Kindle Free Time – Parents Need More

September 21, 2012 By 3 Comments


Kindle Store Search Results for American GirlSetting time limits offered in the new Kindle Fire Free Time parental controls is easy, but in my opinion it is all just window dressing for a much deeper problem with putting eReaders in the hands of kids. Sherry and I are debating whether or not to give my old Kindle (2nd Generation E Ink) to Riley as a 10th birthday present. This kids reads like no one I have ever met and we believe he would love the high tech way of accessing his favorite series.

So what’s the big deal?

A couple of months ago a parent asked me how to control search results when browsing the Kindle Store. And by the way, this question applies to all Kindle devies, eRaders for other devices like the iPad, or just searching within a computer browser. Her 11 yr old had saved money to buy her own Kindle Fire and was freely browsing for her favorite children’s books.  When searching the Kindle store for “American Girl” which is a popular book series 11 yr old girls, the mom was shocked by some of the results her daughter was exposed to. As shown in the photo above, as of today the 12th result in the Kindle store for the search term “American Girl” is a very explicit/erotic eBook by the same name. It is certainly not appropriate for an 11 yr old by the standards of any parent that I know. So if the above image and the sub-title of “A Carnal Story” don’t give you a hint as to why, then I can assure you that the description Kindle Fire would remove all doubt. I recommend that you spare yourself the trouble of looking this up and just trust me on this one. My answer to the parent was that she would most likely have to manage Kindle Store access if she wanted to protect her 11 yr old from being exposed to this type of content. And even doing that is near impossible on older devices and free Kindle readers like used on desktops and smart phones. The challenge that parents face with the Kindle Store is that there is no “safe search” feature or filtering by age. Many books including some of the American Girl books are not categorized by age even though it is widely known in parenting circles familiar with these books that they are targeted at early readers (3rd grade and up).

Initial reviews of Amazon’s Kindle Fire Free Time Parental Controls are pointing to a less than stellar answer to the above mentioned challenge. Parents should be careful with simply handing over any model of Kindle to a child without first giving careful consideration to how they will supervision the shopping for books in the Kindle Store.

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Lying to our Kids

August 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

someecards.com - My parents accused me of lying today. Then I said,
When it is okay to lie to our kids? The answer to this question is often rooted in the definition of what a lie is. You may see little white lies as innocent. Things like Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and Santa are said to be imaginary fun. I might be able to buy that if the child used their own imagination to dream up these characters, but that’s not how it gets started is it? And then as parents we have to get creative to keep the fair tale going and keep the kids engaged in the “fun”.

I wrote a guest post titled 50 Shades of Lying on The Graceful Mom blog a few weeks ago. I shared some tips to help us model honesty so that we don’t get tagged as a hypocrite with or kids. This post was written as part of an ongoing guest blogging effort between a few Babywise-Friendly Network blogs. I wanted to challenge parents to think about the example they are setting for their kids. What happens when you catch your child in a lie and then they pull the hypocrite card? Is  it do as a I say and not as I do in your family? Do you try to justify your lying while punishing their lies, or do you come clean and ask your kids to forgive you for lying to them?

How good of an example do you set in the areas of honesty and truthfulness?

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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!

 

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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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Dad’s role in FTO training

April 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

By Maureen Monfore, www.childwisechat.com

Dad and First Time Obedience TrainingIn On Becoming Childwise and Growing Kids God’s Way, the Ezzos make it clear that training a child in first-time obedience (FTO) is one of the most important parenting tasks. When we train a child in first-time obedience, our primary goal is that they will obey us the first time we give an instruction, no questions asked.

In my blog, www.childwisechat.com, and on message boards, I hear moms struggle with the fact that their children seem to respond to the FTO training they have done. But the minute their husbands get home, the children don’t listen to him.

So let me be clear that although much of the training can be done by mom since she’s home most of the day, dads must also work with their children on first-time obedience.

It would make sense that all you have to do is teach a child a skill like first-time obedience one time and it will carry over to all other relationships. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Our children figure us out very quickly. They know that moms and dads have different standards, however minor they may be, and they will only rise to the standard you each hold.

So unfortunately, dads, this means that you cannot rest on your laurels after a long day’s work and let your wife do all of the obedience training. All of the aspects of first-time obedience training apply to you just as much as they do to your wife.

If you’re new to the idea of first-time obedience training, you can learn more on my blog or in my eBook, Live in Harmony with First-Time Obedience. There are several principles to consider when laying a solid foundation for FTO training. They include:

Understand that first-time obedience is a skill your child needs to learn. It’s also a new habit you will need to set for yourself. It will be difficult at first, especially if your child is used to ignoring you, but the payoff is so rewarding.

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Podcast Review of Monumental and the Easter Bunny

March 31, 2012 By 2 Comments

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Daddy Life Podcast Episode 26I am here to help you Dads to be the parents that God intended for your to be.

Yes folks, Things are changing. Regular listeners may have heard from intro that I am changing things up a little. I am refining the focus of the Daddy Life podcast. Feedback continues to prove that dads are hungry for more encouragement on the parenting front. I almost exclusively get feedback from the non-technical content so that is where I am going to focus attention. There are plenty of dads out there covering the things that entertain. I am here to equip and challenge you to rise above the level of mediocrity in your marriage and in your parenting.

I will add tech tips in as subjects questions are raised. As in recent episode, I will only include a tech time in occasionally moving forward.

So what am I talking about this week:

This week I am going to provide you with an audio version of my review of Kirk Cameron’s new documentary titled Monumental: In Search of America’s National Treasure. Only you will get more in the audio because I can bring Kirk into from the trailers and let him tell you about the movie in his own words.

Before we get into that I want to talk about Easter. If you are new to the show you will know that I am very big on relationships. In particular I am big on telling the truth to your kids concerning things like Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. And you guessed it, I am in favor of keeping it real and true concerning the Easter Bunny. We do Easter baskets and egg hunts, but we tell our kids the truth about where the candy eggs and chocolate bunny’s come from. There is no magical bunny. Really! Seriously!

Also mentioned in this episode are some points from David Platt’s book titled Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream.

Monumental is Highly recommended! DEMAND THE MOVIE

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Monumental Review of Kirk Cameron’s new Movie

March 29, 2012 By 18 Comments

Kirk CameronI attended Tuesday night’s LIVE preview of Monumental: In Search of America’s National Treasure. The bottom line up front is that I came out of the movie educated, encouraged, and a little fired up. I did expect a little more evangelical gospel theme than was outwardly presented, but the movie was not lacking as a result of this missing. I did not take written notes during the movie, so I am paraphrasing, but Kirk basically said that he believes that our country is in trouble. He said that the left blames the right, hollywood blames the church, and the church blames the media. And there is no one clear voice that stands out with a plan to stop or reverse this decline.

The evangelical Christians bloggers are either red hot or ice cold on this one. I am glad I read a few other reviews before beginning my own review. Most Christian naysayers of the movie have their panties in a wade over one of two things or both.

  1.  Kirk Cameron does not bust out with his in your face with the sin mirror presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ the way many of us have seen him do with Ray Comfort.
  2. During the LIVE event portion of the presentation last night Kirk introduced Glenn Beck. I read where one guy actually got up at walked out when Cameron introduced Beck.

I’ll expand on each fo these two primary critiques of the movie. Yes it is true. Kirk Cameron does not break down the gospel message via the Roman Road Gospel presentation. However the message did come through very clear to me that the problems in the country will not be solved unless we get back to foundation built on faith and trust in God followed by actions as taught so clearly in my favorite book of the Bible James.

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. James 1:25

James goes on to say that faith without deeds is not faith at all. I believe that Kirk is trying to remind Christians that we have to live out our faith. Like the Puritans who sacrificed all to come a settle here, we have to be willing to make sacrifices as well if we are going to see this country change directions. The Go Stand Speak Ministries blog said it best in response to the naysayers on this issue:

But many missed that because they couldn’t look beyond their “get saved from hell” glasses and see the message of the risen Christ as King, a message Jesus, the prophets and the apostles all preached!

I think most people get too caught up in what God is going to do for them through salvation and forget that God is not just a vending machine full of get out of hell free cards. Faith without works is dead. Yes, you need the faith first, but that should produce works for the glory of God or the faith may not be there in the first place.

The second major critique was of the fact that Kirk introduced Glenn Beck during the pre-movie portion of the LIVE event last night. He introduced Beck as a champion of truth about the history of this country. No one in my opinion could argue Glenn Beck’s passion and accuracy concerning the history of this country as presented in his TV and radio shows. Beck was not introduced as a spiritual or theological advisor for the movie. I have no problem with that at all.  Glenn Beck is not teaching against Jesus Christ in his radio and TV shows and therefore he is not the enemy in the search for America’s national treasure.

Some may be a little uneasy with the fact that Kirk Cameron somewhat pitched homeschooling as a best method of educating our children. I talked about this a little in Daddy Life podcast episode 25. At one point during the movie Cameron interviews David Barton of Wall Builders. David is the expert on the religious roots of the United States of America. In the interview David shares some background on a book titled The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore. Barton highlights the fact that these two Cornell professors abandon footnotes and bibliography in their book to give themselves plenty of room to indoctrinate the unknowing students with this revisionist history of our great country using this textbook in many university lecture halls. Barton goes on to say that this is intentional misrepresentation of the history of the USA that leads to teachers in our kids’ classrooms ignorantly repeating what they have been taught because they had no reason to challenge it. I say that since it took a few decades to get our kids’ teachers to this level of ignorance on history so the best way to combat it is through home education.

That said, Kirk wraps up his LIVE event with a post movie spill about what to do next. The movie is not officially released until March 30th and it will only appear in a handful of cities. Kirk gives a call to action as he talks about a family devotional as well as a homeschool curriculum that is being released in conjunction with the movie. I told my wife about the homeschool curriculum and she was puzzle as to why Cameron did not partner with someone like Doug Phillips from Vision Forum. The folks at Vision Forum already have pretty much everything covered already and it is historically accurate.  We will likely get a copy of the curriculum for review on the Home School Support Network, but I am not sure how much of it we will be implementing in our own family.

I will conclude with a link to one other review. Jon Speed over at The Informed Evangelist did a pretty unbiased and very detailed review. He and I also had a very similar experience at the conclusion of the event last night. The “live” feed was interrupted in mid sentence of Cameron’s call to action as shown in the video below. So after a few minutes of awkwardness in our local theatre a couple of tea party 912 project activist stood and introduced themselves. They had nothing really useful to say other than to invite people to their meetings. That prompted a mass exodus from the theatre and it pretty much let the air out of the balloon for me in the moment. Like Speed, I hope the results of this is movie is more than an extension to the tea party movement. The tea party came out of the gate well, but the that movement just does not have the God centered roots that this movie has. True lasting change in this country will not take place unless it is clearly aligned to honor and glorify God.

I highly recommend Monumental. It is safe viewing for the entire family. Unless you are in one of the six markets listed in the video above you will not get this movie in your local theatre unless you DEMAND THE MOVIE!

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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!

Filed Under: Marriage, Parenting Tagged With: , ,
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