Home    •    Forum / Community    •    Free Offers     •     Classifieds     •     Gifting Program

Top

» Search

Cutting Grocery Costs without Cutting Nutrition

Simple, healthy, and affordable ways to weather the rising price of food

Karen Collins, R.D., American Institute of Cancer Research

Grocery prices are projected to increase again in 2008 – that’s following 2007’s highest annual increase in 17 years. But surviving these tough economic times doesn’t have to mean sacrificing good nutrition. Some simple strategies can help you cut food costs and eat more healthfully, too.

read more...

Madlynn is Kid of the Month


8 Ways to Connect with Your Teenager

By Sandra Magsamen

...Hug, sing, dance and tell your child you love them. Even if your teen acts as if they can't stand it, she promises you it's something they love and need. Use these other suggestions as ways to connect with your teenager...

read more...

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

by Jeff Kinney


It’s summer vacation, the weather’s great, and all the kids are having fun outside. So where’s Greg Heffley? Inside his house, playing video games with the shades drawn...

Make the most of your weekend

by Charlotte Latvala

Too much free time can be just as nerve-racking as an overload of scheduled events
If you run errands over the weekend, make them enjoyable with silly games



Put your children to sleep at their weekday bedtime
Have a sitter take the kids while you enjoy an afternoon alone in your own home

read more...

It’s playtime! The best of big outdoor toys

Get active! These fun toys will appeal to both parents and kids this summer

by Stephanie Oppenheim - TODAYShow.com contributor

What was your family’s favorite summertime game? For my less-than-athletic family, it was badminton. While we probably weren’t very good at it, I can still hear the laughter and it remains one of those happy “every summer” childhood memories.

read more...

 

Consumer: parenting news
 

Top

Single Moms - find here resources on financial aid, scholarships, help with basic needs, food, prescription drugs, health care, housing, legal info, and much more...

 

What is Preventing Your Baby from Sleeping Through the Night?

 

by Elizabeth Pantley - Author of The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night

Here's something that may really surprise you: As much as we may want our babies to sleep through the night, our own subconscious emotions sometimes hold us back from encouraging change in our babies' sleeping habits. You yourself may be the very obstacle preventing a change in a routine that disrupts your life. So let's figure out if anything is standing in your way.

 

Examine Your Own Needs and Goals

 

Today's society leads us to believe that "normal babies" sleep through the night from about two months; my research indicates that this is more the exception than the rule. The number of families in your boat could fill a fleet of cruise ships.

 

"At our last day-care parent meeting, one father brought up the fact that his two-year-old daughter wasn't sleeping through the night. I discovered that out of 24 toddlers only six stayed asleep all night long." .Robin, mother of thirteen-month-old Alicia

 

You must figure out where your own problem lies. Is it in your baby's routine, in your management of it, or simply in the minds of others? If you can honestly say you want to change your baby's sleep habits because they are truly disruptive to you and your family, then you're ready to make changes. But if you feel coerced into changing Baby's patterns because Great Grandma Beulah or your friend from playgroup says that's the way it should be, it's time for a long, hard think.

 

Certainly, if your little one is waking you up every hour or two, you don't have to think long on the question, "Is this disruptive to me?" It obviously is. However, if your baby is waking up only once or twice a night, it's important that you determine exactly how much this pattern is disturbing to you, and decide on a realistic goal. Be honest in assessing the situation's effect on your life. Begin today by contemplating these questions:

 

Am I content with the way things are, or am I becoming resentful, angry, or frustrated?

Is my baby's nighttime routine negatively affecting my marriage, job, or relationships with my other children?

Is my baby happy, healthy, and seemingly well rested?

Am I happy, healthy, and well rested?

 

Once you answer these questions, you will have a better understanding of not only what is happening with regard to your baby's sleep, but also how motivated you are to make a change.

 

Reluctance to Let Go of Those Nighttime Moments

 

A good, long, honest look into your heart may truly surprise you. You may find you actually relish those quiet night wakings when no one else is around. I remember in the middle of one night, I lay nursing Coleton by the light of the moon. The house was perfectly, peacefully quiet. As I gently stroked his downy hair and soft baby skin, I marveled at this tiny being beside me-and the thought hit me, "I love this! I love these silent moments that we share in the night." It was then that I realized that even though I struggled through my baby's hourly nighttime wakings, I needed to want to make a change in our night waking habits before I would see any changes in his sleeping patterns.

 

You may need to take a look at your own feelings. And if you find you're truly ready to make a change, you'll need to give yourself permission to let go of this stage of your baby's life and move on to a different phase in your relationship. There will be lots of time to hug, cuddle, and love your little one, but you must truly feel ready to move those moments out of your sleeping time and into the light of day.

 

Worry About Your Baby's Safety

 

We parents worry about our babies, and we should! With every night waking, as we have been tending to our child's nightly needs, we have also been reassured that our baby is doing fine - every hour or two all night long. We get used to these checks; they provide continual reassurance of Baby's safety.

 

"The first time my baby slept five straight hours, I woke up in a cold sweat. I nearly fell out of bed and ran down the hall. I was so sure that something was horribly wrong. I nearly wept when I found her sleeping peacefully." .Azza, mother of seven-month-old Laila

 

Co-sleeping parents are not exempt from these fears. Even if you are sleeping right next to your baby, you'll find that you have become used to checking on her frequently through the night. Even when she's sleeping longer stretches, you aren't sleeping, because you're still on security duty.

 

These are very normal worries, rooted in your natural instincts to protect your baby. Therefore, for you to allow your baby to sleep for longer stretches, you'll need to find ways to feel confident that your baby is safe-all night long.

 

Once you reassure yourself that your baby is safe while you sleep, you'll have taken that first step toward helping her sleep all night.

 

Belief That Things Will Change on Their Own

 

You may hope, pray, and wish that one fine night, your baby will magically begin to sleep through the night. Maybe you're crossing your fingers that he'll just "outgrow" this stage, and you won't have to do anything different at all. It's a very rare night-waking baby who suddenly decides to sleep through the night all on his own. Granted, this may happen to you-but your baby may be two, three or four years old when it does! Decide now whether you have the patience to wait that long, or if you are ready to gently move the process along.

 

Too Fatigued to Work Toward Change

 

Change requires effort, and effort requires energy. In an exhausted state, we may find it easier just to keep things as they are than try something different. In other words, when Baby wakes for the fifth time that night, and I'm desperate for sleep, it's so much easier just to resort to the easiest way to get him back to sleep (rock, nurse, or replace the pacifier) than it is to try something different.

 

Only a parent who is truly sleep deprived can understand what I'm saying here. Others may calmly advise, "Well if things aren't working for you, just change what you're doing." However, every night waking puts you in that foggy state where the only thing you crave is going back to sleep-plans and ideas seem like too much effort.

 

If you are to help your baby sleep all night, you will have to force yourself to make some changes and follow your plan, even in the middle of the night, even if it's the tenth time your baby has called out for you.

 

So, after reading this section and you're sure you and your baby are ready, it's time for you to make a commitment to change. That is the first important step to helping your baby sleep through the night.

 

This article is a copyrighted excerpt from The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night by Elizabeth Pantley, copyright 2002

 

Website: www.pantley.com/elizabeth

 

About Author:

Parenting educator Elizabeth Pantley is president of Better Beginnings, Inc., a family resource and education company. Elizabeth frequently speaks to parents in schools, hospitals, and parent groups, and her presentations are received with enthusiasm and praise.

 

She is a regular radio show guest and frequently quoted as a parenting expert in magazines such as Parents, Parenting, Woman's Day, Good Housekeeping, McCalls, and Redbook and on more than 80 parent-directed Websites.

 

She publishes a newsletter, Parent Tips, that is distributed in schools nationwide. Her website is www.pantley.com/elizabeth

Top

Top 8 Tips for Reducing Kids Screen Time This Summer

Reducing time spent in front of televisions and computers is one of the easiest ways to improve your family's health. Here are eight simple ways to limit screen time so you can help crank up your kids’ energy, re-charge their minds, and improve their health.

read more...

What would you change?

Weekly Column, by Annette Bridges

Change -- some people dread it, and others can’t get enough. It may be much like the idiom, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” When it comes to what we would alter or why we would make a modification, the answers vary because we all have different things we value, want, need and consider important.

read more...

Being a Role Model

by Laurie Cesario-Overton

If I had to choose one sentence that would best describe what I feel parents need to learn, it would be this: Be your child's BEST ROLE MODEL in all the ways that truly count. Be your child's HERO. Whatever you do, do it for all the right reasons.

read more...

How to Find the Best Car Loans for Single Moms

Financial Advice for Single Moms

The best car loans for single mothers might be just around the corner at your local car lot.

read more...

3 Money Rules for Stay-at-Home Moms

As we all know, life is unpredictable. We lose jobs, get divorced and even become widowed...
Here are three steps stay-at-home parents should take to better manage their own and the family’s finances.

read more...

You May Have Too Much Debt But You Also Have Options

How Life Works

If you feel like you're in over your head with personal debt, you're not alone. Millions of Americans have become overextended, many as a result of easy credit and the recessions. Credit cards, medical bills, personal loans and raising interest rates do not make a good financial mix.

read more...

Could fat babies mean fat toddlers?

A new study from Harvard Medical School found that babies who gained weight quickly had a sharply higher risk of obesity. The study followed close to 600 babies and found those in the top quarter of weight for their length at 6 months had a 40 percent higher risk of obesity by age 3 than smaller babies.

read more...

Crystal Bowersox - A Single Mom And A Real American Idol

Read how the amazing Crystal Bowersox. the runner-up of American Idol Season 9, handles fame and life as a single mom, raising her 17 month old son.

read more...

5 Ways for Single Moms to Save Money

Single moms are always looking for ways to save money, and for good reason... It’s important to find ways to cut corners on the little things that perhaps you don’t think about too often, because those are usually where your biggest money drains are.

read more

Suze Orman's Recession Rescue Plan - helps you survive in times of financial crisis

OPRAH.com

Do you know what your family would do if you lost your job - or worse, your home? Financial expert Suze Orman is ready to help you devise a recession rescue plan to survive - and possibly thrive - during this deepening financial crisis...

read more...

Your Just-in-Case Emergency Plan

by RealSimple

Who do you call if you can't make it home in time to meet the kids' bus? Who do you trust to take in your mail when you're on vacation? Who do you trust with the extra set of keys to your house?

read more...

How to save $10,000

By Liz Pulliam Weston

If you were hoping for a list of small tweaks you could make in your spending to save $10,000 a year, sorry. The reality is that $10,000 is a lot of money. And saving big money usually means making big changes in the areas where we spend the most, such as: Housing, Transportation, Food.

read more...

The Super, Sexy, Single Mom on a Budget

by Renee Rayles

A quick reference guide designed for the busy, single mom who has

little time to read while running the mom taxi, cooking dinner, helping with homework, and trying to fit in a date night every now and then.

read more...

Single Mothers &
Male Role-Models / Mentors

Single mothers carry an enormous load of responsibility, especially those having sole and/or primary custody of minor children. They nourish, they nurture, they teach, they discipline, they shelter, they protect, and they provide… all without the assistance of another equally-invested adult.

read more...

Mom's Obesity Raises Newborn's Heart Risk

from the National Institute of Health

The more obese a woman is when she becomes pregnant, the greater the likelihood that her newborn baby will have a congenital heart defect, a new study suggests. The finding raises concerns because 1 in 5 women are obese at the start of pregnancy in the United States.

read more...

The 10-Ingredient Shopping Trip

By Tara Parker-Pope and Mark Bittman

... In his latest “How to Cook Everything” segment on the Today Show, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman makes it surprisingly easy to cook a week’s worth of dinners with just a 10-ingredient shopping trip.

read more...

Your 5-minute guide to protecting your identity

20 steps to protect yourself from identity theft, and seven ways to clean up things if you become a victim.

read more...

TheOnlineMom.com offers parents and consumers a guide to the top-rated, age-appropriate, kid-tested and parent-approved tech toys and gifts.

read more...

Single Moms in the News

6 Best Celebrity Single Moms
Read about Halle Berry, Sandra Bullock, Michelle Williams, Reese Witherspoon, Kimora Lee Simmons, Mary-Louise Parker... read more

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw

by Jeff Kinney

For those wondering why tween boys don’t read very much, the answer is that more books aren’t like this...

read more...

Top

What they play: Kids and video games

Parents, are you left in the dark? Arm yourself with these three tips

by John Davison, WhatTheyPlay.com

Call it a generation gap or a digital divide, if you're a parent who is a little clueless about what video games are appropriate for your child, you are not alone. John Davison, one of the founders of What They Play, offers tips that help take the mystery out of the video games your children are playing.

read more...

How to answer six of kids' toughest questions

When kids stump you with one of these six questions, you can rely on these answers.

Questions, such as: Why didn't I get invited to that party? Where do people go when they die? How do thunder and lightning work? Where do rainbows come from? Why do we have to move?...

read more...

Is it harder to raise boys or girls?

by Paula Spencer

Boys may not listen as well as girls because their hearing isn't as good from birth
Girls are rigged to be people-oriented, while boys are more action-oriented
Girls tend to grow up less confident and more insecure than boys
Boys are harder to raise early on, but girls become more difficult as preteens

read more...

My Story as a Single Mom

by Gail Showalter

Author Gail Showalter is looking for stories from single mothers to use as examples in a book that will reveal how personalities affect the different ways we handle difficulties. This submission should tell of a situation that you found yourself in as a single mother. It should tell what you did and relate that to your own personality and temperament. In other words, why you did what you did when another person of a different temperament probably would have done it entirely differently given the same circumstances. To find out more about the submission, CLICK HERE.

read more...

Top

SingleMom.com™ Pages:   Home  •  About SingleMom.com™  •  Privacy Policy  •  Contact us

SingleMom.com™ Features:   Forum / Community  •  Free Offers  •  Classifieds  •  Gifting Program

SingleMom.com™ Sections:   Ask “Joy”  •  Education & Career  •  Help for Moms in Need  •  Housing  •  Kid Stuff  •  Parenting  •  Day to Day  •  Health & Well Being  •  Cooking & Recipes  •  Legal Issues  •  Finances

© 2005-2010 SingleMom.com™, Sponsored by Internet Genesis™ company, All Rights Reserved.
Revised: 26 July 2010.