What Am I Afraid Of?

Lately a number of people have asked me if I was afraid of giving birth, worried about the epidural or nervous about being a mom in general… and I have to say, I really am fine with everything. We have been trying for this for so long now that I just can’t wait to meet her and finally be a family; I don’t really have any of the usual “first-time-mom” fears.

I would say that I am more anxious about outside factors, after giving birth, than I am about the initial giving birth.

Book Review: Beyond The Sling

I think we have all come across numerous parenting buzz words over the years, but there is one in particular I want to discuss.

According to Wikipedia, “Attachment parenting (AP), a phrase coined by pediatrician William Sears, is a parenting philosophy based on the principles of attachment theory in developmental psychology. According to attachment theory, the child forms a strong emotional bond with caregivers during childhood with lifelong consequences.”

Insights: Put An End To “Can’t Do” Attitudes

Over the last year or so I have made an interesting observation, and with school being out, more kids coming to work with mom and dad, birthday parties for kids around us, and just a general increase in social events during the summer months I have been seeing this happen more and more…

Welcome To Holland

The last couple of weeks have been a bit... difficult. Knowing that a new little life has begun in such a difficult way has been trying, and finding out just two days ago that his fight is nowhere near over was heartbreaking... until I read this.

I love Italy, and it is my dream in more ways than one... but Holland has it's treasures too!

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Important: New Car Seat Guidelines

Generally speaking, I feel that we have become a society where parents far too often choose to raise their children in bubbles and that we are generally over protective in many ways. But, I remember seeing something on TV about this over a year ago and I started to read about it afterwards and it makes a whole lot of sense! I know at least one "mommy friend" has done this and I encourage others to consider doing the same. It makes no difference in your life, but it may save theirs.  Think about it...

AAP's new car seat guidelines change rear facing & booster rules 

Yahoo! Shine 

Everything you thought you knew about car seats is wrong. Okay, not everything, but things have changed and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) along with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced new guidelines today. And it's big news! The recommendation is that children rear face longer and they also changed the details for kids in boosters. 

It was believed that 1 year and 20 pounds was the benchmark for forward facing babies in car seats, despite evidence elsewhere that that was still dangerously early. Now, hopefully, with new guidelines, parents and doctors can get on board and spread the word about the safest practices for children. Here are the details.  

New Rear-facing Recommendation: Parents are to keep children rear-facing until 2 years old, or until they reach the maximum height and weight for the seat as noted in the manual. Safe Kids agrees. Two years is a goal easily met, considering even some of the lowest cost seats now rear-face until 40 pounds. When your baby outgrows their infant carrier, that is when you buy a convertible seat that rear-faces longer, not a forward-facing seat, which you can put upright up to 30 degrees when kids are bigger with better head control, often making them take up less space than infant seats. 

New Boostering Recommendation: Children should ride in a belt-positioning booster (that means a high-back!) until they are at least 4 foot, 9 inches, AND 8-12 years old. Jennifer Hoekstra, the Safe Kids Program Coordinator at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, shared: In working with parents, we educate them beyond the law and share with them the best practice for keeping their child safe. We strongly agree with the new AAP policy and support the extended rear-facing limits as well as the new booster seat advice. It's best to keep children in their harnessed seat until they outgrow it, which is into elementary years with the height and weight of most convertible seats and even harness-to-booster seats these days. But they will outgrow it and go into a booster, and eventually they need to meet all points in a 5-point test before they're ready to sit in a car's seat without a booster of any kind. Remember that these belts are designed to fit an average adult. Best practice is also waiting until children are 80-100 pounds as well. 

Beyond that, all kids need to stay out of the front until they're at least 13 years old. 

While 2 years or 8 years may now be the minimums, we don't parent by minimums, do we? Buying a high quality (not necessarily high cost!) seat to start, after you do all your research to choose the best seat for your child, can easily help you meet these recommendations. Make sure you're using the car seats correctly, too. There's a lot of intricacies for both harnessed seats and boosters. When in doubt, find a Safe Kids inspection station or event and get checked out by a tech. And hopefully more and more pediatricians, with these new recommendations, will be on board as well, and we can maybe put an end to vehicle related-injuries being the number one cause of death in kids ages 2-14.

Newborn's Ten Commandments

This is already all over the web but I had to share! No clue who the original author is but it's a great read, and, so true! 

I come to you as a small, immature being with my own style and personality. I am yours for only a short time; enjoy me.

1. Please take time to find out who I am, how I differ from you and how much I can bring to you.
2. Please feed me when I am hungry. I never knew hunger when I was inside you and clocks and time mean little to me
3. Please hold, cuddle, kiss, touch, stroke and sing to me. I was always held closely inside of you and was never alone before.
4. Please don’t be disappointed when I am not the perfect baby that you expected, nor disappointed with yourselves that you are not the perfect parents.
5. Please try not to expect too much from me as your newborn baby, or too much from yourselves as parents. Give us both six weeks as a birthday present – six weeks for me to grow, develop, mature and become more stable and predictable, and six weeks for you to rest and relax and allow your body to get back to normal.
6. Please forgive me if I cry a lot. Bear with me and in a short time, as I mature I will spend less and less time crying – and more time socializing.
7. Please watch me carefully and I can tell you those things which soothe, console and please me. I am not a tyrant who was sent to make your life miserable, but the only way I can tell you that I am not happy is with my crying.
8. Please remember that I am resilient and can withstand the many natural mistakes you will make with me. As long as you make them with love, you cannot ruin me.
9. Please take care of yourself and eat a balanced diet, rest and exercise so that when we are together, you have the health and strength to take care of me.
10. Please take care of your relationship with each other, for what good is family bonding if there is not a family to bond?

Although I may have turned your life upside down, please realize that things will be back to normal before you know it.

Thank you,
Your Loving Child

Build-A-“Soother” Bear

I recently saw this idea posted to a friend on Facebook and I thought it was so clever (and cute) that I had to share!

We all know that babies and toddlers can be addicted to their soother/suce/binky/or whatever it is you call it at home. Getting them off of it can easily be compared to an adult trying to “kick the habit” at times! So, what can you do about it? Well, if you were able to wean your child off of it at a young age then this post may not be for you. But, if your child is a bit older and can’t seem to let it go then then this may be a good start!

The suggestion I saw was to slowly get your child down to their last couple of soothers and then, once they are nearly off but maybe not quite, bring them to Build-A-Bear (a fun activity for children of all ages in itself) and have your child put the soothers inside the bear’s belly! For anyone who doesn’t know what Build-A-Bear is, you choose the body of the bear you want and they play a little story/game that has your child stuff the bear by his/her self, choose a heart to give your bear life and then fill in a birth certificate to commemorate the day it was born while they sew up the bear for you. When it comes time to choose your bears name you can call it the “Big Boy/Girl Bear”, the “Soother Bear”, or anything else your heart desires! The point is, your child will hopefully begin to cling to the bear, as they did their soother, and will eventually outgrow even the bear! Yes, in some ways it is prolonging the “soother” use, but in a very different and more grown-up way!

It may not work for everyone, but after this discussion grew on Facebook it seems that it has in fact worked for many people so why not give it a try!

To find out more about Build-A-Bear and find a location near you see here.

Side note: I have come to realize that I have collected WAY to many stuffed animals/bears over the years and most of them, apart from a select few Disney Collectors ones, are sitting brand new in a huge box in my closet. Over the next couple of weeks I am going to find some time to go through them and donate at least half of them to the Children’s Hospital or something this year at Christmas. And, hopefully, I will stop getting more of them!

The Fourth Trimester

A friend posted a link to this article on FB and I found it interesting so I am passing it along. The original can be found here as I have edited some parts out for length (yet it is still long - sorry).

The Fourth Trimester – AKA: Why Your Newborn is Only Happy in Your Arms.

“My baby is only happy in my arms, the minute I put her down she cries”…

If I had a pound every time I heard these from a new parent I’d be a very rich lady by now! What amazes me though is that society in general doesn’t get it, they don’t get why so many babies need to be held by us to settle and what perplexes me even more is that we do spend so long trying to put them down! ... I am embarrassed to admit now it honestly didn’t enter into my head that perhaps the answer was to *not* put my baby down... It took me a long time to understand and empathise with my baby, to see the world through his eyes so to speak.

“Empathy: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing

of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.”

To empathise with our newborns feelings we need to put ourselves in their place, to imagine experiencing their world – but which world? The world they have spent most of their life in, their ‘womb world’ or the world they are in now – our world. To fully understand we must appreciate the enormous transition they have made – a concept known to many as ‘The Fourth Trimester’ -some make the womb to world transition easily, others less so and it is this latter group in particular “the clingy babies” we can learn so much from through this concept.

“Birth suddenly disrupts this organization. During the month following birth, baby tries to regain his sense of organization and fit into life outside the womb. Birth and adaptation to postnatal life bring out the temperament of the baby, so for the first time he must do something to have his needs met. He is forced to act, to “behave.” If hungry, cold, or startled, he cries. He must make an effort to get the things he needs from his caregiving environment. If his needs are simple and he can get what he wants easily, he’s labeled an “easy baby”; if he does not adapt readily, he is labeled “difficult."  – Dr. William Sears

So let’s quickly compare the two different ‘worlds’ your baby has lived in:

Womb: Dark, Muffled sounds, Constant warm temperatures, Constant nutrition, Confined space, Aquatic, Inability to smell, Constant contact with mother, Constantly “held”, Naked, All surroundings soft and warm.

World: Light, Loud noises, Fluctuating temperatures, Hunger and thirst, Lots of space, Air, Many different smells, Dramatically reduced contact, Held far less, Clothes, Many surroundings hard or cold.

... On top of this the big thing to understand is that in utero the baby’s world was constant, each day was the same, the stimulation didn’t change, but now they are born each day is different – ever changing, ever stimulating!

The concept of the fourth trimester helps us to understand the transition a newborn must make over their first few weeks earth side and once we understand we find so many ways we can help – but to me the most important facet of the fourth trimester is parental understanding and empathy, once that exists everything else will flow naturally…

Movement: The womb is a constantly moving space, Braxton Hicks would squeeze your baby at the end of pregnancy and each time you moved your baby was wobbled around inside... Babies tend to love movement but so often we put them down somewhere completely still. You could try dancing, swaying from side to side, going for an exaggerated quick walk or bumpy car ride.

Skin to Skin Contact: Such a brilliant baby calmer! Being in contact with your warm, naturally (un)scented, skin is heaven for a baby, it helps to stabilise their body temperature, heart rate and stress hormones and stimulates the release of oxytocin – the love and bonding hormone – in you both…

Bed-Sharing: Sharing a bed with your baby is an amazing way of getting more sleep for everyone, babies are generally much calmer and sleep more easily if they sleep with you in your bed, yet it is such a taboo topic and although 60% of parents will share a bed with their baby at some point it’s a subject that makes society very uncomfortable...

Swaddling: Imagine how snug your baby was at the very end of your pregnancy inside of you – now imagine how strange it must feel to them after they have been born and have so much space around them! The absolutely best thing you can do is to envelop your baby in your arms, but for times when you don’t want to or indeed can’t then swaddling is an option…

Babywearing: Wearing your baby in a sling is one of the ultimate ways to keep them calm and happy. It increases the time a baby spends in a state of “quiet alertness” – a time of contentment when they learn the most… Babywearing also means 2 free hands! ... Babywearing is a great way for dads to bond with babies! ...

Position: The “tiger in the tree” position (baby lying on forearm), taken from baby yoga, is often magical, stopping a crying baby in an instant!

Noise: Babies love sound, but for many not the sound you might think. For many babies a hoover is much more calming to a baby than a lullaby. A white noise CD such as the one by BabyCalm below can be played on loop whilst your baby sleeps to help keep them calm.

Feed: If your baby is hungry nothing will calm him, so watch for his hunger cues. Feeding is always better if it is baby led, not led by a routine – whether you are breast or bottle feeding... Babies also find sucking the ultimate relaxation and comfort tool... If you are not breastfeeding you might find your baby will relax when given a dummy/pacifier.

Deep Bathing: The womb is a wet, warm place. The world as we know it is dry and cold! Sometimes a nice deep, warm bath can stop a baby’s tears in seconds – even better if mummy or daddy goes in the big bath with baby too as skin to skin contact is a wonderful baby calmer.

Outside: If all else fails many babies stop crying the minute they hit the open air – I’m not sure if this is because we are usually moving (e.g.: walking over cobbles with the buggy/ bouncing in a sling and the drone and movement of a car) or because of the change in air – but it works!

Sarah Ockwell-Smith – Mum to Four, Parenting Author and Founder of BabyCalm Ltd