Rock-a-Bye BabyThe Terrible Two’s
Welcoming a baby into the family is, in the true sense of the word, a blessed event. In most cases parents spend the nine months during pregnancy preparing for the birth of their child, both physically and emotionally. As the nine months draws to a close, the whole family is often on the edge of their seats, so to speak, waiting for any sign at all that baby is on the way. But, no matter how much preparation goes into the months before the birth, it still takes most parents some time to adjust once their blessing is born. Life, as they have always known it, changes in every way that it can.
One of the biggest changes that parents do expect is to never again be able to enjoy the uninterrupted sleep that they enjoyed before their children were born. Although newborn babies sleep during most of a 24 hour period, a lot of those sleep filled hours are not during the night. New parents often experience sleepless nights and, as a result, zoned out days!
Newborn sleep patterns do vary, and they also change periodically, depending upon the baby. At only a few weeks old, some babies will sleep through the night, while others seem to mix up their days and nights. These newborns will sleep most of the day away, and wake up, ready to play, just as mom and dad are winding down for the night. Still other babies experience bouts of sleeplessness, although they are tired, and spend most of the night sleeping, waking, and crying. In addition, although a newborn might be screaming, until they are about three weeks old, they are not able to release any tears. But they will continue to scream and cry without the tears that come later.
The good news, though, is that every baby will eventually sleep through the night as they continue to get older. As parents begin to recognize their own children’s sleep patterns, as well as their personalities, there will begin some semblance of a daily and nightly routine.
As babies turn into toddlers, their learning patterns change and grow with them.Babies are learning and growing from the time that they are born. The fact is that a baby’s brain grows quickly after birth, and, by the time baby turns a year old, his or her brain has grown to 60% of its adult size.
Once toddlers reach age two they have already reached several milestones in their lives. The beginning of sounds and speech, or babbling, is typical at around seven months. The first step comes a little later, the age differing with each baby. Switching from a bottle to a sippy cup and eating solid food are milestones that usually take place during the first year or two of a baby’s life as well.
At two years of age, many toddlers are freely experimenting with their personalities. The old addage, the terrible twos often fits one child like a glove, and, in other children, never even materializes. Dealing with the terrible twos is done in different ways, depending upon what the parents have found that works best with their baby’s personality type. Toddlers and tantrums are often very typical to see. Parents with toddlers who do exercise their displeasure in this way often have several different ideas of how to stop toddler tantrums. Unfortunately, finding the best way is often a result of experimentation to find what works and what doesn’t.
No parent has the best idea of how to stop toddler tantrums, because children are very different from each other. What works for one may not work for another. Lots of books have been written by experts with terrific ideas about how to stop toddler tantrums as well; however, the bottom line rests on the child and his or her own unique personality. No one knows a child like their own parent does. Often the best ideas of how to stop toddler tantrums come out of the desperation of the parent. Sometimes the most successful ideas have been born out of anxiety. Using the predicament itself to solve the problem sometimes produces the best solution. When baby is happy, mom and dad are happy!
