Category: APtly Said

In It For The Long Haul

In the course of any given day, I know I make hundreds and hundreds of parenting choices. Some are mistakes. The majority are adequate. And a few rare ones are golden. Most of my parenting choices, however, seem to matter very little if measured in days. The accumulated effect of all those daily choices is what makes a baby into a kid and a kid into an adult.

 

People seem to be chocked full of parenting advice for babies and young children, but by the time they get to be teens, many families I know are running for the nearest counselor. My 14 year old daughter Ella has school-mates and friends who are contending with depression, angry outbursts towards parents and teachers, running away, and even inflicting physical harm on themselves by cutting. Many suffer from eating disorders. She looks around her school at her peers and is often confused by these behaviors and attitudes. She will ask her friends “Why don’t you talk to your mom about it?” to which her friends will reply “I can’t talk to her about anything. She hates me.”

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Disciplining The Sensitive Child

I have two children, a four-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl. They have vastly different personalities, and I’ve had to tailor my parenting to address those differences. My son is energetic, independent and fearless, he is a picky eater, and even as a young baby, he didn’t sleep a lot. My daughter is more reserved and cautious, she sleeps and eats well, and she’s quieter.

The differences between them are most apparent when it comes to discipline.

When my son was two, a timeout was effective form of discipline for him. He’s the kind of kid you needed to physically pull away from sticking his fingers in the electrical socket because he wouldn’t listen any other way. A timeout is still a part of my discipline repertoire for him, and part of the reason it is such a punishment is because he has to stop playing, leave his toys and be by himself sitting on his bed. 99% of the time, he comes out a few minutes later, all apologetic and hugs me and says he won’t do whatever it was he did. Now that he is four, disciplining him continues to be a more “hands-on” approach. We don’t spank our children, but I do have to take his hands, and have him look me in the face, so I have his full attention. Continue reading “Disciplining The Sensitive Child”

The Gift of a Day

My birthday is three days before Christmas. My husband took the day off of work and my mom said she’d help with whatever I needed so it could be my day. Even with those generous offers, I’ve had a very hard time figuring out how I’d like to spend my time. I don’t want to go shopping or out to dinner. I couldn’t even decide if I wanted a cake.

Figuring out what I wanted to do for me was challenging, I think, because I spend most of my days looking after people I love. The ubiquitous warnings about how your life changes when you have a child, how you should go to the movies or grown-up restaurants didn’t prepare me for the utter transition of self that comes with becoming a mama, especially an AP mama. For my last two birthdays, I couldn’t imagine wanting to be away from my son. The best way I could spend my birthdays was being with a person I had birthed into the world, but he just turned two and I feel differently this year. Continue reading “The Gift of a Day”

AP in the Hospital

Last month, my 17 month old son had to stay overnight for an operation.  It was a routine procedure, but I was still wracked with worry.  It broke my heart when he cried for food the morning of the operation and I couldn’t give him anything.  As we waited in the hospital for his surgery to begin, the nurses started bringing around breakfast and he’d point and sign ‘eat’, crying because he didn’t understand why we weren’t complying.  I cried as he went in to surgery and again, with relief, when he came out safe.  As we met him in recovery, he was wearing a sleepsack that was tied down to the mattress of a crib.  It wasn’t completely unexpected, as I’d seen other children on his floor restrained in this way while he was in surgery, but I still worried that they would somehow hurt my baby. Thankfully I can go here to get legal assistance if they harm him in any way during his stay at the hospital.

When he woke, he was disoriented  and became distraught fighting the restraints.  I tried my best to calm him and after asking the nurses, I breastfed him, leaning awkwardly over the side of his crib to do so.  He fell asleep and the surgeons came in to speak to us.  I told them that our son wasn’t used to a crib and it wasn’t easy to breastfeed him the way he was placed. They didn’t really say much back, I’m not sure they really knew what to do, but the nurse with them did.
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Trusting my instincts

When my son was 16 months old, I decided to try leaving him with a babysitter while I went to a medical appointment.  Up to this point, he’d never been cared for by anyone other than me, my husband, or very occasionally by his grandparents.  He knew the babysitter fairly well, but nonetheless, was miserable the entire time I was gone.  She eventually resorted to wearing him on her back, but even there he wasn’t terribly happy.

I know many people would have taken this as a sign that he needed to get used to being cared for by others,  and recommended that I start leaving him with a babysitter on a regular basis.  I even got offers from some of my friends to look after him.   Continue reading “Trusting my instincts”

Baby, Give Me a Sign

Our daughter has a lot to say. She’ll chatter animatedly to any available audience . . . she just doesn’t include many recognizable words in her conversation. At 16 months, her verbal vocabulary includes “mama” and “dada,” “hi,” “baby,” “no,” “cat,” and a couple of close approximations of “belly button” and “nose.” Fortunately, she isn’t limited in communicating by language – she can sign!

We started baby sign language with our little one when she was about 7 months old. Initially, we introduced just a few signs associated with her favorite activities: nursing and eating. She picked up the sign for “all done” first (waving her hands away from her body), providing a conclusion to mealtime we much preferred over the previous method of dumping whatever was left on the floor. Next, she added a sign for “drink,” adapting our example of a thumb to the lips to pointing with her index finger at her mouth while tilting her head back. Continue reading “Baby, Give Me a Sign”

Ringing in the New Year

As the year turned to 2008, we celebrated New Years at home with our five and a half month old son.  This year, we decided to head out to a party with our now 17 month old along.  We were invited to a kid-friendly party at a friend’s house and I couldn’t be happier to spend the evening among friends and family.

Normally I don’t make resolutions on New Years Day.  I’m a big believer in making the change you want happen as soon as you want to, but this year I had a change of heart.

I’m already a strong believer in AP, but there are some things I could do better, so this year I’m making eight resolutions to go along with the eight principles of parenting. Continue reading “Ringing in the New Year”

Patient Parenting

I would like to be a more patient mother and it turns out I’m not the only one! My readers have told me they want to be more patient too and a 1999 York University study commissioned by Today’s Parent found that patience was the top skill parents felt they needed and impatience was the number-one attitude they didn’t want to pass on to their children.Not only is being patient more pleasant for all involved, I also find that it is more effective. If I am impatient, my son tends to dig in his heels and be stubborn and my daughter gets whiny and clingy. But how can we slow down and be more patient?

I would like to be a more patient mother and it turns out I’m not the only one! My readers have told me they want to be more patient too and a 1999 York University study commissioned by Today’s Parent found that patience was the top skill parents felt they needed and impatience was the number-one attitude they didn’t want to pass on to their children.Not only is being patient more pleasant for all involved, I also find that it is more effective. If I am impatient, my son tends to dig in his heels and be stubborn and my daughter gets whiny and clingy.

Good things come to those that wait

Parents are under so much pressure these days from relatives, friends and peers. It used to be that people maybe knew a few others with children their age, but now with the Internet and online forums some moms are interacting with hundreds of other moms whose babies were born in the same month. Continue reading “Patient Parenting”