No-Cry Solution Series Author
Elizabeth Pantley is a parent educator, mother of four, and the author of the now-classic baby sleep book, The No-Cry Sleep Solution, as well as six other books in the series, including The No-Cry Separation Anxiety Solution, The No-Cry Potty Training Solution, The No-Cry Discipline Solution, The No-Cry Picky Eater Solution, plus other successful parenting books. She is known worldwide as the practical, reasonable voice of respectful parenting.
It is amazing experience to watch your toddler grow and change on a daily basis, but it is hard to know if their progress is typical or if you should be concerned. This post will give you a handy checklist of toddler development and milestones.
Unique yet Similar Patterns
Don’t think about your breathing – in through your nose, and out. Taking a nice deep breath. Don’t think about breathing.
More than likely, you are now thinking about your breathing! Despite being complex human beings, the simple mention of something puts it front and center in our brains. Our brain ignores the “don’t” and focuses on the actionable part of the sentence. This effect is multiplied in a child’s brain, because they are so accustomed to listing to an adult’s instructions.
Parents take on many different tasks each and every day. They are constantly busy and always feeling stressed. Having the stress of tending to their children’s needs, pressure at work, and responsibilities at home leaves little time for themselves. Parents struggle to focus on self-care, which means that they don’t eat right, they don’t exercise, and they don’t get enough sleep.
Rocking babies to sleep is a very natural way to help them sleep, and human beings have been doing it since the beginning of time. It makes sense that babies often nap better when we recreate womb-like experiences. They love to sleep in warm, cozy, slightly noisy, gently moving places, so parents often use all sorts of motion to put their baby to sleep - rocking chairs, baby swings, sling carriers.
“Hurry up!” “We need to go!” “Get moving!”
Sound familiar? It is hard not to get frustrated when you are trying to get everyone out the door, on to the next activity, or ready for bed. It is even more frustrating when your attempts seem to slow everyone down even further rather than speed them up.
To get a better handle on this, let’s talk about why kids dawdle, and what you can do to help…
Kid-Time
We’ve all been in a situation where you’re at a friend or relative’s house, the playground, or even at the grocery store, and their child is being rowdy, rude or disruptive. The parent stands by and does nothing to correct his or her unruly child, which leaves you to question how – and if – you should handle this situation.
Nothing exciting happening? Kids bored this weekend? Try one of these free and easy ideas for things to do with your kids – they’ll provide a ton of fun:
1. Decorate the house for the next holiday. Break out the ribbons, bows, construction paper, wrapping paper, balloons and anything else that can be used for decorations. And don’t forget to decorate the chairs and table, too!
Parenting is a more than full time job. You’re constantly busy and likely stressed from handling a million tasks from morning ‘til night—and everywhere in between. What with taking care of your children, your own work and other responsibilities, you rarely have even a brief moment to take care of yourself. Healthy eating and exercise gets thrown to the wayside, sleep is disrupted, and self-care seems almost impossible.
While you want your child to get good quality sleep—the amount of sleep your child gets is just as vitally important. Your child’s health, development, and temperament are dependent upon how much sleep he gets both during the day and at night.
Does your preschooler reject the idea of taking a nap? Are you wondering if naptime is a thing of the past? Energetic children don’t understand the physical benefits of sleep; they see naps as an unwanted interruption in their day. If kids were given the choice they’d never sleep – day or night – until they simply fell over! Leaving the decision to nap up to your child, then, is like allowing her to choose between vegetables or cookies for dinner.
