Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Waking At Night After 18mons

Waking at night happens with children. It happens with adults. Most big people can turn over and fall back to sleep, when we do this often we check the clock. A little person has no idea what time it is, that cannot judge, "Should I go back to sleep?"or "Should I get up and play?"
I first found the teach me time clock. When my son was 17 months he was waking at 3am and trying to play. I had no idea how to teach him that it was still night beside telling him it was night and showing him that it was dark out. A friend told me about this clock. I was not sure it would work because he was so young. I bought it anyway because I was desperate. I spent about a week pointing out every yellow and green thing that I could find to my son, until he knew these colors and began pointing them out to me. Then, I began telling him that green means, "Go!" or "Wake Up!" and yellow means, "Slow Down!" and "Go Back To Sleep!"
At this point I put the clock in my sons bedroom. When he woke at night and I went in, I would first ask him what color his clock was. And he would always tell me yellow. Then I asked what does yellow mean? He would tell me go slow and go back to sleep. Then I would say, you need to go back to sleep until your clock turns green and it means "Go Play!"
I soon had my son sleeping at night and not waking me until his clock turned green.
*REMEMBER BE REASONABLE ABOUT THE TIME YOU SET, ACCORDING TO YOUR WHEN YOUR CHILD SHOULD WAKE, NOT WHEN YOU WANT THEM TO WAKE!

After a year or so, my son began waking around 6:30am and was very capable of playing safely in his room for a little while. That's when I found the Good Nite Lite. This nite lite changes from a sun to a moon at the times you set it to. I currently have the nite lite changing from a moon to a sun at 6am, and if the sun is up on his nite lite he can play in his room. But he cannot come out of his room until the clock turns green. This is a little much, I realize. But my son is a very busy boy and he is quite smart. He has no problems following this system and I can always stay in bed until 7am. Very exciting!!!!

Monday, June 28, 2010

New Mom Groups

It is so important to join a, "New Moms Group." I gave two suggested groups in links on the right hand side of this page. One is called Baby Bites and the other is Big City Moms. These groups are located in NYC, but every city and town have their own version. These groups saved my life and taught me everything that I needed to know about being a mom. I made my best friends by going to their lunch meeting sleep deprived. If I did nothing else in the first few months of my son's life, I got to at least one meeting a week. I lived for Tuesday afternoons at 1!
Your old friends are always going to be around. However it is very important to make friends with other moms who have children the same age as your new little one. It helps you keep your sanity to be able to talk to other moms going through the same things at the same times. For example, if your child recently had trouble pooping or just began applesauce, you will be very excited to talk about this. People that don't have children that age may listen to you for a minute, but will not want to listen to you for an hour. Another mom who has a baby that age will be more the happy to listen to you rant and rave about the new little things that your baby may or may not be doing.
You can never have too many friends!!!!

Gas

I was so surprised to learn how many first time parents do not know about gas and their infants.
Certain foods you eat when you breastfeed can make your baby have gas, as well as some formulas. But like adults, different things make different babies have gas. None of the typically gassy foods made either one of my children have a problem. It was always some typically non gassy food.
When you breast feed and your child has a gassy day, try and think about what you ate in the last 24 hours. Write it down and hang on to it. When your child has another gassy day, pull out that list of food and see if anything matches up. If not try the process again!
If you are formula feeding, you may need to change formulas if your child has several gassy days. But you should talk to your pediatrician about this.

When your child has gas, what do you do? How do you know they have gas? Usually children that are very young will cry when they have gas. They will make their body stiff. They may arch their back. They may put their feet up in the air. If you are not sure and your child is crying: lay them on your lap and crunch their legs up and down as if they were doing a reverse crunch, or move their legs like bicycle kicks, last (this works for burps and toots) lay the baby across your legs on their belly-then tap on their back like you are playing a drum! This presses their belly a bit for a toot and their back for a burp. Sometimes you have to try all three methods. Giving a baby Mylicon also helps with gas but will not work it out instantly like these methods. You may want to try everything if your baby is having a tough moment.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Welcome

Hi Everyone Out There.
I am a mom with a son and daughter. I love being a mom!
When I first became a mom I learned that my mom knew a lot more then I ever thought and that I had a lot to learn.
I also learned that my strong background with children had taught me a great deal more about child rearing then I ever thought. Many friends would ask me for advice and quite often I knew the answers.
When I had my second child, I realized that I needed to share what a knew with other new moms. I could not believe the basic things that other moms had no clue about.
Also, I could not believe how many first time moms were in the dark about what to expect after the baby come out. For example: with their body, or how to get simple gas out of their baby!

I was so lucky my mom was brutally honest with me. I am a planner. If I had not been aware of these things, I would have went into a depression!
I can't wait to get started...