Healthy Living - Parenting Healthy

Airthings Wave Plus indoor air quality smart monitor with Radon detection

Do you know the best time to open your window in a particular room to air things out? What about when to close the window and keep harmful air quality outside rather than entering your home? Airthings has a customizable and easy dashboard to help you monitor your indoor air quality.

With Airthings indoor air quality monitors you can put more than 1 in different rooms and view them all on one screen in your Airthings dashboard on your computer or device. Below, the user has 2 Airthings monitors in different locations – the lab and meeting room. On one page he can view both rooms.

What is Radon?

Who needs an Airthings Wave Plus?

Airthings is branded for families, employers and building managers. The air indoors can be up to 10 times more harmful than the air outside! It is hard to stay on top of your indoor air quality without a proper monitor and the Wave Plus has been fantastic as I use it to monitor the large game room upstairs on the far end of our home.

Our game room is always the hottest and stuffiest room and our home is less than a year old! Even new homes can have a room that just doesn’t fair well with air quality. It can be due to the location on the room. It can be due to the furnace and A/C routing and set up. The Airthings Wave Plus is for everyone!

My indoor air quality results with Airthings Wave Plus

When you first connect your Airthings monitor which is so flawless and takes seconds, you get some information that states it is scanning for a full 7 days to get the accurate results. This means you want to give the monitor 7 days in its new location before you are certain the readings are accurate for that space.

Above it states my TVOC (Total volatile organic compounds) is in the orange but the website says it has a settling time of 7 days and this is day 5, so I am not concerned yet. Also the humidity is going from normal to orange but again the monitor has been in that room only 5 days, but I would not be surprised if I always get temp and humidity alerts once all settles down.

With my Airthings Wave Plus, I get full visibility into 6 sensors including the 3 most serious indoor air pollutants, as well as detailed views of temperature, air pressure, humidity and additional sensors for advanced analytics options.

Notice above on my app screenshot that there is a grey arrow on the side to indicate I can swipe to a different page and that goes to the Radon sensor so you can get the Radon stats by day, week, month or year. Then you can share all stats. This is a great peace of mind to send to tenants or employees who work or live in your space you are monitoring.

Visit Airthings to find the right monitor for your space or home and while there you can visit their blog for helpful articles.

Food/Beverage, Healthy Living, Natural Foods

HINT launches kid-friendly Tetra boxes that help children drink more water

January 1, 2019January 1, 2019 Erin Sluka

With a 10 year old who has ongoing constipation and digestion issues, drinking water is the number 1 thing he can do to lessen his symptoms. He is on a Miralax regimen and for that to work, water is imperative. The big problem is he hates drinking water. It is such a fight to get him to drink a healthy amount. I needed a solution that works to help children drink more water and HINT was my answer.

HINT water for kids comes in four fruit flavors, Watermelon, Cherry, Blackberry and Apple. Hydrate your thirsty kids with our refreshing fruit-flavored waters that contains no juice, sugar or sweeteners.

HINT kids waters are available at drinkhint.com, and soon at Costco and grocery and specialty stores nationwide. I also found it on Amazon. This is a long-awaited water for parents like me who struggle to get water down their kids with no other option but sugar juices!

Gift Guides, Healthy Living, Kids, Reviews, Reviews by Anthony, Summer, Video Reviews by Anthony

The Priority Bicycles Start 20 Kids Bike Review

August 28, 2018August 27, 2018 Erin Sluka

Thank you to Priority Bicycles for sending the bike for feature

Is it time to introduce a quality bike to enhance riding skills and introduce gears? Are your bike rides hindered by kids bikes that can’t use the same terrain as yours can? If they can fit on a 20″ bike it is time for the Start 20 from Priority Bicycles. This is because you get a quality bike with quality parts at a reasonable price. Let’s take a better look!

Imagine having no more chains and no more grease. The Priority Start 20 kids bicycle has

Comfort all-weather grips
3 Speed Shimano hub with grip shifter
Comfortable all-weather seat
Dual hand brakes
Rear free wheel
All terrain durable tires
Solid platform pedals
Rust and grease free belt drive

I worried at first that perhaps with Anthony’s growth spurt that he was a bit tall for the bike, but he says he loves it a bit low. He says he can jump it and turn much easier that way. He hardly rides sitting down as he always lifts up and he has such great comfort in this bike with the grips and shifting is easy.

This bike makes learning gears easy as I can hear the clicks and catch and can help him out as he learns to shift up and down depending on hills or terrain.

Let’s see how the Priority Start 20 rides:

Priority Bicycles has bikes for kids as small as balance starters and 16″ to adults. They really are a fantastically built bike for the price point. The good thing is that my local bike shop says when he wants they can put a higher stem in to raise the handle bars so he can grow with this same bike.

They do 100% of their sales through https://www.prioritybicycles.com/. Just a small NYC company bringing you a comfortable and easy-to-ride bike for all sizes and abilities.

Books Reviews, Education, Healthy Living, Kids, Parenting, Tips and Tricks, Wellness Wednesday

Fun Ways To Teach Hygiene To Your Children

August 20, 2018September 7, 2018 Erin Sluka

A few nights ago I sent my son in for his pre-bedtime potty and to wash his hands. He is the child that at age 4 ALWAYS washes his hands after using the restroom as Daycare and myself have installed that method into his head. I noticed he came out of the restroom way too fast. “Hold on, Mister…did you wash those hands?” I got a “Huh?” look and he shoved his hands in my face and I smelled soap. It then hit me….we tell him to wash his hands and he knows to put his hands under running water, use soap and rinse but I have never actually given him any concept of why or how long. At 4 1/2 he is perfectly capable at comprehending the concept so I thought fast about all those books and articles I have come across on creative ways to help him learn and to not just wash his hands or brush his teeth, but to CORRECTLY wash and brush! Here is what I found and will use from now on with my own son……

Washing Hands

Facts

80% of germs are transmitted by hands
CDC protocol is to wash hands in warm, clean & soapy water for 20 seconds.
The proper sneeze etiquette is to sneeze into your sleeve, NOT your hands.

Fun Ways to Encourage Hand Washing

Have your child sing Happy Birthday twice or the Alphabet song..any song, really. It needs to be a minimum of 20 seconds of their hands under water rinsing with soap!
Glitter! It is great for teaching hand washing for 2 reasons. First, you can put glitter on your hands. The glitter resembles GERMS. Have them see how easily the “GERMS” spread as you shake there hand, open a door, touch the flusher, etc… Second, glitter is a challenge to wash off. Give your child a paper towel and see them struggle removing the GERMS. Then have them rinse under cool water without soap-better, but still doesn’t get the GERMS. Finally, have them rinse with soap and warm water. The GERMS go away!
Buy the fun and colorful soaps for them

Brushing Teeth

Facts

It takes 3 years for toddlers to grow their 20 primary teeth
40% of kids will have a cavity by Kindergarten
2-3 years old is when self-dental care should begin-supervising them until about age 6-8
Use soft Bristle Brush with Flouride paste

Fun Ways to Encourage Teeth Brushing

Mix 3-4 drops of red food coloring in about 2-3 tbsp of water. Have your child rinse and spit out carefully into the sink or another cup. Let them look into a magnifying mirror and see their plaque and germs.
Put Tempura paint between your fingers and give them a piece of string. Demonstrate flossing. The paint is a bit challenging to remove resembling the work it takes to floss well.
Don’t forget the eyeball catching toothbrushes and toothpaste. Let them be Germ superheros. I did this with my son as I started him brushing his teeth (he brushes after I do it first as he is only 4). We went to the store and he picked out his own toothbrush and paste then he had his “weapons” for fighting the germ monsters that invade his teeth morning and night!

A great book to use is ‘Germs Are Not For Sharing’. I highly recommend it!

Whatever you do, have fun with it and educate them!

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Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. The link to the recommended book is that of my Amazon affiliate page. Book suggestion is my own.