I have compiled what I think are 50 key challenges new parents may face in their first two years.

I’ll be writing notes here and then using it as the guide for future posts (and maybe even for a book?).

Do you have one to add or think one should be ranked differently? Let me know! Here’s my list so far:

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Seriously, I can’t believe this.

Southwest Airlines, in all of its wisdom, has decided to eliminate preboarding with children.

What are they nuts? I’m going to start a chain email petition.

Isn’t traveling with a child is tough enough????

And how exactly am I supposed to get my guaranteed carryon space showing up to the airport with only minutes to spare?

I mean, that is one of the whole reasons to have a kid right? Early boarding… unlimited carpool lane access… an excuse to eat dessert first…

Don’t they know what I went through to get all these perks?

So apparently Southwest Airlines was getting too many complaints from their “A” boarding pass holders….

So instead of allowing parents and children to preboard, they now “allow’ them to board in between the A and B groups.

So where am I supposed to put my 3 carryons and computer bag?

Of course, preboarding with kids has always been a double edged sword. The last thing I or anyone else sitting around me wants is an active toddler that can’t clear their ears confined to 3′ x 3′ space for any more time than is totally necessary.

I guess if we start sitting next to the person that looks like they want to sleep or hate kids, then eventually those people might start to complain that they didn’t get to choose their seat away from the kids (had we preboarded)… I dunno… but this is horrible.
More on this later…

I don’t think there is any single thing more important to a happy baby than sleep… and it sure helps parents maintain a happy and healthy outlook, too.

I am a psychologist and having spent almost every minute with my daughter over the last 2 years, I’d say almost every time she’s cried there’s been a reason… the trick is are you observing the right details and do you know enough about child development to pick the possible reasons… that’s really the whole rationale for this blog… to share some of the other reasons behind your child’s behavior to improve your child’s mood and strengthen your parent-child relationship.

So sometimes an unhappy baby is something immediate, like they were startled, and sometimes it is behavioral, like when toddlers get frustrated because they know they want the cookie but can’t communicate it to you, and sometimes it is a basic tool to communicate with you that they are hungry, or in this case, they are tired and just need sleep.

Of course there are numerous, entire books on the subject… I think Sears book is among the best:
A couple of things that have helped us:

• Know how much sleep your child needs and at what age they change their naps - sure, every child is different, but knowing kids between 12 and 18 months usually lose a nap, but need the same amount of sleep overall, is a huge way to avoid unhappy kids
• 
• Establish consistent sleeping patterns - every doctor and sleep book in the world will tell you the key is make the time around going to bed as much of a routine as possible. It really works, but it also illuminates why traveling with a child can be so difficult…. broken sleep patterns most often means broken child.
• Don’t give in to crying - sure, there are a lot of different opinions for Ferber’s methods, but it is a lot more involved than simply letting the child cry and you don’t do it all at once, you do it gradually. It is about slowly conditioning your child to establish the right sleeping environment over time. It worked like a charm for us, and every time we had an issue with our daughter’s sleeping, Ferber was right there to tell us why and how to fix it.
• When traveling try to replicate your situation at home - - - if you child sleeps in a crib in their own room, try setting up the crib in the bathroom; everyone will sleep better. This has been an amazing trick and has saved many a vacation.
• If you are a total geek that likes recording everything, check this out.

I’ve got a lot more to say on sleep and will address it in numerous future posts.

Well, I’m hoping today isn’t one of those days I look back on and say I wish I didn’t do that.

There are those moments in parenting when you’re forced to make a split second decision and you just have to do something… maybe you’re tired and do something without really thinking… this is kind of one of those things. Today was the first day…

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I’ve been thrown up on, peed on, and stepped in poo— that’s all fine. But there are some things that a dad just shouldn’t have to go through….

….dads, if you are of the faint of heart, look away….

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Schoolhouse Monologues #3

As we ease our daughter into her new school, one of my daddy duties today was to make my daughter’s first lunch box….

It had all the typical stuff: grapes, a drink, some cut up hot dog…

And some not so typical stuff: like soy beans (she loves them) and some straws.

But as I was amassing her army of little zip-top baggies, I had flashes back to being in 4th grade…

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So after an interesting first day of school and mixed emotions surrounding the whole school thing, we hurried outside to pick some of the last raspberries of the season.

21mo: “Cold, Jacket Please”

Parent: There are those moments when you know you’ve done a great job raising your kid. I, of course, had forgotten to put a jacket on her as we went outside, so not only did she remember putting on a jacket is part of our normal routine for going out when it’s cold, but she also remembered to say please…. I’m one happy daddy.

Development: No need to over analyze this… although, it is a great example of one of my major child-rearing credos: kids can learn anything, you just need to expose them to the right things early on. Really, without doing anything overt or forced, we simply (1) established good, consistent patterns (you always go outside with your jacket when its cold), and (2) we always use please and thank you when talking to her and to each other— kids are sponges (see my other posts on preverbal communication and early language development), and she just picked up the routines and manners in her own time. Some kids aren’t even really talking by 2 and with some small changes in how we interact with her, we have a 21-month old saying please, welcome, and thank you (well, to be fair, she has converted thank you into thanks, which is awfully cute!). Remember, it is never too early to lay the groundwork of things like routines and manners.

Our daughter had her first day of “school” today…

and all the months of waiting and worrying are now, thankfully, behind us.

Believe me, it was really hard to let something this cute out of the house.

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Just because your infant or toddler isn’t talking yet, it doesn’t mean they aren’t understanding language.

I’ve already touched a little on encouraging the importance of preverbal communication on your toddler’s part, but the real key to developing rich language is exposing your infant / toddler to as many words as often as possible.

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Three successful potties in one day. This is uncanny.

I’ll write soon about modern diaper technology and why even if we’re half way home, the second half may be a heck of a lot harder. Make sure to read the first installment of the potty diaries.

Two number twos in the potty in one day! I think we’re on to something!

In addition to “Oh Sit!”, she also commands “No Sit” when she doesn’t want someone to be sitting down… especially when she wants to be sitting at that seat (usually at the dinner table).

Welcome to our on-going adventures in potty training.

Our first installment, so to speak, was a fantastic success… oh, and for the record, it was a number two.

And speaking of number two, we think it is pretty hilarious that when she wants to sit down some where like a chair or the potty, she yells, “Oh Sit!” Which coming from a little kid, it sure sounds like something else. I’m convinced she learned that from her mother.

I actually think her yelling “Oh Sit!” on the potty would make a great YouTube clip, but I don’t want the Office of Child Health Services to come knocking.

Anyway, after a few dirty diapers last night, our daughter ripped off her clothes, ran around naked and then ran into the bathroom, closed the door and made a, well, another sit. Luckily mom was around to clean this one up

I managed to potty train my Labrador in 5 days, we’ll see if I can break that record.

Knowing a few things about your child’s development can really take the mystery (and occasionally the fear and frustration) out of raising your little one.

Is your toddler all of a sudden afraid of their grandparents?

Do they get a fever, runny nose, and diarrhea more often then you think is normal?

Are they suddenly pulling their pants off and running around naked?

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Yeah, yeah, I’m supposed to be writing about kids developmental stages… so I guess this counts… breaking news - a new milestone for my daughter!

My daughter starts nursery school next week (a lot more on this in future posts) so I consider myself ultra-lucky to experience this important milestone first hand — especially since it maybe one of the last major milestones I’ll be lucky enough to see first hand for a while… that, and I think the photo is both hilarious and developmentally intriguing.

After almost 2 years of stay-at-home dadness, and getting the absolute privilege to experience (and most often capture in some digital form) every major milestone of her life: her birth, her first word, and her first time walking, I now feel complete…

My daughter achieved her first successful “big-girl” potty….

She’s only 21 months old, so I wouldn’t consider her potty trained by *any* means, but this was pretty cool… albeit more gag-inducing than I expected, even having changed about 4,000 of her diapers.

The geeky psychologist in me does find it incredibly interesting, however, that even at 21 months she really wanted privacy
She kept pulling the shower curtain over her and saying “Daddy, out!”
I wonder how many more thousands of times I will hear that!
I always thought of privacy as more of a socially created behavior but there are clearly evolutionary things at work here… I’ll definitely have to read up more on that… I’ll let you know what I find.

This next tip is so important that I devoted 2 years of my life to it.

Children feel closest to the people they see most often. So as a work-at-home dad, that’s great news for me and the relationship with my daughter.

But for my career-driven wife and my parents that live 6 hours away, that is less good news. So what can you do? Read the rest