It is also important to understand the distinction between co sleeping (sharing a room) and cobedding (sharing a bed).

Co-sleeping is highly recommended and thought to save babies lives as the mother is aware in her sleep and will wake when she becomes aware of a change in the child. I certainly wake everytime my son so much as twitches a finger.

If you google search "co bedding causes death" you still don't come up with any actual facts or cases, even with such a specialised search.

It is a touchy subject, and rightly, because those parents who are going to bed with their child under inappropriate circumstances are putting their babies at risk and it is a horrid horrid thought. I had nightmares about it last night.

Having said that the majority of us don't fit the danger group - drinkers, smokers, drug users, obese, heavy sleepers, medicated, soft beds, water beds.

It's pretty obvious to me why these people shouldn't be in bed with a child.

I love having my son with me, I would have been up every five minutes checking on him otherwise because I was so scared of sids.

But we each need to make our decisions.....which should be based on fact - not hysteria and hype.

I got this from an article on right brain / left brain.

Activities that stimulate the right brain are emotional issues, the creative process, recalling memorized lists, any unfamiliar event or activity, and holding the attention span. Seeing or feeling different sizes, seeing different colors, attention exercises involving timing, seeing unfamiliar faces, and meeting someone new also stimulate the right brain..

The right brain is described as thinking in the following ways -Random, Intuitive, Holistic, Synthesizing, Subjective, Looks at wholes.

To make a left brain activity more whole-brained you can add the use of - patterning, metaphors, analogies, role playing, visuals, and movement into your left brain activity such as reading.
 

[facts]

Our son slept in his cradle which was right against the bed, until he woke for his feed then, if I was super tired I'd go to sleep while he fed and he'd stay in the bed with us or if I was coping he'd go back in the cradle if he wanted to. Sometimes he'd reach through the bars on the cradle to hold onto my finger, precious times.

He's just turned two and sometimes he still comes in and sleeps with us, I think it's nice that he knows if he is uncomfortable on his own that he can come in and stay with us.

We went away for two weeks without Daddy to visit my family. When we came home Sabian slept with his fist tightly wrapped around Daddy's hair - just to make sure he wasn't going anywhere. It was beautiful.

Not so long ago, before we were civilized, a baby who slept in the "next cave" wouldn't have survived the night. It is natural for us to be together, if not entirely practical.

It stands to reason that you shouldn't go to bed drunk or drugged with a baby, in fact I can think of a whole list of situations where it is completely inappropriate, even negligent. But for the majority of us, most of the time, it is safe and simply a matter of what we are personally comfortable with.

I think you should give your friend as much information as you can so she can make an informed decision.

That's the important thing. There are so many myths and horror stories surrounding the topic that before you make a decision it's a good idea to have all the facts so you know you're informed and you can decide what suits your situation.

I believe they have found a gene that makes it possible to be left handed

check out this site it might have some answers for you, only just found it myself so don't know how good it is.http://www.lefthandersday.com

It must be hard to watch when you've been putting in the hard yard.

Your nephew had a lot more time in utero to develop, I think your son is doing marvellously well to have caught up so quickly to his birth age. A sign that you have been doing a lot of work and so has he 

The difference between putting in the time and using the tv sitter will pay off emotionally and physically down the line trust that you are doing what is best for your son and that the two of you are having priceless moments together that you can't replace. You'll be closer to him for it.

As for the crawling, my son didn't crawl till after he walked (despite much encouragement from us, he just didn't want to) so kids really do all develop differently.

Don't concentrate on which kid crawls first it will just stress you out and your bubba will know. Concentrate on having a good relationship with your son, because in the end it will be far more important that he is close to you and can come to you for anything than if he crawled a day or two before his cousin.

If you make sure he gets a rounded day filled with love, joy, experience, mental stimulation and physical stimulation he will gain so much and you'll have had invaluable bonding time.

Of course it is very hard to be rational when your emotions have been spiked.

Can't remember where I read it but I believe that exercise also helps the baby develop a sense of balance while they're still in utero.

I was doing acrobatics up to five days before I gave birth (obviously towards the end it wasn't much more than the odd cartwheel) and my son has an incredible sense of balance and just doesn't get dizzy. Maybe a coincidence maybe not.

Fantastic, my son loves his wink to learn dvds will be contacting your customer service re the 1 -1, what a fantastic offer for your customers - good on you guys, we were already loyal because we loved your products this has just cemented why!

Awesome stuff,

love this site!

It great that everyone is able to help

My husbands parents are "funny" with our son too and favours their grand daughter who is less than a year younger.

At my son's second birthday party they ignored him and carried on about everything the grand daughter did. My son noticed for himself, he went and got a pen and asked me to write for him so he could read for them....the poor little thing wanted to impress them and what did they do? Ignored it and went home.

I hated them for it.

He can't do anything right.

They don't approve of us teaching him and they're taking it out on him. They completely ignore him and they make absolutely no effort what so ever to get to know him.

We don't wear shoes unless we are going somewhere important or where there could be dangerous things on the ground. They don't approve so for xmas, birthday, easter he got given shoes.

It was upsetting me to the point of despair, I cried a few times for the hurt it had caused my son.

Now I just laugh it off and have decided that my son will grow up with a very clear understanding that you just can't please some people and we all have to learn how to deal with all sorts of people and if they can't give him the love he deserves then they can at least teach him that some people are just horrible and you have to learn to deal with it anyway.

Their opinion no longer matters to us. They are his grandparents and he should know them, their behaviour will decide whether or not he grows to love them.

You're not alone, it must be so hard living with it day in and day out, but your girl will grow stronger for it. Your love will get her through.  

We never had any problems brushing teeth, unless our son was over tired in which case it was a no go and he'd scream and carry on.

One game he loved when he was about one was brushing daddy's teeth. My husband would brush his teeth while holding our bub and then he'd let him take over then they'd brush together. I could never do it, if he puts the brush too far in I want to be sick ,kind of ruins the mood.

We still brush teeth as a family once a day and he brushes the rest of the day on his own. We don't do it straight after feeds because we were told it can do more harm, it has to do with ph level in the mouth.

I've also heard that having a drink of water straight after food or drink can at least rinse the sugar (breast milk apparently has more than cows milk!) off their teeth and give their teeth a break.

Love the crocodile idea, that is brilliant! What a kind boy taking such good care of his friend!

Epidurals scare me - too many things that can go wrong.

Had a friend who couldn't walk for months after she had one. I've heard of women who couldn't breathe because it numbed up instead of down.

I went natural, no drugs. Yeah it hurt, it hurt a lot, but it's a pain that you know is going to go. Treat each contraction one at a time, rest in between and distract yourself when they are there. Eventually they will end, it definitely hurts less once the baby starts to come out and then it's over.

I did squat position, really helped my body kind of just did what it had to do, I don't think I could have done anything to stop it truth be told. Small tear and grazing caused a little discomfort for a week or so.

I was able then to breastfeed him before they did whatever else they did and i was walking around half an hour later

I had an Aunty who was forced to change to right hand because back then that was you did. She still does many things as a LH but writes with right. She has very immature writing.

My son was right handed from a really young age. My husbands a drummer and my son has had his own sticks since birth. If you gave him a stick in his left hand he'd pass it to his right hand if you then put a second stick into his left hand he'd throw away the one in his right and then pass the new one to his right.

Now he's 26 months and in the last three or so weeks he has become really ambi. If he has something in his right hand he will simply do whatever needs to be done with his left hand or vice versa. It's kind of weird because I thought he was now supposed to be showing handedness but he always has and now he isn't.

I am right handed, I have a right handed sister and left handed sister. My dad is right handed and his sister is left handed.

Hey,

My son started YBCR at 6 weeks and we've done a bunch of other stuff too. We knew he could read but he utterly refused to. A few times we caught him doing it when he thought weren't there watching him. If it hadn't been for that and the fact that his face was giving away that he could read (he loves gorillas so when the word gorilla came up he couldn't help but smile, little things like that were our only clues) I would have despaired that he'd never learn.


I think sometimes they understand that there is an expectation, even when you don't put it on them. They're not silly after all and the beginning of the YBCR videos very clearly show a young baby reading for her father. I'm sure they are able to work out that this is what we want from them too.

We changed tacks and started playing games with his animal figurines and word cards and the megasketcher (one of those iron filing writing slate things) when it was a game we were all playing he was far more willing to take part and we discovered he knew lots and lots of words.

Don't despair because if (and I really doubt it) she hasn't learned as much as one word, there are so many other advantages to what you have been doing. I'm sure some of the other parents on the forum could tell you what teaching to read does for the brain - learning to read is just a pro of all that.

Keep trying new methods of making reading as exciting and thrilling as it really is and she'll grow up appreciating it and being closer to you for all the time you've spent bonding with her while reading.

I hope this has helped to make you feel better. 

I had two friends have c-sections, one emergency because her blood pressure sky rocketed, they said she wouldn't cope and the baby wouldn't cope as the pain would make the blood pressure worse....sounds fairly reasonable, I don't know.

My other friend had one by choice and nearly died. She lost so much blood and her heart slowed down so much they though it was going to stop and she had to have transfusions. It was scary and it was a very, very long time before she recuperated from this (and she had had twins!).

I had a drug free natural birth, and yes it really, really hurt. But what I try to tell friends is that the pain has a foreseeable end. Much like a cramp in your calf times a thousand, excruciating, close to unbearable but not going to kill you. I knew each contraction would end (and I would wait in dread for the next) but I got a rest in between and then once he was out the pain was gone. I was then free to hold my child and walk around with him.


I had a very slight tear, three stitches, and a bit of grazing. So it stung to wee for about a week and I tried to wee in the shower if I could manage it. I was a bit tired and uncomfortable but nothing exceptional. I know I was probably one of the luckier ones.

I sometimes think we have built up a huge fear about the pain of childbirth to the point where women think they can't possibly cope with that amount of pain. I've heard women tell others to ask for the epidural straight away, don't wait or the pain will get too much and it will be too late. I think this sort of thing is really irresponsible.

I had another friend who had an epidural, don't know the whole story but something was quite right, she couldn't feel it and the docs didn't realise she ended up bruising her back muscles or something, it was so severe she couldn't walk for three months after she had the baby.

Drugs and operations are great things for those who need them, but I think the rest of us should let nature run its course.

I know this thread has been dead for a while but I found it intriguing to hear all the different arguments.

Should we teach the left brain or the right brain, whole word or phonetics etc?

I'd like to relate a learning experience/ teaching experience of my own. I teach acrobatics (I am the author of the an acrobatics syllabus for dancers).

When I learned to do a cartwheel as a young child (about 3) I was asked to stand with my feet together, was pushed slightly forward and since I stepped forward with my right foot it was decided that I was a right handed cartwheel and that is what I was taught.

In gymnastics they don't always teach both sides but in dancing it's a must so after I was good at this I was taught left. Now there was maybe six months between the teaching of sides so I was no more than four when I learned my left. To this day, despite the fact that an audience member would know no difference, I am not as comfortable cartwheeling to my left. Despite doing them almost every day for over 25 years.

I train all students left and right from day one, a lot of students who start late will still have a "better side" usually the side they write. But I have found that if I start training both sides, simultaneously, young enough (and that is the key) that most kids will say "I don't have a good side, they're the same. It makes no difference to me".

I think that by assuming that the best way of learning to read is either phonics or whole word is missing the fact that most of us probably do a combination of both and even if we don't we should be able to because only training one part of something must detract from the whole.

I also wonder how you can learn to write if you don't learn phonics? At some point you have to be aware of the breakdown of the letters, you certainly can't write a whole word you must write or type it one letter at a time. Also some words can't be broken down phonetically (at least not in English) so there are times when we have to rely on memory to recognise a word.

We used the YBCR method so our son was taught to read whole words with a little touch on phonics. We also played alphabet songs and had letters around the place etc. He started to read words we hadn't shown him out of the blue one day at which point I figured he had cracked the code. I believe he did this young because he was given the information and his brain was able to sort through it and make deductions. Just like with maths and grammar.