Let the Early Learning Begin!

[Tanikit]

Congrats! Sounds like you are enjoying your baby a lot and yup - in a few weeks your baby will be sick of just "tummy" and you'll have to start with full sentences How is your wife doing? I'm sure you are looking forward to getting your baby home.

[PokerDad]

So far this has been a bit of a roller coaster, and I haven't been feeling as though I'm doing my best - but perhaps I should cut myself a break? Okay, so long story...
My OP was made about 17 hours or so after [PokerBaby haha] was born, and I was just stunned at what he could do. There are systems in the human body that aren't even switched on in the baby until birth, so I couldn't help but feel optimistic. Then the second day happened. He was either trying to eat, crying, or sucking on a pacifier. I got him to vocalize one time only, so we went from three to one. Then third day into the fourth day was the worst because both of us had to participate in the feeding and it was non-stop feeding and trying to get him to sleep. Since mommy is more important, it was my duty to keep an eye on him during sleep since he would only stay down for minutes at a time (or so it seemed). Early learning really hit the skids.

BUT

Yesterday we spent an entire day between two doctor visits. PokerBaby developed full blown jaundice AFTER leaving the hospital 60 hours into life + wasn't getting the nutrition, sleep, or other necessities to flourish. Yesterday the doctors [finally] started helping. Before we were home from our second appointment yesterday, the health supply truck was in front of my door... funny because my next door neighbor has them visit every friday and so he thought they were there to supply more oxygen, but I digress.... we retrofitted an old 30 year old hand crafted crib into something that reminiscent of the movie Tron. PokerBaby hates it, but we've finally gotten into a rhythm in feeding and sleeping in his bilibed and biliblanket. The key was for him to figure out that I'll give him a bottle(!) once he's tucked into this thing... and then I have to sit there for an hour making sure to wipe up any spit up (I can't burp him with this set up).

I've learned a few things... 1. kids 4 days old can understand "bribery"... or at least tolerating if they're under the impression there will be treat at the end of it... 2. kids 4 days old do not need very many oral repetitions to develop a Pavlovian response as I hypothesized in my prior update. For instance, I've noticed that he's willing to delay his crying by a few seconds or drop his tone a notch in response to me saying "hold on" while I hurry to put together a bottle... he also instantly knew what to do after a single repetition when I say the word "Ready?"... he turns his head in the direction I'm at to get the bottle when I ask him this, and this response was conditioned after a single repetition!

He did vocalize for me once yesterday, but that was it, and it wasn't a mimic.

It was frustrating to watch him regress from one day old to 3 days old, but in seeing, we were able to cut off a key impairment that caused us the jaundice, lethargy, weight loss, and lack of opportunity to do anything other than essential survival stuff... this morning we were hurried into yet another doctor's office to have his Frenum clipped. Why this wasn't done earlier, I do not know... I also do not know why I had to make a big deal out of it just to have it done.

Thankfully, my wife is an educator (a sword that cuts both ways IMO) and she knows several kids with severe learning problems stemming from speech impediments due to being tongue tied during the formative years 0-2 and in some cases beyond. But even she did not see or comprehend the severity of the problem until day 3 when we were both up 21 hours attempting to get this child the nourishment he needed.

He still has to spend some time on the bilibed, but it's challenging to have him in that thing as many hours as he perhaps should.

Apologies for the long update, it's just I feel like I hit the starting gate just fine and then broke my leg the first few feet of a marathon (LOL)... we may not have been able to do as much learning since day 1 as I'd like... but I'm happy to report that we're doing everything within our powers to make sure he's ready and able to tackle life.

[Mandabplus3]

Probably more like a sprained ankle than a broken leg. The problems don't stop you from being in the race next week, just a little hiccup  A broken leg takes longer to heal than a few days in a jaundice blanket. How long does the tongue snip take to mend? I have no experience wight his one?
It probably feels very stressful and all consuming but I want to say overall in the giant sceme of things you have a healthy baby.
Pokerbub is hungry and doesn't care one little bit for your early learning goals until he is full and satisfied and comfortable. It seems to me you have your job all sorted out, and bub isn't going to let you forget it! 
I was reading Principles of Ability and Human Learning just last night. It had an interesting section on how babies quickly become conditioned to habit. If a baby is always fed in one room it will continue to cry until it reaches that room, yet a baby fed anywhere may associate being picked up by mum as feeding cue to stop crying. Seems your baby has picked up a cue from you, actually multiple cues! Cool! At 4 days old that's amazing. For the record I wish i had known that with my first child. She screamed her lungs out right until the point of nipple in mouth! Crikey, a cue for her could have been priceless to me! I wonder how long pokerbub can handle waiting between the cue and the delivery?  Feel like experimenting in increasing self control on a 5 day old baby? 
It's wonderful hearing all your thoughts. The plans, the goals and the reality with feelings are quite a priceless addition for many newbies on the forum. Not to mention that you yourself will read them in years to come and find them valuable too. Thanks for sharing.

[PokerDad]

Thank you, Thank you!

In response to the frenum clipping, the procedure itself lasts less than a second (snip, done). It's the set up that takes a few seconds. The doctor must have the child (or baby in my case) restrained and still (swaddling, holding the head), I don't remember exactly how he held the tongue up, but he was quite adept at it... similar to my marvel at how the dog groomer can get my dog to sit still while buzzing and clipping all sorts of body parts... my guess is that he used a ... (don't know the word for it) wide popsicle stick to hold it up, had a bright overhead light with binocular magnification attached and a pair of medical scissors in his right hand.

Baby's cry showed absolutely no response to the clipping action of the doctor. For baby, he hated just being held down on a table.

Recovery time? Instantaneous. Lactation professional was in the room for the procedure and then helped mommy do a feeding moments after the ENT doctor left the room. Everyone couldn't believe the difference in suck power and frequency of swallowing from before and after the procedure.

The biggest problem with being tongue tied, IMO, is that the parent's don't know it until their child has some problem... or maybe a doctor notices it, mentions it, and the parent doesn't realize this can be a MAJOR problem if not fixed, and it's really easy to fix (but will be arduous and expensive to repair the damage from not having it fixed in a timely fashion)

I feel like we dodged a bullet and that baby's weight loss, etc was a good thing... can you imagine how I'd feel in two years after our efforts only to find a huge hindrance that's nothing more than a flap of connective tissue that can be fixed pain free in two seconds

[Mandabplus3]

Wow thats amazing! So easy to fix! You are right to feel lucky, I could just imagine feeling soooo peeved to find out at age 2 or later! He should gain all that weight back quickly now then 
 I almost had one of mine hospitalised from lack of weight gain at the end of 2 weeks. There wasnt anything wrong with her, she just didnt put it back on fast enough. I was lucky the health nurse was quite pro breast feeding and gave me an extra day, told me to feed her, feed her feed her feed her, and come back tomorow. We just scraped through! and I mean just. Its funny how they can loose weight or not put it on and its so difficult to see a problem until the scale shows you the numbers. I am so glad your baby was one of the lucky ones. I hope pokermum ( ) is handling it all as calmly as you are.

[Korrale4kq]

My little Boy was jaundice too. It seems to be relatively common.
My son was/is failure to thrive on and off for the past 2.5 years. Currently I think he is gaining okay. His appetite has slowed down, but he still eats more than me. At one point he was consuming 4000 calories  a day.
He was born at 6lbs and was in premie clothes for 6 weeks, and newborn cloths for 6 months. He still wears 6month shorts.
He was tested for a whole slew of things and it just seems he is petite, with an amazing metabolism. ... Which I had too, until I had hm.

Glad you found out about the tongue ties early. It can effect the speech and nursing.

[Wolfwind]

Pokerdad, this is amazing.  I am very impressed that you're even thinking about early learning with everything else on your plate.  And thank goodness you got the medical help Pokerbub needed!  I hope things are less frustrating from here on out.  And you've made me excited to start with my next baby (hopefully coming in about 10 days...).  I will be following "How Smart is Your Baby" more closely than I did with my first, but I hadn't thought about the mimicking vowel sounds.  I'm going to add that!  And it's amazing that he responds to cues so quickly. It still astounds me what babies can understand; I still find myself thinking they can't.  Your posts are very inspiring; thank you!

[Tanikit]

Your posts make me smile - its clear you are enjoying your baby and will do so for the rest of his life. Don't worry about set backs now - he's just entered the big wide world and is taking it all in - sometimes he will need a rest. My first DD was also on a bilibed and it was tough, but the time really does fly by even if it doesn't seem like it when it is happening. I know nothing about tongue ties but glad to hear you got it sorted out without too many issues.

As for the roller coaster - remember that it has only just begun - in fact you are probably only just on the steep ascent now - it gets a lot more fun and scary too as they start to age a bit.  You will probably all feel very tired soon - remember that you can't learn or teach so well when tired and make sure you all get some rest as best as you can with a newborn in the house.

Its great to hear all you have been doing and get an update - remember learning comes in all sorts of ways and part of bringing up your baby/child is about what you are learning - your own learning has probably skyrocketed in the last few days. As for his learning whether you do something formal or not he is learning at a massive rate right now - he knows smells he's never smelt before, knows who his parents are, has heard clear speech, knows what pain is (I hate those blood tests they do for the jaundice), knows what nutrition is - even if you went to sleep for 24 hours right now his learning would be enormous - but when you do get the chance keep talking to him and telling him things - newborns are pretty amazing and I am still trying to persuade my DH that we need another (he is not taking!)

[JainaRei]

please keep up the progress reports Pokerdad. Your journing has been inspiring to me thus far. I'm definatly going to try the mimic the vowel sounds with my LO. Can't wait just a few more months for me.

[TeachingMyToddlers]

<a href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=4052428020269668962" target="_blank">http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=4052428020269668962</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/7WB0107rZXA&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/7WB0107rZXA&rel=1</a>

Have you seen this? I have talked to some other mom's who swear they can hear the differences, I either didn't know about it with #2 or it didn't work, I can't remember! But maybe it's worth a shot to try out.

I am so, so glad for him that you got him clipped early! Lots of problems avoided, kudos to PokerMom & Dad for getting it sorted out quickly!!! Lots of parents don't start an EL program until a few months or even a year + after the baby is born, so trust me, you guys are doing more than all right. There will be weeks, or even months over the next couple of years that EL is set aside for sickness, moving, vacations, job stress, life, whatever! The goal is to minimize it as much as possible of course, but understand that it's just part of the game. Sometimes they regress a little, or don't show they're learning, and other times they regurgitate all of the knowledge you didn't even know they had!

Medical issues definitely trump any and all EL of course, and you guys are still very much on the right path. We love the updates, keep them coming as time permits! New parenthood is exhausting I know,  and for many "free time" becomes non-existent for a while.    It's real live version of Truman Show, Early Leaning style LOL, we've all been watching this kid grow up since in the womb.    You really ought to start blogging you know, I'd follow you! 

[PokerDad]

I got the Dunstan DVD a few months ago and put the audio of the various cries on mp3 for review (So that I could memorize the cries). I think I got the DVD after TmT recommended it to me in a PM [pretty sure that was you!] . I got it from the library since the DVD is so expensive. It was helpful/been helpful in the sense that... well, ....

PokerBub has two basic cries so far: Neh for food and if this isn't immediately answered (as in, within 2 seconds) it goes to full out "ah" or "eh"...

As part of my communication with PokerBub, I use "Neh" as a word/vowel sound for food. "I know you want Neh. Mommy will give you some Neh" etc etc. I've noticed in general that mimicking PokerBub's vocalizations helps - maybe since we're moving into "Happiest Toddler on the Block" territory where you pace the complaint (allow baby to know he's been heard and understood) but maybe I'm drawing too much into it?

But back to Dunstan, I explained to my wife before he was born about some of the cries, especially Neh since it's my opinion that this particular cry stems from the instinct/desire to put the tongue on the pallet for sucking milk, and hence the "N" in neh.

Right now I'm feeling like a lesser parent in some respects. I've successfully EC'd him twice, semi-successfully twice, and really haven't figured it out in the slightest. He just gets so upset when he's not nursing or sleeping. He's rarely alert and just happy - though I do sense that this is getting better.... I guess the guilt comes from knowing better. I know better/am aware - and because of this, I have a bar of expectation that I put on myself (not so much on baby, it's what am I DOING)

I started keeping an activity journal a few days ago. In it, I'm also jotting down any observations. For example, yesterday I noticed that PokerBub is starting to vocalize more when he's not crying and these vocalizations seem to be becoming more diverse. I noticed today that his hands are becoming more active on the crawling track.... and such. With the journal, I plan on putting up a blog so that you can read what we're doing, what's working, what's not, and where we might be weak (so that hopefully you feel compelled to offer suggestions  )

PS... regarding my using his vocalization as a word with meaning - I do realize this is a bit pernicious if continued too long. I'm not going to be the type to use shortcut baby words, BUT I figure at this point I'm just trying to mimic his vocalizations in general to get the back and forth going more - and it seems to help so far.

[Mandabplus3]

Learning the baby different baby cries saved me a whole lot of time and stress. I highly recommend this! I had no clue with my first child...and she cried the most, of course it was because I wasn't hearing her! 
I never saw this Dunstan clip before but somewhere between baby 1 and baby 2 I could recognize cries for hunger, pain, discomfort, tiredness and sometimes overstimulation. Interestingly not just in my own kids! I could hear a baby at the shops and know what the baby wanted. Sometimes if it was an obviously clueless mum I would mention " oh your baby is making the cry sound for pain, he must have wind"   but usually unless already in a conversation with someone this one is best kept quiet!  I do mention the sounds to my kids though, hoping they can pick up the different cry sounds BEFORE they have children! 
Anyway, I have found it's not fool proof also. Sometimes baby makes a cry that just means nothing to me, or sometimes I will hear a baby I can't unrstand. I guess those ones speak another language! 

[TeachingMyToddlers]

Yah, that was me I guess.    I can't remember what I tell to who! 

Reading your last post I just laughed out loud at the observation part....I can just hear it now, right into the handheld tape recorder...

Captain's Log. PokerDad's Log. July 9, 11:39 pm. PokerBub in crying, distressed state. Suspect immediate demand for Neh or wind release. Engage trial and error soothing techniques STAT.

Stay cheerful, it'll all work out! He just got evicted from the coziest hotel on the planet with constant room service. You'd be pissed too!    He'll get over it, give him a little time.

[Mandabplus3]

               love it!

[kareenakocchar]

Hey everyone!! Congratulations to all the mommy's out there!! You really must be enjoying with your little monsters !! I am new to the forum, I have a daughter 5 year old , her name is amaira, and recently I am hooked to these forums!! Earlier it was facebook, now I just keep on finding new new things for my daughter so that she can learn a new great deal of things!! While going through these forums, I saw some amazing art and craft things, of how learning can be made enjoyable and fun too, how to enhance amaira's imagination & creativity!! Reading should be inculcated in children when they are small enough to read, even if they have not started going  to their kindergarten schools!! i found this cool way to make learn amaira alphabets and numbers through picture books and board books!! I got this Parragon My Big Book of ABC and 123 for her from hushbabies!! It is easier for her to learn abc and numbers, because through pictures, she remembers it later on too!! If at any time of the day, i ask her, she remembers it!! So, dont wait for school to begin, or dont let your child dependent on others!! At the end of the day, a mother can be the best teacher for her child.

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