If I had my child to raise all over again,
I’d build self esteem first, and the house later.
I’d fingerpaint more, and point the finger less.
I would do less correcting and more connecting.
I’d take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.
I would care to know less and know to care more.
I’d take more hikes and fly more kites.
I’d stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.
I’d do more hugging and less tugging.
I’d see the oak tree in the acorn more often.
I would be firm less often, and affirm much more.
I’d model less about the love of power,
And more about the power of love.

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1.Feeding at strict hours, by a ???parent-made??? schedule.

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Starting as soon as the new-born is brought home, mothers and fathers come up with a feeding-plan: whether the baby is breast-fed or bottle-fed, he has to eat every 3 hours (or more/less). Later on, toddlers are served their meals by a certain schedule and the meals are mainly divided in 3: breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Why?

Studies and personal experiences of mother-friends have revealed that the best way to feed your new-born is ???at demand???. Try to figure out the signs showing you that your baby is hungry and feed him. Forget about the clock, your baby is not a little ???adjustable??? robot. He may be hungry sooner than 3 hours or would rather eat lesser meals per day. As long as the baby is healthy and does not need extra- or special care, the best approach regarding feeding is your baby???s own approach. After you???ve identified the ???hunger-signs??? of your baby, feeding will only come naturally and smooth.

As for toddlers, you might think that serving them their meals at certain hours or moments of the day will make things easier for you. Then why are you even surprised that sometimes your toddler refuses meals or spends half and hour or more eating? We have been taught that we ???must??? eat early in the morning, then at noon and last but not least, before we prepare for sleep. But this does not mean that there is no other way. Listen to your toddler; observe him. Maybe he is not a ???breakfast person??? and would rather have a glass of milk in the morning. Or maybe he doesn???t necessarily prefer soup at noon. Adjust your meals and your cooking to your toddler???s preferences, allow him to express what he would rather eat and when, and he will soon create a schedule of his own.

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2. The ???Don???t-Get-Dirty-Syndrome???.

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Many a times I have found myself being startled by a loud scream at the playground, a panicking scream coming from a parent or a baby-sitter. However, at observing what is going on, I could see no injured kid and nothing terrible having happened.

Then why the screaming? Oh, it must be the ???don???t-get-dirty-syndrome???. Most parents and baby-sitters have it. I used to have it, too, carefully inoculated by my own parents. Yet, I???ve always failed to understand why this fear of getting dirty. Kids love getting as dirty as possible. Sometimes they don???t even notice it, until a panicked grandmother or a hysterical baby-sitter announces them that they are ???a total mess???.
They were playing in the sand, what would you expect it to be? And why does getting dirty have to get in the way of playing?

I dare say that most of us posses a washing-machine. Moreover, I dare say that supermarkets have come up with so many washing-products that getting dirty is now the last thing on my mind.

What if your kid gets dirty? You can simply place the clothes in the washing-machine and the kid in the shower- and it won???t even take so much time. Let your kid explore the fascinating puddles and build mud-castles, there???s no harm done. And if you feel really relaxed, just join him and get dirty too. You???ll feel absolutely great!

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3. Saying ???NO??? too often and too much.

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Doesn???t it make you feel powerful? Doesn???t it make you feel like you???re in total control? Saying NO too often and even when it is not necessary is just another authority-issue concerning parents and kids.

Most parents expect to be obeyed and followed as if they were some almighty gods for their kids- however, most of the times, they are simple humans with authority issues. When they feel insecure or maybe just nervous, the easiest way to deal with the situation is to say NO to their kid. I bet that they wouldn???t even know how to explain why they said NO most of the times, should anyone ask them.

When I find myself very close to saying a NO to my kid, I try to think it up a little bit before verbalizing it. If Anne has her biscuits on one plate and her milk in a cup and she starts pouring the milk on the biscuits (and, yes, most of the times on the table, too), I tend to issue a NO. Deep down I imagine that things will turn messy and she won???t drink the milk and we will have to throw the biscuits away. But if I just give her a moment or two, I will see an ingenious baby-chef mixing milk and biscuits and eating them up with a spoon.

What I am trying to say here, is to save your NOs for real ???NO-situations???: for example, when the kid runs towards the crowded highway or tries to bathe the kitty-cat. If you keep on saying NO to each and every action of your kid, not only will he no longer hear your NOs when he should, but you will also deprive him of the confidence of trying something new.

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4. Spanking. Hitting. Violence.

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My daughter has never been spanked or hit. She has no idea what this kind of violence is and she cannot understand what happens when she sees it. If we are at a playground and two kids start fighting, she is almost shocked and urges them to stop (in her own language); if she spots a parent applying corrections to a kid, she is speechless.

I have never understood how one can spank or hit his own child. I have never accepted it and I have never considered it as a good or proper educational method. Spanking is hitting and hitting and violence towards your child is wrong. When you feel like hitting your child, it is not because he has been ???naughtier??? than usual, but because you are getting tired or too nervous.

Even if some try to understand and accept spanking a child when the adult has a nervous brake-down, I cannot find it excusable. We do not go on hitting our boss or our employees when they make us really nervous. Then why should we excuse hitting a helpless child?

As for spanking as punishment (If-you-don???t-stop-yelling-I-will-beat-you) by a completely calm and lucid adult- this is absolutely intolerable. I will not talk about this here, but in a later post.

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So, this is my short-list of things about parenting I do not understand. They are not insurmountable issues and it is up to every parent to try to cope with them and understand what they really mean. The result will be a more calm and happy child and all the incredible joy he can bring into your life.

Good luck!

A very long time ago, I used to think that having a baby would mean the end of our spontaneous and delightful trips and voyages and I have to admit that this thought did not make me feel quite OK; I love traveling. I love going from place to place, from destination to destination, with or without a compass or a plan. Ever since I graduated high-school, I had been taking any opportunity to travel and to visit different places. As someone put it, “it’s not where you end up, but what you do along the way’- and sometimes the destination did not even matter at all, it was the trip itself that counted.??

And then, we had Anne. She seemed fragile and routine-demanding and I was not so sure that our traveling could go on.??

But it did.

We made our first trip when she was about 3 months and we visited my parents somewhere 400 km away from our residence-town. It’s not too difficult to imagine that I could have filled up 2 or more cars- and yet, we only had one -luckily. At first, I made a list. It was a huge list, considering the fact that I was still breast-feeding and she did not eat any solid foods. When I come to think about it, at least 50 % of the items on my list could have been left at home; we carried a hundred or more little baby-clothes and baby blankets and baby bed-sheets. I added dozens of diapers (as if we couldn’t buy them at our destination!), medicines (fever-reducers, colics-syrups, calcium, etcetera), wet-napkins, more baby-clothes, familiar toys, formula (even if she did NOT get any until 4 or 5?? months!), pacifiers, shampoos and more. I was so focused on not forgetting anything from my list, that we actually did not forget anything at all.?? However, by the time all our luggage was packed, I was already exhausted.??

The trip lasted 7 or 8 hours by car, considering the two or three pauses we took. Anne was quite comfy in her car-seat, but I thought she must have needed some time off the car and, besides, she needed to be fed. I have to mention that we never go anywhere without placing her in her car-seat. Therefore, we have searched for and bought the most comfortable car-seats (for her) so far, since I would not drive a single mile without one. So, the trip itself was quite alright and we even enjoyed our stay at my parents’.??

Car-trips became something quite natural for the three of us. Up to this moment, I still consider our car a lesser house of ours and our baby has always felt comfortable on the road.??

The second challenge regarding traveling was when Anne was around 6 months and we had to get to Paris. We thought the trip quite thoroughly and we decided that traveling by car would be rather tiring for all of us. Traveling by plane was our best choice; I must admit I was quite nervous myself, since I had never traveled by?? plane before, nor had my husband. This time, I had to pack up things more rationally and “everything” fit into 2 pieces of luggage and 2 hand-bags. She was older now and needed baby-food, so we had to carry lots of supplies and some formula. I also packed too many clothes, a habit that I still hang on to, even if I realize that we never really get to put all of them on. We arrived at the airport 2 or 3 hours earlier and we checked in quite easily. We spent some time inside the airport and she was quite interested in everything around. The best thing we could have ever taken along was a very light baby-stroller where she spent a lot of time sleeping. Anne was quite calm and happy during take-off and during the flight, she even slept in my lap half of the journey. Curiously, she did not want anything to eat during the flight, she only had some water.??

Paris was quite baby-friendly and I will always think of it as one of the most beautiful and emotional cities of the world.

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Traveling by train was a piece of cake, after flying and we were always very comfortable while doing it. However, we still rely on our car a lot and most of our trips were made by car.??

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More on traveling with our baby in another post, soon.

The forest was already waiting for us:

??

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??And the view was absolutely fantastic:

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Little hobbits making plans:

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??Robin-Hood perhaps?

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??The road is never a straight line:

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??Look, mum, a bug!

????

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Therefore, having in mind all the “good” pieces of advice of how things must be, we used to put our baby girl to bed on her own and even placed the bed in a different room when she was 6 months old. Luckily for us and even more luckily for her, we didn’t have the heart to leave her crying at any time, so we did not proceed with letting her cry herself to sleep. She used to fall asleep in my lap while breast-feeding or in my arms, and then we would gently place her in her bed. Afterwards, I would always go to bed in my husband’s arms, for I wouldn’t imagine ME sleeping on my own.

??

Soon after we “positioned” her in her new room, we encountered more nocturnal wakes than before- perhaps the teeth growing or something else, but no one was getting too much sleep those nights. It didn’t take me too long to realize that it was not alright-?? after waking up in the middle of the night, she would usually fall asleep quite difficultly and my sleep was also challenged. It was but natural that we take her to sleep in our bed; at first, I would bring her in between us when she woke up at night and she seemed to be sleeping perfectly till morning. When we moved into our new house a couple of months later, co-sleeping was already familiar to us.

??

She is now 2 years old and is still sleeping in our bed. We positioned the bed near one of the bedroom-walls and it is me who sleeps in the middle. She has her own pillow and little blanket and it is quite a wonder how smooth our nights can be. We are definitely getting more sleep and there is nothing more beautiful than seeing your baby when you first open your eyes in the morning. That’s something you just cannot describe, it must be lived.

??

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A couple of days ago we were in the mountains in our hotel room. After dinner, Anne fell asleep and we enjoyed some movies and some snacks. At about 11:30 pm we went to bed too and this time she was sleeping in the middle. I have no idea what it was, but I suddenly awoke an hour later. Both Anne and my husband were sleeping but I was perfectly awake and conscious. So, I touched her forehead. She was burning. I got up and as she started to easily moan in her sleep, I wetted some towels and woke her up. My husband was already awake and he understood quickly that our daughter -who went perfectly healthy to sleep- was having a quite difficult fever issue. I explained to her that I was going to put some wet towels on her legs and a little wet towel on her forehead, because she it was too hot in the room and she needed to be chilled. I have no idea if I explained it correctly to a 2 year old, but that was the first thing that came to me.

??

After putting the towels on her, I suddenly remembered that I had also brought some fever-reducing medicine with us. I gave her the syrup and turned off the lights. She was still very hot and as we arrived home the other day, the thermometer showed 40 degrees C.

??

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I do not know what would have been, were she not sleeping with us. Would I have still woken up and would I have still checked on her? I really, really do not know. But it’s definitely not the first time. She had some stomach-flu episode a couple of months ago and it first manifested itself in the middle of the night when she started vomiting. Yes, I dare say, luckily she was sleeping with us.??

??

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Far be it from me trying to convince everyone that this is the best way it could be. However, for us it is the best way at this particular moment. And if you’re still not convinced that co-sleeping might also work for you and do you good, I recommend that you also read??this great article.

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Diana

But then, it came to me. I didn’t have to do things as one would do them in a book or in a manual. That’s no way of talking and writing about kids and parenting. It can’t fit into one formal manual, nor can it be divided into more-important and less-important chapters. And since everything matters just as much, I thought of putting everything down…just as it comes. I’m not going to start with your kid’s first day or with the importance of breast-feeding just because they come sooner than other aspects. I’m not going to present you a silent movie of my daughter’s evolution from day one to almost 2 years old. So, don’t be surprised if today I’m talking about the magic of the “terrific twos” and the next day I will be focusing on baby’s first night at home.

What you should know, however, is that my husband and I are doing our best to practice natural parenting and attachment parenting and that we believe that the greatest gift connecting us with our daughter is simply love- pure and unconditioned. Our daughter Anne is almost 2 years old and she is without any doubt the person who has taught me the most important lessons of life, parenting and of being happy. We are growing together every day and we will try to share with you the experience of a journey as wonderful as I could have never imagined it before.

Diana