Eight Baby and Kid Sleep Tricks Your Doctor Will Never Tell You

Face it. Doctors are pretty lame with practical advice on stuff that should come naturally to babies. So here are a few tricks we’ve picked – none risky, we promise – that might help you get your baby to sleep or back on track sleep-wise.

1. Dads, take charge. This is one area where dads can really add some value. Sadly, it’s because we have nothing more to add than just being odd and different though. Send dad in to do the final diapering and reading and baby won’t get distracted by the thought of mommy milk or the comforting sensations of the mommy aura. This goes also, unfortunately, for midnight diaper changes when you’re weaning the baby off breastfeeding. Babies won’t think “food!” when they see daddy’s breast-less chest and dad has a better chance of getting baby back to sleep.

2. Pump up the volume. Don’t let your child get used to a completely quiet house, or you may be subject to a baby who wakes to every siren or dog bark. Usually, yes, babies sleep through anything, unless they are conditioned to complete silence. If you’re using complete silence as a tactic in the sleep wars, you may be doing more harm than good.

3. Be all business at night. While moms and dads often can’t resist a cuddle with the baby or even trying to get the baby to smile or laugh while changing and feeding, everyone will get back to sleep faster if you are calm and efficient in the semi-dark, getting the baby back in bed with as little distraction as possible. This way, baby knows that daytime is playtime and nighttime is “get back to sleep as soon as possible.”

4. Let the baby fall asleep on his own. Every doctor or sleep specialist will encourage strict routines to help the sleep ritual. What some won’t think of though is making sure you put your baby in bed when he or she is drowsy rather than completely asleep. Falling asleep on your own is an important development step for a baby, which you can help by getting your baby in bed when you sense he is getting drowsy.

5. Treat your baby like he or she has jet lag. Experts recommend that when adjusting to new time zones, you should spend daylight hours in bright sunlight and keep out all light at times you should be sleeping. The same goes for babies. Make sure his or her internal time clock knows it’s nighttime.

6. Turn down the baby monitor. If you’re so sleep-obsessed that you have to check on your baby every few minutes, you’re going to end up teaching the baby that every gurgle or whimper gets mom or dad’s attention. I am definitely not a “let them cry it out” dad, but I do know that giving in to the temptation to just peek in on them usually reset the timer on my efforts to get my kids to sleep.

7. Skip the diaper change? Yes, maybe, if you don’t smell #2 and you think the diaper isn’t really full. A full diaper change, complete with baby wipe hitting warm skin in the night air, will definitely wake up a sleeping baby. Wake up a baby for one last feeding before you go to bed. This might be the one trick that scores you some extra sleep. While it might be risky to wake up a baby for more stimulation, if you can accomplish the feeding to a half asleep baby, it might mean your baby remains full and satisfied all the way until morning. This means you get some much needed baby sleep of your own.

Video Games That Keep The Family Together

Survey: Videogames Are Not Detrimental to Kids’ Academics

A new study has shown that videogames have no adverse effects on the academic performance of kids. The research, done by the Michigan State University, reveals that video games do not affect children’s math skills and may have a positive effect on visual-spatial skills.

The study monitored the academic performance of students from 20 middle schools in Michigan. The researchers compared the usage of online and offline video games that the students played in correlation to their academic performance. It found that the videogames helped the kids learn visually by reacting and thinking in terms of images. The children were able to develop key skills that would come in handy in various fields such as engineering, technology and science.

Parents Perspective
Parents may have encountered the good and bad side of videogames. Many parents who allow their children to play educational videogames from a young age have known their kids to be more responsive to them than while simply watching television. For example, videogames are known to increase children’s reaction times in response to stimuli.

Another advantage for many parents is that videogames can be used to introduce children to computers, thereby giving kids a head start for the future.

On the flipside, there are disadvantages to videogames too. Children who play age-inappropriate games may have a bad experience and react negatively to them. Some studies have also demonstrated that first-person-shooter (FPS) and other similar games may increase childrens’ aggression levels and desensitize them to violence.

Moving is the Best Exercise for Babies

We know that exercise is important for our health as adults, but did you know that the same philosophy applies to babies? It is recommended that babies should work their muscles at least half-hour each day, although not necessarily all at once. Here are basic exercises that you can do with your baby, to stretch and tone the muscles:
Stretching
With your baby on his tummy, roll a ball in his direction so he has to extend his arms to grasp the ball and then roll it back to you. Alternately, you could sit facing each other with your feet bottoms touching and roll the ball back and forth, stretching in the process.
Standing
If your baby is trying to stand, encourage him by making him want to move towards you. Make sure you do this within the safety of a crib or on well-padded baby bedding. Play with a toy to get his attention and then re-position yourself on the other side of the crib or bed to get him to come to you. You can also make the stretching motion yourself and show him what it looks like when you stand up.
Crawling
Your infant’s attempts to crawl are naturally going to help him exercise his little body since he will work hard to push himself forward with his arms and legs. Motivate him to move by clapping your hands and motioning your child to come towards you. You can also use a noise-making toy to grab his attention.
Jumping
Toddlers require a more advanced activity like jumping to help practice motor skills. You can make a line on your carpet using a folded piece of construction paper and help your baby hop from one side to the other. To add to the excitement, make up rhyming tunes as you go or listen to music.

Preparing Kids for the Challenges of the First Days of School

It’s hard to imagine what goes on in a little one’s mind when he goes to the big school, but you can help him overcome some fears by talking to him before hand.

For example, many kids at pre-school and even kindergarten level, are nervous about the bathroom. Reassure your child that he can ask to go any time. Some kids have accidents at school, and he should be aware that this type of thing can happen, and does happen to a lot of kids. If you have given him strict instructions on other people touching him in the bathroom, make sure he is aware of how changes in caregiving my change that policy, for example if a teacher has to wipe him. Some kids will time their bowel movements to avoid school time. Discuss this with your doctor if it becomes and issue.

Buy clothes for your child with easy closures. No child at this point wants to have to ask their teacher to help them button their pants. Just at the moment you are trying to teach them autonomy, don’t burden them suddenly with shoelaces that need to be tied by an adult.

School is an ideal time to teach about making friends. You don’t have to be a car salesman to know the value of walking right up to someone, pointing to something you have in common (your love of sand or the color of your tennis shoes) and introducing yourself. This is not a skill that comes easily, but kids can learn these skills to, especially if you show them how it works, by introducing yourself to other moms and dads.

Lunchtime might also be stressful, if your child has never had to eat on her own. Many kids get stressed at lunchtime because they don’t have the leisure to drag it out like they do at home. Make sure your child has items that are easy to manipulate on her own rather than complicated foods that need to be reheated and might be hard to eat.

Your child may be scared of other small details that don’t worry you at all. He might think the school nurse means lots of shots. Or the school bus looks like a big scary tunnel he might get lost in and never find his way back home. Explore and discuss things like this with your child by asking him about his likes and dislikes about the school.

With a very small amount of putting yourself in their shoes, you can easily take steps to ease into the transition to school.

10 Ways to tell if your baby has allergies, and not just a cold

Many of the symptoms of nasal allergies (also known as allergic rhinitis) are similar to those of cold symptoms—runny nose, watery eyes, cough, nasal congestion, sneezing. Many times parents are confused on whether their child has a long-term cold or allergies.
Allergies are different though. Here are ten things to look for:

• Is your baby sneezing a lot?
• Does he have a dry cough, not coughing anything up?
• Are his eyes, red, watery, and itchy?
• Is his skin breaking out, irritated, or have an itchy red rash?
• Is your baby’s nose always stuffy or running?
• Does it seem like your baby always has a cold? (Colds usually wind themselves down in a week to ten days; allergies don’t.)
• Does your baby breathe through his mouth?
• Is your baby constantly rubbing, or touching her nose?
• Does your baby have thin and clear mucous draining from her nose (or is it think and yellow or green?)?
• Does it look like he or she has a black eye (“allergic shiner”) where the skin is dark or purple under her eyes.

If your baby has more than one of these symptoms, there is fairly good chance your baby is allergic to something in his or her environment. The most common culprit is dust mites, but there are many other allergies. Since common allergies are linked to ear infections and possibly asthma, it’s a good idea to discuss these symptoms with your doctor and eventually with an allergist who can easily test for more specific allergens.

Did You Know? – Dads as parents

A father tends to:

• Bond with children in short bursts of connection, both physical and emotional (“short-touch” bonding, rough-and-tumble play).
• Focus on teaching children order, pattern thinking, and ritualized action, (Dads will tend to care less about the minutia of the child’s needs, but care more about larger structures and tools the child might need for future survival.)
• Downplay emotion, even at the risk of hurt feelings, in order to “up-play” performance. (Males are chemically and neurally directed toward immediate rewards from performance, and they prod children in this direction.)
• Promote risk taking and independence in the growing child. (Many moms promote independence, but in general, dads push children toward separation from caregivers and encourage them to “grow up!” faster than moms do.)
• Expect and enforce discipline and provide contests and tests of skill. (Dads tend to be more competitive than moms, especially in their assertion to children that being able to compete in tests of skill against others is the key to future success.)
• Teach the child to fight against personal and group vulnerability. (With less of the male brain’s blood flow devoted to emotional processing than the female, fathers tend to deny any emotional vulnerability or try to problem-solve quickly to avoid such vulnerability.)
• Guide the child to sacrifice his or her own thinking in deference to “authority thinking” until the child has proven his or her own core nature to be mature enough to become authoritative. Although there are certainly exceptions to this, fathers tend to employ more authoritarian parenting styles than mothers and retain that authority well into the child’s adulthood, waiting for the child to prove himself (this generally applies more to sons) worthy of being respected as an adult.
• Direct the child’s search for self-worth toward the larger society (that is, encouraging less introspection and more immediate action).
• Try to help the child feel stronger in the long term even if the child does not feel better in the moment. Fathers tend to care less than mothers about whether a child “feels good.” Fathers tend to want obvious shows of strength from children. This is especially true in their attitude toward sons.

- By Michael Gurian

Excerpted with permission of the publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. from NURTURE THE NATURE. Copyright (c) 2007 by Michael Gurian. This book is available at all bookstores, online booksellers and from the Wiley website at www.wiley.com, or call 1-800-225-5945.

Michael Gurian is a social philosopher, family therapist, corporate consultant, and the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books. A parenting and family expert, he is co-founder of The Gurian Institute, a training organization that provides schools, homes, workplaces and community agencies with crucial understanding of how boys and girls learn differently, and how women and men work and lead differently. Blending brain-based theory with practical application and cultural relevance, the Institute conducts research internationally, launches pilot and training programs, and trains professionals.

His groundbreaking books on child development and education that have sparked national debate include The Wonder of Boys, Boys and Girls Learn Differently!, The Wonder of Girls, and The Minds of Boys. He has pioneered efforts to bring neuro-biology and brain research into homes, workplaces, schools and public policy. A sought-after speaker and consultant, he lives with his wife and two daughters in Spokane, Washington.

Ten Parenting Tips for New Twins

A new baby in the house means a whole lot of fun. On the flipside, it also means a whole lot of work. In the case of twins, this means not just double the fun but also double the work.

Here are some parenting tips especially meant for parents of twins:

• Work as a pair: Generally, one of the parents—typically the mom, but it could be the dad—takes over the majority of parenting chores. With twins however, it often becomes necessary for both parents to share duties more or less equally.
• Alternate between both: Do not go in for an arrangement where each spouse looks after chores related to only one of the twins. Alternate, so both parents get to handle both of the twins.
• Determine a schedule: Juggling ’sleep, eat, and play’ routines for two new babies can be both, chaotic and exhausting. Getting your twins accustomed to a fixed routine makes your work easier—and is good for them too.
• Have names that sound distinct: This is an obvious point that often gets overlooked. Parents often give twins similar sounding names. While this sounds cute, it can lead to confusion.
• Dress them differently: Not just identical twins, all infants can look startlingly similar. Dressing twins differently helps to tell them apart and, at times, may help prevent unnecessary, or even grave, confusion.
• Be vigilant for infections: Twins spend most of their time together and thus are more than likely to contract infections from each other. If either of your twins seems unwell, be on your guard against the likelihood of the other one catching the ‘bug’ too.
• Accept friendly help: As parents of twins, you may receive well-meaning offers of help from relatives, friends, or well-wishers. If so, accept them, at least some of the time.
• Employ professional help: Employing a nanny is one way you could make the job of bringing up twins a bit easier.
• Interact with them: Parents often assume that twins can be safely left together to play with each other. While this is largely true, it does not mean that you can do away with the need for parental interaction. Remember to find the time to interact and play with your twins.
• Identify their individuality: Your twins do not necessarily have to share a lot between them—apart from their birthdays that is. Learn to know them as individuals and treat them so.

Dad’s Guide to Raising Over-Scheduled Kids

We all want to make sure our kids have enough experiences so that they know where they can really shine. This in turn may provide the direction for a fulfilling life. Sometimes, however, in our zeal to show them new things, we either allow them or push them to take too much on at once. Here are a few warning signs that your child is overbooked and over-extended.

1. You find that you can’t find time on their schedule to spend time with them. If your son or daughter needs his or her own copy of Outlook, you may have a problem.
2. His or her school grades are falling.
3. Your child has a hard time entertaining himself on his own.
4. Extracurricular activities start to overlap. For example, the basketball game is at the same time as the piano recital.
5. Your child seems anxious, irritable or over-tired.

How to get your child off the treadmill? Here are a few suggestions.

* First of all, don’t pull the plug all at once. It’s important for a child to know they need to follow through on their commitments. Look for natural breaks in the action to eliminate an activity.

* Interview your child. What makes her excited? What does she really want to do in her spare time? A frank discussion may surprise you. You may find she does some things just to please you or because her friends do it. If you can find things that really make her shine, you’re on the right track.

* Consider dividing her activities up in two groups. Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, the author of The Overscheduled Child, recommends diving activities in to “must do” and optional categories. Must do might include swimming classes at six or seven years old because you feel this is a swim safety skill that must be acquired. Once you have that list (and keep it short for any given season), allow your child to pick what goes into the optional pile, while keeping an eye on how many activities you have going on.

The American Academy of Pediatrics in the January 2007 issue says that over-scheduling is most pronounced in the nine-to-twelve years age group but it can occur at any age. They suggest that, despite a trend toward pushing kids to do more to aid in their development, kids need more play and family time. As with adults, life-balance skills have to be learned and it might be time for a lesson.

Find Your Style of Parenting

There are many ideas about how to rear children. Some parents adopt the ideas their own parents used. Others get advice from friends. Some read books about parenting. Others take classes offered in the community. No one has all the answers. However, psychologists and other social scientists now know what parenting practices are most effective and are more likely to lead to positive outcomes for children.

Ideas about child rearing can be grouped into three styles. These are different ways of deciding who is responsible for what in a family.

Authoritarian

Authoritarian parents always try to be in control and exert their control on the children. These parents set strict rules to try to keep order, and they usually do this without much expression of warmth and affection. They attempt to set strict standards of conduct and are usually very critical of children for not meeting those standards. They tell children what to do, they try to make them obey and they usually do not provide children with choices or options.

Authoritarian parents don’t explain why they want their children to do things. If a child questions a rule or command, the parent might answer,”Because I said so.” Parents tend to focus on bad behavior, rather than positive behavior, and children are scolded or punished, often harshly, for not following the rules.Children with authoritarian parents usually do not learn to think for themselves and understand why the parent is requiring certain behaviors.

Permissive

Permissive parents give up most control to their children. Parents make few, if any, rules, and the rules that they make are usually not consistently enforced. They don’t want to be tied down to routines. They want their children to feel free. They do not set clear boundaries or expectations for their children’s behavior and tend to accept in a warm and loving way, however the child behaves.

Permissive parents give children as many choices as possible, even when the child is not capable of making good choices. They tend to accept a child’s behavior, good or bad, and make no comment about whether it is beneficial or not. They may feel unable to change misbehavior, or they choose not to get involved.

Democratic or authoritative

Democratic parents help children learn to be responsible for themselves and to think about the consequences of their behavior. Parents do this by providing clear, reasonable expectations for their children and explanations for why they expect their children to behave in a particular manner. They monitor their children’s behavior to make sure that they follow through on rules and expectations. They do this in a warm and loving manner. They often, “try to catch their children being good” and reinforcing the good behavior, rather than focusing on the bad.

For example, a child who leaves her toys on a staircase may be told not to do this because, “Someone could trip on them and get hurt and the toy might be damaged.” As children mature, parents involve children in making rules and doing chores: “Who will mop the kitchen floor, and who will carry out the trash?”

Parents who have a democratic style give choices based on a child’s ability. For a toddler, the choice may be “red shirt or striped shirt?” For an older child, the choice might be “apple, orange or banana?” Parents guide children’s behavior by teaching, not punishing. “You threw your truck at Mindy. That hurt her. We’re putting your truck away until you can play with it safely.”

Which is your style?

Maybe you are somewhere in between. Think about what you want your children to learn. Research on child development shows that the most positive outcomes for children occur when parents use democratic styles. Children with permissive parents tend to be aggressive and act out, while children with authoritarian parents tend to be compliant and submissive and have low self-esteem. No parenting styles will work unless you build a loving bond with your child.

Kids, Credit and Credit Ratings

You probably have never given much thought to your young child’s credit history and rating. However, the increase in identity theft means dads have to be more vigilant about protecting their kids from thieves who will take their financial identity, often not to be discovered for many years. As crises go, this one isn’t earth shattering, but the Federal Trade Commission, the federal agency that tracks identity complaints, says that 11,600 complaints for victims under 18 were filed in 2005. This is roughly double the number filed in 2003. Many of these are fraud cases involving relatives, but some involve real theft too.

What can dads do to protect their kids?

1. Guard their social security number. Social security numbers should only be given out for financial and tax purposes, and medical reasons; so ask yourself whenever anyone (school, community groups) demands your child’s social security number. That goes for parents as well. At some point, the social security number could become a national ID number, but this has not yet occurred.

2. Understand how someone could use his or her number, so you understand why a child with no credit could be a target. Anyone working needs a social security number.

3. Watch the mail. Is your son or daughter suddenly getting mail solicitations for credit cards and loan products? This may be a warning sign that someone has used his or her number and your child has been identified as financially mature.

4. It’s not a bad idea to consider checking your child’s credit report, which you can do for free each year. You can also place a fraud alert on their records, but that has to be renewed every 90 days. Companies exist, like LifeLock (www.lifelock.com) that will track your credit and can add your children to their alerts. These are checks you can do for free by asking for a credit report, but may be worth the fees ($10 per month plus add-on of $25/year per child) if you are concerned.