If you can, find a copy of Doman's How Smart Is Your Baby? It gives systematic ideas for stimulating your baby throughout the first year. You'd be at my least favorite stage, helping them to respond to danger. I was surprised to  find that the book was right and my baby had no response to heat or cold or the fire alam. He suggests touching them all over with a hot wash cloth or a piece of ice. Do it a few times a day until the baby responds. It was vey cool to see her develop the lifesaving response to move away from discomfort and cry at danger sounds. And now I get to work on feeling nice textures and touches and identifying all kinds of sounds. It is much more fun. The book also icludes a physical program. Move your baby around in dfferent orientations to develop balance. Give him lots of time on his tummy to learn to crawl. Have him grasp your fngers and see if he can hold some of his own weight. It is amazing how fast they develop physically. Enjoy watching the change.

This is very exciting! My baby hasn't started any reading program yet but I have a few theoretical questions. Would you do sight words and phonics, like LR, or just phonics? I want both, but I can make sight word power points myself if I have a phonics program. Will all words come paired with pictures? Can you turn that option off and have flash cards alone? Not that I think I'd want to, but I might. How easy would it be for the user to alter the slides? For instance, my baby's learning English and French. It would be nice to open a day's words, replace all the English with French, and save the new file to show another day. If the process took less than five minutes, that would be a plus.

What font do you use and how many words can you fit on a page? My baby won't need books for a year but I'd like to get a head start on making them. Doman suggests that a 2 year old will probably still need 2 inch letters. The most I can fit on a page at 2 inches is about 6 words. None of the books I really like (like Dr Seuss) have that few words per page. I tried writing m own version of a fairy tale to fit the pages and I got bored reading it. Am I stuck with short sentances I find boring until she's 3?

I don't have my copy of How to Teach Your Baby to Read in front of me, but from what I remember, Doman advises 5 different sets of 5 words each.  Each set is shown 3 times a day for 5 days.  Then one word is retired from each set and replaced with a new word.  When your program is going smoothly, you should be replacing one word from each set every five days, and each word will be shown for five days before it's replaced.

This seems very complicated (which is why I'm buying Little Reader), but I imagine once you start it's easier.  I'm sure you can do less than 5 different sets every day; that seems like a lot of work making cards!  But he does emphasize showing the same set for five consecutive days, three times a day.  When they've been doing the program for a while, he says they might learn so fast that you can retire words in less than five days, but I wouldn't change the set for variety's sake; keep going for the full number of days.

It sounds odd, but we're doing flashcards on the toilet.  We're doing Elimination Communication, which requires a decent amount of time, and baby focuses pretty well in the bathroom.  She sits between my legs leaning against my stomach and I hold up the cards for her.  It only takes a few seconds each time, and we do it at least six times a day.  That makes it easy for us.

Wow, I'd better start saving!  At the moment it doesn't cost much, because I'm making simplified versions of things myself.  I'm sure my yoga mat doesn't work as well as an actual infant crawling track, but it was affordable!  I do want to buy Little Reader, because the time I'll save in not making flashcards of hundreds of words and even more encyclopedic knowledge files I can dowload from the site is worth the money.  But the visual stimulation and math cards I made myself.  I'm severely limiting screentime, so no DVDs. 

When she was born our take-home pay increased by $200 a month (instead of a bigger tax rebate), so that got budgeted for her.  We're not spending it all, and I was going to reassign that money.  But maybe I'll save it for her college and start spending it when she hits three or so; it looks like at that age classes and activities cost a lot more.

At the moment my 3 month old just does visual stimulation flashcards and sometimes auditory stimulation (identified sounds) at the same time.  We're doing Elimination Communication, so we do them as she sits on the toilet.  At the moment that's about six times a day (it doesn't happen every time we use the toilet). 

The plan in a couple of months is to start Little Reader twice a day, five minutes a time, after the 9 am and 3 pm feedings, and to do math cards Doman-style on the toilet six times a day.  I want to start Encyclopedic Knowledge on LR a few times a day a couple of months after that, maybe after some of the other feedings, but it will depend how things go.  That's really all I have planned for the first year or even two; I don't want to overdo things, and I don't want any TV time.  It was going to be no screen time, but making physical flashcards for reading and EK just seems overwhelming, so I'll allow 20 minutes or less looking at the computer.

Of course we do a lot of other things while she's awake, but it's whenever she or I think they sound fun: massage, yoga, swimming in the bathtub, walking the dog, playing the piano (she sits on my lap as I play and sing), and of course reading all the time.  I speak to her in French and we're also starting to sign a few things.  Reading and math are the most important things to me for the first 18 months; once I'm sure she's got a solid base in those, I'll look around for what to introduce next.  I'm sure this forum will be invaluable for that!

Yikes!  My daughter just got these from her grandmother for Christmas!  I don't know what I want to do about this - I hate to let her use them if they're dangerous, but I also hate to tell my mom that we're throwing away her gift (she got them second-hand, so we can't return them for something else).  Her health is the most important... but it''s awkward.  Oh, dear.

I really like the "Love and Logic" parenting method by Cline and Fay, and they recommend a time-out system they call "the Uh-oh Song."  This keeps the parent from yelling or getting angry; they have to sing, with a smile, "Uh-oh!  Sounds like someone needs some time alone."  Then bring the child to the time-out location (they suggest the bedroom) and have them stay there from the right amount of time (a minute a year, again).  This way the kids don't see their parents getting upset; the parents simply give the kids the time needed to get a hold of themselves again.

My baby's not old enough for any sort of time out or other discipline, but Love and Logic recommends starting around 9 months with the Uh-oh song, and I will certainly be using it.  Self-calming is an important skill, and basic respect for others can be taught by refusing to allow a toddler to act inappropriately and annoy everyone.  In theory, of course; watch my child be completely out of control despite my best efforts!  But I will do my best.

I would really appreciate it if someone could tell me what children's books are good in French.  I can get translations of Dr Seuss or something, but I'd love to read stories to my baby that are originally French.  At the moment I open an English book and try to translate on the fly, but that's a lot of work, so I read to her in English and speak in French most of the time.  Also, she loves stories in rhyme, and I am not that good a translator!

We started ECing my daughter at two months and absolutely love it.  I'm trying to convince my (pregnant) sisters-in-law to try it too.

So far we're only reliably catching poops, though, so she still wears cloth diapers when we're out.  I just sit on the toilet with her, at home or in public restrooms, holding her between my thighs..  But that won't work when she's bigger, so I'll have to think about this too.  I like using the big toilet, so I'd prefer a potty insert, but it will depend what she's comfortable with.

I'm hoping after the holidays to start catching pees as well, so maybe at 4-6 months we'll need options for out of the house.  Does anyone have a successful method for a baby that size?

I'm doing the language program in How Smart is Your Baby? and I love it!  My two month old baby coos for yes and is silent for no in response to a handful of questions, including: "Are you hungry?" "Do you have a burp?" "Do you need to go poopoo on the toilet?" (we're doing elimination communication) and "Do you want tummytime (inclined infant crawling track) / a story / a song / to hear your poem?"  People think that she's not really understanding and communicating, but she definitely is.

That said, I will introduce sign language in a few months.  I think it's a good compliment to the program and more versatile than the choice boards (which I will also use, especially until she's coordinated enough for signs).  I think Doman's only concern was the time sign language might take.  I would assume he means the time for the parents to learn it, since it won't take any more of the child's time to sign as well as speak.  Since you already know sign, I can't imagine any downside to it.  I'll have to take the time to learn sign, but she still sleeps a lot, so I have a little time for preparation.

I had my husband take a tape I had as a child and move it onto a CD.  It was called "Safety Kids" and talked about this kind of thing in songs and stories.  The song I still remember, twenty-odd years later, went:

"Sometimes you've just got to yell and scream.
Sometimes it's the only thing to do!
Noisy as a fire truck,
You've just got to open up,
And get the crowd's attention to you."

It also had a song to teach you your telephone number ("I know my number, my telephone number") and more songs and information about not letting anyone touching private places, etc.  Songs worked really well for me for memorization and so I plan to use this for my kids.

I really like the bath routine and I think I'll add that with my baby.  And the idea that you should ALWAYS tell, no matter what they said.

It looks like the Safety Kids thing is still available, if anyone is interested, at http://www.britemusic.com/safety-kids-set-digital.

Thank you!

Yeah, short words makes sense to me.  They could still be 5 inches high and wide enough.  I just couldn't see cutting out strips of posterboard and writing words on them for months; I'd get burned out.  I'm glad you think it's not necessary.  I guess I could hook it up to my regular TV if she doesn't seem to be able to focus on the letter size; it's not widescreen, but it's probably big enough.

It's good to know that other people have done this sucessfully without hours of posterboard-chopping.

I'd like to second the exercise recommendation; it made a huge difference to me!  I walked the dog an hour a day, swam five times a week, and did prenatal yoga most days, and I'm convinced that it helped me in labor.

I also really enjoyed the book "Body, Soul, and Baby."  I went with a medical, hospital, epidural birth and the book is much more about alternative strategies, but I really appreciated it.  It talked a lot about checking in with your body and how to keep in tune with your own needs and desires rather than letting things just happen.  I was perfectly happy with my choices in when to go to the hospital, labor positions, when I got the edpiural, and the whole experience.  Of course, I was lucky that it mostly matched my expectations, but the book helped me think through other possibilites in advance.

Thanks for the welcome!

We're working up to submerging but haven't gotten there yet.  As an instructor, we started submerging them right away, and I had no problem dunking kids, but I'm worried that I'll scar my baby for life!  But one book recommends teaching them to hold their breath by passing them under the shower nozzle, first just dripping and increasing it to full power; after that, theoretically, she'll go under water easily.  It seems to be woeking as a no-cry method so far, but we've only done it for a week or so.