Baby Sitting World

If you have more than one child you may or may not have experienced this.  When Child #1 was 5 years old she went to bed at 7:00.  Then when she turned 8 she could stay up until 7:30.  Finally at 10 years old she didn’t have to go to bed until 8:00.  But Child #2 was only 3 years old and she went to bed at 7:00 because child #1 did.  Then she was only 5 when she got to stay up until 7:30.  And even though Child#1 had to wait until she was 10 years old to stay up until 8:00 on a school night, Child #2 got to stay up until 8:00 when she was just 7.

Same thing happens with electronics and cell phones.  (Guilty myself)  Child #1 – “you are too young for an Ipod, maybe next year when you are X years old.”  Then next year when the holidays roll around both Child #1 and Child #2 get new Ipods.

It is really tough to be conscious of this.  It prays upon the lazy person inside of us that doesn’t feel like going through the whole explanation of why Child #1 can have an Ipod but Child #2 can’t.   Also, it is easier to do one bedtime routine each night rather than 2 or 3. 

My daughter watched Barney all the time when she was little.  Then when she got too old for Barney, she started watching tv shows geared more toward older kids but my son was still little.  Of course my daughter would throw a fit over the mere suggestion that she watch Barney because her little brother was too young for her favorite shows.  So my little guy ended up watching shows not appropriate for his age. 

Sometimes it is such hard work to be a good parent.  You try to stay on top of everything but it’s nearly  impossible.  You have to pick your battles!  Wish I had done things differently looking back.  It seems my son is growing up faster than my daughter did.  I’ll have to try to pull the reins in a bit although once a habit is made it is very hard to break.

Lisa McLellan

Babysitting Services, Classes, and Tips

Many experts argue whether or not you should try to stop your child’s thumb sucking habit.  Thumb sucking is a source of comfort for infants and children and many times stops on its own.  But often the child doesn’t give it up until he starts school and is teased by other children for his thumb sucking.

One of the worst problems with thumb sucking or finger sucking is that it can cause palate deformities and misaligned teeth.  Often children who have sucked their thumbs long past the age of two will need braces and maybe even a palate expander. 

Obviously, trying to force your child to stop could backfire and cause them to do it all the more, either as a protest or unconsciously to comfort themselves after being pressured to stop. 

Some ideas that have worked for others to end thumbsucking are:

• Make a reward chart.  Everyday that the child goes without sucking his thumb, he gets a sticker.  After a week’s worth of stickers, the child is given a small toy or other prize.
• Try “Mavala Stop.”  It is a solution that tastes horrible but is non-toxic which you “paint” on the child’s thumb to deter him from sucking on it.
• Have the child wear a mitten or glove.
• Adhesive bandages worn on the thumb!  This is a great idea only you need to be sure that the child isn’t young enough to choke on the bandage.  Most hate the taste of them so much that they don’t have it in their mouths for long.  Having the child pick out his favorite “character” bandages to wear on his thumb helps as well.  This way he feels that this is his decision too.

To stop the pacifier habit, some parents have had the “Binky Fairy” visit their home.  The child leaves his pacifier/binky under his pillow and the fairy comes in the night, takes the binky, and leaves a small present similar to the tooth fairy.

Other parents have used positive reinforcement by having the child throw the pacifier into the trash himself and receiving a small toy for their bravery.   Still others just wean the child off it by first only allowing it at nap and bedtime, then just bedtime, then every other night etc.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my son had 3 “Binkies.”   In case you didn’t know, pacifiers/Binkies wear out after a while.  My son didn’t know that you could just go to the store and buy more, (after all he was only 2)!  One afternoon as he was going down for a nap, one of his binkies suddenly had a hole in it.  When he put it in his mouth, it must have tasted vile, because he pulled it out and threw it across the room.

He cried for it and I gave it back to him.  But once again he put it in his mouth then quickly pulled it out and threw it.  He finally realized that that binky was no good anymore.  But, he still had two.  A few weeks later the same thing happened to another one.  And about a month after that, the last binky became “injured” as well.  After 4 or 5 repetitions of him putting it in his mouth then throwing it across the room, he understood, laid down, and went to sleep.

The next night at bedtime he cried for his binky.  I reminded him about it and handed it to him.  As soon as he saw the hole, he threw it and went to sleep. That was the end of the binky in our house! 

Caution:  If you attempt letting the pacifier wear out, check it constantly to be sure there aren’t any pieces that could break off and become a choking hazard.  My personal feeling is that this method probably wouldn’t work with a child under two years old because they need to be able to reason a bit.

Many babies are comforted by sucking on anything – a bottle, a pacifier, or their own fingers or thumb.   People often debate which is better to allow the baby to suck on, a pacifier or his own hand.  There is no right answer here, but each has its drawbacks. 

My son was a baby who really craved something to suck on all the time.  Luckily, we realized this early on, because at first we just kept refilling his bottle assuming he was hungry.  He would cry, we would give him a bottle and he’d stop crying.  The nurse at the hospital told us she never saw a newborn drink that much formula.

Once we figured out that he just needed to suck, we had to decide between the thumb and the pacifier. Sometimes the parents really have no say in the matter if for instance the baby won’t take a pacifier and will continue to find his thumb everytime he goes down for a nap.  We were lucky that our son was happy with a pacifier which was our choice.

We preferred the pacifier to his thumb, because most of the time, when a baby sucks his thumb or fingers, it deforms the child’s palate as he grows.  Often a palate expander is necessary along with braces to correct the damage.  Also, when the child gets older and you’re trying to break him of the habit, you can throw away a pacifier, but you can’t throw away his thumb!

Pacifiers are not without their drawbacks either.  The biggest problem we found was with it falling out of his mouth, or forgetting to bring it with us when we left the house.  You can’t drop the baby’s thumb or forget to bring it along! 

My son slept for very long periods right home from the hospital as I mentioned in a previous post.  But, at 7 months old, he was still waking up crying at least once in the middle of the night.  I figured out that it was because he’d lose the pacifier in the crib.  As soon as I’d come in and put it back in his mouth he’d go right to sleep.   To solve this problem, I put him to bed with three pacifiers every night.  One in his mouth and one in each hand.  Now, I’m not saying this was the “right” choice, but it worked for us.  He stopped waking up at night immediately.

I’ll talk tomorrow about some ideas on getting a child to give up thumb sucking or pacifiers.

When my daughter was in 5^th grade, she really wanted a cell phone.  Why would a 5^th grader want a cell phone?  Well, because a bunch of other girls at school had them of course.  I was against children having cell phones at the time because I couldn’t find a valid reason why they needed them.  I thought it was ridiculous!  We live in a relatively wealthy town, where it seems that most of the children live by the saying “just ask and you shall receive.”  I have let my children know from early on that it isn’t like that in our house, so don’t expect a Maserati for your 16^th birthday.

Well, I gave in this time on the cell phone.  It was sort of a guilt gift.  I was leaving on her birthday to travel for business and she was very upset.  I figured that she’d be so excited about the phone that she wouldn’t mind too much that I was going.  It didn’t completely work, but it helped.  Then I realized what a bad idea this was.  What do you suppose my second grader wanted for his birthday?  Try to think of some good reasons why a fifth grader needs a cell phone but a second grader doesn’t. I couldn’t even think of why a fifth grader needed one.

That summer, my son played baseball and my daughter played softball.  Many times they would both have games on the same night on different sides of town.  One night, I dropped my daughter off for her game, drove across town and dropped my son off at his.  I stayed for a little while, then, left to pick up my daughter assuming that because his game had started later than hers that it would run longer. 

While I was gone, my son’s game ended and everybody started leaving the ballpark.  The regular coach wasn’t there so another dad was left in charge.  He saw my son just sitting there as everybody else was driving off and said, “Hey kid, do you need a ride?”  My son said, “No, my mom will come and get me.”  So the guy just said ok and left!   He left my 8 year old son alone in a ballpark at night!  I was furious that nobody waited with him, and I was sick over the thought of what could have happened but thankfully didn’t.  Now, I had a valid reason why even a second grader needed a cell phone.

As time went on, I saw the many benefits of them both having cell phones.  When my daughter babysits, she doesn’t tie up her client’s telephone talking with her friends after the kids go to bed.  If she has an activity afterschool which doesn’t have a particular end time, she just calls from her cell to be picked up.  I can reach her even if she’s at the mall with her friends.  And my son, well he just mostly sends his sister silly text messages and sends me messages telling me he loves me!  But, he does have it just in case he ever gets “left behind” again!

The purpose of this post was NOT to recommend that you buy your children cell phones.  It was really just a story of how I realized that something I was totally against, wasn’t such a bad idea after all!

Anyone who has kids, can probably remember a period of time where their baby just would not sleep no matter what they tried.  This gets very frustrating because we as parents, want and need to sleep and get very cranky when we don’t get our REM or our stage 4 deep sleep.

My daughter was up, like most babies, every two hours when I first brought her home from the hospital.  I had her in a basinet beside my bed and had a Bottle Warmer  in my room as well.  I didn’t want to be going up and downstairs in the middle of the night exhausted, carrying a newborn baby. 

At 5 months old, she was still waking up every 2-3 hours at night to eat.  This didn’t seem right.  I asked my sister about it and she told me that I had to get the baby out of my room.  To make a long story short, the baby wasn’t really “waking up because she was hungry.”  She was simply stirring in her sleep and making little noises.  In an effort to prevent her from waking my husband, I’d pick her right up before she really started crying and I’d start warming the bottle.  Because it was dark, I couldn’t see that her eyes were actually not even open, and I finally realized that I was the one waking her every 2-3 hours to eat!  As soon as I moved her to her own room, she slept through the night.

My son slept 6 hours a night as soon as he came home from the hospital.  But, he couldn’t sleep on his back.  Putting babies to sleep only on their backs was a somewhat new idea at the time.  We always put my daughter down on her side using a wedge to prevent her from rolling onto her belly, so I tried that with my son.  He would sleep for hours on his side, but if he rolled onto his back or was put down on his back, he would wake within 2-3 minutes.

I mentioned in an earlier post about swaddling newborns which sometimes helps newborns to sleep on their backs.  Unfortunately, I didn’t know this about swaddling back then, but I was comfortable putting him down on his side using a wedge.  I’m not suggesting that anybody else do this.  You should always follow your doctor’s recommendations.  I am simply stating what I did.

Sometimes babies wake too soon because they hadn’t eaten enough before they fell asleep.  It’s very common for babies to fall asleep during a feeding.  If the baby falls asleep during a feeding, burping him before putting him down in his crib is very important.  First, it may wake him up so he can finish eating which may help him to sleep a little longer.  Also, it should get the gas bubbles out so he can sleep more comfortably.  It’s tempting to just lay him in his crib since he is sleeping, but if he hasn’t been burped, he probably won’t be asleep for long.

As I mentioned in my post about swaddling, most infants like to be swaddled tightly because it mimics the feeling they had when they were all snug and warm in the womb.  Sometimes they also enjoy something touching the top of their heads for the same reason.  When my babies went through phases where they would wake up every time I laid them down, I would lay them down at the top of the crib or bassinet so that their heads were gently touching the crib bumpers or top side of the bassinet, but also making sure there wasn’t anything close to their faces.  It seemed to help them sleep.

Most babies seem to love motion and/or vibration.  There are baby seats that vibrate, which used to always put my kids to sleep.  And when the batteries wore out, we’d put them in their carriers on top of the washing machine or dryer.  When that didn’t work, we put the carrier in the car and drove around the block a couple of times.

If you have any strategies I didn’t mention here, feel free to mention them in your comments (let’s give Mitch a hand!).  Thank you!

Lisa McLellan

Babysitting Services, Classes, and Tips

 My sister came to help me right after my first babys was born.  Between having the baby delivered by Cesarean section, being a first time mom, and having some anxiety issues due to the huge hormonal changes that had taken place in my body, I felt helpless.  She had already had three children so she was an old pro at this baby stuff.  She came over almost every day for the first couple of weeks to give me a hand. 

I learned a very important lesson from my sister on the very first day she was there.  I couldn’t climb stairs due to the surgery, so I put the baby in her bassinet in a room just off the kitchen for a nap.  Then I came out into the kitchen to where my sister was washing  the dishes and I said “Shhhhhhh the baby’s sleeping!”  My sister looked at me and said, “Are you nuts?”

She then began explaining to me that if I kept the house silent every time the baby went to sleep, then I was going to have to keep the house silent  every time the baby went to sleep.  She explained that little things beyond my control like the telephone ringing or the doorbell etc. would startle the baby and wake her up if the house was silent.  Also, I would be limited as far as what I could do while she slept. 

My sister suggested that during naptime and bedtime, that I throw a load of laundry in the washing machine, a load of dishes in the dishwasher, vacuum, etc.   So then any sudden loud noises wouldn’t wake the baby.  This advice always served me well.   In some homes where I babysit for infants, the parents have actually purchased noise machines to keep from having the infant sleep in total silence for the same reasons. 

Thanks for the words of wisdom Sis!

Bedtime can be the biggest problem for sitters.  Most children aren’t crazy about the idea of going to bed at night.  Some will go willingly, but many times the sitter (and parents too) will have to endure some type of protest. 

The protest might consist of reasons why the child “can’t” or “shouldn’t” go to bed. Children get very creative with these reasons.  If the excuse is “I can’t sleep,” tell the child that you understand that she might not be feeling tired right now, but it’s still bedtime so she has to stay in her bed.  If you give in and let the child stay up, you can almost guarantee that the child will say the same thing the next night or the next time you babysit.

Maybe the child will disguise the protest and instead of actually saying she doesn’t want to go to bed, she will claim to be hungry and ask for a snack.  This is the “stalling method.”  A child using this technique may also “remember” that he was supposed to take a shower or bath before bed.  And then, there’s always the “I can’t find my blankie (or other security object)” which leads to staying up for 2 more minutes, 2 more hours, or as long as it takes to find the item.

Tips for getting a child off to bed without a hassle:

• Bedtime is bedtime no matter what the excuse.  Send the child back to bed with gentle words if she gets up saying she can’t sleep.
• Stick to the scheduled bedtime and routine as best you can.
• If the child has a security item that she absolutely must have to get to sleep, either leave it in the child’s bed, or if you are the babysitter, find the item as soon as you get there and put it in the child’s bed.  Then at bedtime there’s no need for a search.
• If your children or the children you are babysitting ordinarily have a snack sometime between after dinner and bedtime, then announce snack time a half hour to forty-five minutes before bed.  This should give the kids plenty of time to pick a snack, eat it, and be cleaned up by bedtime.
• Give a couple of warnings maybe 10 minutes before and then 5 minutes before that it is nearing time to go to bed.
• If the child claims he is afraid of the dark because he thinks there are monsters under his bed or in his closet, take a squirt bottle, fill it with water, and make a label for it that says something like “Anti-monster spray.”   Give a light squirt of it under the child’s bed and in the closet to kill any potential “monsters.”

The more consistent you keep the bedtime rules and routines, the easier it will be for you and your babysitter to get the little ones into bed without a hassle.

Children love to play in the dirt and sand.  They love to make mud pies and sand castles.  They love to dig in it and sift it.  They can literally spend hours drawing in it with sticks and adding water to make “quicksand.”  Dirt and sand are two of natures greatest natural toys.  But, did you know that there could be a very serious unseen danger right there in your very own sandbox?  

Each year up to 100 children suffer partial blindness from a parasitic infection called Toxicariasis. This infection is caused by round worms residing in an infected dog or cat’s intestine.  Children can become infected with Toxicariasis by playing in dirt or sandboxes where dogs or cats have left their waste.

The eggs from the parasite travel from the fecal matter to the dirt. Then the child accidentally ingests the parasite when he has been playing in the contaminated dirt and inadvertently puts his fingers in his mouth or nose. Once the eggs have been ingested, they hatch inside the child’s intestine and the larvae travel to the lungs, liver, brain or eyes.

On most occasions  the infection goes undetected, as the symptoms mimic those of other more common illnesses such as a cold or flu.  Symptoms may include fever, coughing, wheezing, and rashes.  Other symptoms that also may occur with the infection are recurrent pneumonia, and eye lesions.  The good news is that most infections clear up on their own, but some do require steroids or anti-parasitic medications.

The best way to prevent infection is by teaching children to wash their hands often, especially after playing in dirt or petting animals.   Bring anti-bacterial wipes on trips to the playground where there may not be appropriate facilities to wash up.  Also, cover sandboxes tightly when not in use.  And, even very young puppies and kittens can be infested by roundworms as they can be passed on by their mothers, so if you own a cat or dog, have them wormed regularly.

Parents, guardians, babysitters, nannies, and any other type of childcare provider should exercise caution when allowing the children to play in dirt or sand.   Let the kids play, but just bring the wipes along so they don’t come home with anything they didn’t leave with – like some freeloading parasites! 

Lisa McLellan

Babysitting Services

When my kids were younger, I tried everything to get them to eat more fruits and vegetables.  I would put the basket of fresh fruit right in the middle of the table during breakfast and lunch.  Then at dinner time I would make two or three different vegetables with every meal thinking that it would increase my children’s intake of veggies. 

I hate to admit that these strategies didn’t work very well.  Once in a while my son or daughter would grab an apple from the basket, but for the most part, they weren’t really eating any additional fruits or vegetables.  

Then I tried to figure out why theydidn’t eat more fruit when they both love it.  I asked my daughter, but she said she didn’t like the skin on the apples.  Yet, when I would peel apples to make an apple pie, both kids would sit right by me and eat all the skins as soon as I peeled them off.  Then I asked my son and he said he didn’t eat the fruit because he was full from lunch.  But, 15 minutes later he would be grabbing a few cookies for dessert.

Finally, one day I felt like having an orange, but then went for a couple of cookies instead because I was too lazy to peel the orange.  Aha!  Laziness!  Could this be the cause?

The next day before the kids got up for school, I peeled a banana, broke it into 4 chunks and put it on a plate.  Then, I sliced an apple and put that on the plate as well.  Next, I cut the tops off of 4-5 strawberries an added them to my fruit plate.  And finally, peeled an orange and separated the slices.  (It looked so pretty and colorful)

When I called the kids down for breakfast, I never said a word, I just left the fruit plate in the middle of the table.  The kids ate about 3/4 of the fruit.   Most days they eat it all, but some days not so much.  But they do eat at least a little every day when before they would go weeks without eating any.   If you’re wondering what I do with the fruit that gets left behind….mommies and daddies need fruit too, and we can be lazy on occasion as well.  So the cut, sliced and diced fruit never goes to waste!

I tried the same trick at lunchtime.  Sometimes I would put out a fruit plate and other times I would put a plate with celery sticks, carrot sticks, and cucumber slices.  Then I would call the kids in for lunch before lunch was ready.  The children would be hungry, so they would sit down and eat the veggies while waiting for their sandwiches. 

I have employed this strategy many times while babysitting, with many different families and it seems to work across the board.  Give it a try, you just may find your kids getting even more than the recommended 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day!

Every household has different rules, but one rule that should be standard in every home is that the parent’s bedroom is off limits to the children’s friends, babysitters,  nannies, and the children too when the parents aren’t home. 

Almost everyone has personal “stuff” that they don’t want anyone touching.  If you designate one room of your house, usually the parent’s bedroom, to be a private room, it may save you alot of headaches later. 

Before the sitter arrives, put away money, jewelry, or anything else you wouldn’t want touched in your “private room.”  Even if your sitter is the most trustworthy soul, things can get knocked over, kicked under something, or lost by accident.  But, if everything is put away, nothing can happen to it.

Some families allow their children to sleep in their parent’s bed or even just watch tv in their parent’s room.  If this is the case at your house then maybe you want to designate another room of the house to be off limits. 

I had a client tell me once that she had used a very young sitter to watch her little girl one afternoon for a couple of hours.  When she got home, the sitter and the little girl had taken all kinds of clothes and shoes out of the mother’s closet and were playing dress up. I once had a sitter help herself to my very expensive perfume.  She used so much, the house smelled of it for a couple of days afterward.

It also helps to point out to babysitters or nannies on their first visit to your home what rooms they are allowed to use and any particular items they are allowed to touch (or not).  You may not want the sitter touching your antique victrola, or the batch of cookies you made for school the next day, or even your kid’s pet hamster for fear it might escape.

I’m not suggesting you store homemade cookies in your bedroom, but you should put away money and valuables and also be sure to let the sitter know  what is off limits as far as rooms, furniture, and other items that you don’t normally keep in your bedroom.