Parent of the last decade know these 2 facts:

1) Babies should be put to sleep on their backs.

2) Babies that sleep on their backs are unable to control their reflexes, causing them to flail their arms, waking themselves up.. and you guessed it.. waking you up.

Certainly the discovery that putting an infant to sleep on it’s back could be lifesaving has helped many mothers sleep at night, yet placing them on their backs has nullifed that!

So what is the solution? The most fantastic creation ever, my first pick of the picks, my dont leave home without, my new best friend.

The SWADDLE.

The Swaddle is a glorified blanket that is created in a way to envelop your child snugly, arms, legs and all, ala the womb, to lull them into a reflexless, spasmless, blissless sleep.

It was very hard for me to use at first. I am claustrophobic and here I was placing my baby in a straightjacket! It seemed inhumane.
GET OVER IT.

Unfortunately my son isnt as into the swaddle as some of his friends, but since I am a WAHM (work at home mom), I have the luxury of allowing him to nap on his stomach while I work right next to him.

The Swaddles are very affordably priced, considering their awesome value!
Have a good nights sleep - on me! Buy the Swaddle Me!

~ Andrea & AJ ~

Things had been going great for a long time… too long. I was going to bed whenever I wanted (LATE), getting up early, taking care of the children, taking them to all their activities in the boiling sun, shopping, working, working, and working…

and eating Pints and Pints of Ben & Jerrys.

No matter how much I tempted IT, I still woke up each day energized and ready to go.. well excluding the anemia and constant exhaustion

I decided that I was immune and nothing could get to me. That this time I was going to WIN! Then it all came crashing.

It is my 4th pregnancy and again I have lost to illness. I am definitely more of a ‘granola’ type of person. Whole wheat instead of white, herbs instead of medication, (excluding my junk food habit), yet ironically, I dont think I have made it through one pregnancy without antibiotics!

Just a few days ago, the ‘naturalist’…where I went in hopes of beating this before it turned into something… told me that the baby is very selfish and will take care of all of his/her needs first. That women in the time of the holocaust, who barely had what to eat, gave birth the healthy babies. I find this reassuring. I also have been told that your immune system is basically shot during pregnancy, so recuperating is a much bigger ordeal.

I have a long list of tasks I need to accomplish before delivering. Instead of accomplishing anything, I am just witnessing the mess in my house build up, my bills go unpaid, the fridge empty, and the emails go unanswered.  I am spending my free time snorting salt water, holding my face over the humidifier, coughing out my lungs, and getting very happy about the small things - like kids leaving the house in matching clean clothing, and the softness of KLEENEX brand tissues.

Here is to good health.

 

This is my first summer pregnancy.  I am literally MELTING… It is nothing short of a superhuman effort to get dressed and leave the house… just to enter a car with no working a/c.  We are talking 100 degrees outside, and the air inside the house cannot even compete with that kind of heat.

Whoever is able to get pregnant with ease, and wants to plan a pregnancy… here is a little advice. Aim to get pregnant in August/Early September. The advantages:

1) Your wardrobe is much cheaper, since you can get away with wearing sweatshirts, sweaters, etc throughout the winter months.

2) Your belly will keep you warmer in the winter

3) Your baby is born in the spring, just in time for the warm summer, and his/her wardrobe can be a onesie for about 4-5 months. There is no dressing a baby in the summer (other than showing it off of course)

4) Your electricity bills will be lower, since you cant be blasting the air on the baby, but you wont be forced to put the heat up for their warmth.

5) Mostly overlooked at this stage, but very relevant - your child will be in the normal cut off times for the school year. Parents of children born in the fall/winter usually have to choose to have their child be the youngest or oldest in a class.

Is there one I missed? Let me know…

My only advantage to being EXTRA HOT this Summer… my husband and I finally agree on the temperature of the a/c! No arguing - “Raise the air” “lower the air”… “Its cool outside” “yes honey but we are inside”

Any tips on staying cool for what is likely to be an even longer summer….?

 

This blog is being taken over by a pregnant woman …

There are a few types of people. Those who will find out what they are having right away, and tell everyone.. “oh we are having a girl and naming her Ashley”. Those who will wait until birth to discover the sex of their child (a decreasing amount). The majority fall into the category of those who find out the gender, then keep it to themselves, or share it with a very limited amount of people based on a need to know basis. (Isnt it need to know for your Mother not to buy you all green and yellow for every baby?) 

Which one of these are/were you and why? Why did you feel it was public knowledge or why did you feel that you should wait to find out?

Were you disappointed? How did you deal with the disappointment? 

For my first 3 pregnancies I did not know. I figured I needed something to push for. However, I did like having the information in my possession if for some reason I should choose to know. Therefore I ask the Ultrasound Technician to write it on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope. I had never opened the envelope… until now. This being my 4th pregnancy, and perhaps the need to be more organized, I could not reason with myself anymore why I should NOT KNOW. While it was so obvious to me in the past, that feeling left me. Also I cant ever push (my babies dont descend down the canal or something, and need to be karate chopped out), so that reason also seemed silly coming out of my mouth.

So now I know. I am a little less impressed with my self resolve, and I dont know what to do with the information. When you are in a delivery room and everyone is anxiously awaiting the news, and you reach this emotional/physical/spiritual plane than only giving birth can offer, it seems appropriate to hear the words - “Its a Boy! or Its a Girl”! Life changing words. Here it was like “Its a x, pass the butter”. Maybe I would feel differently if I heard it was the opposite sex? Perhaps. I may never know.

 

Last week we took away Tehilah’s bottles and started giving her sippy cups. The first several days were difficult, but not she is fine with it. We got a six pack of cups in many different colors and her favorite thing to do is to try an use all six different ones in one day. She’s quite good at it. She will get one filled up with water, then leave it in her room. Then she will request apple juice, which she’ll leave in the den. The lunchtime requires another cup of water… Etc. We have also started giving her real plates instead of plastic. She’s doing fine with it.

Well Ben is now getting up on all fours and schooching backwards. He hasn’t figured out the forward motion thing yet, but I’m sure it is not far away. Last night he wouldn’t stay asleep unless he was nursing the whole night. Poor Julie! She’s a trooper. He refuses to take a pacifier. Any suggestions?

Now I bet you asked yourself what dundydunning is didn’t you? I would guess that 99.99% of everyone who reads this doesn’t know. Well, that may not be true considering that my readership is probably 25% (at the very least) family and they (at least my father’s side of the family) will know exactly what dundydunning is. Forty some odd years ago, my Uncle Robert used to wake his two brother’s up by straddling them in bed and bouncing up and down on them why screaming ‘dundydun! dundydun!’ Well, this was something that my father taught me and being in favor of passing on family traditions, have taught Tehilah. She loves to come and dundydun her Dad, even if it’s not the right time for him to wake up. Viva la tradition!

Now back to the subject of disciplining Tehilah. She is now old enough that we send her to her room. Whenever she goes in she closes the door and starts crying these big fake alligator tears. After a few minutes we let her out. She has also learned to say “Sorry Ben” when she gets too physical with him. She will say sorry when told to, but she knows that she is admitting wrong doing when she apologizes and she doesn’t like it. So it is “Say sorry or go to your room.” She usually, but not always, chooses to say “I’m sorry Ben.”

One last thought. Her speech skills are improving like mad. She can have a real conversation and can repeat anything back to you. I was barbecuing yesterday and she kept asking “What you doing Dad?” I told her I was going to cook meat on the fire. So all day she was walking around telling anyone who would listen (and quite a few who wouldn’t) that “Dad cooks with fire outside.”

She is such a Daddy’s girl and I love it!

Wow. Tehilah has learned how to share. This past Friday evening she and I went for a walk and ran into one of her best friends. Tehilah had a little baggie of snack treats and she shared them with her friend, piece for piece. I was so proud of her that when we got home I gave her a special piece of chocolate and Julie and I told her that we were very proud of her sharing and that she is such a good big girl. Saturday we had lunch guests (the same friends we had seen the night before) and Tehilah let her friend sit in her booster seat without any fuss whatsoever. She also helped set the table (one of her favorite activities).

Benjamin… The last two nights he had decided that 4:00 a.m. is morning. Even if he nurses and has a supplemental bottle, its not good. It takes him two hours (or so) to get back to sleep. If only he would take a pacifier, but all he does is chew on it for a moment and then spit it back out. Does anyone have any suggestions?

One more thing about Tehilah that I’m so proud of, her speaking ability. She is now able to string together four and five word sentences. “Daddy Look! Two Cars! (I guess technically that that’s two sentences, but you understand what I mean.) She has picked up a phrase from me, “I’m busy!” When we ask her to do something she doesn’t want to do she says, in complete seriousness, “I’m busy!” It cracks me up every time.

Oh and did I mention that we have started potty training in earnest? We got a ‘bog girl potty’ that fits over the regular commode. She can put it on and take it off by herself. We also got her pull up diapers. She uses the potty at least once a day. We still have to ask her, she doesn’t tell us when she needs to ‘make’, but we are getting there. Spring is finally here so its not too cold for her to be sitting on her potty for a while waiting for something to happen.

Anyway, I’m off on vacation until next week. “Talk” to you guys then.

Well, Ben is getting his first tooth. It’s his bottom right front tooth. He’s actually doing really well with it. Last night we had to give him baby Tylenol because he just wouldn’t go to sleep. My wife is VERY excited about the 1st tooth. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is great, but she is just beside herself.

I wanted to revisit two of the things I’ve written about before. I got some comments posted here and more than a few via e-mail.

One is Tehilah waking up during the night. I ended up not doing what I said I would do, i.e. let her cry it out. I go in and lay down next to her for a few moments and she calms down and goes back to sleep. It makes us both much happier. I don’t have the torture of listening to my daughter cry and she sleeps better.

The other thing I wanted to touch on was the discipline issue. Several people objected (some of them quite strongly) to the hand smacking. I want to clear something up. This happens maybe twice a month. In fact, I can’t remember the last time it happened as now Tehilah knows that she can get a hand smack when she is in trouble. Generally we ask her to stop what she is doing and if she doesn’t we ask her if she wants to be in trouble. Then she stops. So I think that this form of discipline has worked. Its a deterrent that we rarely have to use.

Lastly, my mother in law was here recently on a visit and she brought Tehilah two new books from the same series I mentioned before. (Thanks again Ruth!) The first one is Sharing is Fun and its very good. The main theme is that the little boy in the book has friends coming over to play and before they arrive his mommy talks to him about sharing. When the guests arrive there is a bit of a scene over a toy fire truck and the little boy is reminded to share. When ever we get to the page where the boy is pulling the fire truck away from the girl, Tehilah says “No No No!” and shakes her finger to tell him he has to share.

The other book is My Big Girl Potty, by the same author. (My Big Boy Potty is also available.) Its your standard potty training book but I can really see that its helping. Tehilah uses the potty about once a day now that we have started reading the book at bedtime. We aren’t pushing her with potty training. In a month or two once she has gotten more used to the potty, we will really start the toilet training. As of now we just give her lots of encouragement. When she does ‘go’ we tell her what a big girl she is and how proud we are of her. The next step is that we plan to get her some pull up diapers next week. That’s going to be very exciting.

The following entry was written by a friend of mine who has an ADHD child and has invested a lot of energy in finding the best ways to help them.

J.T.

Background: I should note that ADHD is not necessarily bad. ADHD often means that someone is a “doer,” not a “sitter” or a “sponge”. Schools like sitting sponges, but there are other important skills in the world as well. It is therefore very important that ADHD not be allowed to destroy a child or his/her self-image.

In the long-term, doers are often the people that make the world go around. If they can survive the school system ADHD kids might go on to be the bosses or employers of some of the “sponges” that did better than them in school.

Possible treatments/solutions:

- Contact an ADHD support group or health care professional with experience treating children with ADHD. They can help guide the parents through some of the approaches below.

- Be in constant touch with the child’s teacher(s) and principal. Explain the situation and try to find ways with the teacher(s) to minimize any problems that might arise. A good teacher will learn to understand the child’s behavior and will discover ways to handle the child when s/he begins “acting up”. It is very important that an adversarial relationship does not develop between the child and the teacher as this will just make any behavioral problems worse.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben has started scooting himself backwards across the floor. Saturday my wife couldn’t find him for a few seconds and got a bit worried, until she asked Tehilah where he was. Tehilah told her mater of factly, “Couch bottom.” So Julie looked under the couch and there he was, all smiles and proud of him self. I’m thinking about all the child proofing we are going to have to do soon. We will need child safety locks on all the cabinets and lock the door to my office. I can just see him crawling in here and seeing the shiny buttons on my computer and “Boom!” a day’s work down the tube. (Always backup your important work!) I’m glad that this is happening as spring is arriving. At least this way the heater will be off soon and we won’t need to worry about him crawling into that. Tehilah knows that it is “HOT” and she can’t touch it, but it will be a while before Ben can be taught that lesson.

I would like to say thanks to the people who have made comments on the blog, especially Hannah’s Mommy, and old friend from my time spent moderating the Baby-Place Message Boards. If any of you other old message board ladies (or Steve ) read this, please leave me a comment to say hello.

I showed this blog to my grandmother and she fell in love with it. She told me to write as much as possible so she can keep up with her great grandchildren. We do live several thousand miles apart, so having digital pictures and this blog really helps close the distance.

Anyway, a little advice. Now I know most of you parents out there are going to say, “Duh! That is so obvious!” but I never made the connection and I bet I’m not the only one. (I would be willing to bet that a lot more moms than dads figure this one out.) Back to the advice. When you take your two year old out somewhere with you make sure that they have eaten recently. We were at a family celebration yesterday and Tehilah was all grumpy for the first hour. Then she ate something. What a difference! She got up and danced with her cousins.

Ben is Ben. What can I say. Cute as a button. Some one said that he looks like me yesterday. Everyone always says he looks like Julie so this was a surprise I think we will be able to tell better in a year or so.