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Keep laughimg…it brightens up your child’s life too!

How do we motivate a child? Should you praise / not praise?

Before reading the article, think for a minute as to how do you make your child do what you want him to do? Most of us would resort to bribing…

‘If you eat I will give you ….
‘If you don’t do your homework, I will not ….
‘Clean up your room and we will go out…
‘We give them sweets if they are quiet and a praise for listening to us…
‘We give rewards to the child for doing what we want them do…

This goes on and on and we do not spare the very small infants also. How many of us have not taken our kids to the window to feed or shown him chocolates to do what WE WANT HIM TO DO? 
Doesn’t this make life easier for us??

But what about the quality of relationship we are building with them? Is it really ok to do things this way or is something missing in our communication with them?

It slowly becomes a cycle of ‘bribe-work done-praise’ and the child hunts for praise everytime .

THE QUESTION IS if not like this, then how?
Is praising the child valid?

First you must understand that this kind of handling leads to a conditioned response in a child where the child performs for something in kind or appreciation or praise from you…the short term goals are met with…you have achieved for the day what you wanted him to do…but again has it been of any use in the long term?

No!

In the long term, your child would still detest eating, would still not study if left alone and would still not be kind and polite when you are not around. So what have you achieved?
In all this we forget to build a quality of relationship with the child that is needed for the overall growth of the child.

This is something like a scientific study done where dogs were taught to salivate on hearing the dinner bell…the dog could be taught to respond how  the scientists wanted them to but would that be long lasting? What if the dinner bells wouldn’t ring?
Do we build any relationship with the dog?
Now why do we actually resort to all these means?

The answer is to make our task easier. Though done with the best intentions in mind, this kind of conditioning the mind slowly and surely erodes on the self esteem of the child.

When we praise the child for everything he does….it dampens his enthusiasm in the long run and in the absence of this praise, he feels lost .This may affect his entire life later on…family, relationships, work atmosphere and all the fields in his life.
He would look for appreciation and if not given would feel small and useless.

Unknowingly, praising and rewarding too much in childhood has sown the seeds of decreased self worth and low self esteem in him as his entire presence depends on the others approval.
Praise for everything makes children feel judged and evaluated .Very sensitive children can see through this game that you are playing. They know that they are being praised unnecessarily…they know it when you bribe them…they know when they can manipulate you to get what they want and the only thing they do not know is to do things to make themselves happy.

Their work performance and activities become dependent on your requirements and needs.

Many of you would recall that there have been times when you are busy in your work and your child comes showing off something. Most of us have a tendency of looking up for a briefest of seconds and smilingly praising him for that, immediately going back to the work we were doing.

Do you really you think that your child has not seen through this?)

They become busy… to do things for your (the parents-their ideal and their leaders) satisfaction.
Now coming back to how do we then motivate a child to do something?

Definitely you must praise your child when indicated as given below

• If your child has performed something new for the first time

(You must not keep on praising your child everyday for the same thing, everyday. like every time your child jumps from the sofa, writes the alphabets, studies for an hour…etc. for the first time, yes…you must for the first time, but not everyday.)

•  When your child crosses his mark and does something extra (from the alphabets, he starts with the words, he jumps from a higher level, studies on his own…etc)
• A star chart that is recommended now throughout the world is not to be used to make your child do activities like eating food, listening to you being a ‘good boy’ etc.

IT IS TO BE USED ONLY FOR DEVELOPING A SKILL OR AN ART FOR CHILD like painting, music, pottery or anything that your child is learning.

Here if you are using this chart or bribing the child, you are not doing it to make your job easier but to give that initial push to your child to give him the gift of any one skill in his life.

To develop any skill in a child, he needs to practice and that is very dry and dull for the child. This is where bribing him with stars and gifts at the end make sense for some time. In a few years your child will actually develop a real liking for what he is learning and will not need pushing to do that thing.

To make him do other routine activities like eating…you have to adopt other means for which we will be helping you in a few more articles to come in the next few weeks.

So from now, love your child unconditionally and not for what he has done…
Praise him genuinely and not to make him happy or get your work done
Resort to stars and gifts for the soul purpose of enhancing his skills…

Your child has a brain of his own and do not try to mask his thinking with yours…

Keep reading for more.We wish you happy parenting

Sleeping pattern of your baby

Q: HOW MANY HOURS A DAY SHOULD MY BABY SLEEP ?

This is the question uppermost in most of the parents mind after birth. Remember that
your little one spends maximum of her time sleeping after birth for the first month of life.
Though there is a period of wakefulness immediately after birth which lasts for about 45 minutes where the child is wide awake and looks around after which she has spells of sleep.
This period of wakefulness is the time of maximum awareness in your baby in her entire life. So take her, cuddle her, and breast feed her and the bond between you two is formed!

A neonate (0 to 28 days of life) sleeps for almost 16 to 17 hours a day out of which she sleeps at a stretch at night for about 8 to 9 hours and rest is divided into naps of 40-45 minutes in the daytime.        
The amount of sleep the baby wants to take should be left to the baby herself as long as she is taking proper feeds, is comfortable and is active between the naps. It is even acceptable if the baby has immediate drifting to deep dozing. The baby may be wide-awake and ravenous a moment and may go off to sleep the other moment.
Generally the amount of time that a baby can sleep decreases with age and is less than 12 hours by the time she is 3 years of age.
There are a few babies who are light sleepers though and wake up frequently at night. Most of these babies are very active by mind and there is nothing much you can do other than bearing with this.
TIPS FOR A GOOD SLEEP PATTERN

• Establish a regular sleep time and nap times

Once your child starts forming a regular sleep pattern, you too set a time for her to sleep. Let it depend on the time patterns of your house and also the sleep pattern of your child. It is also a good idea to set a pattern for her nap times in the daytime which will vary from 2-3 naps in the daytime.
Sometimes when your baby seems to be very energetic in the night, it may be sign of extreme tiredness and paradoxically she will find it more difficult to sleep at night. Even the continuous sleep at night may be disturbed on that day. 

•  Set up a bed time routine/ritual

Setting up a routine like giving your child a short massage and warm sponging with lavender wash, or even singing a lullaby, bedtime stories, playing soft music etc can set the mind of your baby towards sleeping.
Let the ritual be something that both of you enjoy.

•  Make him sleep independently

It is always in the best interest of all of us to make your child sleep independently without the need of rocking or being carried around. Any such habit may not be easy to erase later on and the best advantage is that the child will be able to snooze off again at night time too if he gets up.

•  Decipher your child

By tour maternal sixth sense, you will know when your child wants to sleep and there will be tell tale signs like rubbing of eyes and ears, bags under the eyes, extreme irritability etc. These are the times when you must put your child off to sleep and then maintain schedule the same if it fits into your household schedule too.

•  Tackle disturbed sleep

At six months, most of the babies drop their night feeds and sleep continuously but few of the naughty ones may get up more frequently. do not rush to their side to pacify or play. Just give him some time to do what he wants and get back to sleep. He may have learnt a new skill which he wants to try. If he is crying too much, wait for sometime and then go and pacify. Still try not to bring him to a complete wakeful state. Put him back to sleep slowly. Once he realizes that whatever happens, he has to sleep back, the habit will break slowly.

Visit our website ‘ourbabysworld .com’ for more

Pelvic Floor Exercises

What are the pelvic floor exercises that I can do? What are these muscles and why should I do these exercises?

Pelvic floor consists of a ‘hammock’ of muscles and ligaments, which resemble a figure of ‘8’and stretches from the pubic bone to the bottom of the tail bone. It is very important to maintain the tone of these muscles as they not only hold the uterus, bladder and bowel in place but also regulates the opening and closing of their outlets.
It also plays a very important role in love making.
Pregnancy may make these muscles lax and they come under strain and so try to do these pelvic floor exercises regularly.
How does pregnancy affect my pelvic floor?

Being pregnant can place large amounts of stress on your pelvic floor and its muscles. Your pelvic floor can become weak and stretched from as early as 12 weeks into your pregnancy. Pregnancy symptoms such as constipation can stretch and weaken your pelvic floor further.
 What will happen if these muscles are weak?

If the muscles continuously stretches and strains, it may cause permanent damage to the pelvic floor. You may have urinary incontinence, leaking of urine on sneezing and coughing, prolapse of the uterus or bladder through the pelvic floor, inefficient love making etc.
How often do I need to exercise my pelvic floor muscles?

Current recommendations are that all women should exercise their pelvic floor muscles eight times, three times a day. If you have very weak pelvic floor muscles or are trying to reduce leaking during exercise (stress incontinence), you may need to do more than this.

To start with, aim to practice your exercises in a quiet place as described earlier, at least three times a day, but then try to do as many as you can as you go about your daily routine.

There is evidence that performing pelvic floor exercises during your pregnancy can help to prevent leaking after your baby is born. It is also much harder to learn how to do these exercises after your baby is born so get as much practice in now as you can.

You should aim to make pelvic floor exercises a part of your life forever. Once you are familiar with them, it is easy to do them three times a day without them interfering with your daily life at all.

visit our website ‘ourbabysworld.com’ for more …

Q: WHAT MAKES MY BABY CRY?    

Crying is the only mode of communication between the baby and her mother  

In a routine a crying baby does not mean that she is ill or in trouble.

“let us see dad…who gives up first !!!”

The baby can cry irrespective of the reason. The foremost cause for the baby’s yelling being hunger and thirst, also wet nappies are the cause for continuous crying till they are changed placing the little one in a cold environment, undressing, bathing and over stimulation may also result in fretful crying. Some times the baby may also get disturbed and startled during the various stages of sleep May also lead to excessive crying unless they are cuddled and made to sleep again. Unwanted loud sounds and bright lights may also be a reason enough for the baby to start crying.

A healthy and otherwise playful child may cry out of mere boredom.

The crying episodes usually begin during the first week of life and lasts unto 3 months of age as this is the time when the baby gets accustomed to the external environment and is the period when her neurological, digestive and emotional systems are getting adjusted as per the existing surrounding.

The other important and mostly the only unwell state when the baby cries is abdominal colics
Whatever may be the reason the baby has to stop crying within an hour’s time or otherwise its time to consult your doctor.

Read our site ‘ourbabysworld.com’ for a complete and comprehensive guide to pregnancy and parenting