Seven Ways to Enjoy Your Baby's First Year

A week or so after I had my first baby, my friend Susan stopped by -- just in the nick of time: Will had been crying for what felt like hours and nothing I did helped. Susan, who'd just had her second daughter, calmly scooped up my inconsolable newborn and did a sort of combo side-to-side swaying and up-and-down jostling that magically lulled him out of Waa-Waa Land.

I've had three kids since then, and Susan's "mommy jig" has been a lifesaver with every one of them. But I never would have known it if I hadn't let her help me out -- and that's exactly why she, and I, and other moms who've been there want you to remember these seven rules:

1. Asking for help does not make you incompetent.

Precisely the opposite, in fact. Sometimes, there's no other way to get from point A to point B. Even if there is, getting there alone can take twice as long and make you crazy.

Kim Ganier of Huntington Beach, California, was always a self-sufficient person -- until her first baby, Laci (now 3), was a week old and Ganier found herself doing laundry while "someone else was sitting in my glider and cuddling my baby. The lightbulb went on," she says. After that, visitors were put to work so Ganier could enjoy Laci. Her advice now: Speak up, be specific about what you need, and say yes when offered help of any kind. "You'll feel guilty at first, but you'll get over it," she says.

It'll be easier if you remember that someday you will reciprocate -- if not to the particular mom who helped you out, then to another. Several months ago, I was having dinner out with my kids when the mom at the next table asked if I had an extra diaper. I happily handed one over. Sure enough, not long after that, I discovered I'd forgotten to bring a clean swim diaper to the pool and had to go begging from lounge chair to lounge chair for a spare. A better-prepared mom than I saved the day.

So never let guilt or embarrassment or even your ego get in the way of accepting help. Improvising a diaper is a lot harder than returning a favor.

2. Babies don't need as much new stuff as you think.

They seem to outgrow everything from stretchies to bassinets overnight, so why stock up? "I wish someone had told me not to buy cutesy, expensive clothes for my newborn," says Kristine Shuler, mom of 3-year-old Kaylee in Baroda, Michigan. "Little did I know she would spend most of the time in T-shirts from Target. She didn't wear half the clothes I bought!"

There are two lessons here: First, take your time when deciding what you'll really need. Do a little research, make a list, and stick with it. (Parenting Magazine's Baby Must-Haves book is a great resource for teasing out what to buy and what to skip, by the way.) Second, as tempting as it is to buy everything fresh and new and adorable for your first baby -- resist. Some items, like swings and bouncy seats, are used for such short periods of time that they never see much wear and tear. Can you borrow from a friend? If not, check out Craigslist.org or Freecycle.org.

Marilyn Sklar swears by a children's resale store in her town. "When my daughter, Raquel, was born, I started buying gently used clothes from there. Later, I brought in some of Raquel's clothing and took an in-store credit to purchase more," says the mom of two in Phoenix. "Now I recycle that way whenever possible. We're saving money and being green!"

3. Getting a baby to sleep is worth the trouble.

This is a matter of basic maternal math: baby zzz's = mommy zzz's. Veteran moms will tell you that figuring out, early on, how to get your baby to go to sleep, stay asleep, and take regular naps is key to getting through that entire first year. "Being sleep-deprived is a fact of life, but the sooner you get sleep figured out, the better," says Michelle Wilkins, a mom of three in Blacksburg, Virginia.

For Theresa Cole, mom of Ethan, 5, and Jordan, 1, in Kansas City, Missouri, the trick is to get your newborn used to falling asleep on his own: "Think twice about feeding your baby to put him to sleep. He's a clean slate, waiting to learn how to do things. If you teach him he can only drift off with a boob or bottle in his mouth, that's the only way he will -- even at two in the morning. And, seriously, who wants to deal with that every night for the next couple of years?"

I'm a firm believer in consistency. When my third baby was 9 months old and not taking decent naps during the day, I came up with some new routines. I stopped letting him catnap in the car while I ran errands, and planned outings around his naptime, to make sure he could go down in his crib. I also turned his room into a sleep haven (blackout shades, white-noise machine). Pretty soon he was napping twice a day, and snoozing better at night, too. To keep daytime noise to a minimum, Jamie Pearson, mom of Avery, 7, and Max, 5, in Palo Alto, California, adds this tip: "Make a diplomatic front-door sign that says, 'Baby napping. Please visit us another time.' "

4. Competitive parenting: not cool.

Of course you already know that babies develop at their own pace. And of course you know there's more to your baby than when he hits milestones. But when it seems like every kid in the playgroup except yours is sitting up or saying "Mama," it can take all your willpower to act like you just don't care.

It's totally understandable to compare. But for the sake of your sanity, it's worth trying to stop. "I made the conscious decision to believe the experts who said that the spectrum of normalcy was wide," says Susie Sonneborn Blim, a mom of three in Montclair, New Jersey. "I also stopped hanging out with moms who were constantly boasting about or obsessing over their babies' milestones, because that played a huge part in how caught up I got with comparing my baby to other babies."

Pearson had a similar tactic: "When Avery wasn't the first -- or second, or third -- baby in my mothers' group to crawl, I told myself that the impatient, intense, irritable babies were always the early crawlers and walkers," she says. "I kept these theories to myself, of course!" If you're truly worried that your baby is falling behind, bring it up with your pediatrician. She should be your go-to expert when it comes to your child's health and development -- not the bragging, pitying other moms.

5. You and your baby don't have to be joined at the hip.

Experts say: Being touched, held, carried, and cuddled is vital to a baby's development. Moms answer back: There's nothing more delicious than touching, holding, carrying, and cuddling a baby -- to a point. When it's clear that you and/or your baby need a break from each other, take it. This is especially true when your infant's wailing or your pre-toddler's whining is about to push you over the edge. Hand her to Daddy or send out an SOS to a friend or relative.

If there's no one you can call on for help, take a tip from Christine Klepacz, a mom of two in Bethesda, Maryland. "When your baby is crying and you could burst into tears yourself, or when you're just overwhelmed, it's okay to put her in her crib for a while and sit by yourself. She's safe, and sometimes she needs time away from you, too. It's okay. We all do it!"

It's equally important to carve out time for yourself regularly -- not just when you're about to go off the deep end. If there's one thing Jennifer Geddes, a Parenting staffer and mom of two girls, learned during the first year, it's that "you have to take a few minutes for yourself here and there. It's essential to being a happy and healthy mom. I was so concerned with attending to my daughter's needs that I neglected my own. I barely ate, slept, or left the house," she says.

If you're thinking, "Yeah, right -- I can barely get a shower," wait: It's doable. You just have to plan ahead, be creative, and adjust your definition of what constitutes a relaxing break. Where, prebaby, you were used to spur-of-the-moment shopping sprees or on- a-whim workouts, you might find, like Marilyn Sklar, that your idea of a good time now is "a glass of wine and a good book after the children are in bed." Or a brisk walk in the morning before they get up. Me, I swear by weekend matinees. I can get a lot of regenerative mileage out of two hours by myself in a cozy, dark theater with a bag of popcorn, lost in a great story onscreen.

6. The best baby stage is the one you're in.

"They grow up so fast." The reason you'll hear this from everyone and her grandmother: It's true. Kim Lavergne of Nashville, mom of 2-year-old Justin, remembers feeling like time was crawling after he was born. "In reality, the days go by so fast that the next thing you know, your child is no longer a baby," she says. "I've learned to cherish and enjoy the time I spend with Justin."

Charlene Kochensparger of Centerville, Ohio, who has a daughter and a son, seconds that. "First-time parents tend to wish the time away -- 'I can't wait for her to crawl, walk, talk' -- and not enjoy the moment," she says.

The time slipped away from Loretta Sehlmeyer of Dix Hills, New York, because she was so focused on being a perfect parent to her son, Christian, now 4. "I fretted so much over caring for him that I missed the entire experience. I honestly didn't notice that my baby was growing and changing a little bit each day. I spent a lot of time looking at him, but I was way too distracted to actually see him," she says.

"So take some time each day, real time, to hold your baby and do nothing else but use your senses to connect with him. Smell his sweetness, and look at those tiny fingers and toes and amazing little nose."

7. There's no one else like you.

Only a handful of babycare rules are written in stone (specifically, those having to do with health and safety -- like, you really should always put a baby to sleep on his back). Most everything else is up for interpretation. "It's great to read up, solicit opinions, and listen respectfully to advice you haven't asked for," says Michelle Wilkins. "But you know your baby and yourself best. You'll know when an idea resonates."

Adds Chantel Fry, mom of Dylan, 3, and Madalyn, 7 months, in Pittsburgh: "You're going to be different than the next mom. Not better, not worse -- because you do the best you can, and if at the end of the day your child has laughed, and is clean and fed, you can go to sleep knowing that you did what is expected of you." No matter how you did those things, exactly, you can be proud that you're inventing your own special way of being a mom.

Maura Rhodes, a mom of four, is a contributing editor at Parenting.com

Stubborn Kids

From her earliest breaths, my daughter Alexis was a force to be reckoned with. As an infant, she shooed away the cereal spoon; as a toddler, she rebounded from her bed all night long. When she was in preschool, her teachers would tell us that her strong will made her a natural leader. We thought of her more as a little dictator.

Alexis had figured out the great secret of life: Nobody can force you to do anything you absolutely don't want to do.

Watching her unapologetically go after what she wanted always left me half mortified, half secretly impressed. My eagerness to please has sometimes made me cave when I shouldn't. Yup, that's me, serial yes-woman for every party sales rep who needs a patsy -- er, hostess. But Alexis can stand up for herself, a trait that will serve her well all through life.

Still, raising stubborn kids is tricky. It's up to you to show them they don't rule the world -- without teaching them to be wimps.

Bullheaded by nature?

Some kids seem to be born willful. Alexis certainly was: From day one, she'd scream her little head off unless we toted her around in a baby carrier.

Such resolve often doesn't soften, either. As demanding babies morph into toddlers, the "You can't make me!" factor surfaces. Of course, most kids this age are hardheaded. But what sets the genetically inflexible apart is the ferocity and persistence with which they do battle. "When my oldest, Gabrielle, was a toddler, she'd occasionally put up a fuss about something. I would think, why are you being like this today? Then I'd realize it's just the age, we'd get through it, and the next day, she'd be fine," says Erin Bailey of Germantown, Tennessee. "But when my son Mick was three, every day was like that, over everything. He just didn't cave at all."

I remember a doctor's appointment when Alexis was 4, when she dug in so hard, and for so long, she nearly made the doctor cry. We weren't even able to complete her physical that day and had to reschedule the appointment! She returned with her father instead of me -- that simple switch changed the dynamic and Alexis was okay.

The bright side of boldness

There are positives to kids' toughness. For instance, Mick Bailey isn't intimidated by older kids. On a visit to a children's museum when he was 3, Mick held his own with a bunch of rowdy grade-schoolers. "It didn't matter that the other kids there were bigger," says Bailey. "He took charge of everything he was playing with."

Stubbornness also often comes with a steadfast ability to focus, and that can boost learning. At age 5, Alexis, by sheer grit, taught herself to ride a two-wheeler-in a single afternoon. And Bailey says that Mick was buttoning and zipping at a much younger age than his more laid-back older sister. "He was just more determined," she says.

Laurie Maniacci of Naperville, Illinois, says her daughter's strong temperament has helped her work out problems with other kids. Once, she was having a hard time with some boys who wouldn't let her play princess. Five-year-old Emily hung in there until she'd made her case for including princesses in the boys' game. "They soon saw things her way," says Maniacci. Such stick-to-itiveness has also turned Emily into a leader. "She rallied her friends to put on a play, and then directed them. It was amazing," says her mom.

The ptotection and attention from parent's can make children be more polite, confident and believe that they can do something more useful for them and for the other. In addition togetherness in every weekend can give happiness for children and for all family, so for worker parent's, you are must make time for together with your children. So, Happy be good Parent's!!!

Clever Solutions for Bad Habits

At age 4, my son A.J. was completely potty trained. Not that he went to the bathroom willingly, however. He would dance, shuffle, cross his legs, and wait until the last possible second. One Saturday afternoon, we were getting ready to run errands and A.J. was in full procrastination mode, bobbing up and down like a mad cork. I launched into my usual "Time to go to the potty, honey" speech, with no success. Then my husband looked A.J. straight in the eye and said, "I'll give you a dollar if you go to the bathroom right now." A.J. stopped cold. He eyeballed Tony to see if he was for real. My husband started to draw a crisp bill out of his pocket, and A.J. took off.

I was appalled. "You're going to teach him to expect money every time he pees," I said. "Do you know what sort of precedent you're setting here?" Tony just shrugged and said, "Let's see what happens." What happened was this: That dollar was the best money we ever spent. From that day on, A.J. had a new attitude about the bathroom: Why avoid it? You never know what fun you might have! I'm not actually sure I'd use the same tactic again, but I did learn this: Sometimes the ever-evolving process of parenting requires us to toss out the handbook and get creative. Experiment -- sometimes it really pays off!

Mealtime mayhem

Kemi Chavez used to get frustrated when her toddler, Olivia, refused to try healthy foods. "She wouldn't eat broccoli, peaches, beef, or anything with an unusual smell," says Chavez. The Denver mom happened on her solution almost by chance. "One day I just gave up and let her pick her food from my plate. It seemed ridiculous, but it worked." So Olivia was "served" every meal from Mom's plate for months and became a much more adventurous eater. "She even likes Thai food now," says Chavez.

In the preschool years, the dinner table can turn into an absolute war zone -- unnecessarily so. I used to fight epic battles with A.J. about our "no sugary cereal" rule. He had sampled Lucky Charms and Froot Loops at various social events and relentlessly pestered me for them at the grocery store. Finally, I gave in and bought him a box, with one caveat: You can eat it, but only as dessert. (With the added vitamins and minerals, I figured the cereal would be healthier than candy.) In a similar burst of "Why not?" thinking, a friend of mine enticed her preschool-age twins to eat brussels sprouts by bringing the hamster cage over to the table and feeding the vegetable to the furry creature. Fascinated, the kids decided to try what their pet was eating. (It turns out that one of them, now 10, is still a brussels sprouts fan.)

Too many dinnertime rules can also lead to frustration for everyone, and some loosening up rarely hurts. (Face it: Your kids probably won't be dining at a White House state dinner anytime soon, so if their eating habits are a bit eccentric, so be it.) Tammy Burk of Charlottesville, Virginia, got tired of telling her children to sit properly in their seats during dinner. "I made a new rule," she says. "If they don't want to sit down, that's okay. But they have to stand at the table and eat instead of running around." Likewise, Abby Carr of New York City grew increasingly frustrated with her 3-year-old's demands at the table. "Stephen used to bark out orders like 'More juice!'" she says. "So we told him we'd listen only if he used good manners and spoke in a French accent. Now he says, 'Sir, may I puh-leeze have more joooce?"On a sunny day, this child and mom knew to apply sun block all over and it's a good time to fall in together and child can share with they parents.

It's can be favorite moment of all the ones can took during the week!

Starting the Right Schedule

For the first months after we brought our new daughter home from the hospital, I was thankful to see the sun come up each morning -- in part because that's the only way I knew day from night. Like most new moms, I was struggling to adapt to Infant Standard Time, in which 3 a.m. was a perfectly normal hour for our entire household to be awake. Mali's nap schedule looked something like this:

Day 1 -- 11:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.

Day 2 -- 10:30 a.m. to 10:37 a.m.; 1:17 p.m. to 1:23 p.m.; 5:15 p.m. to 7:48 p.m.

Day 3 -- No nap. Fussing and fretting instead.

I'd spend each day asking myself, Is it time for her to nurse again? When did I last change her diaper? I was exhausted, confused, and constantly faced with my poor mothering skills.

You have to get her on a schedule, well-meaning parents suggested -- even those who naturally tended to go with the flow. Routine is good for children, the books said. It did make sense that some order would be as soothing for me as it would be for my baby. After all, imagine what it must be like for infants. Every day brings new experiences: blades of grass, ringing phones, a bird -- all major phenomena if you've never experienced them before. With all that novelty flooding a developing brain, it's logical that some sameness (a reliable naptime, a regular bath ritual) would be comforting.

I wanted that security for Mali. But I couldn't get organized enough to take a shower. How would I get this squirming bundle of urgent, erratic demands to follow a routine? It took a bit of trial and error, but we finally backed into one that works, most of the time. And if we could handle it, you can, too.

Watch for patterns

The first thing to do is give yourself a break. "From birth to two months, just throw the whole concept of scheduling out the window," says Ari Brown, M.D., coauthor of Baby 411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for Your Baby's First Year. Your infant is going to reverse day and night; she's going to sleep through feedings and feed when you think she should be sleeping. She's still trying to adjust to the world outside the womb. Trying to get a little baby to adhere to a timetable is a recipe for frustration.

In fact, schedules that are too strict can actually be harmful, especially to infants, according to Sherry Reinhardt, head of Support Services for Mothers, a collective of support groups in the San Francisco area. Trying to keep a baby this age on a feeding schedule that doesn't allow her to eat whenever she's hungry could slow her weight gain and brain development. If you're watching the clock ("It's ten a.m. -- two hours until lunchtime!"), you may miss the clues to her actual needs ("I barely ate at breakfast; I'm hungry now").

By 3 or 4 months, however, a baby's internal rhythms emerge more clearly. "Their systems are more organized," Reinhardt says. Paying attention to your baby's own natural temperament and tendencies is the first step in adding order to her day. Think "routine" or "pattern" instead of "schedule" -- and let your baby take the lead.

In most of these cases the families remained intact and services were provided to rectify identified problems and to maintain the baby safety and well-being. When this is not possible the child may be placed with a relative or someone with whom they have a significant relationship. If no such resource exists, the child in conjunction with the court, may be placed in a foster home, or where appropriate a group home or residential unit.