babble » blogs » Strollerderby
Strollerderby
Over at Motherlode, Lisa Belkin asks whether its quality time or quantity time that counts when you’re tucking your little ones in at night.
A new study in the Journal of Family Psychology says mamas have to not only perform the bedtime rituals they’ve established with their kids, they have to love it. A mom must be “present”, by which they mean serene, warm and attentive, in order to soothe a little one to a good night’s sleep.
The researchers found that when mom was merely going through the motions, her precious little ones slept poorly. To really send them off to sweet dreams, she needed to be warm and loving and sensitive throughout the process.
Not an easy task when you’ve been caring for that little angel since dawn, and bedtime is the last task in a too-busy day. This is a subject near and dear to my heart: sleep has been the albatross around my neck for six years of parenting and counting.
Belkin mentions that not enough dads spent time with their kids at bedtime to be statistically significant, so the study focused only on moms.
I find that amusing, because “dad” is the answer to how we keep bedtime loving in my house. I care for the kids all day and all night, but there are two hours that I am off-duty: the hour they first wake up, and the hour they go to bed.
Every parent has struggled to get their child to sleep. From the bleary days of round the clock care right after birth to the struggle of wills with a toddler to the endless dawdling of a school age kid who needs just one more glass of water, sleep is an issue.
The good news for tired parents: there is a magic bullet that solves most of these problems. It’s called “bedtime”.
Putting your child to bed at a regular time each night not only leads to better sleep for everyone, it helps your child’s development, too.
The strata of subject matter covered in children’s books today is broad and yet niched. There is hardly an issue children face today that isn’t comfortingly address in a book somewhere out there. Which is great. Then again, there is some subject matter better left alone.
My kids are young enough that they’re actually excited about going back to school What they aren’t excited about is their bedtime, which has been scaled back from “whenever” to 8 p.m. “It’s still light out!” they complain.
According to a piece at MSNBC, I should explain to them that they don’t “have” to go to bed, they “get” to go to bed. I’ll let you know how that works out for me.
But, really, the advice is on the right track. Helping kids reset their body clocks now might not make them bounce out of bed the first time you nudge them awake at 6:30 a.m. But there might be less crying and gnashing of teeth — on their part and yours.
Here are some more tips from MSNBC for getting your kids ready for summer’s end and their new school routine:
It wasn’t Dave Matthews cursing that bugged me. It wasn’t even the three-and-a-half-year-old in the next row listening to Dave Matthews curse that bugged me.
It was listening to said three-and-a-half-year-old’s mom tell the woman beside me “oh yeah, and I have a one-year-old at home!” So you had a babysitter and you chose to drag your toddler to a late night rock show? Are you kidding me? Continue reading »
To all those parents who think the only way their kids will be safe is if they’re left with family, a word: you might want to take away their cell phones.
An eighteen-year-old Ohio woman was mad at her brother for not answering her text messages while she was babysitting his kids. So she decided to leave . . . and leave the kids behind. Continue reading »
Attention parents: the American Association of Pediatrics wants you to stop reading magazines and watching TV. You’re getting bad messages about how to put your baby to sleep . . . and you’re believing them. Continue reading »
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Wendy Michaels 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
The Walt Disney Company supports Babble as a platform dedicated to honest, engaged, informed, intelligent and open conversation about parenting. However, the opinions expressed on this site are those of individual parents/writers and do not reflect the views of Disney. In addition, content provided on this site is for entertainment or informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or safety advice.
0