Good to Know: An explanation for your child’s irritability

Do you get exasperated when your child is irritable for days on end for seemingly no reason? Well, child psychologist Dr. Rachel Bryant assures you that indeed there is a reason: Your child is developing. While kids are developing physically and mentally all the time, their neurological—or cognitive—development happens in stages, like in leaps and bounds. It’s like something “clicks” in your child (whether he is 2 or 12!), and he may not want to be interrupted while he figures out his new capacities. Since cognitive development (just like any development) happens at a different pace for everyone, your child may get frustrated when you or anyone else interrupts his learning process—no matter how well-intentioned you are.

How can you make it though the next bout of irritability and temper tantrums? Dr. Bryant suggests giving your child a little space to figure things out on his own, but let him know you are still interested in what he’s doing. Your child is trying to embrace a little bit of independence, but he still needs to know you love him and care about his interests.

News flash: Working women don't get to spend time with their kids

A new CareerBuilder.com survey has uncovered an astonishing fact: Moms who work full time are missing quality time with their kids. Well, who needed an official survey to tell us that?!  (See a CNN report on this survey.)

With the cost of everything rising, it’s not uncommon that both parents in a two-parent household must work outside of the home to pay the bills. But what’s shocking is what the survey revealed: Nearly one-third of the 1,124 moms included in the survey say they spend less than three hours per day with their children. And nearly a quarter of them report having missed three or more significant events in their child's life in the last year. The survey offered further shock when it discovered that 44 percent of the moms say they’d willingly take a pay cut if it meant they got to spend more time with their kids.

It seems there should be a compromise here. Working is necessary to pay the bills, but shouldn’t your family be the most important thing? Even if your employer isn’t up-front about flexible working arrangements, it’s time you start asking about them. Do you really want your child care provider to raise your kids?

Care to comment? Click onto "comments" just below.

Bring Baby to Work Day? Every day?

A bit of a trend has emerged with some companies allowing employees to bring their babies to work with them, as a child care arrangement option, as written about in the WorkItMom blog, USA Today and with statistics provided by the Parenting in the Workplace Institute and Babies in the Workplace.

Some 80 companies, at least, have adopted formal policies that allow employees to bring their young babies into the office. Some allow the babies to come to work until they are mobile--around nine months or so. Some provide private offices for new parents, to keep the possible baby noises from disturbing others. Some fear other employees will be resentful or distracted, but others have found that having a baby around boosts the morale of everyone. "You can't be in a bad mood when there is a baby there," said one company spokeswoman. In addition, company loyalty may rise with these arrangements. Still, it's not for everyone. Probably very small, cramped offices wouldn't work, or a colicky/fussy baby might best be elsewhere. What do you think? Take our two mini-polls below. If you care to comment, do so by clicking onto "comments" just below. Thank you!

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Here at The Baby Babble, we know there are a lot of "Mommy Blogs" out there that you may be reading in addition to ours. We'd love to hear your nominations for which ones you like the best and read the most. With your help, we'll build a list of links to those popular blogs, and you'll be able to access them here, too. Just drop us a line, using the "Comments" button just below. Tell us the name of the blog, the web address for the blog (URL), and a brief note about why you like it. You'll be spreading the good news, helping other parents like yourself, and helping us at the same time. Thank you.

Just in time for Mother's Day: Cosmetic surgery

We almost hate to give more attention to a new "children's book" on the market called "My Beautiful Mommy."  [To that end, we're not mentioning the author, the cover, the publisher or where you can buy the darn thing.]  Now, just by the title, you'd think this might be about honoring our mothers and the vital role they play in our lives. But, nope! It's about helping children "understand" when it's time for Mommy to go off and have her face carved, tummy tucked, mammaries...ahem...surgically enhanced. 

Oh, puh-leaze.

Now, we at The Baby Babble are not the first to dis on this dish. In fact, over at "Parent Dish" blogger Angie Felton nails it when she writes about the book, "Of course, there's a happy ending! Mom didn't die on the operating table and once her beak was shaved down and her pregnancy flab removed she's able to smile happily in the spotlight baring her midriff top and squeezed into a pair of low rise pants."

As to the "doctor" who "wrote" this book, can you say, "Shameless Self Promotion"? And, how about to the mothers who feel the best way to deal with their "pruney" post-pregnancy skin is surgery.  Why not buy your child a college education instead?

Isn't the best way to keep a child from worrying about bruises and bandages post-surgery not to have surgery in the first place, if you can help it?

Okay, yep. That was judgmental.  And, we don't care. If you buy this book, promise us one thing: You'll buy your child 12 more real books at the same time.

Care to comment?

Confessions from moms who "break the rules"

• Have you left your child in her car seat while you ran in to do a quick errand--dropping off the dry cleaning; returning an overdue book?
• Have you not done this, but looked askance at others who have?

Here's one mom at Work It Mom who's making an arguement to lighten up--on yourself!

Sometimes you just gotta weigh the risks and the benefits--something that's done in the business world everyday, by the way--of a parenting decision and hope for the best.  Whether it's a few minutes of television (no, we never said that it was evil), an occassional candy for a two-year-old, or leaving her in a locked car for 30 seconds...we all gotta cut each other some slack. That seems to be the theme of a lot of blogosphere talk these days, yet the accusations apparently continue around family dinner tables and at the water cooler. ("How could you leave her alone?" "Candy, you gave her candy?")    We here at The Baby Babble place the blame for these accusations firmly where it belongs: With the 24/7 news cycle that requires us to hear, endlessly, about all the boogey-man badness in the world. I propose that if we all watched less tv (there's that phrase again), especially fewer "news" programs, we would all not be accusing other parents of being bad parents.  Because, in the end, the world isn't as bad a place as we think it is. You can read more on this debate here.

Ever wonder if you're a good parent? These folks seem to have hit on the the definitive answer.

But for now, let's stick to the pressing issue of our time: Babies left in car seats. Would you? Have you?

Drop us your stories by clicking onto "comments" just below.

Do you feel guilty when you leave work at the appropriate time?

While doing a little web cruising on work and family issues, we stumbled upon a commenter on a Wall Street Journal article: "Dealing with 'The Walk of Shame' at Work," in which one woman said she used to feel guilty if she left work at 5:30 p.m.  Good Lord, shouldn't everyone be leaving work at 5:30 p.m? Anyway, that comment led to much discussion about work hours, "face time" and family time. 

It seems odd to us here at The Baby Babble that working parents feel guilty when they actually work 8 hours a day at a paying job and then go home to their other full-time job--parenting. After all, 8 hours a day is a full-time job in this country.  More hours than that and, well, you're volunteering, aren't you?

This is not to judge those who feel guilty. It's to judge those employers or bosses who feel that more hours are required--of anyone and everyone.  Sure, salary is salary, but working longer than 8 hours a day is, no doubt, not very healthy for any individual and probably not that great for company morale. When did we lose sight of a 40-hour-work-week?

Did you cut back your hours to parent?

Did you turn down a promotion or a more demanding new job because of your children (child)?

Write us here with your stories of work life and work hours. Click onto "comments" just below and fill us in.

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Plan now to have a great student, with good eating habits

Researchers up in Canada have determined a link between a healthy diet and literacy among fifth graders.  While experts have long assumed that a good, balanced diet means better school performances, there hasn't been a lot of research on the subject. Past research has focused on breakfast and malnutrition.

In this study, researchers looked at fifth graders who had failed an elementary literacy assessment.  Students performed better if their diet was of better quality, was adequate and included a variety of foods. This was true even after factoring in parental income and education, the school attended, and student's gender.  Eating fruits and vegetables and a low-fat diet also meant a lower risk of failing the literacy test.

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Want a boy? Eat cereal

In some fascinating new research out of Great Britain, scientists have determined that what a woman is eating around the time she conceives greatly influences the gender of the child when he/she is conceived. It seems low-calorie dieting, for example, produces a girl, while high-calories diets produces a boy.  Among the women studied, those who ate a wider range of nutrients--such as potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12--were more likely to produce boys and, most intriguing, a woman who ate at least one bowl of breakfast cereal daily were more likely to conceive a boy. Researchers say this could explain why developing countries where maternal nutrition is poor seem to be producing more girls than boys, and that the indication is there is a "natural mechanism" at work determining gender. Here's another story on this same research.

Care to comment? Click through to "comments" just below.

15-second cooking tips? Sounds great for busy parents

Many thanks to Susie, who sent us this link to her 15-second cooking show (what a great idea!) and, coincidently, her own toddler given a Stonyfield Farm yogurt smoothie a try.  Check it out here today and we'll be posting a link to her cooking show over in our Blogs We Like link list to the left. If you've got a Mommy Blog to suggest, write us here using the comments button just below.

And, if you happen to have a video of your own child eating a Stonyfield Farm yogurt product, post it on-line and then send us a link to it.  We'll be sure to mention it here.

Exercise good for expecting mom, good for baby's future

"Fetal cardiac autonomic nervous system regulation" is improved for an unborn child when his or her mom does cardiovascular exercise.  What that means in plain English is that the child's heart may benefit from exercise in the same way that exercise benefits us adults.  It could mean long-term heart health for that child, according to one researcher.  Blood pressure, breathing rate and the regulation of internal organs may all benefit. The findings were reported this week at the American Physiological Society, part of the Experimental Biology 2008 scientific conference. The study compared pregnant women who exercised at least 30 minutes at a time, three times a week, with moderate intensity aerobic exercise with those who did not exercise at all. The fetal heart rates were measured for developing fetuses between 28 and 38 weeks of pregnancy.