Stay at home parenting - Series

I'm going to try to focus this week on Stay at Home Parenting. It's something my wife and I are talking about lately, and something we'll need to make a decision on in the next month or so. I'll try to link to as many good articles I can find, as well as give any insight I can off the research I'm doing and thoughts I have. Here's a good primer to start things out. More later...

P.S. Thanks to all your well wishes over the past week. Things are going good now ... I'm healthy again and the baby is actually sleeping a little!! :)

Another article on infant potty training

Here is an article I came across from a Maryland newspaper about infant potty training (elimination communication). This is a follow-up to the book review I linked to a couple of weeks ago. I don't think I'm sold on this yet, but it does bring up some interesting ideas (especially as my wife and I are going to start training our 2 yr old) ... it might have been nice to have this done already ... and can you imagine the savings on diapers?? I think this would require a stay-at-home parent and a LOT of patience (two things we don't have right now!) :) Has anyone tried this?? Let me know.

Almost back...

So, I had to go back in yesterday night because I was having trouble breathing ... after chest xrays and blood tests, I was diagnosed with pneumonia. On the plus side, they gave me antibiotics, and I'm already feeling much better. I'll try to catch up and post a couple of things running around my mind the past couple days tomorrow. Until then, here's a good site from Sean on his journey of polyphasic sleeping (a topic I discussed last week). Also, Steve Pavlina's update on his polyphasic sleep schedule.

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry..."

That quote definitely describes my past two days. I had a master plan setout for yesterday and today. Yesterday would involve me introducing our 2 year old (Caden) to the new baby (Cole) and then spending a good amount of the day doting on Caden before bringing him back at night to spend some more time with them. Then today I was going to spend a good amount of the day cleaning our house and getting everything ready for the 3pm arrival of my wife and Cole.

I did make it to the hospital as planned yesterday ... just about 4 floors lower than my wife. I woke up with a 103.6 temp, shooting pains in my legs, and the ability to fall whenever I tried to walk... I had to be driven over to the hospital where I spent a good 7 hours in the ER. When all was said and done I was diagnosed with a "nasty" virus, given IV fluids, a couple of prescriptions and the great dr. order of "You'll need to stay away from contact with your wife, new baby, and 2 year old until these symptoms stop ... probably the next 2 to 5 days" Well you can imagine how I loved to hear that ... and you can imagine even more so how my wife loved to hear that! With some wonderful parents of mine as well as my wife's sister, we did succeed in getting Caden over to be introduced to the new baby (picture below) and we had a good friend stay with Caden last night at our house while I was quarantined away at my parents. All in all it isn't as bad as it could of been, but still a bummer that I don't get to hold my new baby boy again until probably Wednesday (i hope).

It's a boy

Baby Cole was born at 7:44pm CST and weighed in at 7lbs 3oz... I'm exhausted and heading to bed.

Still Waiting

The wife was induced around 10am this morning with potassin (sp?) and they broke her water around 12. So now we've just been waiting. She's sleeping right now (epidural) so it's the calm before the storm... Here's to hoping for a smooth delivery, as well as all 10 toes and fingers. Wish me luck! (BTW .. Treos mighr be the greatest gadgets ever developed ... I just created this post from one)

7 steps to discipline an aggressive toddler

Just ran across an article regarding agressive toddler behaviour. Steps include...
1. Keep your cool. Yelling, hitting or telling your child she’s bad won’t get her to stop the behavior. You’ll just get her riled up even more.
2. Set clear limits. Respond immediately whenever your toddler is aggressive. Don’t wait until she hits you three times before you say, “You do it again, I’m going to get you!” Remove her from the situation. This is the best way to cool down the situation.

Mostly some common sense stuff but a good reminder (and much needed one for a parent of a two year old).

"Educational" infant and toddler videos

There was something in the Mercury News this afternoon that caught my eye about the educational value of the videos and tech toys marketed toward infants and toddlers. I'll admit that we're a Baby Einstein ( now Little Einsteins ) household here. Without any formal research, you just feel better letting your child watch something "educational" rather than other cartoons. Now, after reading this article and doing a little more research, it makes me think twice (more so with letting a 6 - 12 mo. old than a 2 year old) about letting an infant watch any TV. I'd like to know what your thoughts or experiences are. I'd also like to see what other studies (if any) have been done regarding infants and TV. Well ... probably the last post for a day or two. I'll be back after baby #2 is born!

Baby on the way

We just learned that my wife will be induced tomorrow morning! I'll keep everyone updated...

Polyphasic Sleep for Parents - Part 1

I've always been interested in sleep and a recent series on Steve Pavlina's blog hooked me even more. There are many different ways of sleeping. Monophasic is the 'norm' for most people ... 6-9 hours per night of sleep and then awake (or at least mostly awake) for the rest of the day. Polyphasic sleep involves taking short 20 - 30 minute 'naps' at 6 intervals per day. For example, you would take this nap at 5am, 9am, 1pm, 5pm, 9pm, and 1am. The thought process is that REM sleep is the most important sleep for rejuvenating your mind (and usually one of the last phases in a normal sleep cycle). If you deprive yourself of enough sleep, your body will skip the NREM sleep (the first couple phases in a normal sleep cycle), and will adapt by allowing you to fall into REM sleep within a couple of minutes. There are no major scientific studies that I can find on polyphasic sleeping ... just a good amount of blogs chronicly attempts, failures, and successes with a polyphasic sleep schedule.
The reason I bring this up is I believe a polyphasic sleep schedule would be something that could revolutionize those first couple months of parenting. The #1 complaint I always hear from parents of newborns and infants is the lack of sleep and constant zombie-like state they are in. What if you could condition yourself to only need these short 20-30 minute 'naps' and still be awake, and most importantly, alert throughout the rest of the day (and night). I'm going to spend a good amount of today doing some research on this topic. In my next post, I'll link to some blogs and other sites that describe polyphasic sleep as well as some that document people's attempts at sleeping polyphasically (I may have made that last word up ).

Stay at home dad - Part 1

I've been mulling over the idea of becoming a stay at home dad over the past month, but have yet to really think it through. I work full time right now. My wife works part-time. We've been lucky enough to only have to put our 2 year old into daycare 2 days a week from 8am to 2pm. My mother has been taking him another 2 days a week from 9am to 12pm (when I come over my lunch break and take him home for a nap). There are a couple of aspects I need to look at...

1) Who is raising my child
2) Socializing my child
3) Money
4) My career aspirations

I'm sure there are many more aspects I'll dig up along the way, but I'll focus on these 4 first. As I research, think, and post, please let me know your thoughts/ideas/tools.

Infant Potty Training

I came across this book review when skimming through Lifehacker this morning. Interesting look at potty training from infancy. I think I'll pass for now, but would like to know if any of you have tried it!