Top 10 Myths (and Facts) of Being a (New) Mother:

1.     “You can have it all” Fact: We all have 24 hours in our day and cannot do more than our limited physical bodies can handle. However, you can find the right balance and re-prioritize to be happy with a new schedule, new relationships, and new sense of purpose. You may not have it all, but you can build a fulfilling new life.

2.     “When your baby is born, you will feel euphoric and amazed.” Fact: Women relate differently to a new baby and many face unforeseen emotional and physical challenges. Motherhood may not be what you thought, and you may need to consider a different lifestyle than you’d expected.

3.     “My pediatrician will be able to answer all of my questions.” Fact: Pediatricians are specialized to answer medical questions. They are no better trained in many parenting-related issues than anyone else in your social network. For answers to most parenting questions, turn to someone you respect and/or literature that can guide you to answers that fit your particular circumstances.

4.     “I’ll be able to take care of myself when my baby sleeps.” Fact: Most of the time, you will be cramming in WAY too much while your little prince or princess rests, and you will find that you don’t get as much done as you’d hoped. Plan simple, plan minimal, until you find the right balance.

5.     “My spouse will be my support.” Fact: Spouses want to support and do provide a certain amount of emotional and physical support. But they almost always fall short of your expectations. Beware of being overly critical and relax your demands. Be thankful of whatever support you get and turn to other friends, family, or hired-help to take care of the rest.

6.     “Babies and children are really expensive”. Fact: There are lots of gear, toys, clothes, and other baby items that are unnecessary, short-lived, or otherwise obtainable for free or less expensive online and through various community support networks. Having a new baby is a key life-changing event, and marketers and stores know it – they thrive on parents’ sense of needing new items. Be frugal and be careful not to overbuy and overload your budget unnecessarily. Check out your local church or other community resources for alternative ways to obtain what will be most helpful or needed.

7.     “I’ll always discipline right and be patient and understanding.” Fact: You will usually discipline the way you envision working best, but sometimes you will fall off-the-wagon and become the disciplinarian you swore you’d never be, saying things or doing things you thought you’d never do. That’s okay. You are a human and not an angel, and it’s healthy for your child to see you at your worst so that s/he knows that it’s normal to falter. Your child probably won’t remember when you are weakest, so just forgive yourself and strive for better next time.

8.     “My kids will not be the ones throwing tantrums in public places”. Fact: The only way this will be 100% true is if you never bring them out in public. Children get upset, and social graces are learned over time. Certain precautions will help minimize tantrums, but they will happen sometimes regardless of how well you prepare. Some precautions include: making sure your child is well rested (don’t go out during naptime), well fed (don’t go out during mealtime), and healthy (don’t go out if they have a cold).

9.     “A good parent will treat all of her children the same.” Fact: A good parent will actually treat her children differently, each according to his/her needs and sensitivities. Some children require more discipline, others “naturally” follow their parents and behave. Within the same family, some children need more attention, some are more physical, some are emotionally sensitive, etc. Some children will be diligent in school while others will be distracted. By treating all children the same, a parent is ignoring individual strengths and weaknesses. Thus, a good parent will actually treat her children differently.

10.   “My life won’t be so different – I’ll make sure my child fits my schedule and lifestyle.” Fact: A new child will have his or her own lifestyle needs and tendencies. The more a parent tries to “push” her agenda, the more likely a child will have emotional conflicts through his life. Having a child means compromising your own life in order to make room for someone else’s – it’s no longer just about you – it’s about a new “us”.

                                                                                                           

Distraction from Normal

Just a note for anyone visiting this site lately and wondering why I haven't blogged... this is what's been going on in my life:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/zakkai

Planning Ahead

One of the best pieces of advice for a new parent is to plan ahead.

This starts with the practical: planning your morning, preparing tomorrow's diaper bag or lunchbox, or making dinner at 3pm so that the after-school crowd gets the attention they deserve. These are all examples of the planning we do to get through the day with our basic physical needs met in a timely fashion. We plan family trips weeks in advance, and we start packing a few days prior to departure. We sign up for summer camp in the winter and buy school supplies in the summer. We learn to create extra buffer-time in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings for tantrums, melt-downs, or other sudden episodes.

But planning ahead extends beyond just the daily grind. An attentive parent will recognize that planning ahead should include the emotional. As we learn our children, we notice patterns of behavior - one child gets tired earlier than others, another comes home from school in a bad mood, another always picks fights with the baby... We can begin to feel emotionally overwhelmed, caught in the whirlwind of negative feelings, whining, and finally chaos. In order to prevent this from escalating, we need to plan ahead. Be prepared.

I have begun making lists of rewards and punishments (aka "consequences") that I can offer/remind each child, according to his/her developmental abilities and understandings of his/her behavior. With my second-grader, these are reminders that if she cooperates, helps out, does her homework, etc. then she receives immediate praise and long-term rewards. With my 14-month old, a swift catch and firm "no" is all he will understand, when I find him heading to play in the toilet. With my 3 and 5 year old, all consequences must be immediate and require more consideration since they are not so easily distracted as the baby... This is where I need to be most-creative - like a combat soldier, I need to be prepared for attack and respond in a strong, decisive fashion. With toddlers and very young children, it's especially important to be ready with an arsenal of consequences, always at-the-ready.

By planning ahead, we feel more confident and prepared. As with any other job or role in life, the more we plan ahead, the better the results. This is true for both the emotional and the physical/practical.

Starting extra-young

And important read, from the NYTimes 1/7/12:

A Poverty Solution That Starts With a Hug
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

PERHAPS the most widespread peril children face isn’t guns, swimming pools or speeding cars. Rather, scientists are suggesting that it may be “toxic stress” early in life, or even before birth.

This month, the American Academy of Pediatrics is issuing a landmark warning that this toxic stress can harm children for life. I’m as skeptical as anyone of headlines from new medical studies (Coffee is good for you! Coffee is bad for you!), but that’s not what this is.

Rather, this is a “policy statement” from the premier association of pediatricians, based on two decades of scientific research. This has revolutionary implications for medicine and for how we can more effectively chip away at poverty and crime.

Toxic stress might arise from parental abuse of alcohol or drugs. It could occur in a home where children are threatened and beaten. It might derive from chronic neglect — a child cries without being cuddled. Affection seems to defuse toxic stress — keep those hugs and lullabies coming! — suggesting that the stress emerges when a child senses persistent threats but no protector.

Cues of a hostile or indifferent environment flood an infant, or even a fetus, with stress hormones like cortisol in ways that can disrupt the body’s metabolism or the architecture of the brain.

The upshot is that children are sometimes permanently undermined. Even many years later, as adults, they are more likely to suffer heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other physical ailments. They are also more likely to struggle in school, have short tempers and tangle with the law.

The crucial period seems to be from conception through early childhood. After that, the brain is less pliable and has trouble being remolded.

“You can modify behavior later, but you can’t rewire disrupted brain circuits,” notes Jack P. Shonkoff, a Harvard pediatrician who has been a leader in this field. “We’re beginning to get a pretty compelling biological model of why kids who have experienced adversity have trouble learning.”

This new research addresses an uncomfortable truth: Poverty is difficult to overcome partly because of self-destructive behaviors. Children from poor homes often shine, but others may skip school, abuse narcotics, break the law, and have trouble settling down in a marriage and a job. Then their children may replicate this pattern.

Liberals sometimes ignore these self-destructive pathologies. Conservatives sometimes rely on them to blame poverty on the poor.

The research suggests that the roots of impairment and underachievement are biologically embedded, but preventable. “This is the biology of social class disparities,” Dr. Shonkoff said. “Early experiences are literally built into our bodies.”

The implication is that the most cost-effective window to bring about change isn’t high school or even kindergarten — although much greater efforts are needed in schools as well — but in the early years of life, or even before birth.

“Protecting young children from adversity is a promising, science-based strategy to address many of the most persistent and costly problems facing contemporary society, including limited educational achievement, diminished economic productivity, criminality, and disparities in health,” the pediatrics academy said in its policy statement.

One successful example of early intervention is home visitation by childcare experts, like those from the Nurse-Family Partnership. This organization sends nurses to visit poor, vulnerable women who are pregnant for the first time. The nurse warns against smoking and alcohol and drug abuse, and later encourages breast-feeding and good nutrition, while coaxing mothers to cuddle their children and read to them. This program continues until the child is 2.

At age 6, studies have found, these children are only one-third as likely to have behavioral or intellectual problems as others who weren’t enrolled. At age 15, the children are less than half as likely to have been arrested.

Evidence of the importance of early experiences has been mounting like snowflakes in a blizzard. For example, several studies examined Dutch men and women who had been in utero during a brief famine at the end of World War II. Decades later, those “famine babies” had more trouble concentrating and more heart disease than those born before or after.

Other scholars examined children who had been badly neglected in Romanian orphanages. Those who spent more time in the orphanages had shorter telomeres, a change in chromosomes that’s a marker of accelerated aging. Their brain scans also looked different.

The science is still accumulating. But a compelling message from biology is that if we want to chip away at poverty and improve educational and health outcomes, we have to start earlier. For many children, damage has been suffered before the first day of school.

As Frederick Douglass noted, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”