A is for Ambient lighting Soft lighting activates sleep-inducing chemicals called oxytocin in your child’s brain. It is not known precisely which kind of lighting activates oxytocin most successfully, but we do know that bright or harsh light

ONCE UPON A TIME, children’s clothes were made with wide seams and carefully positioned darts, so that nimble-fingered sewers could ensure extended wear in years to come, with a nifty stitch here and a deft tuck there. Thrift is back in vogue, so it

, a children’s club and a Formula One simulator, 20 bars, four pools and five restaurants. What more could you need?Z is for zzzzMany people find that they have the best sleep of their lives on a cruise, thanks to the gentle rocking of the ship and

The trend for all things naval kicked off when the artist Franz Winterhalter painted the four-year-old Prince Albert Edward in a white sailor suit for a Channel Islands’ cruise in 1846. By the 1870s, both boys and girls were sporting the look.

The 20th century was a revolution in children’s dress. Proper childrenswear, such as the all-in-one skeleton suit for boys, and uncorseted empire lines for girls, allowed, at long last, the wearer to actually move.

Dressing siblings in matching outfits gives the family a neat look – just look at the Beckham boys. But, according to psychologists, dressing siblings identically might not be the best thing for their developing identities. So think before following

You may well think pink is for girls and blue is for boys but historically, more often than not, the opposite was true. Instead, boys wore pink because of its associations with the ‘power’ colour red, whilst girls were more likely to be clad in ‘Virgin Mary’ blue.

and run. Parents still swoon over “le style Anglais”, maybe because it makes them look “un peu jet set” and like the kind of family who might have a Norland nanny at home.

Until the turn of the 20th century, uncomfortable layers were a staple of children’s clothes: not just to keep warm, but also to protect modesty and add shape to the outer clothes children wore. Sometimes, a few extra layers were just what

. Children started wearing jeans in the Fifties, but the look really took off in the Seventies with the bell bottoms and skinny-jean-and-jacket combo that was the denim suit. Today, jeans are a staple in the wardrobe of every child and even newborns wear