TRIED AND TESTED TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

that can be used by the blind and visually impaired in every day life

It is important that we inspire ourselves to learn how to do many things that will make our day-to-day lives easier, more rewarding and more productive. Below are some links that may be helpful and/or provide info on this subject. If you know of more links on this topic or you want to submit some of your own tips and tricks, please click here to e-mail me.

FASHION AND CLOTHING

QUICK AND EASY RECIPES

GENERAL HINTS

BABY AND CHILD CARE

FASHION

These are just a few things I am sharing in the hope that it could be of some help to blind and visually impaired persons as well as to their friends, family etcetera. These are my personal opinions and will naturally not be applicable to or acceptable for other blind/visually impaired persons --

1. For women, it is best if your shoes match the colour of your lower garments. So, if your dress, skirt or pants is black, your shoes should be black too. If your lower garment is white or a pastel colour, go for white, gold or silver-coloured shoes.

2. White sandles and sneakers could be worn with confidence together with white dresses, skirts and pants, but be careful of white high-heeled court shoes. They can often make your feet look big. If your lower garments are dark and your shoes are light coloured, unwanted attention will be focused on your feet.

3. Try to avoid wearing clothes of the same colour, but of which they hew may differ. For example, a blue shirt and blue pants may not always look great together, unless of course they are bought as a suit. Be especially careful of wearing different coloured reds, pinks and whites together. If these colours are matched too closely, but are not quite the same, they will clash.

RECIPES

These recipes have been placed here because they are very easy to make by anyone - but especially by those of us who are blind or visually impaired. They are a few of my favourite recipes which I have tried as a visually impaired person. I hope they will be of benefit to you as well.

RECIPE 1: FRIED EGG-AND-TOAST Thank you to my husband who showed me this ingenious way of preparing fried eggs and bread. He remembered it from his childhood days and thought it was something different, delicious and just the thing for blind people to do with ease and confidence. I agree with him one hundred percent.

RECIPE 2: MICROWAVE CHOCOLATE CAKE

One of the easiest and quickest chocolate cakes you'll ever bake. You won't want to use a conventional oven for this one, ever again! It is really delicious!

HINTS

Hint 1: Invest in a liquid level indicator, available from any organisation that sells adaptive products for the blind. It will help you pour liquids - especially hot liquids - with ease and confidence. You will no longer dread the moment when hot or boiling water comes into contact with your fingers. With practise, you can learn to pour liquids much faster and safer. Just always make sure that your liquid level indicator is in working order before you start pouring liquids by making contact with both prongs with your finger. This is important, as large spills may occur if your indicator does not work and you keep on pouring, well past the capacity of a container. It is also a very good idea to use your hearing in conjunction with the indicator. When you can no longer hear the liquid being poured, it is likely that the container is near full.

Hint 2: When preparing meals, use paper plates as containers instaed of using many different dishes that has to be washed. This is of great help to those of us to whom time is important. I find that I take longer to prepare meals than most people, so not having to wash a lot of dishes before my guests arrive, is a great help.

BABY AND CHILD CARE

New born babies

Breast feeding.

To know how much the baby takes in, the baby usually gets weighed. I found it also works if you listen carefully when the baby swallows and then use timing as a measure. When the baby swallows, you will here the difference in its breathing. While swallowing takes place, breathing gets interrupted and you know the baby is swallowing.

Bottle feeding

The same works for bottle feeding, but of course it's \easyer to measure what the baby takes in.

A grate problem is how to measure the water into the bottle. If you have someone that can fill the day's bottles with the right amount of water and put them into the fridge, it helps. You then only have to add the poudered milk and warm the bottles. That can also be done in two ways.

1. Add the milk to the water with a spoon, provided in the milk tin. Make sure that the spoon is scraped down by using the side of the tin or leave a peace of tinfoil that seals the tin. Simply fold a small airea back and scrape the spoon on that. This way, you never have to touch the powder. Give the spoon a little shake up and down to make sure that the powder falls into the water. Also consentrate on the weight of the spoon to make sure it is emptied.

2. You can also have some-one measure off the right amounts in a container specifically for that purpose.

If you have to pore the water all by yourself and you have no vision, I suggest that you get a 25 or 50 ml cup measure so you can fill the bottles accurately. Remember, the water must be boiled, it does not have to be boiling at the time of making the bottle. I found it easier to work with kooled water.

Sterilizing your bottles.

The only problem is how to take the bottles, rings and nipples out of the water without touching them.

There is no way anyboddy can put the nipple into the ring without touching it. You can, of course, do it before sterilising, but I preferred to have all aireas open to the sterilizer.

Simply sterilise your hands before fixing the bottles. Also. Make sure that you never put the nipple on the work airea. Always cover the nipple immediately after bringing with the cup provided with all bottles.

Changing nappies

Disposable nappies.

These days, lots of nappy makes have an indicater to show when it is wet. It may be helpful to others, but of course it is not essential. If you feel on the outside of the nappy, you can usually feel that the gel of the nappy has become clotty or has made lumps. That always told me whether a nappy is wet or not.

Soiled nappies

you can usually smell it, but when the baby drinks breast milk, it's not so easy. I always lifted the elastic at the back of the leg; that was enough to tell me what I wanted to know.

A grate help with cleaning soilt nappies, is to use a nappy liner in your disposables. Use the liner to clean the big mess and then you can use toilet paper or your cloth. It might be worth it to buy "wett ones"; it saves you the worry of stanes on facecloths. Always, after loosining the nappy's glue strips, stick them immediately back on their original strip. It can stick to your baby's boddy and that herts when you have to poll it off.

Cloth nappies

If you use a safety pin to fasten the nappy, always insert your hand between the nappy and the baby's tummy to prevent you from pushing the pin to far and hirting the baby.

Lucklely, nowadays you get snappies.

Dressing your baby

My bigots problem was, the open hands and little fingers getting in the way.

When I had to pool the arm through the sleeve, I would insert my fingers by the cuff, take hold of the babies fist and gently ease it through.

Feeding solids

When I could, I asked some one to feed my babies, but when I had to do it myself, this is what I did.

I took a cloth nappy, folded it once into a triangle and fassend the ends at the back of the baby. Make sure that the nappy is tight enough to hold the babies arms against its body. The nappy should come up to the baby's chin in front and as I said, the arms must be under the nappy. This takes care of food that messes and stops the hands getting in the way.

I then placed the baby on my lap, cradling her in my left arm. I held the bowl also in my left hand. I then held the spoon in my right hand with only my middle finger, ring finger and pinky. The other two fingers, I used to feel where the baby's mouth was and how full the spoon was.

Medicine

Get a syringe and have it marked at 1 ml, 1.5 ml and 2.5 ml. That should help you through the early months. When the baby gets older, you can have the markings ajusted accordingly. If the syringe is too short to reach into a bottle, use a straw (a Liqui Frute straw fits nicely).

If you want to take the straw off before giving the medicine to the baby, turn the syringe up side down, (the straw must be on top) and allow the liquid to go down into the syringe itself. /Then take the straw off.

I found it easyer to give the medicine directly from the syringe. I put the tipp of the syringe into the side of the babies mouth. Direct the medicine into the baby's cheek. This can be done, even if the baby is sucking the bottle or dummy. Then you must slowly empty the contents of the syringe into the baby's cheek. If you give the medicine into the cheek, you wont choke the baby so easally if you perhaps press too hard on the syringe.

Remember, syringes get old quite easily, so always have a ready-marked one somewhere. I found a syringe held reasonably well if one only rinced it in cold water.

Always mark the medicine bottles with their correct names, the amount to be given and what they were prescribed for.

I never gave medicine using a medicine bottle or dummy, because babies do not always like the taste of the medicine and then you are stuck. You're never sure of how much went in and how much you now have to give.

Back to Main Page