Tips for reading aloud to your kids

July 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Last week was Babywise Networked-Blog week. Each member of the team posted on a subject of their choosing. You can visit the member blogs by visiting the following links:

Today’s featured Babywise Networked Blog post is by Maureen Monfore of at Childwise Chat. Maureen shares her recent experiences with reading aloud to her son. My wife Sherry recently began reading aloud to our boys at bedtime on a regular basis. They have been going through a series by Jenny L. Cote that begings with The Ark, The Reed, and The Fire Cloud.

Maureen learned some valuable lessons and shared her tips for being more successful when reading books aloud to your little ones. Check out Maureen’s post titled Savor Books by Reading Slowly.

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Daddy Intuition

June 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

By Bethany Lynch at The Graceful Mom

Most everyone chatters about women’s intuition or gut feeling. Just
the other night I got a “Good Call!” from my husband when my son took
about 2 seconds too long washing his hands and then came running out
of the bathroom.

Go let the water out of the sink, buddy!!

Sure enough it was full of bubbles. Mommy intuition has served me well
many days. However, there is also a lot of truth in that sometimes
daddies hit the nail on the head too. It is a pain and a privilege to
have a husband that understands our kids better than I at times.

My husband and I have followed Babywise from birth with both children.
He has been very much on the same page with parent-directed rearing
and first-time obedience. Usually we do not differ too widely in our
approach. However, the one thing that he always gets right is
shortening naps. Every.single.time. He has always had this great
insight into when our kids are ready for more waketime and less sleep.
I usually stress over it, troubleshoot for week, poll other Babywise
friends…and then finally decide to try the dreaded shorter nap.
Almost every time it has worked like a charm. No more nap fiascoes
(mostly), no more troubleshooting, much less hassle, and more
well-rested kids overall.

Is napping the end of the world? Of course not, but ask any mom with a
2 year old on a hardcore nap strike if she would like a solution for
better naps. Shortening naps is not a solution for every sleep issue,
but both of our kids have done very well with dropping naps or
shortening sleep at the suggestion of my husband. Unfortunately, it
has taken me almost 4 years to admit this!!

Naps are just one of his specialties. There are many other areas where
my husband has shown this great “daddy intuition.” He, like many dads,
does an excellent job at assessing the whole picture, where we as
mothers often get bogged down in the details. I think he also does a
better job at being relaxed about troubleshooting or trying different
approaches. Almost every time I have over analyzed a decision, my husband can
offer more clarity than I even imagined.

Next time you are searching for answers for a scenario, let your
husband give it a spin. I bet that he is probably a lot closer to the
answer than you think!

 

Filed Under: Guest, Marriage, Parenting Tagged With: , , , ,

What Makes a Father a Daddy?

May 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment

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Daddy Life Podcast Episode 28Dads, Marriage Counts and you need to take the lead in your home.

Get to know your wife and children better


Lead devotions: We just started doing things different.

  • Pray a simple prayer asking God to speak to you.
  • Reading a chapter from a children’s bible.
  • Pray and thank God and ask Him to fill your needs.


Be present

  • Attend appointments (school, medical, etc) (Mom’s let dads help)
  • Take your kids camping…even if in the back yard
  • Go for a bike ride


Being a great husband even when you disagree

  1. No name calling
  2. Leave the past in the past
  3. LISTEN
  4. Keep your hands to yourself
  5. Allow a disagreement resolution to play out in from of the kids


Boys want to be like Daddy
Girls want to gain Dad’s approval

Facebook Page – http://www.facebook.com/DaddyLife

Levi’s Birthday Our youngest turned two on Memorial Day

Levi turns 2

Happy Birthday to my Baby Boy


Babywise Friendly Blog Segment

God’s Faithfulness Through Infertility

 

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Breastfeed your preschooler

May 15, 2012 By 6 Comments

Children of parents who follow this advice will never be a school bully and will always look their parents in the eye. That’s what Dr. William Sears says in an ABC News article drawing attention to a very controversial Time Magazine cover. Attachment Parenting (AP) made popular by Dr. Sears promotes breastfeeding as the silver bullet solution to parenting challenges. The new Time magazine cover shows a young mother allowing her three-year-old son to serve himself breast milk while he stands in a chair to be able to reach her breast. While the Time cover will appear in the grocery store checkout line it is a little too graphic for this web site.

Breastfeeding is one component of the radical Attachment Parenting philosophy that is very child-centered promoting everything short of using your God given wisdom in your parenting decisions. The three pillars of AP encourage extreme breast-feeding, baby wearing, and co-sleep with their children against American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendations. Parents are taught to allow their child to decide when he is ready to wean from nursing. This issue of Time goes into the fact that Attachment Parenting provides no room for dads in the parenting partnership. The Attachment Parenting model puts dad’s on the sidelines. Time points this out by stating in a supporting article to the controversial cover:

“Advocates of attachment parenting might claim that their approach places demands on both genders, but we fathers know the truth. Regardless of our best intentions as equal partners, attachment parenting is really attachment mothering.” Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2114453,00.html#ixzz1utwNHgUM

The ABC article goes on to quote Mayim Bialik a mom and Phd of neuroscience who says she uses breastfeeding as a response to her toddler’s tantrums. Ironically this same mom does not believe the Time Magazine story will help the Attachment Parenting movement.  The Time Magazine cover alone paints Attachment Parenting as extreme. Extreme is the word used on the Time cover to explain Dr. Sears’ Attachment Parenting philosophy as it relates to the graphic breastfeeding scene.

There is a practical alternative to the extreme Attachment Parenting style. That alternative promotes dads being fully engaged in the parenting process and teaches a philosophy called Parent Directed Feeding (PDF).  On Becoming Baby Wise (aff) teaches moms how to use their God given wisdom as parents to breast feed their child in a way that is more healthy for the child and mom. Parents also learn to train their baby to adapt their sleeping habits to become a welcome member of the family. Most infants of PDF families are sleeping seven hours per night at approximately three months old. There is plenty of room for dads in the equation too. Using the Babywise model dads are an equal member of the partnership that God has put at the center of each family…a marriage made up of a husband and wife relationship. PDF parents are taught to use their knowledge and experience to make healthy decisions for their child.

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Father’s Impact on His Daughters

May 10, 2012 By 1 Comment

Father and Daughter

by Valerie Plowman

My first-born child is a boy. Following him was a son that we lost at 20 weeks gestation. After that, I was sure I was “destined” to be a mother of all boys. I had always gotten along well with boys and figured this was my perfect role in life.

Fast forward to today when I have since had two girls and am expecting my third. As usual, the Lord had different plans for me than I had for myself.

With all of these daughters, I have been pondering how to raise wonderful women. As I have done so, I remember my mother often telling me that I was lucky because a father has a huge impact on the self-esteem of his daughters. I was lucky. I consider my dad to be one of the best men to ever walk this planet. I am fortunate to have married a man that I think is equally as wonderful as my own father.

As I was thinking of what to write for this guest post, I decided on a post encouraging and informing fathers of their great impact on their daughters. Research supports what my mother always told me–fathers have a huge influence on the self-esteem of their daughters. Of course fathers impact sons, also, but given my perspective as a female, I thought I would focus on daughters today. I also want to encourage any parent who is parenting without a father present for any reason. There are many people who grew up without fathers who are confident, capable people. Most often, this is attributed to the extreme dedication and effort by the mother. Knowing what a father does for a daughter can help you think of ways to fill in these gaps.

Dr. Margaret J. Meeker, a pediatrition with more than 20 years of experience in counseling girls, wrote a book called Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know. In it, she lists some findings from her research on the important influence of fathers. Here are some:

  • Toddlers securely attached to fathers are better at solving problems.
  • Six-month-olds scored higher on tests of mental development when their dads were involved in their lives.
  • With dads in the home, children managed school stress better.
  • Daughters whose fathers provide warmth and control achieve higher academic success. Girls involved with dad are twice as likely to stay in school.
  • Daughters who are close to their fathers exhibit less anxiety and withdrawn behaviors.
  • The likelihood that daughters engage in premarital sex, drug use, and alcohol plummets when their dads are involved in their lives.
  • Daughters who feel that their fathers care about them and feel connected with their dads have significantly fewer suicide attempts and fewer instances of body dissatisfaction, depression, low self-esteem, substance abuse, and unhealthy weight.
  • A daughter’s self-esteem is best predicted by her father’s loving affection.

Meeker says, “From the first years of a girl’s life her father is larger than life. She looks up to him, and for the rest of her life she craves his admiration, his respect and his affection.”

Her research is not alone in these findings. This paper supports these findings. A tid-bit from this paper is: 

“According to research conducted by Nielsen, “fathers generally have as much or more influence than mothers on many aspects of their daughters’ lives. For example, the father has the greater impact on the daughter’s ability to trust, enjoy and relate well to the males in her life …well-fathered daughters are usually more self-confident, more self-reliant, and more successful in school and in their careers than poorly-fathered daughters …Daughters with good relationships with their father are also less likely to develop eating disorders” (2007, ¶ 12).”

So you now believe that the father is a huge impact, but what can a father do to have a positive influence on his daughters? I won’t pretend to have all of the answers. I would encourage continual prayerfulness and observance of your daughter to analyze what you can do for your daughter. Here are some ideas for you.

  • Be present in her life. Spend time with her, talk with her, be involved in daily things like bedtime, and invite her to help you with your own projects. My five year old daughter doesn’t have a special interest in tools, but she loves to be in the garage and help her dad simply because she wants to spend time with him.
  • Be supportive of her. Attend her special events. My dad made it to everything he possibly could to support me in my various activities and events. My husband recently left work for an hour so he could go to my daughter’s preschool class simply to read her favorite book to the class. He apparently reads it the very best. She was concerned at my ability to read it correctly. He surprised her by coming and reading it. She was thrilled. Our daughters have supportive grandfathers. Our daughter recently had a dance recital. Neither grandmother was able to come that night, but both grandfathers were there anyway.
  • Go on dates. One-on-one time is great. Take your daughter out on special dates. My husband and I shoot for one special date per child per month. We alternate who we have on our special date. The children love this. From my own childhood, I remember one particular time when my father took my sister and I to the Phantom of the Opera. In January, we saw an advertisement that it would be in our area the next July. Just one time, we told our dad how we would love to see it. We never mentioned it again. He surprised us with the best seats in the house. My dad is not a “Phantom of the Opera” type of a guy. He is more of a Pittsburgh Steelers or New York Yankees type of a guy. This special date meant a lot to us.
  • Compliment her. Offer sincere compliments and encouragement. Your words will mean a lot.
  • Offer physical affection. This isn’t usually a difficulty in the father/daughter relationship, but be sure you give your daughter the cuddles, hugs, and kisses she needs from you.

Do not make the false assumption that your presence in your daughter’s life is of minimal impact. Your daughter will look for a spouse that reminds her of you–for better or worse. You being male does not mean you will not have a huge impact on how your daughter views herself as a female–studies suggest you have even more of an impact than the mother. You are an important aspect to your daughter’s life.

Valerie is the mother of three and one on the way. She blogs at Chronicles of a Babywise Mom.


 

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Babywise Tips for Working Parents

March 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It’s Babywise Blog Network Week! All week, we’ll be featuring blog posts from other Babywise-friendly blogs. The schedule is as follows:

· Monday: Valerie Plowman, Chronicles of a Babywise Mom
· Tuesday: Maureen Monfore, Childwise Chat
· Wednesday: Hank Osborne, Daddy Life
· Thursday: Rachel Rowell, My Baby Sleep Guide
· Friday: Bethany Lynch, The Graceful Mom

Help us promote solidarity within the Babywise/Ezzo community by subscribing to these blogs.

___________________________________

by Bethany Lynch from The Graceful Mom

Dancing with mom

Photo Credit van city 197

I read Babywise while pregnant with my first child. It just jived with our natural parenting philosophy and gave us structure for how to start. I think that is what I love most about Babywise…the ”start as you mean to go on” mentality. We parent very similarly to this day as we did over 4 years ago. We do not change our tactics after they sleep through the night, or walk, or start preschool.

What I was unprepared for was losing much of the structure when I returned to work. I was heartbroken at the thought of daycare changing everything I had worked on the previous 3 months. It took a lot of trial and error and a few tears to figure out how to keep our parenting goals and philosophies when we were not always physically there.

While our goals may not match everyone’s goals, I think there are quite a few things that are applicable to many working moms and dads. Here are my favorite aspects of babywise that make a huge difference in our satisfaction and ability to be very involved while we are at work:

  • Find a mutual caregiver. If daycare is not working, find something else. If your family member refuses to work with you, consider daycare. For us, a nanny was the best solution. We still evaluate it every 6 months or so. Being happy with our caregiver was probably one of the biggest factors in my peace and happiness while away at work.
  • Use a log just like daycare even if your mom or best friend is watching your children. Sometimes just knowing if they ate or slept is extremely helpful. Down the road, you can use it to look for structure, potty training, time outs, funny stories.
  • Don’t be afraid of structure when you are home. For awhile, I thought that I needed to be fun and carefree on my days off or the weekends. My kids really do like predictability, and they need to know the rules and reasons are still the same.
  • Don’t be afraid of flexibility. Yes, I know I just mentioned structure. I also tend to be overbearing or overstructured as a working mom at times. Recently I decided to start waking my son up 40 min early when my work schedule changed. It was much more important to cuddle with him and start his day early than to deal with the attitude from missing me.
  • Take your children on dates. I think this is important if you stay at home or work outside the home, but I think it is crucial for working parents to provide that extra special attention. I have even taken personal days specifically for taking a child on a special date. My kids need one-on-one time on a regular basis. We often run errands with one child, and not for ease but for special time. Make sure that dates are dates, and not errands, though.
  • Aim to stay on the same page as your spouse, especially with obedience and discipline. My husband backs me up 100% as a mother and validates almost all of my parenting decisions. We regularly take time to discuss discipline strategy, sleep needs, education, childcare. While this tip is not unique to being a working mom, I am absolutely certain that I would not be the mother that I am without the support of my husband.
  • Find unique ways to implement structured activities like room time and couch time. We still make a point for our children to observe us in conversation without interruption each evening. It may be while we fix supper, while we sit in the backyard, or while the kids finish eating those last 3 bites. Roomtime comes and goes. I wish I could do it every day but it depends on our nanny and how often I have errands on my days off. As they get older, it gets easier, and I try to do it even for 15-30 most days. Some of my favorite moments have been listening to them play together nicely and use their imagination by themselves.
  • Give your children (and yourself) the gift of sleep. I work with so many parents that feel guilty about missed time and let their kids stay up late every single night. We have certainly made exceptions but consistently teaching our children to sleep well has been one of the best things we did. Bedtime is usually without exception. We also started sleep training from birth. Our kids slept through the night around 4 months of age, for the most part, and I could not imagine working full-time more than a couple of weeks without a full night’s sleep.
  • Don’t over-commit your family time. As a working mom, I feel like I need to have the same attention to detail and opportunities as moms that work in the home. Soccer, classroom volunteer, playgroups. Sometimes it just isn’t possible, and the most important thing is that our family gets enough time together even if that means cutting out other obligations.
  • Don’t wish for what isn’t. I love the structure and parent-directed emphasis of Babywise. I love the results of sleep training. I hate that I am not here all day to implement my dream routine. I hate that I feel like I have to compromise with caregivers. I hate that I often wonder “what if.” The best tip I could ever give another working mom (or dad) is to value what you have. Value what you can do, the values you can instill, the time you can structure…and those sweet grubby hands.

Bethany Lynch is a full-time mother of two young children, a son and daughter. She also works as a full-time NICU pharmacist. Frustrated with the lack of resources for Christian working moms, she decided to start her own inspirational blog. She is very passionate about encouraging other mothers balancing work and family.

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It’s time to take the guilt out of sleep training

March 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
By Rachel Rowell from mybabysleepguide.comSleep training gets a bad rap. You don’t have to talk to too many moms or look on the internet for too long to get this message. If you want your child to sleep well (especially for reasons that don’t involve your child’s welfare), people start to point fingers and call names.

“What a bad, selfish person!”

“What an uncaring parent!”

“How dare they not put everything, their health, marriage and well-being included, before their child’s every need and happiness.”

“What a bad, selfish parent!”

Maybe you don’t even need someone to tell you this before the guilt sets in. As parents, we give physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually to our children all day, every day. We sacrifice like crazy. But what about us? What about our marriage? What about our family as a whole?

Can nurturing ever be taken to the extreme?

I think it can. There is a balance in all things. And we have our own personal limits to consider. There is a time when we turn from a great mommy to a mommy martyr. And it seems the subject of sleep is often one of these times.

We need sleep to survive and most of us need a fair amount of it to take
us from a mindless zombie to a functioning human. We shouldn’t feel
guilty because we want some of it. We need it just like our children
need it. It isn’t a desire, it is a need. Sleep is food for the brain and body.

Inadequate sleep has many costs to us, our family and others. If you aren’t getting enough sleep you’re more vulnerable to depression, your marriage can suffer, your temper and emotional stability suffers, your health suffers and your children suffer. “A sleep-deprived family is an unhappy, unhealthy one.” (Bedtiming 4) For more on this see adults and sleep and children and sleep.

We need to balance our needs with the needs of our family. We are no use to anyone when we are too tired to think or control our emotions or function in any ability beyond eat, step, sit. If you don’t nurture yourself, you won’t have any energy left to nurture your family.

A baby’s sleep must work for the entire family. Everyone’s needs should be considered. You are a family, after all.

Maybe this will mean you will continue doing what you are doing. Everything is peachy. Maybe this will mean your sleep training will only involve the encouragement of good sleep habits. Maybe this will mean you will do some kind of further sleep training (my thoughts on some of that). Personal capabilities and limits vary just as situations vary. We need to do what is best for us, our baby and our family.

So drop the guilt and get some sleep!

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Dads Are Parents Too – Babywise Friendly Blogs

March 14, 2012 By 3 Comments

Dads are parents too

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Dads are parents and they should act like it. Be weird. Be different. Be more than just a biological father to your children. Be a Daddy.

The transcript from the last half of this episode can be found posted on each of the blogs listed below on Wednesday 3/14/2012. Check them out and add them all to your RSS reader.

Babywise Friendly Networked Blogs

Giveaway – Hot off the press is the Revised and Updated edition of On Becoming Babywise.

Everyone who subscribes for the newsletter before midnight March 21, 2012 will be eligible the giveaway. The subscription form is provided below or you can use the one in the sidebar.

Thanks to Andy from the betterdadpodcast.com
Thanks to my friend Manny for his encouraging words following the last episode.

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Some Like it Hot (Sleep, that is)

March 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Hot Babyby Valerie Plowman from www.babywisemom.com.

My children amuse me. I know everyone is amused by their own children. Children are like most people–incredibly quirky. My children are no different, and I find quirks both fascinating and amusing.

Brayden does not mind being cold. He is bewildered when his friends want to go inside after playing in the snow for two hours. Even as a pre-toddler, he did not want to wear a coat out in the brisk fall weather. He just doesn’t mind it.

Kaitlyn does not like to be cold. Unless incredible fun is happening, she is done in the snow after 30 minutes. She especially does not like to have wind blowing on her. Spring is not a fun time due to the wind issues.

McKenna is like Brayden–she does not mind the cold. She will play outside in the snow forever. Brayden is lucky to have her.

That isn’t the quirky part. Here comes the quirky part.

Brayden (6 years old) does not like to be cold when he sleeps. He currently sleeps in a sweatshirt, flannel pajama bottoms, and socks. He wears a child-sized snuggie that his grandmother gave him for Christmas. Then he has his sheet, a comforter, a heavy afaghan, his baby quilt I made him, two fleece blankets, and a couple small cotton blankets thrown on top. His room is kept at 70 degrees. Not kidding.

Kaitlyn (4 years old) loves to be cold when she sleeps. She has the coldest bedroom in the house. She currently sleeps in a flimsy nightgown meant for warm summer nights and hates to sleep in socks. She sleeps with a sheet, comforter, and a couple of fleece blankets because I think she must be freezing, not because she wants them.

McKenna (2 years old) also does not like to be cold when she sleeps. She sleeps in warm pajamas and socks. She has the warmest bedroom in the house. She has more blankets than I can count and she knows if I try to remove some. And she knows which ones I have removed. If she wakes from a nap and had bare arms (because she took off her cardigan because she was “too hot” during playtime), she wakes up crying.

See? They are quirky.

I share these quirks to illustrate that some children like to be warm when they sleep and others like to be on the cooler side. ALSO, it takes some observation to know what they each like–it isn’t always what you might assume.

How Do You Know?
I know this is an annoying answer for some people, but for me, I just knew. I could tell Brayden liked to sleep warmer as a baby. When Kaitlyn came along, I quickly figured out she liked to be cooler (and I got many lectures from certain relatives about her lack of socks–she hated socks as a four week old and still hates socks as a four year old and I feel so vindicated as a mother!).

The best advice I can give you is to pay attention. You need to notice patterns. You might need to take notes to see these patterns, or you might be able to track it in your head. What did your child wear to sleep in? What blankets, if any, were involved? What was the temperature in the room?

And with that information, how did your child sleep that night?

What Temperature is Best?
It seems most sleep experts agree somewhere between 65-70 degrees is best (though some go as low as 60 and high as 75). That really is a wide range, though. 60 feels very differently than 75. How do you tell what is best for your individual child? Once again, this is where the power of observation comes into play. You have your range to work with, now experiment and see what works best.

Why is temperature so important?

“Experts agree the temperature of your sleeping area and how comfortable you feel in it affect how well and how long you snooze. Why? “When you go to sleep, your set point for body temperature — the temperature your brain is trying to achieve — goes down,” says H. Craig Heller, PhD, professor of biology at Stanford University, who wrote a chapter on temperature and sleep for a medical textbook. “Think of it as the internal thermostat.” If it’s too cold, as in Roy’s case, or too hot, the body struggles to achieve this set point.

That mild drop in body temperature induces sleep. Generally, Heller says, “if you are in a cooler [rather than too-warm] room, it is easier for that to happen.” But if the room becomes uncomfortably hot or cold, you are more likely to wake up, says Ralph Downey III, PhD, chief of sleep medicine at Loma Linda University…” (source)

Finding the perfect temperature gets tricky with the more people you add to the family.

I recommend you figure out what the lowest temperature needs to be. So in our family, my husband and Kaitlyn like to sleep in a cooler environment. So the thermostat is set to a cooler temperature for those two. Even in the winter, my husband sleeps with only a sheet and a light blanket. No socks.

Then the rest of us warm sleepers adjust our environment as needed. We all wear warmer PJs and all wear socks in the winter. We all have our layers of blankets. The children have space heaters in their rooms that have a thermostat.

So in your quest for good sleep in your family, do not underestimate the importance of temperature, pajamas, and blankets. It is a vital element in getting peaceful, continuous sleep. What is perfect for you will not automatically be perfect for anyone else in the home. Work to figure out the ideal for each person and figure out how to achieve that in your home. You will all be sleeping better if you do!

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Episode 20 – Holiday Traditions

December 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

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Gingerbread Train 2011

Gingerbread Train

I talked about Family Identity in Episode 12. It is important for dads to cultivate a sense of family identity. Getting your family together for a project like an annual gingerbread train or house is a great way to build family identity. Enter your creation into a competition. Have some fun with the project by creating some custom cars. Read more about the annual Osborne Family Gingerbread Train on Grill’n Time.

The Father’s Mandate – Where to learn more?

Best – Take a Growing Kids God’s Way class in a small group setting
Better – Go through the videos as a couple at home (GFI.org sale)
Good – Read On Becoming Childwise: Parenting Your Child from 3-7 Years

Find a Growing Kids God’s Way Class in your local area by visiting the GrowingKids.org web site. Use the “General Ministry or Curriculum” contact email address to ask about classes in your area.

Listen to the eight part series on The Father’s Mandate

1.  A father must cultivate a sense of family identity.
2.  A father must regularly demonstrate love to his wife.
3.  A father must understand and respect his child’s private world.
4.  A father must give his children the freedom to fail.
5.  A father must be the encourager of the family.
6.  A father must guard his tongue and his tone and learn to measure his response against the excitement on their faces.
7.  A father must routinely embrace his children.
8.  A father must build the trusting relationship on God’s Word, not on human wisdom.

Update on Caden – He broke his arm and the next week was hospitalized with pneumonia.

Tech Time:

Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson – Security Now Podcast

Which apps are safer? Apps from the Android market or the Apple App store?

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