Hello Again

I'm sure every so often something will come across me that makes me soooooo angry.
So I might as well keep this blog going.

I've been trying to review three books
Babywise and The Sleep book and Save Our Sleep
but I get so up set when flicking through the pages I find a little paragraph that goes along the lines of
How long should I leave my child to cry?
Until they stop!....
You have to teach them that crying doesn't work...
If they are teething just give them pain killer and put them back in their cot...

My God are we totally barbaric?
Know wonder we have some totally mucked up people around today!
They have been taught right from the beginning that no one cares!
And no matter what they do they will be ignored.

So are we creating kids that are becoming more attention seeking...violence, crime, theft, drugs, alcohol, teen sex, suicide, selfishness, deveant, mean, crule, depressed, quiet, unmotivated....flat and lifeless.

Yup I think there is still some anger there.
Please leave your comments
Megan

More web sites to see

Wow there is just soooo much information out there.... I feel dumb with the fact that I thought that I could just be a parent in today’s world without educating my self.
I’m still working through Pam Leo’s book. I really recommend it. She has put me on to more links/web sites with just so much mind-blowing information. Mind blowing as that is what we seem to be doing to our children today.

Get the book from Amazon...took ages to come from Whitcoulls

http://www.amazon.com/Connection-Parenting-Through-Instead-Coercion/dp/1932279172

I've also been looking at aTLC's - ALLIANCE FOR TRANSFORMINGTHE LIVES OF CHILDREN ... www.aTLC.org web site as well which is very intresting. Some good ideas/blueprints to help parents of today. I feel that it is very encouraging.

Also been taking a very quick look at Baby Matters www.babyreference.com ...not finished looking at that totaly.

I've been reading about Dr. Michael Lamport Commons and his papers about .... "Babies who are made to sleep alone or are not picked up and comforted enough may grow up susceptible to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and personality problems" excerpt Dr. Michael Commons of the Harvard Medical School, and colleagues.

Meeting a child's needs part 1

When we see parenting as the job of trying to control children's behaviour, parenting is a struggle because we cannot control children's behaviour. When we see our job as that of meeting children's needs, we enjoy our children, because we can meet children's needs.
Pam Leo.

Went I first started out as a parent I was trying to hard to fit Ara into my life...I was trying to bend her in so many different directions and she really did not want to go. Most of the time she screamed her protests.

Once I learned that we had to work together my life became so much more pleasant and I really fell in love with Ara for being her self.

Respect Part 1

The words we here so often today from the older generation go along the lines of “The children of today just show no respect to their elders”

Wouldn’t it be nice to receive respect from a person out of love rather than fear?
Wouldn’t it be nice to show some one how much you respect them because you feel that they are a really wonderful loving caring successful person.

Over the past 100-150 years, parents more often have been gaining respect from their children through fear or in short bulling. But is that really respect? How does that sit with you?

You cannot make someone like you through neglect, belittling, manipulation and control. You will have a halfhearted friend who will drop you and the first chance of meeting someone who shows them love and caring listening and understanding.

We are creating children that either need to be belittled and manipulated to feel loved or we are creating children that need to bully put down and abuse to show their love.

How mixed up are thoughts feelings?

Why do we not from the start show a child that we love them through love?
How about we start holding our children when they are hurt, listening to them when they try to talk and explain. How about we treat them, as we would like to be treated ourselves.

The respect and mana we would gain from our children, friends and family would be far greater and longer lasting.We would be remembered with love not fear.

Bring about World Peace

Holding your child when they need it is one of the most wonderful gifts we can give to our children. They feel safe, loved, wanted and respected. As parents we learn to respond to their actions and they to ours.
Attachment Parenting will give the world more Gandhi of loving strong and bonding and less Hitler a product of sever abuse violence and humiliation.
Pam Leo’s book Connection Parenting “Parenting through Connection instead of Coercion, Through Love instead of Fear” helps us to understand ways to do this. The Sears family have written many books with wonderful suggestions, which we can try.

Look at James Prescott PhD Article How Culture Shapes the Developing Brain and the Future of Humanity.

http://www.kindredmedia.com.au/info/how_culture_shapes_the_developing_brain_and_the_future_of_humanity/57/1

Here is an extract from that article if you don’t want to follow the link.

Ten Principles of Mother-Infant Bonding to Change the World

The following changes are essential if this new cultural brain of the infant/child/teen is to be developed. These changes would provide for a greater comprehensive structure of cultural change for the assurance of peaceful individuals and cultures.

1. Every pregnancy is a wanted pregnancy.

2. Every pregnancy has proper nutrition and prenatal care — medical and psychological — and is free from a toxic womb of alcohol, drugs, tobacco and other toxic agents of stress.

3. Natural birthing.

4. No genital mutilation (circumcision).

5. Breastfeeding on demand for two years of age or beyond.

6. Intimate body contact — babywearing during first year (and co-sleeping for the first two years and beyond).

7. Immediate comforting is given to infants and children who are crying. No infant/child should ever be permitted to cry itself to sleep — day or night.

8. Infants and children are for hugging and should never be physically hit for any reason or humiliated.

9. Infants and children are honoured and should never be humiliated nor emotionally abused for any reason. The emerging sexuality of every child is respected.

10. Mothers must be honoured and not replaced by any institutional day care because it harms children under five years of age.

James W. Prescott, Ph.D.

Sites of intrest 1

Some more interesting sites that I’ve found last night

Dr Allan Schore http://www.allanschore.com/bookandtape.htm#

“Dr. Schore is a pioneer in integrating social, biological, psychological and psychoanalytic theory. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of his work he has published extensively in the neuroscience, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, pediatric and trauma literatures and is on the editorial staff or reviewer of 18 journals including the Journal of Neuroscience, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Attachment & Human Development, and the Journal of Analytical Psychology.”


Kindred one family one world http://www.kindredmedia.com.au/

“Articles are drawn from an internationally diverse team of writers and professionals on the front lines of their fields, exploring issues that impact our children, families and planet, ranging from education, natural birth, optimal child development, medicine, psychology, healing, spirituality, politics, relationships, family dynamics, natural parenting and global and environmental issues. We translate evidence-based material from neuroscience, genetics, biology, psychology, economics and sociology into practical and understandable framework for making the best choices possible for you and your family.”

Co Sleeping Part 1

I’ve been looking at the web site for “The University of Notre Dame Mother-Baby Behavioural Sleep Lab”

Very interesting and totally recommend a good look.

I love the questions like - Why We Never Ask “Is It Safe for Infants to Sleep Alone”. This article talks about “poor quality data to generate sweeping public health recommendations”.

I know from our own experience of having Ara in the “Family Bed” it has defiantly made a big difference to our life.
My observations of having Ara in the cot or her own bed are she is more restless and will wiggle around a lot in her sleep. Also once she was able to roll over her self she would always be sleeping on her tummy (not the best thing to prevent SIDS so we’ve been told). But while she sleeps with us she seems to sleep deeper and move less. Every so often a little hand or foot will reach out to check that we are there – in her sleep – and she settles back into a deeper sleep. Ara also spends most of her time sleeping on her back or side while in the family bed which so we’ve been told is the best.

Also the benefits of Co-sleeping on breast-feeding are great. You don’t need to get up and wake up fully to get a baby out of its cot to feed it so you feed more often. This helps to keep your milk supply up, your sleep levels up, your baby well feed in the right amounts and times and also keeps the attachment levels up as well so the baby is not so needy during the day.

Dr James McKenna from the “The University of Notre Dame Mother-Baby Behavioural Sleep Lab” talks about the history or Co-sleeping and also the reasons why it fell out of the norm.

I suppose it cuts down to...if you’re feeling pretty shaky in your relationship with your spouse that you can’t have a small child between you (one that you made) then your better off with out your baby in your bed.
If you are a strong Catholic – the church talks about starving mothers over laying their children. If you’ve been watching too many movies with romantic sex scenes you’ll never see a baby in the cot or bed in the room as well.
You’re worried about the child’s independence (check out http://www.nd.edu/~jmckenn1/lab/ to learn more on that angle)
Or is it germs, which are keeping you from your baby.

BUT we must be careful there are still safety issues.
Parents should not be smoking, taking drugs, heavy drinking, heavy sleepers or very obese.
Sleeping areas should not be waterbeds or couches or beds with too many pillows.

If you really cannot sleep with your baby in your bed it is recommended that you at least sleep with it in the same room.
J. McKenna PhD, J. Sears PhD, P. Leo....and many more just ask and I’ll give you more to read if you need.