At Cuddly Baby we want to help you with those nagging doubts or thoughts that you may get from time to time, or the reassurance that we all need, that we are doing things right. Baby corner is where you may find that little bit of reassurance from, or a little top tip to help you.
Baby corner will be updated continually with new information, so if we have nothing of interest for you this month, next month may be different, so please do keep checking you never know. Alternatively you could drop us an email with a topic you would like to have covered. You can do this by going to our contact us page, there you will find all the neccessary information. Happy reading
Becoming a parent is a life changing moment – it is the job of a lifetime! And with the arrival of your baby, comes an inevitable new lifestyle, bringing added responsibility and deep felt emotions. From guilt and frustration, to utter joy and fulfilment, it is undoubtedly one of the most rewarding yet difficult jobs you will ever have to do.
From the moment your baby is born you are faced with decisions affecting its health and well being. Our children trust us to make safe choices for them and it is our responsibility as parents to ensure that we do so. With the availability of so much conficting information, from family, friends and the media, decisions are that much harder to make as we attempt to always try and make the right decision.
Wonderful Sounds for Sleep
Research has indicated that “white noise” sounds or soft bedtime music can help many babies relax and fall asleep more easily. This is most certainly because these sounds create an environment more familiar to your baby than a very quiet room.
Many people enjoy using soothing music as their baby’s sleep sound. If you do, choose bedtime music carefully. Some music (including jazz and much classical music) is too complex and stimulating. For music to be soothing to your baby, pick simple, repetitive, predictable music, like traditional lullabies. Tapes created especially for putting babies to sleep are great choices. Pick something that you will enjoy listening to night after night, too. (Using a tape player with an automatic repeat function is helpful for keeping the music going as long as you need it to play).
There are widely available, and very lovely, "nature sounds" tapes that work nicely too, as well as those small sound-generating or white-noise devices and clocks you may have seen in stores. The sounds on these - raindrops, a bubbling brook or running water are often the best sounds for your baby to fall asleep to.
Once your baby is familiar with their calming noise or music, you can use these to help your baby fall back to sleep when they wake up in the middle of the night. Simply sooth them by playing the music (very quietly) during the calming and falling-asleep time. If they wake and cry, repeat this process.
If your baby gets used to their sleep time sounds you can take advantage of this and take the tape with you if you will be away from home for naptime or bedtime. The familiarity of these sounds will help your baby sleep in an unfamiliar environment.
Eventually your baby will rely on this technique less and less to fall and stay asleep. Do not feel you must rush the process, there is no harm in your baby falling asleep to these gentle sounds. When you are ready to wean them of these you can help this process along by reducing the volume by a small amount every night until you finally do not turn the music or sounds on at all.
Babies enjoy these peaceful sounds, and they are just one more piece in the puzzle that helps you to help your baby sleep – gently, without any crying at all.
Give Your Child A Head Start
Language is one of the most powerful and influential ways to shape your child. The words we use and how we say things have an enormous influence on the way our children develop, how they behave and most importantly how they feel about themselves.
Children will inherently do what they believe you expect them to do, as all they know about the world and how they fit in is from you. If you continually tell them they are clever, smart, funny, that they can do something, that you are proud of them - they believe this without a second thought. In the same way if a child is told they are stupid, no good, bad, naughty, trust you to do that, how can you be so silly - then they will also believe it to be true, and consequently behave accordingly. Not only does this make them feel those things, it also gradually wears away at their confidence and self-esteem - the two things which hold people back more than anything else in the world.
Children’s inherent need to be accepted by people around them, their amazing pace of development and their acceptance of things at face value means that they take everything in and are extremely suggestible. Young children do not yet have the little voice in their head that says, “what if, I must, I should not, If I do this, then this will happen etc.”, so they simply accept everything that goes on around them as the way things are - they have no other comparison.
So often, parents tell their children off by attacking their identity - “you are a bad boy” “you are a naughty girl” “are you stupid or something?” The child takes this literally and feels that they, as a person are bad, naughty, stupid etc. when in fact it is certain behaviours that are inappropriate or wrong in a particular context (i.e. not socially acceptable). Again these feelings slowly wear down self-confidence and self-esteem.
Children of course need to know what is right and wrong in each circumstance, such as running around a restaurant is not right but running around in the playground is OK. It is therefore so important that you let your child know that the behaviour is inappropriate, so rather than “you really are naughty boy” say “running around in a restaurant is naughty”. Again this will make sure they know what is right and wrong without making them feel bad as a person.
Challenge Yourself!
So here is your challenge. For the next week, really think about the way you speak to your child. Listen to yourself. When you catch yourself giving them negative suggestions, think of a different way of saying it to get the result you want. As you do this more and more, you find that you actually start to see their actions and behaviour in a different way. You start to see them succeed rather that visualizing them failing. The more you see them succeed... the more you find that they do.
Babies and toddlers really are like sponges. They soak up everything that is going on around them. Their little brains are developing faster than at any other time in their lives. This is when patterns of speech and the way they think are created and set. What better gift can you give them than the power of positive thinking, self-confidence and the belief that they can achieve anything they set their heart to do. You may think that that is a bit over the top as we are only taking about babies. It is not. We are talking about creating a pattern and a way of thinking which will stay with them for the rest of their lives and the lives of their children.
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