With so many proud parents in the world, no wonder baby photo contests are so popular.  Of course there is usually only one winner and we all want our little darling to be it.  Here are a few tips on how to submit photos to be judged for baby photo contests.  Here is what the judges are looking for.

Can the judges see the baby’s face?  If not, then how can they judge your baby or toddler’s appearance?  If you have taken your cutie to a picture studio, chances are they have several shots of your child looking at a prop of some sort.  These are no doubt cute pictures, but opt for the shot of your child looking at the camera.  Close up facial shots are eye catching.  Your baby is indeed a cutie, let the judges see that.

If you are a 1^st time parent, you have probably taken too many photos to keep track of.  Sorting through your tons of pictures can be a breeze if you follow this next suggestion.  If it has a lot of background, move on.  Family vacation photos with your little standing next to 10 cartoon characters won’t work.  All the background distracts the eye away from the main subject- your little one.  Pictures with background are ok, as long as the main focus is your child.  For example, a child swimming in a pool would be good as long as the child takes up more picture than the pool water.  The pool water is all one color and your child’s bright face and bathing suit colors are sure to bring the eye right to your darling.

Focusing on the baby is really important.  While keeping background to a minimal is important, so is making your child the main subject.  For parents with more than one child, I am sure to have tons of family shots.  Keep these photos in the family scrapbooks and photo albums.  Of course you can tell your children apart, but that may not be such an easy task for judges.  If your children look alike that can be very difficult.  Make judging as easy as possible by keeping pictures simple.  Playing the guessing game will only frustrate judges.  It doesn’t get any easier than one person in the photo to be judged.  Of course this rule doesn’t apply to multiples or Mommy  or Daddy and me photos.

I already know you have a dozen shots with your baby wearing huge sunglasses, daddy’s baseball hat, mommy’s jewelry, or a Halloween mask.  Photos with props truly are cute, but they are not always suitable for baby photo contests.   Props that hide your baby’s face make it hard for judges to see the true beauty of your baby.   The key is to enhance, not hide their cute faces.   For instance, wearing daddy’s hat is ok as long as its to the side or back where we can see the baby’s face.  Halloween costumes with face covering masks or that require facial makeup, is not helping your toddler win.

Other Tips Include:

Send clear photos. Photos that are dark are pretty useless.  You are not giving yourself a fair judging chance.Red Eyes do not make appealing photos.  Many online picture software can help fix that problem.

Pictures taken from far away distances can’t help judges see the child’s face. Size matters.  Judges prefer pictures larger than a wallet up to size 5×7 (3×5, 4×6, 5×7 and anything in between).

Cynthia Marcano is co-owner of My Adorable Smile Baby Photo Contest.  Enter your child at http://www.myadorablesmile.com for a chance to win cash or other prizes.  Vote for your favorite today!

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Author: Morgan Hamilton

Music is one of the biggest highlights of a young child’s day. You can also observe that children may respond to music in a different way once they reach adulthood. Young children have a knack for allowing themselves to totally be immersed in children songs. This experience is like nothing that young children have ever had before. We learn to be conscious of what others think as we grow, but a child doesn’t care. They give it everything they have, and have a good time when they hear songs for children.

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Author: Paul Mernon

Your child grows. And growing, he or she explores the world around. This is a beautiful, natural process. Your child learns through tasting, touching, climbing, pushing and pulling things. But you, as a parent, know that there are safe things for your child and not-so-safe things. This leads to a delicate problem - you need to keep your child safe and not to spoil his/her learning experience. Too much articles about childproofing concentrate only on keeping a child safe, ignoring the second part of the goal which is also very important.

This leads to complaints that children often outsmart most sophisticated childproofing solutions. I say that its unavoidable if you looking at childproofing as some kind of competition between you and your child. Humans, especially little humans, are very inventive and love to solve puzzles. Until the child knows what an outlet is, it will attract him/her. I think your task is not to compete, but to be on the same side with your child. Encourage learning, help your child to grow. Look at childproofing solutions as a temporary means, and teach your child about dangers as soon as he/she is able to understand. Until then you need to guide his/her attention away from dangerous things and places. The goal of this article is to give you some ideas on one aspect of childproofing - ensuring that electrical outlets, wires and appliances will be harmless for your child.

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A child teaches us a lesson in overcoming fear

by David Leonhardt

Each day Little Lady, pushing one year old now, amazes me with the self-actualization lessons she teaches me. Yes, here I go again learning lessons from someone too young to speak. (Hmm … maybe that’s a lesson, too.)

In my corner of Starship Earth, winter rolled in a wee bit late this year. The thermometer went easy on us all winter, leaving our sidewalks clear of the usual mountains of snow and our faces just a touch happier. So I suppose it was cosmic justice that just when we wanted to enjoy spring, Old Man Winter struck us from behind. Which explains why we had to wait until May to introduce Little Lady to the sea of grass surrounding our new home in the country.

Little Lady gets excited about everything (another lesson from speech-free youth). Just bringing her into the fresh air gets her excited enough to pop her buttons. As our “sponge lawn” finally seemed to dry from the spring thaw, we decided to introduce her to the green stuff. I placed her gently down on her stomach so she could crawl.

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