there after a long day in a bathing suit (the struggle is real!). One small act—like taking the #1 women’s probiotic^ Renew Life® Women’s Care Probiotic 25 Billion—can support your health in big ways. Made by women, for women, some of the probiotic strains in the Women’s Care Probiotic are clinically tested and shown to balance vaginal pH and yeast levels, and promote digestive, immune and urinary health.*

A woman’s gut and vagina have two very different microbiomes—this probiotic supports both. Consider it multitasking at its finest! In a nutshell—addressing your unique needs helps your natural rhythms thrive.*

With a diverse formula developed by microbiologists and researchers, Renew Life® Women’s Care Probiotic 25 Billion has more clinically studied strains than the leading brand,† including the #1 most-studied strain.‡ The delayed-release capsules help ensure the probiotics reach your gut alive.

Women’s bodies are complex—but incorporating this awesome probiotic is a breeze.

Renew Life® Women’s Care Probiotic promotes everyday digestive, immune, urinary and vaginal health*. Get 10% off + free shipping on all Renew Life products by using code TINYBEANS10

—Jessica Solloway

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
^Based on IRI unit sales data, July 2021.
†PubMed Clinical Trials, August 2019.
‡L. rhamnosus GG strain, PubMed Clinical Trials, August 2019.

What’s on trend for the upcoming school year? Stitch Fix, the clothing delivery service, studied shopping data for kid clients and came up with a list of the hottest requests for 2021. From tie dye to loungewear, read on for the results!

Matching lounge sets have surged in popularity among the adult crowd and they’re big for kids, too. An overwhelming majority (87%) of kid clients want coordinated outfits, aka head-to-toe matching sets. And they want them to be easy to wear: the keyword “cozy” went up 65% over the last year. Stitch Fix is calling this combination “chillwear” and adding a new shopping category as a result.

Tie dye isn’t a passing trend for the kid crowd. Requests for the popping pattern at Stitch Fix were up 192% in the last year! In the world of graphic tees, messages around positivity and kindness or outdoor themes are the most popular.

Finally, sporty clothes are here to stay. Stitch Fix’s top 10 most-loved kid styles are all active brands, including Under Armour, Nike and Adidas. Activewear requests have gone up 68% from last year and requests for joggers are up a whopping 138%.

So when you’re making your back-to-school shopping list, don’t be surprised if you hear requests for sporty sets or tie dye. They’re on trend, but better yet, they’re comfortable for both study and play! And if you really don’t want to brave the crowds, you can use Kids Fix for affordable, styled clothes sent straight to your home.

—Sarah Shebek

Featured image courtesy of Stitch Fix

 

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Struggling to get a little green on your kid’s plate? You’re not alone! Researchers at Penn State studied tactics to promote increased vegetable consumption—and what they found was surprising.

The trick? Doubling the portion of vegetables on the plate. That tactic increased veggie intake by 68%! The study involved lunch servings at childcare centers once a week for four weeks. 67 children from ages three to five participated and received broccoli and corn, along with classic preschool favorites like fish sticks, rice and ketchup. Researchers weighed the meals to determine intake and served the vegetables plain, or enhanced with butter and salt. They also varied the veggie portion to be a regular size or double size.

Surprisingly, adding “enhancements” did nothing to affect vegetable consumption. When asked to rate the taste, preschoolers had a similar liking for both plain and enhanced versions of the broccoli and corn. They also ate just as much of the rest of their meal with a double veggie portion, as opposed to a regular portion.

“It’s important to serve your kids a lot of vegetables, but it’s also important to serve them ones they like because they have to compete with the other foods on the plate,” said Barbara Rolls, Helen A. Guthrie Chair and director of the Laboratory for the Study of Human Ingestive Behavior at Penn State. “Parents can ease into this by gradually exposing kids to new vegetables, cooking them in a way their child enjoys, and experimenting with different flavors and seasonings as you familiarize them.”

So the next time you’re cooking dinner, put a little extra scoop of the vegetable on your kid’s plate and see what happens!

—Sarah Shebek

Featured image courtesy of Naomi Shi/Pexels

 

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If you’re in major family planning mode, it might also be a good time for a career change. Career Expert site Zippia recently studied the best and worst jobs for expecting moms who are looking for paid maternity leave (because who isn’t?) and the results are pretty interesting.

Zippia scraped over one million job listings to determine which companies were likely to offer paid maternity leave by searching for specific keywords. Those jobs with the highest percentage of keywords offered the most maternity leave benefits. Here’s what they discovered.

photo: Matthew Henry via Burst

The following job titles had over 10 percent of listings that mentioned maternity leave:

1. Senior Reliability Engineer

2. Lead Engineer

3. Electronics Tehnician

4. Senior Recruiter

5. Technical Support Engineer

6. Technical Recruiter

7. Compliance Analyst

8. Sales Manager

9. Software Test Engineer

10. Enterprise Account Executive.

 

Notably, all of these job titles require tons of experience and don’t apply to the majority of job seekers who likely work in entry or mid-level careers.

Zippia also noted the worst job options when it comes to getting paid maternity leave, with less that 1 percent offering the benefit:

1. Cook

2. Server

3. Sales Engineer

4. Case Manager

5. Architect

6. Sales Specialist

7. Machine Operator

8. Systems Administrator

9. Administrative Assistant

10. Material Handler

 

Many of the worst job options for paid maternity leave pay less than $30,000 annually, adding to the already difficult challenges of how moms can afford to take time off for baby. Obviously not everyone can afford to make a huge career change, but knowing which jobs offer a paid leave definitely helps when it comes to planning––and waiting for the U.S. to finally get its act together on offering a national paid maternity leave program.

––Karly Wood

 

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One of Japan’s top baby books is coming to America! Author and scientist Dr. Kazuo Hiraki created a colorful book that will grab your kiddo’s attention and may even settle your crying baby!

Moimoi features bold designs that are scientifically proven to hold baby’s attention nearly twice as long other other shapes. The University of Tokyo Baby Lab studied infant eye motions and brain activity. The result was a colorful children’s board book, featuring shapes, sounds, and more.

photo courtesy of The Experiment

What is moimoi? Moi, pronounced like koi, is a nonsense word that will quickly become one of your baby’s fave sounds. Not only will the bullseye-like colorful shapes completely engage your child’s attention, Moimoi may soothe them too.

This high-contrast children’s book has already sold over 500,000 copies in Japan. Moimoi—Look at Me! (written by Kazuo Hiraki and illustrated by Jun Ichihara) makes its American debut Mar. 30, 2021. The board book for babies retails for $7.95. Visit The Experiment Publishing for more information on the Moimoi series and pre-orders or visit Amazon.

If your littles enjoy Moimoi—Look at Me!, Moimoi, Where Are You? will make its grand debut Spring of 2022.

—Erica Loop

 

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Ever wondered how much it would cost to get your fingers on Cinderella’s slippers or Rapunzel’s tiara? A new study from money.co.uk and Purely Diamonds may have the answer!

The collaboration studied Disney princesses most prized possessions by taking into consideration size, precious metals and stones to determine the real life cost of their royal jewelry. So who won as the most pricey?

With her three-piece set that includes an orb, sceptre and tiara, Queen Elsa took home the prize with an $800,000 price tag. Experts believe her accessories are made of solid gold with a roughly 20-carat sapphire adorning her gorgeous tiara.

Where did the other princesses land? You can see below!

  • Queen Elsa (Frozen, 2013) – Tiara, Sceptre & Orb – $800,000
  • Queen Anna (Frozen II, 2019) – Tiara – $230,000
  • Rapunzel (Tangled, 2010) – Tiara – $200,000
  • Princess Tiana (The Princess and the Frog, 2009) – Tiara & Necklace – $130,000
  • Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty, 1959) – Tiara & Necklace – $70,000
  • Cinderella (Cinderella, 1950) – Slippers & Earrings – $55,000
  • Princess Jasmine (Aladdin, 1992) – Headband, Earrings & Necklace – $7,300
  • Raya (Raya and the Last Dragon, 2021) – Hair Tie, Ring, Wristband – $3,500
  • Mulan (Mulan, 1998) – Earrings, Necklace & Hair Comb – $2,000
  • Moana (Moana, 2016) – Necklace – $1,200
  • Ariel (The Little Mermaid, 1989) – Earrings & Barrettes – $750
  • Snow White (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937) – Headband – $85

You can catch all the details for the study at money.co.uk.

––Karly Wood

All photos: Courtesy of money.co.uk/Feature photo: Amy-Leigh Barnard via Unsplash

 

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In a world where cell phones, tablets, and air pods rule the world, kids are becoming more and more attached to screen time. Is screen time the way of the future for our kids? As a Millennial mom, we were taught at a young age that playing outside was good for you. In that sense, we wanted to play outside! 

Fast forward 20 years and we are creating a generation of kids that are so disconnected from society, due to the simple fact that cell towers, phones and now even Nintendo’s are handhelds. Outside just does not happen anymore. But can we encourage creativity in the child that is connected to the screen?

As a mom of two young children who adore Roblox, YouTube, and Nintendo it is not easy to pull them away from their games. On the contrary, the simple fact that screen time can create more harm than good raised an eerie question for most parents out there today.

Did you know that the average child spends at least 5 hours a day, and less than one hour a day outside? Can you believe that?! We are all guilty of this. Even myself as I sit here writing this. Change has created this monster and we have all had to adapt in some way.

Thanks to the crazy year we have all had, working from home has put quite the stress on many parents. Screen time for kids increased to well over 500%!! Nobody would believe that number! That is huge! But how are parents supposed to get their work done with kiddos running rampant in the house all day?

No thanks to the circumstances, this increase in screen time was substantial from the previous years. When a study was conducted on the number of children that were actually “plugged in”, a whopping 49% of kids were spending at least 6 hours or more on the screen. I mean really, who could blame them?

How Does Screen Time Affect Kids?
Children’s brains are constantly growing. If a child is constantly connected to a device or TV show how can we enhance brain development? Although many TV shows and educational videos on YouTube state they are safe for children are they safe?

There have been many times where my children have caught me off guard and said something they were not supposed to say. When asked where this came the response was from the screen (we will not name any names here).

Never underestimate the power that social media and apps on a device have over children. This has been studied as such that staring too long at a device can also cause the following:

  • Sleep Disruptions
  • Emotional tendencies
  • Behavior Outbursts
  • Language Defects/issues

How you may ask? Each of these are tendencies that could happen to your child. From first-hand experience, as I have noticed with my kids. Children that look at a screen for most of the day have a harder time falling asleep. Whereas children that are more active can get more rest at night.

On the instance of behavioral outbursts, there are a lot of videos that children watch on certain channels that entertain the fact that behaving a certain way is ok. Children learn that this is ok to do and thus repeat it.

Funny to report that emotional tendencies happen when children are asked to separate from screen time and do something else. As kids learn that this is the “only thing” there is to do aside from daily activities, they then have no other tendencies to engage in play.

What Can You Do about It as a Parent?
Children are creative by nature and can adapt to change exceptionally well. Screen time limitation is especially important for kids at a young age. The World Health Organization has set guidelines for parents on the effects of screen time on children.

As a parent that grew up in the ’80s where we ran outside all day and TV really didn’t exist much. Oh, and do not forget, when the streetlights came on, you had better be home. These are different times. And although we must adapt to the changing times, creating creativity in kids enhances growth substantially.

Having a disconnect day is essential during these times. Some examples that we enjoy doing, are

  • Riding Bicycles
  • Drawing
  • Coloring
  • Going for walks
  • Camping
  • Hiking

Having to disconnect is so beneficial. You will start to notice an immediate change in attitude in yourself as well as your kids. Take your kids back to the ’80s where we really knew how to get our feet dirty and swing from ropes into the lakes!

It brings back so many memories. Share them with your children and let them be young, away from the screen.

Nicole is a Registered Nurse turned blogger and freelance writer for hire. She enjoys helping other moms with parenting, life hacks, and anything kids. When she is not creating awesome content you can find her outdoors with her family or lounging, coffee in hand. 

Celebrate Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legacy with this new book aimed towards the preschool set. Ginsburg was an inspiration to generations of women and now a new generation of readers will learn her story. My Little Golden Book About Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be released on Dec. 1 and is available for preorder today.

 My Little Golden Book About Ruth Bader Ginsburg

My Little Golden Book About Ruth Bader Ginsburg written by Shana Corey and illustrated by Margeaux Lucas is a compelling biography which introduces your little one to the legendary life of the beloved feminist icon. 

From a young age, Ruth Bader Ginsburg knew that she wanted to fight for girls and women to have equal rights. She studied and worked very hard and became just the second woman—and the first Jewish woman—to be a United States Supreme Court Justice. With her recent passing shaking the nation, politicians and lawmakers from across the political divide, as well as athletes and entertainers all paid tributes to Justice Ginsburg.

Justice Ginsburg has become a pop culture icon with two popular movies about her life story released in recent years: On the Basis of Sex and the documentary RBG. She has inspired many bestselling books, including Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark. As the latest addition to My Little Golden Books’ series of biographies, My Little Golden Book About Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a terrific and educational read for little future trailblazers and their parents.

—Jennifer Swartvagher

Featured photo: Random House Children’s Books

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Are your kids obsessed with YouTube? Since 2015, With so many children logging on each day, the demand is high for fresh and exciting content. Frugal living blog Top Dollar researched every country’s most popular kids channels to help your little one find a safe new channel to enjoy.

YouTube Study
As well as mapping the top channels, the team also found the top earning child YouTubers.

YouTube Study

In order to find out the most popular YouTuber in each country, the Top Dollar team used statistical websites Social Blade and Vidooly to find out which YouTuber has the most subscribers.To calculate each channel’s earnings, researchers then used Banner Tag to find the average daily views for each channel and estimated how much it was earning using a site called Noxinfluencer, which estimates earnings based on views and subscribers.

To find the top beauty, gaming and kids channels, the team studied the most subscribed channels, read ‘About’ pages and watched the videos to see if they fit into these categories. It proved difficult deciding what channels would fit the ‘influencer’ category for some countries, especially those with obscure content. In these cases, if it looked like it was an individual making the videos, they counted them as a YouTuber. For some countries, the team were not able to find any reliable channels. For others, they couldn’t find the CPM rate. In many cases, a channel claimed to be from one country when it was obvious from their videos that they lived elsewhere. Any channels that did this were not included.

Visit Top Dollar to learn more about this study.

—Jennifer Swartvagher

All photos courtesy of Top Dollar

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According to new research, babies born into bilingual families are better at switching their attention from one task to another compared with infants from homes where only one language is spoken. The study, led by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), used eye-tracking technology to record the gaze of 102 infants carrying out a variety of tasks. Scientists found that those from bilingual homes are able to change their focus “more quickly and more frequently” than those from monolingual homes.

Baby reading with dad

The researchers studied babies between the ages of seven and nine months, half from bilingual homes and half from monolingual homes, to rule out any benefits gained from being able to speak a second language, often referred to as the “bilingual advantage.” Instead, the study focused on the effects of growing up simply hearing two or more languages.

Dr Dean D’Souza, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at ARU said, “Bilingual environments may be more variable and unpredictable than monolingual environments — and therefore more challenging to learn in. We know that babies can easily acquire multiple languages, so we wanted to investigate how they manage it. Our research suggests that babies in bilingual homes adapt to their more complex environment by seeking out additional information.”

When shown two pictures side by side, infants from bilingual homes shifted attention from one picture to another more frequently than infants from monolingual homes, suggesting these babies were exploring more of their environment.The study also found that when a new picture appeared on the screen, babies from bilingual homes were 33% faster at redirecting their attention towards the new picture.

D’Souza added, “Scanning their surroundings faster and more frequently might help the infants in a number of ways. For example, redirecting attention from a toy to a speaker’s mouth could help infants to match ambiguous speech sounds with mouth movements.”

The researchers are currently investigating whether this faster and more frequent switching in infancy can have a longer lasting developmental impact.

The findings were published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

—Jennifer Swartvagher

Featured photo: Picsea on Unsplash

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