And no matter how hard it is, remember…

Tip 6. This Too Shall Pass

Our kids are only little for such a short period of time. It isn’t always easy dealing with night wakings or sleep deprivation and I know it is frustrating for a lot of parents. I think it is important though to realize that it will pass, things will get better. You do not need to teach your child to self-soothe using cry it out. Your child will learn that skill with time on their own. In the meantime, if these tips are not working and you are frustrated, get some help. Certainly spouses/partners should help each other and find a way to share nighttime parenting wherever possible. Beyond that, find someone that can help you out during the day so that you can take a long nap when things are really rough.

I’d love your questions, comments, and suggestions on the topic of gentle ways to get baby and toddler to sleep. You can find additional tips on my original article – Gentle Baby and Toddler Sleep Tips.

While some of the tips I’m suggesting require mom and dad to make sacrifices – Like Watching Baby’s Diet – I’m convinced that any effort you make to keep your baby and toddler healthy and happy pay off in the number of hours of sleep you will get. Here are two more tips.

Tip 4. Consistent Napping

Good sleep promotes good sleep. A lot of parents whose children do not sleep well at night mistakenly think it would be a good idea for them to give up naps. Instead, parents should try to institute a consistent nap routine. The baby’s last nap should not be too late in the day either to ensure that it doesn’t interfere with nighttime sleep.

Tip 5. Comfortable Sleep Environment

Wherever your baby sleeps, ensure that it is comfortable. That doesn’t mean adding all sorts of blankets and pillows (which can be dangerous). Instead, it means making sure that your baby is dressed appropriately for the temperature in comfortable pajamas. It may mean using things like white noise to help your baby to sleep. It certainly involves ensuring a smoke free sleep environment, not having smokers sleep in the same room as the baby, and ideally a smoke free home altogether.

A calming Bedtime Routine and Lots of Fresh Air and Exercise are important for establishing gentle sleep patterns. Here’s another tip:

Tip 3. Watch your Baby’s Diet

It is possible that something the baby is eating could be contributing to sleep problems. Some babies that are on formula have sensitivities to certain types of formula. For babies that have started solids, food allergies or sensitivities can impact sleep. Also, certain types of foods consumed too close to bedtime can prevent good sleep. This includes anything containing caffeine (chocolate, sodas, etc.), foods high in sugar, artificial colourings and preservatives, foods high in protein and simple carbohydrates. You should replace those foods with foods that promote good sleep, such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables. In addition there are certain foods that contain tryptophan (a sleep inducing chemical) that are good evening food choices (despite many of them being proteins). These include turkey, tuna, certain types of nuts (not for babies), cottage cheese, hard cheese, yogurt, soymilk, tofu, soybeans, eggs, bananas and avocados.

Yesterday I introduced the concept of gentle methods for getting babies and toddlers to sleep without letting them cry it out. Over the next few days I’ll give additional tips.

Tip 2. Lots of Fresh Air and Exercise

With my kids and with lots of other kids I know, this is the single most important factor in determining how well they sleep at night. When our son was going through a really rough period with sleep as a toddler he was spending several hours outside each day running around. When we doubled the amount of time he was spending outside his sleep improved exponentially. Even in cold climates (we live in Canada), I recommend finding a way to get outside with your kids every day (bundle them up and go for several short trips outside if need be) and finding places for them to get exercise (playgroups and indoor playgrounds are great for this, but other options include going for a walk around a museum or a mall or other place where your child can walk for a long time). So if you’re spending 2 hours being active with your baby or toddler, try 4 hours instead and see if that makes a difference. Our kids need that exercise and fresh air anyways, so even if it doesn’t help with sleep, it is a good thing nonetheless.

Many parents struggle with getting their toddlers to sleep. It not only impacts the toddler, but mom, dad, and other siblings. I do not consider my children’s sleep to be a problem. That doesn’t mean that they never wake up and it doesn’t mean that there are not tough nights here and there, but on the whole I get enough rest and my kids get enough rest.

Over the next five days I’d like to share tips for getting babies and toddler to sleep better without using the cry it out approach.  There are additional tips and resources in the original article from which this was excerpted, but let’s get started here and please chime in with your questions, comments, and suggestions for gentle ways to get babies and toddlers to sleep.

Tip 1. Calming Bedtime Routine

Children need time to calm down and prepare for sleep. Having a consistent bedtime routine can be useful in giving the child cues that sleep time is coming. There are likely things that you do each night before bed, such as putting on pajamas, brushing teeth, reading bedtime story, nursing or rocking, and so on. Try to do those things in the same order to help your child understand what is coming next and learn to calm down through that process. You may also want to have a few routines that you alternate. For example, one routine for bath night and another one for other nights. One for weekdays and one for weekends. One that involves Daddy and one that involves Mommy. Having these alternate routines can help keep things smooth on nights when things need to change up a bit (e.g. one parent isn’t there, you are visiting friends, a favourite book is missing, etc.) Also, create a calming environment during the bedtime routine. For example, turn off any bright lights (dimmers are great), television, and loud noises at least an hour before bedtime (ideally no television in several hours leading up to bedtime if you allow television at all). Consider building a massage into your bedtime routine.

By phdinparenting – Excerpted from Gentle Baby and Toddler Sleep Tips

If you have ever visited a parenting message board, you’ll be familiar with these questions:

• At what age is it okay to start sleep training?
• When should you potty train your toddler?
• At what age should children learn to read?
• When do you lay down the law when it comes to table manners?

Many people will offer answers to these questions – the so-called “experts” who write parenting books, the other parents on message board, your mother, your sister, and your best friend.

My answer to these questions, and the reason I don’t get stressed about these things, is that parents should start teaching their children these things at birth and their children will respond when they are ready. Going from diapers to underwear, from being rocked to sleep to going to bed on your own, from throwing the food off the high chair tray to using a fork and knife correctly, none of those are things that happen suddenly or abruptly.

• Potty learning begins at birth, by doing elimination communication or by changing your baby’s diaper immediately when it is wet or dirty, by talking about bodily functions, and by letting them see you use the toilet.
• Sleep training begins at birth by creating an environment that is conducive to sleep and being consistent in your bedtime routine.
• Language training begins at birth by speaking to your child even when they cannot understand you and if possible having one parent or other family member speak to the child in a second language.
• Manners training begins at birth by saying please, thank you, you’re welcome, excuse me, gesundheit and other niceties to and in front of your baby.
• Literacy training begins at birth by reading to your baby and reading in front of your baby.
• Empathy training begins at birth by demonstrating compassion to your baby and to others.

Some children will pick up some of these things more quickly than others and that is just the way that life goes. Just as some people excel in math and others in sports, some babies will sleep early and speak late, or sleep late and speak early. Some may be ahead of the curve on everything, making the parents feel competent, only to have them thrown off by a second baby who is completely different.

Start at birth. Be patient. Trust the process. Listen to your child, not to the books and not the calendar.

How have you helped your child along the natural path of learning?

Sometimes life catches us off guard. We feel like a deer in the headlights. Sometimes things change so quickly that we are left shocked and confused. Have you ever felt that way?

How do you think you would feel if:

• You lose your job over something you didn’t know you were doing wrong and aren’t given an opportunity to change your ways?
• Your spouse left you suddenly?
• Your best friend backs out of your weekly lunches with no warning because she’s sick of hearing you whining?
• Your boss tells you a week before Christmas that there won’t be a bonus this year when you had been counting on it to pay for gifts?
• Your car breaks down, you can’t afford a new one, and you just have to make do without?

How do you think a child feels when:

• Suddenly and abruptly transferred from being cared for by mom at home to going to day care full-time?
• Going from being rocked to sleep every night to suddenly being left to cry it out?
• Having a diaper withheld when needing to poop because he’s old enough to understand that he should do it on the toilet?
• Being weaned cold-turkey from mom’s breast or parents’ bed?
• Being told that he doesn’t need a pacifier or a lovey anymore because he’s too old for that?
• Being snapped up and taken out to the car (“time to go!”) while in the middle of playing with something with no previous warning?

People, especially children, deserve to be given warning, to be given a chance to adjust, to be given an opportunity to learn. When transitions are necessary, make them gently, be patient, take the opportunity to teach and to explain.  Be sure to communicate, come up with solutions that will work for everyone, give your child the opportunity to learn and to make mistakes when learning. Some people are happy to just let things happen in their own time, but even if you are not, ensure that you push gently.

What is the alternative to abrupt changes? Tomorrow I’ll talk about the gentle path to learning.

My partner and I have been practicing our own brand of equally shared parenting since we became parents. We don’t feel like it is important to split everything down the middle. However, we do think that it is important for us to both contribute daily to the management of our household and raising our children. Each family needs to find an approach to this that works for them. This is ours…

Focusing on our relative strengths

We each have things that we like to do, things we are good at, things we hate doing, and things we are not good at.  Knowing what those are has helped us to create dividing lines in the household chores that work for us.  I understand the argument that a good independent feminist should learn how to do everything herself in case she ends up on her own one day, but honestly, I prefer to focus on earning enough money to pay someone to do the things I can’t or don’t want to do if I was ever in that situation (which I hopefully will not be).  And really, if I need to learn how to clean a toilet one day, I will. I don’t need years of practice.

So our division of labour, focusing on our relative strengths, goes something like this:

Me:

• Managing finances (banking, investments, bill payments, taxes, etc.)
• Shopping (groceries, kids’ clothes, etc.)
• Cooking (meals at home, kids school lunches)
• Vegetable garden (new this year!)

Him:

• Cleaning (dishes, vacuuming, scrubbing toilets, etc.)
• Garbage
• Snow removal
• Landscaping and home repair

Shared:

• Laundry (whoever notices that a load needs to go in, but arguably more often him than me since he is home more often than I am)
• Car maintenance (usually he takes his car, I take my car, but sometimes it depends on who has time and is in the right place)

I am generally the primary income earner in our family, which is part design and part circumstance (he has been a student and a stay-at-home dad, while I was getting ahead in my career). However, now that both kids are in school full-time and he is working on finishing his PhD, the roles may reverse again and I may head back to school at some point or choose to work part-time for a while once he has a job with sufficient income.  I have also taken several breaks from my work to be a stay-at-home parent, during each child’s newborn stage and also this past spring and summer while we were living in Berlin.

Sharing what is important

We split a lot of things, but we also share what is important: being parents to two wonderful, yet challenging kids.  We have both taken turns being the stay-at-home parent, even though he spent more time in that role than I did. We both think about the best approaches to parenting, even though I do more research and reading on it than he does. We both love our children, laugh with them, play with them, cry with them, and cuddle with them, but we each do it in our own way.

Why squabble over things that aren’t important?

Even when things are split down the middle and both partners have equal experience and expertise with a task or responsibility, they will still have disagreements about how to do it best. The one thing we do split most evenly is parenting and we don’t always agree on the best approach to everything. When we aren’t on the same page, we hopefully discuss it and resolve it more often than we undermine each other. But in stressful moments, that isn’t necessarily always the case.

If we were both the experts on everything in the house, however, I think that there would be a constant case of too many cooks in the kitchen.  I don’t want someone adding spices to the sauce as I cook. He doesn’t need anyone pointing out the spot he missed when wiping the counter. We each have our own tasks and it is just easier when the other person keeps their nose out of it altogether. It keeps the fights to a minimum.

Parenting, however, is the exception. It is difficult enough, important enough, and rewarding enough that it is worth sharing, even if that is challenging sometimes. While difficult situations may strain a relationship, I think that surviving important struggles together makes it stronger.

Last week I attended a conference on Motherhood, Activism, Advocacy and Agency in Toronto, Canada. One of the recurring themes was the image of the “good mother” and the consequences when regular mothers do not live up to that model.  Mothers end up being criticized by society for not living up to the mainstream ideal. They also frequently internalize critique and end up feeling guilty or depressed because they cannot be the type of mother society expects them to be.

One of the speakers, Amber Kinser (also known as Dr. Mama), talked about forgiveness. She talked about the need for us to forgive our own mothers, to forgive our children and to forgive ourselves. For example, she asked:

Can we forgive our mothers for not being omnipotent? Can we see imperfect children (including ourselves) and not blame the mother? If we could forgive our mothers for not being perfect would that make it easier to forgive ourselves? Can we forgive our children for coming into our lives at the wrong time? For being too needy? For not being needy enough? Can we forgive them for remembering things differently than we do (especially if that paints us in a bad light)? Can we forgive our children for having a better life than we did and not appreciating it? Can we forgive our children for not being all the things we wanted to be but weren’t or can we forgive them for being the things we wanted to be when we couldn’t?  Can we forgive ourselves for all of our imperfections, poor choices, failures and inadequacies?

Those are all important questions and considering them carefully can bring us closer to being more accepting of our own mothering skills.

But there is one question she asked that stuck with me and that I try to remember on the days when things are going well and the days when they aren’t going as well . She asked:

Are you too invested in mothering highs (supermom moments)? Does that set you up for disappointment in other moments?

What do you think? In your quest to be the best parent that you can be while also being realistic about the fact that you are not a perfect parent, do you calmly swim with the ebb and flow and good and not so good parenting moments? Or do you seek out those supermom moments everyday and beat yourself up for being a bad mom when you cannot live up to that? If it is the latter, what do you think you can do to turn it in the former?

Once upon a time Madison Avenue created the image of a perfect housewife.  She was white, pretty and well-groomed, a doting and loving stay-at-home mom, a good housekeeper and cook, and an obedient wife. Every woman should want to be just like her and, if advertising executives played their cards correctly, women would rush out to buy specific products in order to fit into that mould.

On the one hand, the image of the perfect housewife created an extremely powerful consumer group. On the other hand, it also created very specific expectations about what a good wife and good mother looks like. The responsibility for child rearing and for the family home was placed squarely on the shoulders of women, along with the lion’s share of the blame whenever something did go wrong.  The advertising industry plays on the desire of women to be good mothers and their fear of being a bad mother.

If the children are doing poorly in school, it must be the mother’s fault. If the children are obese, it must be the mother’s fault. If the children are misbehaving, it must be the mother’s fault. The responsibility for the intelligence, health, and behaviour of children isn’t understood within a complex sphere of different influencing factors (as it should be). Instead, it is viewed through a lens of what the mother did or didn’t do.

This creates two broad sets of problems:

• First, the expectations that are put on mothers create a very narrow picture of what a “good mother” is. Women who do not comply with that image are criticized by society, by researchers and also by themselves. Women internalize the image of the “good mother” and feel guilty when they do not live up to that. This image fuels the so-called “mommy wars” and also fails to recognize the diverse range of ways that mothers can have a positive impact on the lives of their children and the resilience of children in persevering in spite of an imperfect mother.

• Second, it fails to recognize the potential contribution that fathers and even communities can have in raising a child. This frequently results in the contribution of men in raising children and running a household not being recognized or valued or even being stereotyped and belittled. It also fails to account of the potential of the community, or village, in raising our children.

How can we move away from placing expectations and blame squarely on the shoulders of mothers?  How can we move beyond the image that Madison Avenue created and reach a place where the diverse contributions of mothers, fathers and communities in raising children are valued and balanced?