Raymond Parenting

Blog

Attachment Parenting: To Sleep or Not to Sleep?

Posted May 6, 2012

Following the philosophy of Attachment Parenting needn't interfere with a parent's ability to help their baby learn to be a good sleeper. There are ways to do both.

The most important step a parent can take toward helping your baby learn to sleep well begins with simply putting your baby down - awake - and  giving her time for and practice in getting herself to sleep.  Doing this from the very beginning is one ideal way to  help your baby learn to self-regulate.

Your baby bases everything on her primary relationship. As soon as an early relationship with you is activated, she'll use you to help her self-regulate. She'll learn to regulate her sleep/awake times, hunger/fullness and her whole spectrum of emotions - based on this all-important primary relationship. When she is happy she'll see that reflected in your steady, confident response. When she is angry or sad, she will be looking to you for that same steady, confident demeanor.

Being consistent about feeding for hunger and avoiding feeding to sleep helps your baby get acquainted with the signals she is receiving from her body.  She'll know how to signal hunger and fullness to you and she'll learn how to take herself from an awake state to a state of sleep. 

Caring for your baby this way will support her self esteem and growing competence, allowing her to have the best possible start in life. 

 

| Subscribe to email updates for this blog

(0) comments

Read more...

Filed under: Feeding and Eating, Sleep

---

Can Little Kids Make Decisions?

Posted April 30, 2012

Family decision-making is usually done by parents.  I see a more balanced family structure when the parents are comfortable giving children their unquestioned leadership.  But a decision and who who has the power to make it -  has a shade of gray to it, depending on the age of the child and the style with which the parent governs.  So what decisions can a child make and which ones should remain with the parent?  How you handle this in your family can make the difference between a child "running the household" versus a balanced, adult-led environment - where children can still feel some empowerment.

 

Some Examples of Adult Decisions

• Bedtime
• Food that comes into the house
• Food that will be available at mealtimes and for snacks
  
• Screen time allowed (TV, computer, iPad, phone, games, etc.)
• Times when adult is available for play
• Time to leave the house and time to come back inside at the end of the day
• Timing of the diaper change
  

Some Examples Child Decisions

• When to actually fall asleep within the bedtime framework
• Whether to sleep soundly all night or to be awake, fuss, sing, etc.
• Where in their own room they will sleep (bed, floor, sleeping bag)
  
• Whether to eat when food is ready
• What / how much to eat of food being served
• How long to whine when parent is busy
• How hard to fight during diaper change

I bet you have other decisions that come to mind.  Does it belong to parents or might it be OK if it belongs to the child.  What is your opinion of adult-led decisions about the family structure and the child-led decisions that might happen within that structure. I look forward to your reponse.  How does it work in your household?

 

New Raymond Videos Just Released!

Toilet Learning the Easy Way    Perfect for families who can't make the seminar in Calgary or would prefer to watch instantly in their own home.  Downloadable.

Setting Healthy Limits Age 1-3 Years Children need parents to provide unquestioned leadership as they struggle to learn self-discipline.

  Seminars

Sleep from the Start (prenatal) Thursday May 3, 2012  Bethany Chapel.  3333 Richardson Rd. SW 

Sleep from the Start (prenatal) Thursday June7, 2012  Bethany Chapel  3333 Richardson Rd. SW

Sleep from Now On (12 lbs. up to 3 yrs.) Tuesday, June 5 2012  First Church of Nazarene.  65 Richard Way SW

| Subscribe to email updates for this blog

(0) comments

Read more...

Filed under:

---

Changing Houses

Posted April 23, 2012

Maybe we should have organized our lives like many families do, and change houses every five years or so. Then you avoid getting too attached to just one house.  Instead, I've prided myself on the fact that my children grew up with a 'sense of place' and always knew where home was.  That was how my husband and I grew up and we fit right into the mold. 

We've lived in our present home for 36 years.  It is a 1912 house and we've added on and changed things to suit us over the years.  All our children, grandchildren and even all our dogs are measured against the woodwork in our kitchen.  When we remodeled this kitchen 20 years ago a previous plank of measurments was carefully removed and is stored in our garage.

Are we being overly sentimental or does every family go through this even when they have moved frequently?

 

Massive construction of infills all around us have turned our neighborhood into a development zone.  Each time an old, wartime house  goes down (most demolitions last around 17.5 minutes) we put up with the dirt, dust mud and noise and about a year later we study what goes up in it's place.  Then we watch to see who moves in.  Mostly we only see a moving van and by the next day it seems each family has gone underground. Few children and nobody sitting on their porch to wave to and stop and talk to about the weather.  I imagine the parents are working all day and children are elsewhere and when they arrive home they must scurry inside - so fast we never catch them.

We often travel to Victoria.  We wish we knew a neighbor we could ask to take in our mail or watch the house.  Nobody knows us here any more.

I realize many neighborhoods are not like ours and I hope you feel at home in yours. And when we move in June, there will be tears - because our roots go very deep here - but I'm optimistic that we'll eventually feel at home in ours, too.

Thank you for reading this.  It's all I felt like writing about today.

 

| Subscribe to email updates for this blog

(6) comments

Read more...

Filed under:

---

Page 1 of 40 pages  1 2 3 >  Last »

Parenting Seminars
and Support