Raising a smart & happy baby

Playpens (Jails) and mommy guilt

2008-07-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

When the magic day arrives that your baby takes that first step, or crawl, you are faced with an issue that up until then you may have not fully understood.

Your baby is always on the move, and is endlessly curious about anything and everything. You may have already "baby proofed" your house, but if this is your first baby you probably didn't fully understand all that this entails. You end up going through new iterations of baby proofing when you quickly see where he goes, what he tries to grab and pull down, etc.

He or she goes everywhere, is into everything, your baby wants to touch everything, grab everything, put it in his or her mouth. Months of pent up curiosity are unleashed in a fearless form of exuberant mobile energy. The harm your baby can do to your house, and much worse to himself, is scary.

Although you mentally know this journey of exploration your baby is making helps him expand his mind, you are still faced with the fear that your baby will hurt himself somehow.

You may have earlier made a decision that you would NOT be buying a baby 'jail'. That your baby will be free to explore. But then reality steps in. You are home, alone with your child perhaps. There are times when you have to use the washroom, make yourself lunch and eat, or other mundane things. Your baby is not happy sitting still. He wants to move, roam around, use his legs. You've baby-proofed the area he's roaming in, but you are still fearful at times and want a 'time out' safer holding area you can quickly put him in for a few moments here and there.

If you buy a playpen, and start using it. There might be a feeling of guilt that you are a bad parent, locking your baby up in a jail that he can't get out. Stunting his learning possibilities, stopping him from being that smart and happy baby. But then if you don't get a playpen, what do you do? Stick your baby back in his crib when you need a couple minutes? Isn't that worse than a playpen?

I think yes, buy a nice large playpen (jail). Just try not to over use it. Use it only when you must. Realize that it's a necessary evil. That your baby needs endless opportunities of supervised exploration to grow. Try to baby proof the rooms he's in as much as possible so the room becomes his actual "playpen" instead if possible.

Also realize that having your baby in the playpen doesn't mean he/she can be unsupervised unless the playpen and items inside actually say that. Some playpens have more worries than a crib does. Loose pockets, strings of toys, strangulation risks, etc. So make sure you do your research first on whatever particular playpen you get and whatever toys or items might go in there with your baby.

In our situation, I really wish that both of us could stay home to take care of our baby together. It really takes a team to raise a smart & happy baby and it's difficult for one parent to do it on his/her own while the other is at work. Having family members who are willing to help are greatly appreciated.

Praise the effort

2007-05-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

Praise Effort, not Intelligence. Or Praise the effort, not the outcome.

I'm hoping you've heard these phrases before. But if you haven't, you are not alone. It's not always widely known, but it's important to remember and here's why.

When your child does great on a test or basically did something great, the common mistake is to praise the outcome. Saying something like "Wow, I'm so proud that you won that race" or "You got an A+ on your test! That's fantastic, you are so smart". But praises that focus on the outcome can set your child up to not be able to handle failure, be fearful of attempting activities they may not do well in, and not put in much effort.

When you reward the outcome and ignore the process, you're setting your child up to fear failure. In life you learn more from your failures, than you do from success. Don't let your child be afraid to fail. Instead, praise the process, the effort, the attempt, the actual work that they do. Regardless if the outcome is a success or failure, if there is an honest attempt to do well reward and praise that. Remember the saying "If you don't succeed, try, try again".

If you are always rewarding the success, and your child sees that you are sad when they fail they'll start to build up a fear-avoidance to any activity they think they might not excel in. If they feel they might not do well in something, they may avoid it because they don't want to see you disappointed in them.

If your young toddler sees Mommy doing something, and tries to help but ends up making a mess. Don't yell at the mess they made, but praise their effort, tell them you know it's hard but you love that they are trying. If they try to help you, but that help turns out to be a hindrance and they see how upset you become, they'll avoid trying in the future.

Praise is important. Look for opportunities when they are being good. Sharing their toys with others. When they try to help out with something. As they get older, seeing them studying or putting forth an effort in their tasks.

Your praise should be sincere and warm. Remember when your children are young they seek your approval and your loving praise is one of the greatest gifts you can give them. Don't be stingy with it, just remember where to focus it on. Praise your child, but learn how to do it the right way.

http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

http://schoolpsychology.blogspot.com/2007/02/praise-effort-not-intelligence.html

Reading to your baby

2007-04-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

Why?
Reading to your baby is beneficial on so many levels.

Your baby likes the sound of your voice, and being close to you. Reading brings both these two things together and generates an eventual love of books. When you read you introduce your baby to new words, facial expressions, and changes in the tone of your voice.

Reading out loud to your baby will help stimulate communication skills and eventual vocabulary development. It will also help strengthen your bond with your baby. It's a special time that the two of you can enjoy together.

What age?
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends reading aloud to your child every day starting at 6 months. But you can start earlier, the baby will enjoy the closeness and bonding that comes with reading.

In the first few months your baby can't understand what you are reading, so at this point it could be anything. The fact that you are reading with your baby rather than what you are reading is the important thing. It could be the latest John Grisham book, or even the local newspaper.

By the fourth month your baby may be more interested in what you are reading. Your baby will enjoy rhyming or repetitive text with simple, uncomplicated but brightly coloured pictures.

By six months your baby will start to understand that the pictures represent objects and may start to have favourite pages or text that they like seeing/hearing over and over again. If you find a book your baby seems to love more than the others, then read often using the same voice each time so the baby get used to the pattern. Babies love and learn from repetition.

By twelve months your baby will start taking a more active role, perhaps even helping turn the pages for you, or taking part in the sound affects and story.

When?
Before nap or bedtime is a good time to start reading out loud to your baby. The familiarity before bed of reading together quickly becomes an enjoyable routine. Try to also read during the day when your baby is attentive, dry and fed. You can read out loud a few pages, you don't need to read a whole book at a time.

If your baby shows signs of boredom or that it's not happy, stop reading. The length of time your baby will pay attention and enjoy the reading will likely grow over time. The focus is on this being a fun, loving and enjoyable activity. So stop reading immediately if it seems it's not.

How?
Cuddle and be close to your baby while reading. Try to look at both the book and your baby, pointing to the pictures and let him see what you see. Babies see more clearly between 20 to 25cms so don't hold the book too far away from him.

Big board pictures books work well. Let the baby feel and touch the book if they want. Don't be too worried about the baby damaging the book, inexpensive replaceable books are best in this regard.

Remember to use the tone and expression of your voice to help convey the emotions and feeling of the text and pictures. Feel free to break away from the story to point to pictures and talk or ask questions about the story with your baby. Use sound effects and facial expressions.

Remember, make this reading time with your baby as fun as possible for both yourself and your baby.

What books?
Follow the age guidelines above to help point out which type of books to read at what age levels. Sometimes it helps to pick out books that you yourself enjoyed to read, or have read to you, when you were growing up. Don't get to hung up over reading the "right" book. Sharing the pleasure and enjoyment of reading together with your baby is more important than what you are reading.

One my own personal favs is Dr. Seuss books.

Should I be teaching my Baby the letters and words in the book?
The focus should be on the enjoyment of reading. Trying to teach your baby letters, syllables and words can take away from the pleasure of story time. Your child will on his own eventually make the connection between the words on the page and your voice. Instilling the enjoyment of reading is much more important at this early age then teaching how to read. I'm not saying you can't teach your baby letters or words, just that the enjoyment and fun of reading should be the primary emphasis.

BabyTV coming to Canada?

2007-04-16T12:56:00.000-07:00

Rogers recently announced a new channel joining their lineup, called BabyTV
http://www.shoprogers.com/store/cable/ptv/programming/baby_tv.asp

This is not good. TV for babies/toddlers is harmful for a child under three's development and general well being. The only defense of programming geared for babies/toddlers is that since some parents are letting their kids watch TV anyways, lets at least give them the right content. But I think parents are being tricked into thinking they are helping their baby with "educational" DVDs or programs. They read the false marketing and don't realize they're being tricked when they buy that "Baby Einstein" dvd.

The American Academy of Pediatrics clearly states that

Children of all ages are constantly learning new things. The first 2 years of life are especially important in the growth and development of your child's brain. During this time, children need good, positive interaction with other children and adults. Too much television can negatively affect early brain development. This is especially true at younger ages, when learning to talk and play with others is so important.

Until more research is done about the effects of TV on very young children, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) does not recommend television for children age 2 or younger.

How does TV hurt your baby? It's taking away the precious time a baby has that could be used in interacting with people and/or it's environment. There are even studies linking ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) to TV watching for toddlers. But parents are caught between...

needing some available time to do household chores or simply some "away" time from babywatching
believing the promotional advertising that baby video/tv programs do to falsely promote the benefits of their products

...so they buy into the idea that some "educational" TV watching is good.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/05/11/baby-tv.html

http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/eco/tvdanger.html

http://www.commercialexploitation.org/news/canadababytv.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/20/AR2006032001801.html

Baby crying is actually communication

2007-04-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

I think I'm a normal male in that I dislike to hear baby crying. Maybe I'm at a restaurant, or on a bus, and I hear a baby crying very loudly. I don't know the baby or the people with the child, but I just want the noise to stop.

Well, now as a future father I need to know more. When watching the movie "Meat the Fockers" I remember Robert De Niro's character (Jack Byrne) trying to "ferberize" the baby, saying responding to a crying baby only encourages it to cry more. In the movie when the baby cried they would try to ignore the baby, and pay no attention to him. This is wrong. From what I've learned it's actually taking things out of context from what Ferber wrote about sleep training for babies.

When a baby cries, it's trying to communicate in some way. Crying is one of the building blocks in communication learning for the baby. Ignoring the baby when it cries can lead to future delays in it's learning to talk. Baby cries should be met with comfort and attention. The baby can't talk yet, and is using crying as a method to try and communicate with you. Pay attention to it. I know it's difficult (probably more so for Dads) to always be able to figure out WHY the baby is crying. I think some of that comes with experience. I found a webpage that has audio of babies crying and analyzes what each cry means. Click here to go to it. I'll have to wait and see if this helps me or not.

Flux is crux

2007-04-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

The baby's first three years plays an enormous role in its future. More so than previously thought.

Allies to a bright future are
(1) Enjoyable intellectual and physical stimulation
(2) An environment of trust, love, and safety

Let's talk about the first point for a minute. This period of time is critical for brain development. Synapses in the brain that aren't used will die, with no chance of future rebirth. Boredom and humdrum time wasting activities are clearly the enemy.

Play with the baby, talk to it, engage its five senses. Interacting with your child one-on-one with happy and stimulating play is much more beneficial to the baby's future then simply sticking the baby in front of the TV and playing some 'baby einstein' type video.

Give the baby a (safe) environment to explore. Rather than confining the baby into small enclosed spaces let him/her out to explore (with you supervising).

Read outloud to your baby.

In doing any of the above, remember that this can not be a chore or done in an unhappy way on your part. Remember its "enjoyable" stimulation that helps. Don't pressure your baby, or do activities that feel forced or contrived. These need to be happy, positive experiences.

Smart Happy Baby

2007-04-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

There are three primary goals for our future baby/child.

(1) That he/she lead a happy life
(2) That he/she be smart
(3) That he/she lead a healthy lifestyle

The baby's due in late September 2007. So until then I'll be educating myself on what I can best do to promote the above goals.