Co-sleeping refers to any sleeping arrangement in which the primary caregiver, usually the mother, sleeps within close enough proximity to her infant so that she and baby can respond to each other’s sensory signals and cues. Research by Dr. James McKenna, Director of the Mother-Baby Sleep Laboratory of the University of Notre Dame, showed that mothers who sleep close to their babies enjoy a heightened awareness of their baby’s presence that protects him. The mother is more aware if her baby’s well-being is in danger. The baby also experiences a less deep state of sleep, which enables him to awaken more easily if breathing difficulties arise. There are a number of options for parents who would like to co-sleep. First, your baby could sleep in the bed with you. It's recommended that the baby sleep between mom and a wall, and not beside dad because dads may not have the same instinct to not roll over onto the baby. The baby should be beside a wall so that he cannot roll off of the bed. Or, you could use an infant in-the-bed co-sleeper like the one below. You could also consider side-carring a crib, which is where you take off one side of the crib and put the crib against your bed, To learn how to sidecar a crib check out this site: http://sidecarcrib.webs.com/ If you're worried about baby falling in the crack between the crib and your bed you could use Magic Bumpers, which have many uses. We still use them when we're traveling and the kids have to sleep on the floor. The bumpers create a nice bed area. If you'd rather not deal with the hassle of side-carring a crib, you could buy an Arm's Reach Co-sleeper like this one: I always wanted an Arm's Reach Co-sleeper. We ended up using something similar for our daughter, but much less expensive. It was the Fisher Price Rock and Play Sleeper. My daughter slept completely through the night in this thing. Every night. But boy did she nurse like crazy during the day! She stayed in it for 5 months and then graduated to a crib in our room. Here is the Rock and Play Sleeper: This is the Amby Baby Hammock and it has great reviews. It's cozy and it swings vertically, to simulate the movement of mother's womb as she walks. Great quality but quite a price tag. So, how long should you co-sleep? That's different for everybody. I don't think a child should have to sleep alone if he/she doesn't want to. Maybe six months, maybe six years. Every child and family is different. And co-sleeping doesn't have to mean the child sleeps with you in your bed or right beside you. For some people co-sleeping simply means having an extra bed for your child in your room in case he/she wakes up at night and wants to be near Mom and Dad. If you think that six years is too old just remember that many people in the world live in one-room homes their whole lives and in essence co-sleep their whole lives!
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Before I was a mom I was a preschool teacher, and I was pretty hard on my students' parents. They didn't know that I was hard on them, but in my head I made a lot of unfair assumptions. I assumed that if one of my students was energetic and had a difficult time sitting still it was because his parents must let him watch TV all day, which was over-stimulating his brain. And if one of my students had a speech delay it was because she wasn't exposed to enough language at home. If a child was overly sensitive and cried easily it was because there was a situation at home that was emotionally draining. If a child at the grocery store threw a tantrum it was because the parents never disciplined. If a baby had a bald spot on the back of his head it was because he was rarely held. If a baby had dirt between his fingers it was because his parents didn't bathe him sufficiently. And if I visited someone's home and it was messy, it was because they were lazy. Now that I am a mom, and have also cared for close friends' children, I feel like such a horrible person for jumping to such conclusions about anyone.
All children are born with very unique personalities and challenges. Some children are more energetic than others, some are more sensitive, some are curious, and some are persistent. Even children who are exposed to a lot of language can be late talkers. A friend of mine has a 14 month old who hasn't said her first word, even though my friend constantly speaks, reads, and sings to her. Some children, on the other hand, can be exposed to very little language and vocabulary, but become early talkers. All kids move at their own pace. And if I see a child misbehaving at the store it could be because of a number of reasons. Maybe he didn't have a nap that day, or maybe he has an emotional disorder, or maybe something in his diet is triggering the behavior. It could also be that this was the very first time the child had ever misbehaved in public and the parents, caught off guard, didn't know how to respond. Who knows. I also now know that not every baby with a bald spot is rarely held. Some babies just have more delicate hair than others and some move their heads more vigorously than others. And all kids (especially the adventurous ones) just get dirty. Babies get dirt in between their fingers. Big deal. Their fingers are short, chubby, and get slobbered on all day. I also now understand that just because someone's house is messy when I visit doesn't mean that they're lazy. Maybe they were in the middle of de-cluttering, maybe the parent has an energy-zapping condition that I'm unaware of, or maybe they just stay home with their children all day long making memories. So basically what I'm saying is, let's try giving people a break more often and remind ourselves that we all have our own unique situations and families. And until we've walked a mile in their shoes let's just hush a bit. Pluggedin.com has been a favorite website of mine even before I had kids. If I want to know about a specific movie before watching it this site will tell me about any offensive elements it may contain. For example, if I wanted to see the movie The Hangover (which I never would) the review on pluggedin.com would tell me specifically about the spiritual, sexual, and violent content, the crude or profane language (F word is used 70+ times in The Hangover, by the way), drug and alcohol content, and other negatives. I would then know for sure, after reading this review, that I never ever want to watch The Hangover.
Pluggedin.com is a great website for parents. There have been times when I wanted to show my kids a "kid movie," but wasn't sure if it contained anything scary or controversial. For example, The Cat in the Hat is rated PG, and many would assume it's a kid movie. But after reading the pluggedin.com review I now know that there are many sexual innuendos. There is also plenty of alluding to profane language, like "a snot-nosed son-of-a- [Conrad’s mother walks in] wonderful woman," and the cat alluding to an acronym that spells out the S word. So never mind that movie. Pluggedin.com also has music, TV, and game reviews. I hope you check out their website! When I was in second grade my Grandma taught me some signs she had learned while working with children who were unable to speak (not necessarily deaf). She saw how much interest I took in it so she bought me a sign language book for children. During recess I would sit down and study that book until I learned the whole manual alphabet and a few other signs. For a long time I didn't do much with it until I was required to attend a certain number of seminars at a Head Start convention. They offered a Baby Signs seminar, and even though my students were five I chose to attend. I was pregnant with my son at the time, and was considering teaching him signs, so that was my real reason for attending that seminar. It intrigued me that babies as young as six months old could communicate with their parents by signing. When my son was three months old I began signing basic words to him (eat, more, diaper, sad). Then around one year old we bought the Baby Signing Time DVDs. He had never seen a TV show before so he was in total awe. We have learned so much from these videos. We also have the music CDs and dance to them all the time. Once my kids learned all the signs from Baby Signing Time we moved up to Signing Time. We watch two per week to keep the signs fresh, even though they already know all of them. We've learned hundreds of signs from these videos. And I bought a dictionary to continue learning more words. Both my son and daughter were able to communicate with us way before they could speak. I remember when my son was about one year old he signed "look, flowers, wind" to tell me to look at the flowers blowing in the wind. It was so cool. Some people are nervous about teaching their child sign language because they think it will delay the child's speech. I'm not sure if this is true or not. It didn't really matter to me. Eventually they will talk. My son was a late talker. My daughter was early. I don't think it has anything to do with the signing. I just think it's their uniqueness. |