[A good number of babies who die of "SIDS" are believed to die from some unexplained sudden apnea, whether it be too many blankets smothering the child or whether the baby simply "forgot" to breath, as some doctors believe. If a child suffers some sudden period of apnea, a person who is there immediately MAY be able to save them through waking the child or through mouth to mouth breathing. That is medical fact based on years of research. Hospital don't use $5000 infant apnea monitors for no reason. If they did no good no one would use them. This product, when used correctly, functions as a very suitable apnea monitor, and at a cheaper price.]

Gilma (and waterdreamer),

It looks like a great monitor, and although I have been indoctrinated by the SIDS campaigns not to trust products meant to prevent SIDS because "none of them have been proven to work", this monitor looks significant.

One Amazon reviewer, who is a nurse, said, "A good number of babies who die of "SIDS" are believed to die from some unexplained sudden apnea, whether it be too many blankets smothering the child or whether the baby simply "forgot" to breath, as some doctors believe. If a child suffers some sudden period of apnea, a person who is there immediately MAY be able to save them through waking the child or through mouth to mouth breathing. That is medical fact based on years of research. Hospital don't use $5000 infant apnea monitors for no reason. If they did no good no one would use them. This product, when used correctly, functions as a very suitable apnea monitor, and at a cheaper price."

My concern is, do you think the monitor would work if the baby was moving, or I guess a better word would be crawling, a lot in their sleep? From reading Doman it seems that one of the main reasons to put baby on their stomach to sleep, and in a crawling track (he recommends building one that wraps ALL the way around the parents' bed) is because often newborns move more in their sleep than they do when they're awake. I know that texaslady mentioned this with her two children (she stomach slept them in a wrap-around crawling track), that they were all over the place at night. I couldn't get any specifications on how big the monitor pad was.

Thanks for the recommendation, though, this will definitely be something to consider!

I did this a little with Hunter. It would have been wonderful to have such a variety of books as you are planning though!

The one I made was just for the teens (11-19) and had different colored cars on each page cut out from magazines.

http://grhomeschooling.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-really-know-my-numbers.html

I plan on doing something similar to what you are talking about with my little one on the way! I definitely wouldn't say there is any "danger" in it, though. Good luck!

["There may also be other specific infants in whom the risk/benefit balance favors prone sleeping. The risk of SIDS increases from approximately 0.86 SIDS deaths per 1,000 live births to 1.62 when babies sleep prone* (that is, 998 of every 1,000 prone-sleeping babies will not die of SIDS). This relatively small increased risk may be reasonable to accept, when balanced against the benefit of prone sleeping for certain babies. Health professionals need to consider the potential benefit when taking into account each baby's circumstances. If it is decided to allow a baby to sleep prone, special care should be taken to avoid overheating or use of soft bedding since these factors are particularly hazardous for prone-sleeping infants."]

Thanks everybody for your input. I still have been doing a lot of research on the topic before I eventually decide. One thing I want to know, which is so impossibly hard to find, is the actual numbers on this supposed association between stomach sleeping and SIDS. It seems that the only thing I can get a hold of is these educational websites that lists off all the things you're supposed to do and not do to prevent SIDS. But finding the actual numbers and studies behind those things has been very, very difficult.

One thing I thought I would add to this discussion is something I found on the National Institutes of Health website on frequently asked questions about the Back to Sleep campaign (they are the originators of this campaign).

http://www.nichd.nih.gov/sids/sids_qa.cfm

"There may also be other specific infants in whom the risk/benefit balance favors prone sleeping. The risk of SIDS increases from approximately 0.86 SIDS deaths per 1,000 live births to 1.62 when babies sleep prone* (that is, 998 of every 1,000 prone-sleeping babies will not die of SIDS). This relatively small increased risk may be reasonable to accept, when balanced against the benefit of prone sleeping for certain babies. Health professionals need to consider the potential benefit when taking into account each baby's circumstances.

If it is decided to allow a baby to sleep prone, special care should be taken to avoid overheating or use of soft bedding since these factors are particularly hazardous for prone-sleeping infants."

I was actually shocked to find that the whole substance behind this campaign is a "relatively small increased risk". 0.76 increase per 1000? That is it? You definitely won't hear those numbers advertised on their campaign adds. With the way that the danger of prone-sleeping is touted as the #1 thing parents can do to prevent SIDS, it definitely surprised me to see this.

I also have to take into consideration whether or not this increase in risk has to do with an actual danger in prone sleeping in and of itself, or if it is the COMBINED factor that prone sleeping exaggerates - for example, sleeping prone on soft bedding, or sleeping prone after being exposed to second hand smoke, etc., as noted in this statement and also in noted in the fact that 88% of SIDS cases have at least two or more risk factors going on at the same time, as mentioned in my original post.

It seems like the more I look into it, the more the numbers convince me, but it is hard to get past the propaganda that has been drilled into my head!

[Glenn Doman's Position (and others') Against Back-Sleeping:]

I am wondering in what position all of you slept your babies, and also what you thought about Glenn Doman's recommendation for babies to be placed on their stomachs to sleep (to aid in physical development).

Hunter, my first born, slept on his back because of the SIDS prevention recommendation I was given at the time.

But with this new baby on the way, I am debating the recommendation and doing a lot more thorough and questioning research.


Glenn Doman's Position (and others') Against Back-Sleeping:

In Glenn Doman's book How to Teach Your Baby to Be Physically Superb, which was first published in 1988 before the Back to Sleep campaign, his recommendation for stomach sleeping was mostly based on common sense and research showing the benefits of stomach sleeping, and SIDS was not yet in the argument. However in his more recent book on newborn development, How Smart is Your Baby, the apendix includes a scholarly paper entitled A Reassessment of the SIDS Back to Sleep Campaign.

The article can be found here:

http://www.thescientificworld.co.uk/TSW/toc/TSWJ_ArticleLanding.asp?ArticleId=1785

(Click on the red and white "PDF" icon to download the full article)

The article argues against the questionable statistics that show "a decrease in SIDS by 50% since the campaign began". The actual data shows that SIDS was decreasing before the campaign began (a 26% decrease from 1989 to 1992, when campaign started) and also, the actual "decrease" is up for debate since the definition of SIDS has been changing to be more selective since that time. For example if the baby's face was covered by a comforter and dies, it may no longer considered SIDS but may be more correctly identified as suffocation. There is also an increasing trend worldwide to classify many infant deaths as "unknown" or "undetermined" instead. I have heard more than once that it is up for debate whether or not SIDS has been decreasing at all, since even today what one medical technician considers SIDS another may consider something else, and the varying "measuring stick" per se leaves a lot of room for error in reporting the numbers. Even with the 50% "decrease" taken into consideration, the rate went from about 1.3 SIDS cases per every 1000 live births to .5 SIDS cases per every 1000 live births since 1992. That is the difference of less than one baby not being labeled as "SIDS", and it is more than questionable whether or not this decrease has anything at all to do with the BTS campaign or simply differences and changes in reporting procedures.

The article also argues (and gives substantial evidence for) the premise that the Back to Sleep campaign is also more about human experimentation than confirmed preventive theory. I would highly, highly recommend taking a look at this article for anyone considering their decision in the matter, and I know I haven't come close to doing it justice in my choppy summary.

In doing further research into the subject, it has been extremely difficult for me to get the actual numbers on how many actual SIDS deaths occurred in the prone (stomach) position versus the supine (back) position. It seems that the most often used "proof" has been the chart showing the "50% decrease" since the BTS campaign. In one report of case studies I was able to find conducted in a California area of SIDS deaths over a given time showed that only about 50% of babies were in the prone (stomach) position at the time of SIDS, which is not much higher than the national average of American infants who regularly sleep in the prone position (about 25%-30%). It should also be noted that about 88% of SIDS deaths nation-wide had at least two or more known risk factors going on at the same time (for example, sleeping in the prone position while also being on a bed with soft bedding, or sleeping in the prone position while in a room with second-hand smoke, etc.). So, looking at those numbers, the actual number of babies who died from SIDS simply while sleeping on their stomachs with no other risk factors involved is, to say the least, extremely minute.


Risks versus Benefits

The article also discusses a few of the risks of supine (back) sleeping, and apparently there are many more. According to this wikipedia article on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (yes, I know it's wikipedia, but I read up on the references used and it is a legitimate summary):

"Additional studies have reported that the following negative conditions are associated with the back sleep position: increase in sleep apnea, decrease in sleep duration, strabismus, social skills delays, deformational plagiocephaly, and temporomandibular jaw difficulties.[99] In addition, the following are symptoms that are associated with sleep apnea: growth abnormalities, failure to thrive syndrome in infants, neurocognitive abnormalities, daytime sleepiness, emotional problems, decrease in memory, decrease in learning, and a delay in nonverbal skills. The conditions associated with deformational plagiocephaly include visual impairments, cerebral dysfunction, delays in psychomotor development and decreases in mental functioning. The conditions associated with gross motor milestone delays include speech and language disorders. In addition, it has been hypothesized that delays in motor skills can have a negative impact on the development of social skills.[103][104] In addition, other studies have reported that the prone position [stomach sleeping] prevents subluxation of the hips, increases psychomotor development, prevents scoliosis, lessens the risk of gastroesophageal reflux, decreases infant screaming periods, causes less fatigue in infants, and increases the relief of infant colic.[105] "


So in the end I don't really write all this to try and convince anyone one way or the other to stomach sleep their infant for it's physical and social development benefits, since even I am not yet all the way convinced. This is more of an assortment of miscellaneous thoughts and findings on the subject that are hopefully going to lead me to a conclusion.

As I mentioned before in another thread this is an extremely difficult subject for me since, earlier this year a baby that I was very close to (one of my daycare babies who I cared for for 11 hours a day since he was a couple weeks old) died of SIDS while on vacation. While I never did find out the surrounding events to his death (i.e. where and how he was sleeping at the time), it affected me and my family a lot and I am still left shaken up about it. This of course makes me more insecure about going the "unconventional" way, as I am inclined to do anything to prevent this from happening to my own baby.

So, what do you think? How do you / did you / do you plan to sleep your infants?

Your thoughts on the matter are appreciated as I try and figure this out for myself!

["We live in unusual times. One part of society still thinks that babies understand very little while another part of society has discovered that very little babies can learn sign language. It is true that babies can learn sign language, and this gives them yet another option for communication. If you know sign language you should go ahead and teach your baby - he will learn quickly. If you have a member of your family who is deaf, it will be a great advantage for you baby to be able to communicate with that family member easily. However, if you do not know sign language or do not have someone in your household who is deaf, we propose that you use the precious time you have with your baby to teach him how to use a simple choice board instead of sign language. This will quickly give your baby another way of communicating and will bring you and your baby closer together."]

Twinergy:

Glenn Doman's quote in the chapter The Language Development Program of How Smart is Your Baby:

"We live in unusual times. One part of society still thinks that babies understand very little while another part of society has discovered that very little babies can learn sign language. It is true that babies can learn sign language, and this gives them yet another option for communication. If you know sign language you should go ahead and teach your baby - he will learn quickly. If you have a member of your family who is deaf, it will be a great advantage for you baby to be able to communicate with that family member easily. However, if you do not know sign language or do not have someone in your household who is deaf, we propose that you use the precious time you have with your baby to teach him how to use a simple choice board instead of sign language. This will quickly give your baby another way of communicating and will bring you and your baby closer together."

So, no, he never suggests that sign language may interfere with speech development. I think perhaps he is just suggesting that his method, a choice board, would be more useful, but he certainly doesn't condemn signing or suggest it will slow down your baby's speech.

I suppose I will probably do what I suspected I would do all along, and of course do both the language activities he suggests as well as sign language. I never thought it would slow my baby's speech down, per se, in that the baby would talk later or something, but I guess I wondered if there was a reason for his suggestion.

I think I really read too far into that little paragraph in the book! Because, logically, I know that babies are ridiculously smart and doing all those things and more is not going to confuse or overstimulate them. And it's true - I would be doing just as much talking and language, I would just be doing the signs along with it! I guess I am just a little nervous because this is my first time, with a Doman baby that is.

I am debating whether or not I should teach sign language to this second baby on the way.

We had a wonderful experience with it with Hunter, which I wrote about recently on my blog:

http://grhomeschooling.blogspot.com/2010/11/our-adventures-with-baby-sign-language.html

However, reading Glenn Doman's How Smart Is Your Baby?, he recommends not to teach sign language to baby but rather encourages a verbal communication program. He believes that babies "talk" from birth, that the sounds they make are not "like" language but they ARE language.

So the communication program involves things like having conversations with your baby (that is, asking them questions and actually waiting for them to give an answer), repeating short rhymes for them daily (and then later letting them participate by leaving a word blank and letting them fill it in with their own sound), and choice boards, which is a large poster with squares containing words such as "yes", "no", "maybe", "not now", etc. and the babies are supposed to point to or look at the choice they want (you read the choices to them, of course).

I realize I am probably not doing the program any justice and it may sound confusing or strange. But nonetheless I was wondering what you all thought about his recommendation against sign language.

I do plan on doing the communication program with my baby, but should I then not do sign language? My main worry is that perhaps the sign language might slow down, or take away from, the verbal program. I know that it doesn't do this in older babies, for example, it is proven babies who use sign language talk earlier (Hunter was talking like crazy by 16 months). But this whole newborn language thing is new to me, and I don't know if it is "different" because of the baby's young age.

Has anybody done the communication program with their tiny baby?

What do you think about doing, or not doing, sign language along with this program?

Your thoughts are appreciated!

I am in the process of planning the construction of a crawling track for my baby on the way. Glenn Doman's instructions for building one say to cover the surface with vinyl, which was my original plan.

However I just recently was reading the comments on a post on texaslady's blog, and they mentioned that vinyl/naugahyde  is made with PVC which is toxic.

http://domaninspiredparenting.blogspot.com/2010/01/infant-crawling-track.html

I was actually shocked to read this, considering how conscious Doman and the IAHP are about environmental toxins and diet. Their program for brain injured children is extremely strict in those areas and they are very well informed on the topic.

I'm not exactly normally concerned about being all-natural / organic and am NOT freaking out about my baby being around something minutely "toxic" for a short time. However the main reason it concerns me is the sleep factor. I plan on the baby sleeping in it, and the possibility of SIDS scares me, especially since the baby will be on his/her stomach.

This is something really close to home to me because this past summer, a baby that I watched for 11 hours a day since he was born died of SIDS while on vacation. It affected me and my husband a lot to lose that precious baby and now we are worried about doing everything we can to prevent it.

So, my question for you is, do you know of any alternate surfaces to cover an infant crawling track?

I don't necessarily want to use any type of "cloth", which would be difficult to clean and more difficult for the baby to move on.

If anyone has used any alternatives I would be more than happy to hear them!

I think the copyright infringement issues come from misuse of actual copyrighted phrases or material, for example the IAHP has copyrighted the phrases Glenn Doman, Gentle Revolution, Bits of Intelligence, etc. And also, their actual copyrighted products, i.e. the materials they sell (Bits of Intelligence, computer flash cards, reading words).

But the idea that the IAHP has the copyright ownership to everything we consider "the Doman programs" - teaching your child to read with whole words, crawling, using monkey bars, teaching your baby to swim, showing them flash cards of insects or composers or great paintings, teaching them actual numbers - I don't think that is possible or the issue.

I don't believe there is any way the IAHP would even begin to claim that they are the first ones to teach babies to read, or to swim, or a multitude of other things, and try and claim anyone who does or advertises those things as stealing intellectual property. It's just not true that they were the first ones and there is no way they could claim something so broad and diverse, anyway.

I have heard of KinderU being sued. It was likely from an actual infringement stated above, such as advertising themselves as using "Glenn Doman" or "IAHP" programs or possibly using pictures of IAHP-created Bits of Intelligence in advertising. The ASPIRA school interested me, because the teachers took the course from the IAHP (which I believe used to be previously exclusive for parents, the IAHP used to not allow nannies or babysitters or other non-parents to take the course). They also used quite a bit of IAHP-created material in the video, although of course considering it was on the IAHP's website I'm sure they gained permission before the creation of the video.

It is also possible that the Bits of Intelligence and their Picture-Dictionary CD-Roms have the same type of "private home use" limitations that we see on most DVDs, prohibiting public showing. Although I have never seen it stated, I can see how that would be an issue. But other forms of homemade flash cards they certainly can't have anything to say about. They were by far the first people to create flash cards!

I agree, Doman is almost all about the parent/child relationship and that is the focus of his literature. I do Doman activities with my daycare children, but I don't advertise it as such, although the parents know of the different activities we do. I just feel responsible since I am like a "second mother" to a lot of these children, or, like waterdreamer said, their home away from home.

The only daycare / childcare center I have heard much about doing Doman is this one in Pennsylvania:

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

I have also heard of KinderU, I believe in Hong Kong, and they apply a great deal of Doman programs with their children:

http://www.kinderu.org/index.asp

I've also seen quite a few Montessori preschools who use Doman-style activities and materials, such as this "Arise and Shine Montessori preschool" in MN.

http://www.ariseandshinemontessori.com/additional_curriculum.html

Most of these I have found searching the web for other Doman-related things and come up upon these. It's so true that Doman is about the PARENT and child and no teacher or daycare provider can replace that. However it would be nice if more childcare centers / home providers knew more about the amazing capabilities of children and how the brain grows, it would make the necessary evil of being away from home at least a little more beneficial to the child.

I have posted a full review on my blog about the Jones Geniuses Accelerated Education Matrix Math program. I know the word has spread throughout the forum and there were a lot of people interested in the program, just thought I would share the link for people wanting to know more details about how the program works, what's included, and our experience with it,

http://grhomeschooling.blogspot.com/2010/09/jones-geniuses-matrix-math-review-ages.html

Happy learning!

Yes, eighteen month olds can definitely learn to swim, and very well actually! She probably won't be able to swim with her head above the water yet, but swimming underwater is still a splendid exercise for both body and brain and will speed the time before she is able to swim above the water.

Doman's book How to Teach Your Baby to Swim covers birth through six years, so she is not too old for it. I bought it several months ago for my then two-year-old son, and plan to use the techniques with him this summer (he will be four). The program would have to be adapted to suit the abilities of your child, but the techniques are still nonetheless very useful.

For example, last summer when I used it I used some of the exercises in the two- to four-year-old section, some of the exercises in the one- to two-year-old section, and even some very adapted exercises in the six- to twelve-month-old section. He was not ready for all the exercises in his actual age group (two- to four-year-olds) but I just used what he could do and left out what he couldn't.

The Doman program is really a great book as it covers all the important aspects of swimming and gives you a clear, yet adaptable program to follow to take your baby/toddler/preschool from a splasher to a confident and capable swimmer. It's true that it's designed to start at birth but, like I mentioned, it is easily adaptable.

I did the math program with him for a while when he was a baby (between 10 and 14 months old) but then his mom graduated so I wasn't watching him in the mornings anymore, hence the program got put on hold.

But I've been watching him 5 days a week now and we've started on the program again, he is doing great. We've been reviewing numbers 1-20 and doing addition. He knows his numbers quite well and he really enjoys the addition. He turned two in November so it's really of utmost importance now that I follow through with the whole program, before his "window of opportunity" closes. I'll keep you all posted how he's doing.

I use this all the time for creating Geography POI! Thanks for posting this it really is a great resource!

Don't really know what's up with the diaper on / diaper off issue but I do know that bed-wetting is pretty common in older children. My son (will be four in March) still wets the bed occasionally at night time. Whatever is going on, I would try not to make too big of a deal about it because it will probably only make it worse. I read this article a while ago about older children wetting the bed and it was really helpful in putting things in perspective, it might be helpful:


http://www.nogreaterjoy.org/articles/general-view/archive/1996/march/01/true-confessions-of-a-bed-wetter/

That's a neat test. Really interesting how the extremely brief showing forces you to use your "right brain".

I was amazed that I was getting all of them right when I first started taking it, at how perceptive I could be. I ended up getting 100% after 20 tries and then I quit. Thanks for sharing!