Breastfeeding is the most convenient way to provide your baby with a meal—lunch is always ready, it’s cheap, and there are no bottles to sterilize or formula to mix. But aside from convenience, breastfeeding is healthy and beneficial for baby and mom in a number of ways.

Baby’s first year is both magical and mysterious. The magic happens with each smile and coo, and with every milestone reached.

The mystery happens with each fever and sniffle, and with every miserable night of inconsolable wailing and fussiness.

Figuring out what’s wrong with your little one is difficult, and deciding how best to treat it is sometimes even more confusing. We’ve put together a little cheat sheet of remedies and ideas for the most common causes of discomfort during a baby’s first year.

Despite all the scientific research and technological developments we’ve seen in the last 100 years regarding the health and proper care of infants, there remains one unfortunate mystery nobody has definitively cracked: Colic.

A good pediatrician is one of a parent’s best assets. Pediatricians are trained to be experts on everything from infant and child health and development, to nutrition and behavioral issues. A pediatrician will help to guide you from the moment of your child’s birth until your child is young adult. Finding the right pediatrician for you and your child takes effort, but the payoff is well worth it. Here are some tips to help guide your search:

Parents can never get too much advice, right? Here is Lowcountry Child's top picks for the best parenting books — from newborn to toddlers. 

Not outgoing enough to playgroup pick-up? 
Don't worry. Lowcountry Child has you covered.

For local playgroups, click here.

Being a new mom is a daunting job. During those first couple of months, you’re preoccupied with how to feed and how to get this little baby to sleep while trying to fit in shut-eye for yourself. But after a while, when you settle into the role of motherhood, you begin to crave the company of other moms.
Before having my son, Cole, I went to work and interacted with 10 to 20 people every day. Once I became a mom, all of that changed. I suddenly found myself cooped up in the house, just me and this little thing that cried and spit up all the time (and I mean all the time). After a while, I was desperately seeking some social interaction. But where do you turn?

A critical stage of verbal development happens before children turn 2, when they have several words in their vocabulary but they can't quite form the right words to communicate. This is why more parents are teaching their children American Sign Language, said Caroline Taylor, a sign language instructor at The Sandbox.

Walk into The Storybook Shoppe and walk into a different world. It's a world with talking bears looking for their honey, a pesky rabbit with a penchant for getting into trouble, a pair of hippopotami best friends and a brave, little French girl — to name a few colorful characters.

It's a world Nancy Beaupre, owner of The Storybook Shoppe, carefully created for moms, dads and children. The brightly colored book nook is neatly tucked into Old Bluffton's historic Calhoun Street, across from The Cottage restaurant. Children can be seen meandering her store, thumbing through hundreds of books, where every page awaits an adventure.

When our moms were pregnant, their nursery décor decisions consisted of pink, blue or yellow and elephants or Teddy bears. For modern parents, designing the nursery can take more time, thought and effort than any other room in the house.

Often, the nursery comes to mean more than the place where your precious bundle of joy will sleep. It reflects your parenting style. Are you trendy or traditional? Do you want to incorporate the latest finds in furniture and color or do you prefer nostalgia?