A Baby's Perspective On Sleep Training OK, here's my situation. My Mommy has had me for almost 7 months. The first few months were great--I cried, she picked me up and fed me, anytime, day or night. Then something happened. Over the last few weeks, she has been trying to STTN (sleep thru the night). At first, I thought it was just a phase, but it is only getting worse. I've talked to other babies, and it seems like it's pretty common after Mommies have had us for around 6 months. Here's the thing: these Mommies don't really need to sleep. It's just a habit. Many of them have had some 30 years to sleep--they just don't need it anymore. So I am implementing a plan. I call it the Crybaby Shuffle. It goes like this: Night 1--cry every 3 hours until you get fed. I know, it's hard. It's hard to see your Mommy upset over your crying. Just keep reminding yourself, it's for her own good. Night 2--cry every 2 hours until you get fed. Night 3--every hour. Most Mommies will start to respond more quickly after about 3 nights. Some Mommies are more alert, and may resist the change longer. These Mommies may stand in your doorway for hours, shhhh-ing. Don't give in.. I cannot stress this enough: CONSISTENCY IS KEY!! If you let her STTN (sleep through the night), just once, she will expect it every night. I KNOW IT'S HARD! But she really does not need the sleep, she is just resisting the change. If you have an especially alert Mommy, you can stop crying for about 10 minutes, just long enough for her to go back to bed and start to fall asleep. Then cry again. It WILL eventually work. My Mommy once stayed awake for 10 hours straight, so I know she can do it. Last night, I cried every hour. You just have to decide to stick to it and just go for it. BE CONSISTENT! I cried for any reason I could come up with. My sleep sack tickled my foot. I felt a wrinkle under the sheet.. My mobile made a shadow on the wall. I burped, and it tasted like pears (I hadn't eaten pears since lunch - what's up with that?) The dog said "woof" (I should know. My Mommy reminds me of this about 20 times a day.. LOL.) Once I cried just because I liked how it sounded when it echoed on the monitor in the other room. Too hot, too cold, just right--doesn't matter! Keep crying!! It took awhile, but it worked. She fed me at 4am. Tomorrow night, my goal is 3:30am. You need to slowly shorten the interval between feedings in order to reset your Mommies' internal clock. --------------------------------------------------------------- The Lighter Side of Birth Order by Laura Jana, M.D., F.A.A.P. We parents love all our children equally, of course, but most of us admit that, after each baby, our standards relax just a bit when it comes to the little things in life. Check out the observations listed below and see if any ring a bell in your household. (Please keep in mind that these aren't recommended practices-they're just meant as humorous observances on the art of parenting!) Baby bottles First child: Not only do you have your bottles lined up neatly in your baby bottle cabinet, color coded for breast milk, formula, juice, and water, but you buy a sterilizing kit and routinely boil nearly everything that comes in contact with your baby's mouth. Second child: You buy a convenient plastic rack to hold baby bottle lids and nipples, and pop everything in the dishwasher. Third child: Remember the five-second rule for when a piece of food falls on the ground? Diapers for your new baby First child: You buy top-of-the-line newborn diapers with the convenient umbilical cord cutouts and carefully stock the diaper holder so that it matches your baby's room. Second child: You move on to generic diapers and fold over the part that covers the umbilical cord until the cord dries and falls off. Third child: You grab as many extra diapers from the hospital's newborn nursery as allowed, and when you run out at home, you settle for the unused size 4's left over from your previous diapering days while you send someone out to buy more. Diaper disposals First child: You buy a Diaper Genie or other specialized container and use it religiously to dispose of all of your baby's diapers. Second child: You still have a Diaper Genie, and if you happen to change your baby in its vicinity, you use it. Third child: You ran out of replacement bags for your Diaper Genie last time around, and instead you keep a lot of old plastic shopping bags on hand to cut down the smell of the diapers in the household garbage cans. Monogrammed baby clothes First child: Your friends throw you a big party after the baby is born and you get the cutest little monogrammed baby outfit. Second child: You decide to spring for a similar monogrammed baby outfit for your second child so that she can have a baby picture that matches your firstborn's. Third child: Your baby is still decked out in a monogrammed outfit--it's just pink and bears his sibling's initials. Onesies First child: You look in a book to find out what a "onesie" is and then make sure to buy one for each day of the week Second child: You go through your old onesies and sort out the ones in the wrong color or that are too stained. You also make sure to buy enough to have a week's worth of onesies (which you now realize is closer to three per day!) Third child: You figure that color and spit-up stains don't show through an outer layer of clothing, and if one of the three snaps is functional, hey, it's acceptable. Stocking up on baby clothes First child: Full price. Second child: You still spring for full price for special occasions, but you basically outfit your child off the sale racks. Third child: Hand-me-downs and garage sales. Can't beat 25 cents a shirt, now, can you? Dealing with tantrums First child: You question what you've done wrong, get out the parenting books, and ponder how to best handle the situation so you don't damage your child's fragile ego. Second child: You yell at your child when she throws a tantrum, but give in because you don't want her shrieks to wake your other child. Third child: Your calm response to your child's tantrum is to ask "OK, so whom do you want to go live with?" Baby books First child: You record every coo and hiccup, and the pages are so full of memorabilia that the book won't shut. Second child: You keep your baby book in a big storage box along with all of the important notes, scraps, and photos in hopes of one day finding time to record all the memorable moments. Third child: Memorabilia gets hung on the refrigerator with a magnet and the baby book is still in its original wrapper, which proves to be very fortunate when you are invited to a friend's baby shower and find yourself at the last minute without a gift. Feeding supplies First child: Tiffany silver spoon and Royal Doulton Bunnykins cup and bowl. Second child: Matched sets of plastic, compartmentalized kid plates and utensils with cute designs. Third child: A motley assortment of free souvenir plates and cups collected from countless meals at family restaurants.

If You Give A Mom A Muffin If you give a mom a muffin, She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it. She'll pour herself some. Her three-year-old will spill the coffee. She'll wipe it up. Wiping the floor, she'll find dirty socks. She'll remember she has to do laundry. When she puts the laundry in the washer, She'll trip over boots and bump into the freezer. Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan for supper. She will get out a pound of hamburger. She'll look for her cookbook ("101 Things To Do With a Pound of Hamburger"). The cookbook is setting under a pile of mail. She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow. She will look for her checkbook. The check book is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two-year-old. She'll smell something funny. She'll change the two-year-old's diaper. While she is changing the diaper, the phone will ring. Her five-year-old will answer and hang up. She'll remember she wants to phone a friend for coffee. Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup. And chances are... If she has a cup of coffee, Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it. ~author unknown -------------------- Stay At Home Moms A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog. Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes,looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap, and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls. As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?" She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?" "Yes," was his incredulous reply. She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it." ------------------------------------ (See Next Post In This Thread For Still More Mother's Day Funnies)! :)

Please take a moment and take a look. Let me know what you think. I plan to email the link to my area rep and see if she wants to share it with the people at The Fresh Air Fund. And share the link if you can with people you know. Even if you can't host, you can help spread the word, and maybe that will accomplish getting some new hosts, which are always needed. :) Thanks! http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/203635.html

Oh my gosh. Kids come up with the craziest ideas!!!

:iagree:

Yeah for stuff like state park and environmental center programs around here, look up Sweet Arrow Lake Park and Hawk Mountain. And Hyzenthlay, speaking of ice and the Poconos, we used to live in the Poconos and I'll never forget the time I took my oldest daughter and a friend "snow tubing" for one of her January birthday celebrations. Snow tubing my butt. It was a hill of sheer ice that we went spinning down sideways and backwards and out of control. It scared the living daylights out of me. Never again. LOL.

As far as I'm concerned, Mother's Day is a perfectly good day to indulge myself. It might mean going and getting a pedicure, or shopping for a little something, or whatever. My husband will usually cook a meal of my choosing and we may invite my mother over for said meal or we may plan a separate meal for which we can include her. But I certainly don't look at it as some day where I have to expect everyone to be nicer than usual for a day and then get upset if/when it doesn't happen. I'd rather just splurge a bit on myself, have a nice meal at some point, and call it good. :D Hope your tomorrow is better than your today! :grouphug:

I'm not trying to be snarky here (because I've always agreed and considered myself to be very protective), but.... then what are you saying? That a kid should never be unmonitored? I mean, at SOME point I have to let her go off on her own, right? Are you saying you wouldn't let a 10 1/2 year old ride her bike around the block and stop at a playground around the corner with a group of other 8 to 11 year olds, a cell phone, and armed with as much as I can arm her with in regard to self defense and safety precaution skills? (This thread has me conflicted all over again lol).

LOL thanks for all the comments, everyone. Every time I open this thread I start laughing all over again. She's so funny!

My oldest is 19 (special needs) My middle is 10 1/2 My youngest is 5 1/2 We're on cycle four of TTC one last little one (I wish it would happen already lol). Oh and P.S. I just turned 38 on the 1st of this month. I have to say, I really LIKE the age difference with my kids. When my youngest was born it was GREAT that my older two were mainly independent. They could entertain themselves, they didn't need constant supervision, they were old enough to help out in some ways, they were old enough to understand when I had to just take care of the baby, etc.

I LOVED that movie. I must have watched it a thousand times as a teen. I had a crush on every male character in that movie LOL. Great cast!

I was going to say butterfly bush, too! My next door neighbor has one- they get very big and they're VERY pretty... and so are the butterflies they attract! :)

I'll second Teaching Textbooks. It's been really effective for my daughter who wasn't "behind" in math per se but who had been developing a "math is hard, I'm not good at math" attitude and we were both starting to kind of dread math. Teaching Textbooks has been phenomenal this year. She really "gets it," she's built up SO much confidence, her standardized test scores have vastly improved, and neither of us dread math anymore- in fact, she's called math "fun" and just the other day listed math as one of the things she's GOOD at. Who would have thought! :D

I'm really making an effort here to let go some with my 10 1/2 year old daughter. So far she's mostly only been allowed to stick to our backyard and friend's backyards or the sidewalk in front of the houses on our street. I almost never let her go off of our block without an adult. Something that was rough last year when all the other neighborhood kids (consisting of a girl a year older than her, a boy a year younger than her, and her twin cousins who are about two years younger than her) all started being allowed to ride their bikes "around the block" and stop at the park around the corner and so on. I PROMISED her that we would revisit that stuff "next spring, when you're 10 1/2." Well... here we are. :P I read "Protecting The Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (And Parents Sane)" by Gavin de Becker. (Loved). I am in the process of reading "The Safe Zone: A Kid's Guide To Personal Safety" by Donna Chaiet and Francine Russel with my daughter. (Loving). And I just today got in the mail from Amazon "Free Range Kids, How To Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts With Worry)" by Lenore Skenazy and started reading through the introduction and first chapter already. (Looking promising). I talk to my daughter about various types of safety and common sense issues. She's been taking Judo classes for months now. I even called my very small, local, suburban police department to ask them if there was anything I should worry about in the neighboring streets and areas where my daughter wants to go walking and bike-riding with other neighborhood kids and was told that there are no registered pedophiles in the area. I plan to give her a cell phone she can use when she's leaving our block so that we can get in touch with each other. I was allowed to leave the house and wander pretty much wherever I wanted whenever I wanted as long as I was home by dark when I was a kid and I came through (mostly) unscathed. I KNOW logically that odds are she'll be fine too. So why is is so freakin hard for me to watch my kid walk out of my sight without this constant worry that "something" is going to happen to her? And does that EVER get easier? (I have a 19 y/o daughter too so you'd think I'd be a pro at this by now, but because of her special needs it's just not the same, she's always had pretty much constant supervision all along).

We like to take off for birthdays.

LOL I've never watched either show, but Charlotte makes ME think of Sex And The City. :D

I'll post the whole story here, it's short. For some reason the ending really made me laugh. --- One cloudy day in the Caribbean, there was a little girl named Clara. She was only eleven years old. She loved to sing, dance, and play with her friend, Ali. Her father, Mason, and her mother, Alexandra, loved her very much. Her brother, Eli, was fifteen and teased her sometimes. She did not mind though. She loved her family a lot. Mason loved to take his daughter to the seaside. Now Alexandra was very ill and couldn't make the walk, so she got sea shells her daughter collected for her and listened to the ocean sound in them. It started the next day. A thunderstorm started to brew in the south side. (Clara hated storms like these. Once, in the time of her ancestors, a storm blew away their house, and they had to move to Topeka, Kansas and leave their family behind). The wind rattled the window in the log house, and Clara screamed! For she had seen (or thought she had seen) a wolf. Mason was comforting her, and her mother sang her favorite song softly. A moment later, her father took his gun and went to find the so called wolf. While he was out, Clara was allowed outside for a little bit just to get berries for food in case the storm lasted for days on end. Her father came back claiming he had not seen a wolf but that it would've made a good meal. The next day after eating just berries, the storm had stopped. Now her brother went on a bear hunt during the storm and was killed by a pack of wolves. They mourned for almost a day then tried not to think about it, for they hated the feeling. But they had moved on. They all had (well the rest of them did) a wonderful life. The End. --- Maybe I just have a morbid sense of humor but the whole "They mourned for almost a day" really made me laugh. Then again, so did Topeka, Kansas lol. :lol:

LOL! Love it!

Right when it came down to nearly the last minute and I was thinking Oh Dear, my son is going to turn four without being potty trained- he potty trained. It'll happen before you know it, don't worry. Just go with the flow as best as you can for now. :D

Yeah, uh... no. It wasn't all that long ago I was posting here that my 10 y/o daughter had drawn a picture of the Mayflower, then brought it to me, pointing at a particular spot and saying, "Look, it's the poop deck" and then bursting into a fit of the giggles. She'd drawn someone with their butt hanging over the edge, and, er, pooping into the water. And found that hilarious.

In that situation, it wouldn't bother me. Although I GUESS it might depend on the friend.

No.

If I had to pick one, I'd go with Lorelai. But there's nothing wrong with either one of those names so I agree with those who said that it should be your turn, period! :)

Also check out http://www.multiplication.com

In between, I guess! I didn't pull my daughter out of public school til toward the end of third grade (we're at the end of fifth now) and the plan as of now is to homeschool at least through 8th grade and then re-evaluate what we want to do for the high school years.