Hugs & Kisses - The Essential Part of our Discipline

The beginning of this pregnancy was no cake walk.  I was more exhausted this time around and that made my morning sickness much harder to deal with.  Then I had a few weeks on bed rest during that time.  Through all of this, Carson didn't get much mommy time.  I was too tired and had absolutely no motivation to do anything.  Plus the smell of another person, including my precious son, set my morning (all day) sickness off.  Carson didn't get a lot of love and attention from me for a period of about three months.  Do you think it's a coincidence then that he became out of control during this time?  My poor hubby's head was spinning trying to figure out what happened to our once happy and obedient toddler (well, at least most of the time :).  Finally, when some of my energy started returning and my morning sickness was fading a little I realized how little I had been hugging and kissing my little guy, which is something I did a lot (I can't help it, he's just too cute!).  I immediately started planting kisses on his cheek while he was playing or hug him randomly.  With just this little change his devil horns were starting to disappear.  As more of my energy returned, I added in play time and one-on-one attention and what do you know!?  Our little guy was back.  We could once again go out in public. Our house became much more peaceful.  Now, time, love, and attention are my #1 priorities in order to keep his good behavior up and his bad behavior at bay.  It takes time and energy but for us, it is well worth the effort.

Your Baby Can Read?

Have you seen commercials lately for a program called Your Baby Can Read? They seemed to have upped their advertising budget because I've been seeing this commercial a lot more lately.   Can you believe that people pay hundreds of dollars for a program which promises to teach your young infant how to read?  I admit the commercials seem rather amazing, but then when I stop and think about it, it freaks me out.  The first thought that comes to my head is...let your baby be a baby.  The other thought is, let their brains develop properly, how they were intended to.

There is something really neat about your child being able to independently put words together.  You watch their confidence grow with each new success.  Carson will often come to us with the new words he has finally discovered how to articulate.  Usually he gets most excited about the words he comes up with on his own. Words we hadn't repeated to him over and over. 

I stumbled upon this article today: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39953918/

This article gives the opinion that all the program really does is teach memorization.   Even if that isn't the case and these babies are really able to learn to read, I still say...let your baby be a baby. Enjoy reading to your baby and enjoy that baby garble as long as you can because it only lasts for a very, very, very short time.

Daddy Time

I enjoy watching my husband father our child.  Sometimes I get frustrated because I feel like he doesn't do things "just right" or rather how I would personally do it.  I am trying to learn to be more relaxed and let him figure out what works for the two of them. 

Yesterday, I went out to coffee with my sister who I hadn't seen in awhile.  She just recently got back into town from spending the winter in California as a bee keeper.  Anyway, Starbucks is not really the place to bring a crazy energetic toddler.  As I was leaving, Josh started worrying about Carson getting cranky and wanting Mommy.  I didn't have many answers.  It was probably going to happen.  Luckily for the majority of the time Carson was a peach.  But as any toddler will, he went through a time of screaming unhappiness.  When I came home it was pretty cute to find baby carriers strung all over the house.  The Moby was stretched across half the living room and leading into the kitchen.  My Maya Ring Sling was undone and disheveled on the living room floor and unfortunately the one carrier he actually could have used, the Ergo, was in the car with me.  Even though he couldn't figure either one out, it melted my heart that he tried.  He obviously was able to get Carson through the Mommy withdrawal time because they were both happy by the time I got home.
 

Skin-to-Skin Contact

The other day my friend and I were discussing her excitement over the fact that she gets to use her brand new Moby Wrap with her brand new baby due any day now. I told her that she can do skin-to-skin contact while wearing the Moby and be mostly covered. That way she can walk around the house with ease and not worry about flashing the neighbors. We did decide that it might be a good idea to at least keep a bra on considering what happens to a woman's breasts postpartum! It's probably advisable to keep you both dry ;). Anyway, our discussion reminded me of the importance of skin-to-skin contact.

This was drilled into Josh and I at the hospital during Carson’s first week of life by the lactation consultant. During that time Carson was one stressed out little guy so when he got into a screaming fit, Josh would tuck him under his shirt and he would calm instantly. We later learned that skin-to-skin contact with an infant is a natural pain reliever because it releases endorphins that act as an analgesic. Yet this is something we didn’t do at home. We were so silly back then! It was November and cold when Carson was born so we were usually pretty bundled up and I worried about taking his clothes off and freezing him. The Moby would have solved this issue, I just didn’t know about the Moby until Carson was 4 months old. Once I discovered the Moby online, I ran out to Mother’s Haven and bought one. It’s been a highly used carrier by us and I can’t wait to use it with our next child, who I will be doing a ton of skin-to-skin with (no, I'm not pregnant yet).

It makes sense that this simple thing would be so beneficial considering that in the womb they have 24/7 skin-to-skin. Also, don’t worry about spoiling your baby! Even if you held your infant for hours during the day, that is significantly less time than they were being held just a short time ago in your womb! Skin-to-skin is even more important for preemies. It actually effects their success rate. This article is a great read about kangaroo care: www.savethechildren.org.

This is also something that the husbands can participate in. While hubby is sitting on the couch watching TV, place naked baby (with diaper on of course) under his shirt, and now back away slowly and take this time to relax. Take a bubble bath, go for a walk, or just take a nap.

Here are some of the many benefits to skin-to-skin contact:

Improved Bonding
Increased Milk Production
Pain relieving effects for infant (super useful for colic)
Directly after birth and for short time after: regulation of heart rate, temperature, and breathing, and raises blood glucose levels in infant
Significantly reduces crying & helps baby to de-stress

Our Sidecarred Crib

One of the things I am passionate about is being there for your babies, even during the night. Parenting doesn't end at 8pm. We had to learn this the hard way. During the first few weeks of Carson's life he screamed constantly. Josh and I were exhausted and we read a book saying that after two weeks old, your baby can cry it out. Obviously this author was a crackpot (my opinion at least). We were desperate and tired so we let our barely older than two week old son cry-it-out. My heart still breaks thinking about it. I cried the entire time and was proud of myself for not giving in and going in there (I know, ridiculous). We also tried the cry-it-out approach when Carson was about 4 months old. This is when my view changed for good. He was old enough then to communicate how traumatized he was. He would start shaking and clinging to me anytime we walked in his bedroom. Freaking out that I had ruined my child, I went to Barnes & Noble as fast as I could and picked up Attachment Parenting by Dr. Sears. We immediately implemented what we read and we started seeing huge changes in Carson for the better. This did mean many trips back and forth between rooms in the middle of the night. Finally, by the time Carson was 6 months old, I was exhausted and we knew we had to do something but didn't want to go down the path of cry-it-out again. We discussed co-sleeping but neither of us liked the idea of Carson in between us. Then I remembered that Dr. Sears' book recommended side-carring the crib. I googled it and found this great website with instructions: http://www.freewebs.com/sidecarcrib/index.htm. We side-carred his crib that night and we have been enjoying it ever since! I love having him close. It's also nice that when he's sick, which usually happens during the middle of the night for some reason, I know immediately. When he had croup, I heard that first wheeze and was instantly able to act, which I think helped prevent it from becoming more serious. I can't imagine putting our future babies down the hall in another room now. So this crib will probably be hooked to our bed for quite awhile. I wanted to post this because I thought it was a good alternative for people that aren't quite comfortable with co-sleeping, either because of safety worries or issues of the baby being in the marriage bed, but are tired of sitting in the rocking chair of their baby's nursery all night long.

We took the front rail off of Carson's crib and used the wall to keep our beds together. Right now we have nothing holding them together so every night I have to double check that they are as tight as can possibly be. I would suggest using zip ties and actually securing the bed frames together. I've never had a separation, but I always check just in case. Even if you secure the frames together, you still need to double check that the mattresses are tight each night which just takes a few seconds. There also can be no gap at the head of the bed and if your baby is a mover then there should be no gap at the end either. If you have side handles on either of your mattresses, you can use a bungee cord to secure the mattresses together. We also used another mattress to bring Carson's mattress up to match the height of ours. You could also use old comforters and blankets. We used an old quilt and rolled it up really tight and wrapped a sheet around it to go in the crack between his mattress and his headboard. The website I mentioned above suggests using high-density foam that you can pick up at any fabric store for that gap. Which if there is a gap between the foot board and mattress, you can use it to fill that gap as well. Which we will probably do for our next baby. Carson spends most of his sleep time half on our bed and half on his so he really never touches the rolled up quilt, which could be too soft for a new baby.

We love this arrangement and highly recommend it!