Hi Friends,

I was not going to post anything today as it has been a crazy hectic day, with swimming lessons, birthday present shopping and party for daddy. But something happened that made me so grateful that I was prepared and essentially… saved Matthew’s life.

A question for you? If you are a parent, how many of you have actually done a first aid course for kids and babies?

I was lucky to be part of Civil Defence in Ireland and one of the training sessions was First Aid for young children and babies.

For the past couple of days, Matthew has been feeling under the weather with cold and coughing, so as a result been quite cranky and clingy… Today he was not happy with me as we had a lot of stops to make and he was in and out of the buggy a lot, while all he wanted to do was roll around the floor…

At one point in the day, Alexei asked for some crackers and I gave him some, however, Matthew wanted some as well and started giving out when we didn’t give him any. So I brought him a Liga biscuit (suitable from 6 months old) that normally babies would suck on. However, lately, I noticed that Matthew is instead biting them and has a very strong bite and bites off a piece. I never leave him alone when he is eating them and today I thank my lucky stars I don’t because today he bit off too much and started choking… and I mean complete struggling for breath choking. I instinctively performed the manoeuvre to dislodge the food and he brought it up, crying ensued (Matthew) and a sigh of relief (me).  Click here for First Aid video

I have to say that Alexei gave me some scares as a baby, but he never choked, so this was a new one for me and an experience that I never want to repeat!

This got me to thinking, what if I didn’t know what to do?!? I do not even want to think about what could have happened… (my worst nightmare)

So my suggestion for any parent go and do a course of first aid in young babies. Even if you never get to use it, at least you will have a peace of mind that you are prepared.

Stay safe everyone.