During the past four years of my attachment parenting journey, I sometimes find myself in situations, especially with regard to discipline, that require me to step outside the box and out of my comfort zone.

A few months ago I was trying to get Ava, almost 4 years old at the time, to sleep. She had had a long day and was simply exhausted, so much so that every little thing was setting her off into a puddle of tears. I was getting frustrated because it seemed nothing I could do was right (in her eyes). Logically, I knew that she was acting this way because she was so tired and had passed the point of no return, but still I felt my frustration growing inside me.

She sat on the bed, slumped over crying and complaining about anything and everything imaginable and I wondered how could I get her to give in to her exhaustion and just lay down. I realized that reasoning with her wouldn’t work at this point. She was too far gone for that. I felt like yelling because my frustration was getting worse and worse - after all, I had things to do too and I didn’t want to spend all of my night trying to get her to sleep - but I knew that wasn’t going to help matters either.

Finally I decided what I really needed to do was take a deep breath, step outside of my comfort zone, grab a stuffed animal and start talking to her as the animal. Talking to Ava via a stuffed animal is a parenting “tool” my husband and I had used with success in the past, though not lately and, given the circumstances, I wasn’t sure how it would fly.

She has a bear named Roger who I always imagine talks with a Southern drawl and is good at cheering her up when she’s down, so Roger was the bear for the job. After a few seconds of talking as Roger, Ava stopped crying and began responding back to him, telling him what was going on with her. Although she couldn’t have done that for me, her mommy, she could do it for an impartial furry third party.

Roger’s silly antics soon had Ava giggling and then he was able to talk her into laying down on her bed, relaxing and getting ready to sleep. As the bear said his good nights to Ava and me, Ava said her good nights in return and was soon calm enough to drift off to sleep.

As I left her room I couldn’t help but feel very proud of myself. I can’t claim to always respond well or the “right” way to every situation, but that night I put my pride and frustration aside and did what Ava needed to help her relax and get to sleep. Had I let my frustration overcome me there’s a good chance it would’ve taken me at least another 30-45 minutes and many more tears (probably on both of our parts) before she was asleep. But by tuning into her needs, letting go of all that I “needed” to get done, stepping outside of my comfort zone, and throwing in a little goofiness, I was able to get her to sleep calmly in much less time. And let’s face it, isn’t goofiness a prerequisite for becoming a parent? No? Well, it should be. The world just might be a happier place.

Amy Gates blogs about green living, attachment parenting, activism and photography at Crunchy Domestic Goddess.

I have been watching CPSC recalls for about four years now (you know, ever since I became a parent) and this is the first one I remember that was issued due to the tragic death of a child. In the case of the Simplicity bassinet pictured here, two infants died as a result of slipping between the metal bars of the unit. If you have a bassinet like this, please read the full text of the CPSC recall and stop using the bassinet immediately until you can verify whether it is one of the recalled models.

This week, the CPSC and Optave Inc. also issued a joint recall of Optave’s Action Baby Carriers due to reports that the chest strap can detach, posing a fall hazard. Again, you can read the full text of the recall, and see pictures of the carriers, on the CPSC’s web site. Please spread the word about this important safety information.

For busy families, fitting one more thing into your day might seem impossible, but adding something extra every day will actually revitalize and refresh you.

After fighting his way home through traffic, an exhausted dad arrives at home ready to put his feet up. At the door, he meets the also exhausted mom holding a crying toddler, ready to hand over the kids and have her body back for a little while. They both need a break. They have both spent the day meeting the needs of others.

Modern life is fast-paced and heavily scheduled. There are jobs to report to, meals to prepare, soccer carpools to drive, groceries to buy, bills to pay, gardens to care for, and lawns to mow. There’s diapers to wash and toilets to scrub, crayon on the wall, and fourteen dirty baby outfits to launder each day. It’s stressful. It takes a lot of mental energy to cope with all of the demands of our jobs and families, let alone our friends and relatives.

Strive for a healthy balance in your life.

We have to take time for ourselves. When we get stressed, we can’t fully nurture our loved ones or connect with them on a deep level. On the airplane, the flight attendant teaches us that in an emergency, we should first put our own oxygen mask on, and then we put the mask on our child. If we pass out first, we will be of no help to our child. We can’t take care of others if we aren’t first taking care of ourselves. The classic mom (or dad) burn-out is someone who takes care of everyone else’s needs first, trying to be everything to everybody, putting herself last, and then being stressed out both physically and emotionally because of it.

If we can add one more thing to our daily schedule, we can come to our relationships and obligations with a fresh attitude and a renewed sense of purpose. Exactly what that one thing is, only you can know. It’s different for everybody.

We are not just parents and partners.

We are artists and writers, cyclists and runners, quilters and woodcarvers. We have passions and interests that extend beyond the family, but we may be out of touch with that side of ourselves if we’ve spent all of our time meeting the needs of others and putting ourself last.

Think about the activities and interests that you enjoyed as a kid. Do any of these still pull you? Why not start again? It really does all come back to you.

If you’re stumped, maybe you need to start the process by just being physically active every day. Get that bike out of the garage and go for a ride. Pick up a jump rope and start spinning. Go to the pool and do some laps. I always find that when I get my heart pumping, my brain gets quiet. This lets me listen a little deeper to what’s going on inside me. I can see clearly which things in my life I need to change, and when I’m “back to the world”, I can use those intuitions to guide me in my daily life.

Some days, the easiest way to get my personal time is by riding my bike to work, and then taking a longish detour on the way home. I ride until all of my job-related stress melts away, and by the time that I get home, I’m ready to take over the kid department while my wife gets a workout in, or a sewing project finished, or goes for a bike ride for herself. We’re both taken care of: I’ve got my ya-yas out, my partner gets to focus on herself for awhile, and the kids (and our marriage) benefit.

Take some personal time every day, even if it’s only 15 minutes. Set aside work and family and social obligations to follow your heart. Sit and meditate. Work on your yoga practice. Do a puzzle. Go for a run. Start a blog. Nurturing yourself plays a huge part in finding and maintaining a healthy balance in your life.

Take time for you.

Your spouse and kids will appreciate it.

(Image Credit: cpt.spock on Flickr.)

Derek blogs about fatherhood, life with toddlers, green living, and other random goodness at Natural Father.

This summer my boys (4-1/2 and 2 years old) and I had the opportunity to play with a wonderful game titled “Feeleez”, from the Natural Parenting Center. The game was so much fun and appropriate for AP families that I wanted to share my thoughts about it with you.

Anxiously we opened the small metal box, and found 25 pairs of 2×2″cards. Pairs of cards sport drawings of children, each expressing different emotions. Some emotions are very clearly conveyed and others are a bit ambiguous. The ambiguous cards allowed my children to creatively identify what they saw in each drawing. The ambiguous cards foster creative expression and leave room for my children to grow with the game as their vocabulary, intellect and emotions mature.

It was helpful that the Natural Parenting Center does not leave their consumers without direction. They included a list of various games that can be played with just this one little box of cards. We played the “Matching Game”, and “What’s This”. To play “What’s This” we all took turns stating what we thought each person on the card was feeling and what might have made the person feel that way. It was intriguing to learn what my children felt might make someone else sad, happy, frustrated, sick etc. This opened the opportunity to ask them if they had felt those feelings and in what situations.

This created a terrific opportunity to learn more about what their emotional triggers were and what situations and events affected them in a positive, negative, ambivalent, or confusing way. We also sorted the cards into more general categories, which my youngest enjoyed the most. These were only three of the many games that the “Feeleez” insert outlined. They also suggested playing Charades, Body Sensations (where you pick one of the cards and then you all take turns describing what the feeling might feel like, where it might live in your body, what color it is, etc.), Conflict Resolution, Offering Empathy, and Mirroring.

When you purchase “Feeleez” you not only gets nine games for $20.00 but it creates an amazing opportunity to teach and learn with your child about empathy and understanding. The part I loved the most was hearing from my children why they thought some of the little people were happy, sad or frustrated etc. “Feeleez” elicited emotion in us that ranged from poignantly introspective to downright comical.

Feeleez is directly compatible with API’s Principles “Respond with Sensitivity” and “Practice Positive Discipline”. It is also highly complimentary for those who practice non-violent communication. Another appealing aspect about The Natural Parenting Center garnering my support is their socially conscious business practices. A couple of examples related to “Feeleez” is that the cards are made from recycled materials and printed with soy based ink.

I am pleased to say that I would highly recommend this game to other AP families and feel that it is a much needed tool when it comes to learning about empathy and compassion in a fun, engaging and enlightening way.

Feeleez - An Empathy Game For Children
$20.00 if you purchase from the Natural Parenting Center
Appropriate for ages 2+

Last Thursday, Attachment Parenting International officially declared the month of October Attachment Parenting Month (read full release). This year’s theme of “Giving Our Children Presence” is such an important one that we at API Speaks have chosen it for the topic of our first ever AP Blog Carnival.

On October 1, we’ll post a carnival kick-off, complete with Mr Linky, so that you can participate in the carnival with your post on the topic of giving your child(ren) presence. Then, on October 15, we’ll do a carnival wrap-up, announce November’s topic, and link to everyone who participated. Spread the word about AP, and about API Speaks’ first blog carnival!

For the past several months I have posted a volunteer spotlight as a way to thank some of the various, wonderfully dedicated volunteers at our organization. It has been a great way to demonstrate the amazing work they do to help API continue to educate and support parents walking along their AP journey.

The following forms of support would not have been made possible without the assistance of our staff of volunteers:

•The creation of our brand new Web site with our new logo, colors and wealth of updated and accurate information available to parents worldwide

•API’s fabulous forum that now supports more than 700 parents and that number continues to climb each day

•FAQs that are well written and edited so that we can clearly answer some of the most common questions parents have

•Amazing digital and print publications which provide heart warming stories, research and AP news to families

•Many terrific affiliated support groups in communities throughout the world

•API Speaks with its editor, contributing editor and our list of insightful bloggers!

These are just a handful of the many offerings that API has been able to produce and put forth, especially over the course of a short 10 months, and they would continue to sit on shelves in our minds if we didn’t have dedicated volunteers willing to help them come to fruition. Our organization survives and thrives on the efforts of our volunteers.

A little known fact about our staff is that most all of them are volunteers. Very few people are paid within API. Even those people work more than the few hours than they individually contract for and so, are still technically volunteers. Another awesome fact is that we have over 100 volunteer leaders who work hard within their community sharing their Principles and values with others who either know, or are trying to determine, what theirs are or will be once their sweet babes are born. I could go on with more interesting facts but for the sake of space, I will resist the temptation.

The overarching theme for our volunteers seems to be that they each have this drive and zeal to help out when they know what the impact of their volunteering has on other families across the world. Some can only donate an hour a week and others are donating 10 or more. It all depends on their family’s circumstances and the time that they can afford to donate. I hope that they each know that even their one hour a week makes all the difference to the level of support that API offers to parents who contact us and for that, we will be eternally grateful.

This week I would like to tweak the usual Volunteer Spotlight and personally focus a bit on how our amazing, new Executive Director, Samantha Gray interacts with our team of volunteers.

Samantha has an amazing Curriculum Vitae and brings an exceptional level of experience to our organization (see the most recent issue of the Journal for more information). When she began in April she was greeted by staff members asking for a bit of an internal reorganization simply because we have grown by leaps and bounds over the past 10 months when it comes to internal support and external offerings. She came up with an excellent plan that has each of working much more efficiently and she did it all while considering our personal strengths and individual accomplishments. She has done a thorough evaluation of our organization and is furthering her efforts to ensure that we have a fabulous working environment and sturdy foundation to grow upon. Samantha encourages autonomy and believes in each volunteer’s capabilities but is always willing to work with you in ways that you need, or help you find the right course for what you are working on, if you ask.

She is a conscious, empathic leader, a champion of AP and API and it shows in the work that she has done in the short 4 months that she has been our Executive Director. API will continue to grow in unprecedented ways and it will do so under her capable and loving hands and each of us is thrilled to be working with her.

Thank you very much Samantha for all that you are doing to continue to increase the level of support and education that families receive from API. Your work and care is not unnoticed and definitely not under appreciated. Thank you also to your sweet family for their support and encouragement. We are glad to have them as an extended part of our team as well!

If you believe in the value of our mission to educate and support all parents in raising secure, joyful, and empathic children in order to strengthen families and create a more compassionate world, please join with us today.

Check out API’s list of volunteer positions. Please know that this list is not comprehensive. If you have talents and experience that you feel would further our mission but don’t see a position listed to highlight your skills, please email Brandy so that we can chat about the possibilities! We are also open to altering positions as needed to meet the needs of our volunteers and their families.

Warmly,
Brandy Lance
API Volunteer Liaison

“Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in.”
Marjorie Moore, Minds Eye Information Service, Belleville, IL, USA

Excuse me if this post is rambling, it’s written by a very tired mammy. One who only went to bed at half 4 this morning and who got up again at 9. But it’s nowhere near the sheer exhaustion I remember from the first few weeks of Littlepixie’s life, this is just regular tiredness, I feel like I was out dancing all night!

Littlepixie has just cut her first molars, 4 (or possibly 5) all at once, the poor pet. Understandably, her mouth is a little sore.

Last night she nursed to sleep and I snuck downstairs to get some internetting time in, in retrospect I should have gone to sleep too because as it turned out it would be a good many hours before my little head hit the pillow! LP woke around midnight and was clearly in pain, she was banging her mouth with her hand, crying and sobbing “teeth, teeth”. We gave her some medicine but it didn’t seem to help much. Nursing was acceptable to her but only while sitting up with the light on.

Myself & LP retired downstairs to the living room. We’ve been quite lucky recently with her night wakenings, usually she nurses straight back to sleep. But not last night. We snuggled on the couch under a big blanket, nursing & reading her bedtime book over and over again. We found every bear, rabbit, sock and red balloon in the book, chatted about them, laughed at them, counted them and then started all over again. I got sleepier, LP did not!

It was really just a case of watching the clock tick by and waiting for her to get sleepy. The medicine finally seemed to take effect and she was no longer complaining about her teeth, so that was good. But I was barely awake! So, after a while playing with LP’s dolls I resorted to putting on a DVD for her to watch. I know the middle of the night is not usually prime tv time, but the show was nice and calm and has no advertisements.

We watched that for about 15 minutes while nursing and reading more books, I then brought her into our office where she often nurses for her naps in the hopes that she would think it was nap time. No such luck! At 4 am we went back up to bed where Mr. HPP read her another story, and she finally nursed back to sleep, with her foot lodged firmly in Mr. HPP’s face. We were all awake again at 9 am, we’re very tired but LP is in top form, her teeth don’t seem to be at her now and she’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Night-time parenting is hard work! But it’s worth it. LP clearly needed some extra care last night and I’m glad we could help her out. Fingers crossed we all sleep well tonight!

What about all of you? Do you have any particular things you like to do when you’re passing the wee hours of the night awake with your child?

- Half Pint Pixie

Recently there has been a discussion about “time out” technique on a yahoo group. A mother was telling about how effective she finds the “time out” sessions to teach her 18 month old not to bite mommy. Lots of people were interested and wanted to learn more about the technique.

I believe in gentle discipline. I think that time-outs may be effective for an older toddler but I, personally, find it very early for 1 year olds. I remember reading an inspirational blog post by Angela White at Breastfeeding 123 last year:

I talked to a friend who used what she called “time in.” Time in involved getting down on my daughter’s level and holding her if she wanted that, and talking about the kind of behavior that was acceptable and not acceptable. I realized that many times when my child was acting up, she was really looking for more attention from me. It was a lot better for both of us if I gave her positive attention in the first place, and refrained from negative attention like yelling and shaming.

My daughter has recently started pulling my hair. Every time she does this, I tell her that it hurts me and that it’s not okay to pull someone else’s hair. I paid attention to the times when she pulls my hair. The result is obvious: She’s either tired or sleepy. She wants more attention from me. Maybe she wants me to give her a hug, maybe she wants me to breastfeed her or maybe she wants me to play with me. Had I used the time out technique, she’d only be more upset.

I believe that by being respectful to our little ones, by questioning why they are behaving like this, we can sort out half of the problem. Time-outs may change their behavior, but they will not resolve the underlying problem or address our children’s needs.

There is something so sweet about watching our older children mimic our parenting style with their younger siblings. When our second child was born, our oldest was only two years old and while she was very sweet with her new baby brother, she mostly just politely ignored him. I did catch her gently rocking and lifting her shirt to nurse her favorite stuffed duck occasionally. When our third was born, she was five and she was definitely more interested, but still mostly preferred to “mother” her dolls carrying them around in doll slings and such, than her real live baby brother. This last time around though, has been different. At seven, she is interested and physically strong enough to care for her new baby sister. She helps with diaper changes, she confidently hikes Julia onto her hip and just yesterday, asked to wear Julia on her back. I reflexively said no and then reconsidered. Why not? I would supervise and she had been asking me for several months to try. So she did (see photo) and I was tickled.

I guess before I had more than one child it never occurred to me how much the baby gets from having older siblings. Everyone talks about the benefits to the older child. You are getting a playmate! You’ll be a big sister! But, wow, the baby benefits too! I mean, Julia positively glows when her big brothers and sister appear. We call her “the luckiest baby” for having three older siblings. Her every sound and cute little motion is quickly responded to. She has a built in audience when she notices the fan and starts moving her arm in a circle. Three little voices notice and start to encourage her.

I remember vaguely feeling a bit sorry for my first born when our second arrived, imagining the reduced amount of parental attention she would get – imagining that she would somehow be sitting around pining for my attention when my hands would be full with a new baby. While this was certainly somewhat true for the first few months, once the baby was a bit older the tables turned a bit and she and her younger brother became a inseparable and played together constantly… much more than I would have been able to manage – even with my best effort. I mean, my patience for playing tea and reading toddler books is, shall we say, definitely finite. Heck, these days I have to fight for my time with the older ones, they are so self-sufficient with each other. I had completely underestimated how much she would be getting!

How about you? If you have more than one child, what have your experiences been like? Has the reality been what you expected?

When my husband and I became parents, we expected parenting to be the focus of our lives. We anticipated that we’d be spending essentially all of our non-work time as a family, taking the children with us when we visited friends, went to restaurants, traveled, and so on. We’d both had this kind of experience growing up, so it never really occurred to us that family life could be some other way.

As we were expecting our first child, some well-intentioned people told us that we should be sure to go out on dates so we’d have “couple time.” We couldn’t figure out why we would want to do that. After she was born, we enjoyed spending time together taking care of our new baby, and we found that after the first couple of months, we had plenty of “couple time” in the evenings at home after our daughter went to bed. We still couldn’t figure out why we would need to get a babysitter and leave our house in order to spend time together as a couple.

The birth of our second child complicated things considerably. We were much more exhausted physically, and dealing with the competing needs of two children was emotionally draining. When we had only one child, it was possible for one of us to take a break while the other spent time with our daughter. With two children, one of us had to be spending time with both children in order for the other to take a break, which has rarely seemed worthwhile — we prefer to have a 1:1 ratio between adults and children whenever possible in order to minimize parental meltdowns!

We found that we weren’t getting as much “couple time” in the evenings because we were so exhausted, and because we seemed to have even more chores to catch up on. So a few months ago, we finally started going out on dates. Starting around the time our son was 15 months old, we’ve felt fairly confident that both kids would stay asleep from the time they went to bed until at least midnight. This has provided us with a great opportunity to have someone from our babysitting co-op come over and hang out while the two of us got out of the house.

We’ve been out on three or four dates now, and it’s definitely been nice to set aside time to spend together away from the chores and tasks of home. Yet I’m also sure we wouldn’t be doing it if the kids weren’t asleep — it just wouldn’t feel right to leave them with a babysitter when we know they’d rather be with us.