Sunday, June 29, 2008

Parenting Style: First Year is Important

Researchers from the University of Chicago claim that a mother's parenting style in her child's first year of life and the infant's disposition can reliably predict future behavior - good or bad. The team followed 1,800 children between the ages of four and 13 and found that children who were less fussy and were predicable infants were at a low risk of bad behavior later in life.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Here is a very helpful article for all parents to read. “This information was taken from the free e-book, “The Parent’s Guide to Calming a Crying Baby.” If you’ve just had a newborn baby, then you may less than thrilled to learn that he or she may have colic. Colic is when your baby just won’t stop crying, and can possibly cry for hours at a time.




Calm Your Newborn’s Colic and crying with the Swaddling Technique



If your baby is crying a lot, be certain that you take him or her to the doctor before automatically assuming that it’s just colic. There can be any number of things that can cause your baby to cry, so you certainly want to rule out any health-related problems.

If it is colic, rest assured that it’s not causing any permanent damage to your child. It may sound like they are in intense pain, but this is basically because they respond with loud crying for any pain they are in. Remember, if they have a blanket stuck on their foot, they will cry like the world is coming to an end. This is just what babies do.

AND, remember, IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT! You didn’t do anything wrong to cause this. Here are some tips that work for many parents.

One of the best ways to relieve the constant crying of your newborn suffering from colic is by utilizing an innovative technique known as swaddling. This basically involves wrapping your baby up tightly in a blanket; this has been proven to work quite effectively in parts of the world such as Asia and Africa. You may notice that they usually wrap their babies up tightly and may even carry them around.

Listed below is an easy step-by-step guide to swaddling:

1. Put your baby down on a blanket with his or her arms directly by his or her side.
2. Next, you should wrap your baby up very tightly as if putting him or her in a straight jacket. You need to do this in order to keep his or her arms pinned tightly to his or her sides. Just be certain that he or she is able to breathe freely, but yet still tight enough to allow this to work. Initially, your baby may try to struggle to get free but you need to make certain that he or she keep the arms his or her sides.
3. Finally, you should be certain that the blanket is secure. Do what you have to do to make certain that it is very snug. A good way to do this is with duct tape, even though you may get some funny looks if you’re out in public, but this is guaranteed to do the trick.

This may take a few minutes for your baby to get used to, so you should expect it to take a little while before your baby adjusts to this. Usually, after a very short period of time your baby will be get accustomed to his or her new situation and hopefully you’ll experience the results of swaddling by continuous quietness, rather than crying.

Al Lipper’s experience includes child psychology, teaching and professional writing. He and his wife Aurora have two boys (both of whom had colic). If you would like more information on helping your baby, feel free to download a free copy of their e-book “The parent’s guide to calming a crying baby” from www.ThePeacefulBaby.com.