Parenting Books

Note: Wow, this got really long. It looked a little shorter in the editing window. Oh, well, I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Recently, one of the sisters in my ward came to visit me. While she was here, she asked for a list of the parenting books to which I refer. I thought I would go ahead and write it on the blog in case any one else would like some great references for parenting.

Pregnancy books:
1. What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel. Just a great basic resource for the expectant mother! I have referred to this book at least once with each pregnancy. Sure, I read it a lot more often the first time around, but maternal amnesia made this a necessity in my library.

2. Your Pregnancy Week by Week by Glade B. Curtis. Another great book! It includes weekly measurements and lots of other great info.

3. Husband-Coached Childbirth by Dr. Robert Bradley. Where would I have been without Dr. Bradley??? When I first got pregnant, I was all for pain management. Then I saw the needle! "And you want to stick that where?" I am more afraid of needles than pain. Luckily, my wonderful sister-in-law had told me about the Bradley method even when I wasn't at all interested. Now thanks to Dr. Bradley's book, I had all five of my kids without pain medication. I didn't even take the expensive classes.

Baby Care Basics:
4. On Becoming Baby Wise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam. This is a great book to start with. I don't agree with everything they said, but it gave me confidence at the beginning. I do stick with the routine of eat-play-sleep. I don't recommend being super strict from the very start. Abel had to eat every 2 hours instead of the recommended 3 hours for the first few weeks, and Sunny got dehydrated at just 6 days old. Was it his method or something else? We will never know! I liked the information, though, combined with my motherly intuition and experience. BTW, I did NOT like Baby Wise II at all. I think his ideas of disciplining a five-month-old (I think it was) rank heresy.

5. Your Baby's First Year by The American Academy of Pediatrics, editor-in-chief Steven P. Shelov, M.D. This is a fantastic book of basic baby care. It has a lot of the medical stuff covered, and it is less slanted toward any particular philosophy than a lot of books out there. I'm not even sure if you can find this anymore; I think it came home from the hospital with one of my babies.

6. This came from an article, not a book. Dr. Ferber did write a book, but I haven't read the whole thing. His method of sleep training does involve crying it out, but he recommends checking on the child in increasing increments. This worked with some of my kids, but it didn't work with all of them. Some kids just will not cry themselves to sleep! And sometimes checking on them and leaving just seemed to make them madder. Made me feel better, though! If you want to read the book, it's called Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Richard Ferber.

7. The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night by Elizabeth Pantley and William Sears. Sunny would not ever cry herself to sleep. She could cry for 3 hours, I kid you not! I thought making her cry for 3 hours till it was time to eat and have her fall asleep at the breast was stupid. That lasted only a few days until I gave up and just kept feeding her to sleep. I finally found this beautiful book. I am not a proponent of "attachment parenting," but this book was a fabulous and life-saving alternative to everyone who said you have to let your baby cry it out. She includes several suggestions and ideas to fit you, your child, and your family. You can pick and choose.

8. Stress-Free Potty Training: A Commonsense Guide to Finding the Right Approach for Your Child by Sara Au and Peter L. Stavinoha. Woo-hoo! I didn't find this until Sunny was potty training. This book is awesome! It has 6 different methods for potty training. You take a quiz to help peg your kid's style, and off you go! I only read the one that was recommended for Sunny. It worked like a charm!!! Granted, she was four years old, but her real bout of potty training that resulted in near total control lasted between one and three days. It mentions other popular methods, such as training your child in one day, but that is just for one personality type. I LOVE books that are not a one-size-fits-all type because no two kids are exactly alike. Speaking of which, I need to get this book again (love the library!) to read for Buster. He is showing some interest, but I know that doesn't mean he's not still 2 years away from getting serious about potty-training.

Behavior and Parenting:
9. Raising Your Spirited Child: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent, and Energetic by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. This is another book that saved my sanity! Another sister-in-law found this book years ago while raising her own spirited child. A few years ago, we were in a lot of stress. We were moving around a lot, and Missy really started acting up and driving me crazy. She reacts to stress in the home by causing more of it! I ran to the bookstore and bought this book. Missy is not excessively energetic, but she did come out of the quiz as being "officially" spirited. (Sunny and Kandy are just "spunky" on the scale.) I have learned a lot of coping strategies from this book. It has also really opened my eyes and my understanding of various quirks of my children. For example, Sunny really is an anti-routine child. "Irregularity" is a "bonus trait" of the spirited child. By realizing this, I have become more accepting of Sunny's irregular rhythms and am more willing to be flexible about it. Although we do encourage regular bed times, sometimes she honestly is not tired. We have come up with a good compromise: If she stays awake in her bed for 20 minutes, she can stay awake and watch a movie as long as she doesn't intrude on cherished husband-wife time in the evenings. It helps you look beyond the misbehavior to the motivation. Rather than excusing behavior, though, it helps you work around the problems.

10. The Parenting Breakthrough: Real-Life Plan To Teach Kids To Work, Save Money, and Be Truly Independent by Merilee Browne Boyack. I have talked about this one before. It reminds us that the end goal of raising small children is to turn them into independent adults. The author includes her plan of how she is doing this with her boys. There are certain life skills grouped by appropriate age. This is everything from brushing their own teeth to making their own doctor appointments and running their own finances by the time they are 18. I have added a few things to my own list (boys don't learn to do barrettes and ponytails, for starters), but I now try to sit down with my kids once each month to discuss their progress. One great quote from this book: "It's not my job to make my kids happy." Such an epiphany! It is my job to teach them how to be happy, but it is not my job to try and make it so they never cry. To do that, I would actually end up doing things that are counter-productive to their happiness in the long run!

Honorable Mentions:
The Wonder of Boys and The Wonder of Girls by Michael Gurian.
Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax

And no book list of my "bibles" would be complete without mentioning The 5 Love Languages: The Secret To Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman.
Yes, this helps more in adult relationships, but he has written one that applies more to children as well. This book helps so much in figuring out what makes your spouse tick and in helping to keep a happy marriage. So much of parenting is making sure you have a happy foundation on which to build and a happy place in which to do it. I know I am far more likely to be impatient and grumpy with my kids when I am frustrated with my husband. Also, figuring out how your children communicate love helps you be a better parent to them because you can better communicate your love to them and understand how they communicate their love for you.

I also read parenting magazines. I don't always agree with their politics, but I think it is good to keep up with the latest research. Is it always right? I don't know! They have changed feeding guidelines for babies a lot in the last 10 years. (Start at 4 months, no, wait, 6 months, now 5 months. After cereal, start with fruit, no, yellow vegetables, no, green...) Reading about older kids also gives me a good preview of what is to come so I have it in mind when I need it.

Why do I read so much? Reading helps take what is often already in my sub-conscious and brings it into my conscious mind. Also, I find that the more I read and think about parenting, the more likely I am to be a proactive parent instead of a reactive parent. In other words, I think before I react instinctively to the misbehavior. And instead of reacting, I try to be proactive by being prepared and laying a good foundation to prevent the misbehavior in the first place.

Finally, I read my scriptures and pray A LOT. In the scriptures, we learn a lot about parenthood by seeing how our Heavenly Father deals with His children. I have also learned a lot about how He must feel about all of us by being a parent myself. I gather lots of information, and then I pray about how to apply it. I try to live worthy of inspiration. I talk to other mothers around me, old and young. How grateful I am for my own mother, mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, grandmothers, and sisters in the gospel as we all try to raise the next generation the best we can!

Picky Eating

In this house, there are several picky eaters. I don't understand the whole picky eating thing. Sure, as a kid, I didn't like oatmeal or onions and I preferred my spaghetti sauce on the side so it didn't chap my chin. Vegetables weren't my favorite, but they were non-negotiable. We got to take turns picking the vegetable of the day. My mom was a notorious picky eater herself, regaling us with stories of sitting in the dining room for hours in front of mushroom soup. She worked with us pretty well. Aside from my tastes above, I was generally not a picky eater. To this day, new food is an adventure to me. I'll try just about anything.

My friend says that at her house, they just don't allow picky eaters, and all her kids eat everything. So have I enabled pickiness by trying to be nice? I don't know. At any rate, I never, ever wanted to create a battleground in the dining room. Power struggles over food know no bounds. In high school, my best friend was incredibly skinny. I ate dinner at his house a lot, and his mother was always pestering him to eat more. I'm sure it was subconscious at that point, but he didn't eat much. If we went out, he would sometimes eat 3 hamburgers. His mother's way of expressing concern was actually counterproductive.

So here I am, mother of 4 table-food eating children. We have never asked that our kids eat all of something they don't like. Our rules have been that they need to try everything before they could have seconds of anything. If you don't like anything, you can always have a piece of bread. Kandy was the type of toddler to whom I could say: "If you eat 3 more peas, you can have..." It worked like a charm. Missy had to get a little older before that kind of bargaining worked. Sunny, on the other hand, is of the personality type that nothing she doesn't want to do is worth the reward, and anything she really wants to do is worth the punishment. You know the type, I'm sure. So telling her to eat one more pea before she can have more rice just doesn't work. She'll get down from the table. Even her incredible sweet tooth would rather forgo dessert than succumb to tasting a bite of chicken. Despite our relatively simple (and nutritionally lax) rules, dinner had become a battleground.

About a month ago, we decided that she really isn't eating enough. In concern for her caloric needs, we agreed that we would completely drop the rules with her for a while to see what would happen. We have still been serving a little bit of everything to Sunny and gently reminding her that it is there with no specific orders or requests to eat it. If she wants seconds on rice, noodles, or bread, she can have them. Dinner time has become less stressful for all of us. And guess what? Last night we had sweet and sour meatballs. I cut her meatball in little pieces, and she actually ate one bite without being asked!!! It is a tiny victory, but it is a start in the right direction. There is hope that maybe if we do completely remove the battle, she will start to try everything. And part of it is age. Kandy is far less picky at nearly-nine than she was as a preschooler. By removing the battle and drama, perhaps she will more quickly outgrow it.

"You don't nurse grandbabies."

My cousin recently wrote on her blog about the great weaning dilemma. Her only daughter just turned one, so it is on her mind. I started to comment, but it got way too long. She inspired me, though, so I thought I would post a bit on my own blog about this topic.

She is concerned what people will think if she nurses a one-year-old during the day, and the doctor says she might be more likely to sleep through the night if she is weaned and on a more regular schedule.

Such a dilemma! My big advice? Don't worry about weird looks. Each nursing relationship is different, and no one should judge yours.

I don't have my kids on a strict schedule, but I do have a routine. Nursing is just after sleeping and before bedtime--no demand-feeding for me! I had to feel like I had some control over things! It made it easy to drop feedings. Most of my kids started dropping feedings on their own around 12 months and nursed the last time around 18 months. Missy and Sunny held on to their morning feedings the longest; Kandy loved the evenings. Because of the routine, though, I don't really have to nurse in public after about 9 months. (Good thing--none of them ever let me use a blanket.)

Buster is 10 months. He likes to chew. He, too, is teething, has a cold, and seems to get a lot of nutrition at night when there aren't big sisters around to distract him. And some days, we are chasing around so much that he misses some high chair feedings, or he gets graham crackers instead of baby food.

As I contemplate when to wean, I think about how I want my body back to myself, and I'd like to sleep through the night, too. I also think, though, of the lost cuddle time and the end of this very special part of the mother-child relationship. Buster is not much for cuddling without eating. Even his eating isn't too cuddly unless he falls asleep--he is more into grabbing, punching, and wiggling. When he weans, though, I will be able to diet. We might be able to get a night away from the kids. But will I ever nurse again?

So it is hard to let go, so in spite of pain and difficulties, I'll probably keep nursing him till 18 months or so, too. As someone else commented on her blog, you can never go back. I was at a retreat with other moms once, and one came into the room where I was nursing Kandy. She was so wistful, so I mentioned that she wasn't far off from having grandchildren. "You don't nurse grandbabies," she replied. It has made me think things over more than once, to try and really enjoy this phase. Someday this season of my life will be over. I won't miss working at my computer with a child crying at my knee or pressing the reset button. I will miss a certain little girl climbing into my lap, her little arms reaching around me, whispering, "I love you, Mommy."I won't miss stressing about noises waking the baby, but I will miss the pre-nap stories and snuggles. I won't miss them waking me up in the night, but I will miss them snuggling into bed with me in the mornings.

Motherhood is ever a balancing act between surviving and enjoying the present.

Well, now a baby is fussing for my attention, so I better stop writing about motherhood and go practice it.

Sleep Training

Ah, sleep training. With an infant, there is always some sleep training involved. The biggest question is who is training who! Although I am a very firm and strict believer in the cry-it-out method, it is still not easy for me to listen to it. Due to hormonal fluctuations and other considerations, I have had a harder time enduring it with the two younger children. As I look back over the last few months, I really am not sure who was doing the training--me or Buster. In his life so far, sometimes he has gone down without complaint in his bed. Sometimes he has cried a little and settled down. For a while, he really wanted me right there next to his bed, ready to put the pacifier back in instantaneously. And sometimes he did great for his first nap and rotten for the second. He has also transferred very well in general. If I did rock or nurse him to sleep, I could put him in bed just fine.

About a week and a half ago, though, I spent the day at Ben's sister's house. I rocked him to sleep for both naps. It seems that ever since then, that is all he wants! And even if I do rock him to sleep and succeed in transferring him to his bed, he wakes up about 45 minutes later. He definitely had me trained. And stressed, very stressed. My house is a disaster area because this week, he has been taking one good nap a day, followed by a string of feedings, holding, crying, and cat naps. You can accomplish a lot with a baby on your hip, but it's no joke when they can't quite sit on your hip yet and weigh over 17 pounds. That's a lot of weight to support with an arm while keeping chubby little reaching arms out of everything.

I know I'm supposed to be consistent. For much of his life, I decided I could consistently sit with him while he fell asleep. Again, this isn't because I think it's best for him, honestly. It's just that I could not cope with a crying baby in one room and demanding children right around me. I found I could cope and be nicer when I sat with Buster for a while, leaving the kids to play. Happy baby, happy kids, happy mom. Now, though, that whole consistency thing is tough. Sometimes my nerves can better handle staying with him while he falls asleep or rocking him. Sometimes I'm so frustrated with him that he is safer in his bed while I stay with the other kids.

Last night I discovered something surprising, though. Although it isn't fun listening to him cry, I can actually cope with staying in the room where he can't see me. This minimized demands on me from the other children (which really stresses me out while he's crying), and although I'm not actually helping him, it helps me emotionally to not feel like I have totally abandoned him to his crib.

I think this week has been harder because he seems to be teething, and we also finally got him out of his bassinet into a crib.

Yesterday evening, he cried for 45 minutes before falling asleep for 20 minutes. Today he finally zonked after 30-45 minutes. Unfortunately, I need to wake him soon to feed him before getting his sisters from school. And letting him cry it out at night would involve removing either him or his sisters from the room they all share. I'm also not quite sure of how to break him of the very bad habit of nursing to sleep at night.

Ah, well, this too shall pass. Most of you probably tuned out halfway through the first paragraph, but that's fine. I just wanted to vent my frustrations about this painful rite of passage for babies and their parents. Anyone have any better ideas?

Breakfast, anyone?

I recently read a totally awesome book, The Parenting Breakthrough by Merrilee Browne Boyack. I was introduced to it by my sister-in-law in Montana. Another sister-in-law has talked about it in her blog, too, and she has really implemented it! Well, the main point is that we are raising independent adults. This means that we need to teach and train them on how to do "adult" things little by little. Well, I've talked to my kids about the end goal of being independent, and we are just starting to implement The Plan at our house. It has made a difference in their attitudes about doing things for themselves, by themselves. Mine, too!

This morning I got to sleep in a little. (Buster didn't sleep through the night, but I decided to treat his 5:30 feeding as a middle-of-the-night feeding.) When I did wake up and leave my room, Kandy had set the table and was making toast for everyone. "I'm tired of having cold cereal for breakfast," she said, "and I wanted something different. Then I thought, 'I'm going to be independent and surprise mom and make breakfast for her!' " So she did. She even kept making breakfast for her sisters when Buster woke up and I had to feed him. "I'm Mrs. Busy!" she commented. Missy also started to help.

Is the kitchen a little messier than usual? Sure. Did you know you can go through 1/4 cup of butter in one breakfast for 4 people? Yes, if a 5-year-old puts half of it on her toast sandwich with honey and jam. Personally, though, I think it's great. The mess will clean up, and we can buy more butter. Next on the list? Learning to make their beds every morning!