Today’s Tip – Don’t feel bad about taking a night off

I don’t think my wife and I realized how tired we were until we had a full night’s sleep and were actually well rested. My mother-in-law was down for the night, and in true “I’ll go above and beyond to help even though you told me not to” fashion, she woke up and took care of the baby when he cried. Since I’m a deep sleeper, I had no idea, and my wife just thought the baby went back to sleep on his own. She was that quick.

We both woke up the next morning excited because our son had slept through the night for the first time. We were disappointed, but grateful when she told us he had been up a couple times.

You need sleep just as much as your baby does, so don’t feel like you’re not entitled to a full night’s shut eye now and again. If you and your wife alternate feedings, have one person take them all one night. Or if you’ve got a set of parents that love every second they get to spend with their little grandchild (I think everyone does), enlist their help.

Don’t feel like you have to run yourself ragged over treating yourself to a full night’s sleep. No one expects you to do it all while only getting four or five solid hours of shuteye.

Parenting, Sleep, Night

Today’s Tip - Eliminate sleeping crutches to help your baby sleep through the night

By the time your baby is four months old, he should be able to sleep through the night, or at least only wake up for one feeding. If he insists on waking you up every few hours, there may be something wrong with the way you’re putting him to sleep.

If you rock, hold or feed him as he nods off, you’re actually building in a dependency on doing those things every time he needs to go to sleep. Not a big deal during the day, but if he wakes himself up in the middle of the night all alone, he’s going to need those things before he goes back down.

Do everything you can to lay him down awake. Even if it means just waking him up a titch after a feeding so that he’ll learn to fall asleep on his own. Stick with it, and you should see results soon.

Parenting, Sleep, Night

Today’s Tip - Squirt liquid medicine from a dropper into the side of your baby’s cheek

At this young age, babies can’t take medicine out of a spoon that well, and they might not want to, given the disgusting taste. So if you’re giving a fever reducer or something that can’t be mixed with breastmilk, put the recommended dosage into a dropper, and squirt it into the side of your baby’s cheek. It’ll be far enough back in their mouth that they’ll have to swallow it, but you won’t be squirting it directly down the back of their throat, which could cause them to choke or throw up.

If your baby does throw up after you give them medicine, check with your pediatrician to make sure they aren’t having an allergic reaction, and to find out if you should give them another dose.

Parenting, Medicine, Antibiotic

Today’s Tip - Think about all your options when investing for college

If you’re like me, investing for your child’s future doesn’t just mean socking money away for college. It means money for weddings, for graduations, etc. etc. So I had to look at all the options open to me in the U.S. for investing. So here are some basic tips and info you can use to understand what’s available to you and to form a base strategy.

Step 1 - Write down your goals

Knowing where you want to go will help you get there. Do you want money for just college, or for other expenses? Is it important that your child have money if they want to go to school out of state? Do you want your child to have control of the money once their 18?

Step 2 - Investigate the different types of investments

Here are some of the plans available to you and their pros and cons.

• 529 Plan - Lets money you invest today grow tax free. Once you take it out, however, you have to use it on qualified school expenses (tuition, fees, etc.) or take a 10% or so penalty plus pay taxes. And, depending on your state, you might not be able to use your money at out of state colleges
• Coverdell (ESA) plans - Lets you invest today and your money grows tax free. While there aren’t restrictions on what state, the benefits you get depend on lots of restrictions and what tax bracket you are in. Also, the child gets control of the account once they get to school.
• Prepaid tuition - Lets you pay for tomorrow’s college tuition at today’s prices. You’ll protect yourself from inflation and get a real deal on college expenses, but once you put in the money, you have to use it at an in-state public college. If you put all your money in this and your child doesn’t want to go to a public university in-state, you’re stuck.
• Custodial - Lets you invest on your child’s behalf, and the money grows essentially tax-free because it’s based on your child’s income (they don’t have any until 16, when a large portion of your investment growth is done). You can then use the money for whatever you want. You can either give over control of the account when the child turns 18 or 21. (This is what I chose for investing)
• Regular investing - You invest your money, get to use it for whatever you want, keep control forever, but you pay taxes on your growth. And that can severely hurt your earnings by a third over the long run

Step 3 - Diversify your portfolio

A good portfolio has a mix of international and domestic funds, and a good mix of income, growth and income, growth and aggressive income type funds. The exact mix you have depends on how much time you have left before you’ll start withdrawing from the fund.

• 10+ years to withdrawal - Your portfolio should be more aggressive because you have more time for the large gains to offset any large losses you have by being more risky
• 5-10 years to withdrawal - Your protfolio should be easily balanced, still risky enough to grow, but it has a stable base that will grow at a steady rate
• Less than 5 years to withdrawal - Your portfolio should become more conservative and stable as you want the assets you’ve accumulated to not drastically decrease because the market turns down. Slow, steady growth should be your goal.

Step 4 - Buy the funds

Lastly, choose the funds you want. Depending on your investment saavy, you can do the research and investing yourself. Pick no load funds with a long track record of growth. If you aren’t comfortable enough to do it yourself, you can go with a financial advisor you trust. He should take care of most things for you and guide you to good decisions, but there are no guarantees and you will be paying a fee out of the gate, so you’ll have less money to work with. It all depends on your comfort level.

Good luck!

Parenting, College, Investing, Money, Savings, Investment

Today’s Tip - If you find a great outfit on sale, buy several sizes.

Let’s say you are at the store, and you see a cute outfit with a soccer ball on it. It’s cheap (in the neighborhood of a buck fifty) made of some nice sturdy cotton so it’ll stand up to the urine, poop and vomit trifecta. You snatch it up, only to have your baby outgrow it in a month. By that time, the costs of baby clothes have quadrupled!

A good way to get the most for your money is to pay attention for those great deals. And then, buy out their stock in the next three sizes. That way, you’ll have a cheap outfit that’s cute for a year or so. Almost like he’s wearing big people clothes!

My grandma bought our son the same outfit in a 9M size and a 12M size so we could pick what size fit him better. Both did…we want to hang on to them both! Babies don’t get razzed in US Weekly like celebrities do for wearing the same clothes to an event, so feel free to stock up on good deals. And once he gets older, he’ll have an outfit for a year or so because he doesn’t outgrow it, so I don’t see anything wrong with the practice.

Parenting, Clothes, Baby, Money

Today’s Tip - Keep trying with the solid foods

If my son’s reaction to solid foods is any indication, he’d be on a liquid diet from now until the day dentures required him to suck food out of a straw anyway. But the important thing to remember is, you have to teach your baby everything. If he doesn’t get that he has to open his mouth to get food, or if he scrunches up his face at rice cereal, keep trying and don’t give up easy.

It takes 5-10 tries of introducing a new food to a child before they begin to take to it, and this applies whether its their first solid food or the carrots you give them later on. Just remember to be patient, and check out these tips and have fun with it, even if your baby can’t seem to get the hang of it.

You’ll be rewarded the first time he opens his mouth and swallows his food without making a sour face. Our son started opening up like a baby bird when we gave him the spoon tonight, but he still seems to be put off by the taste. Maybe he’ll like his fruits and veggies better.

And its also important to remember that while its OK to try night after night, don’t force the issue if they get fussy. Try feeding them until they start crying or acting annoyed. It won’t help to shove the food at them and it’ll cause more stress for you and the baby.

Parenting, Solid, Food, Feeding

Today’s Tip - Don’t be afraid to ask for help, even from total strangers

Babies don’t come with manuals. It’d be a lot easier if they did. There is one nice thing about babies. You probably know at least 50 people who have had one before. Your parents, your grandparents, your boss, the guy you run into every morning when you drop your kid off at day care. They’ve all gone through what you’re going through. Tap them for knowledge. You might as well…it sure beats guessing.

And if you can’t bring yourself to get advice from others…do it anonymously. There are links on the right side of this blog to great parenting resources, and you can always turn to everyone’s favorite search engine, Google.

There are also online communities like Minti where there are lots of people wading through this experience with lots of knowledge to share. You can be as anonymous as you like, and there’s a lot of great information out there on this “internet” thing. Really, I’m surprised this fad has stuck around.
Parenting, Resources, Tips, Parents

Today’s Tip - Figure out with your pediatrician if you should introduce solid foods

Well, it seems that my son still has to get a handle on solid food. From the look on his face, you’d think we were feeding him lemon juice. Not to mention most of what we gave him ended up on his face and ours. But it was lots of fun and we got him to take a couple swallows before he’d had enough of sitting is his high chair.

After your baby hits four months old, your pediatrician might encourage you to begin introducing solid foods. It’s a decision you should make based on your own research and their advice.

The choice to begin introducing solids isn’t necessarily based on age, but on physical and developmental signs. Your infant could be ready if:

• He has good head control and can sit with support
• He has doubled his birth weight and weighs at least 13 pounds
• Is still hungry after 8-10 breastfeedings or drinks 32 oz. a day

These aren’t hard and fast rules but merely a guide. Once you’ve made the decision to start feeding your baby solids, get ready for feeding time to get a lot messier. Infants have to learn how to eat, and they’ll probably push food out with their toungue, play around with it in their mouth and reach for the spoon to try and touch the food. Once they get the hang of it, they’ll recognize the spoon is coming and open their mouth.

A good food to start off with is rice cereal, since it’s one of the most hypoallergenic options out there, and because it mixes well with breastmilk. You can find cereals fortified with iron, fiber, calcium and vitamins, like Gerber’s Single Grain Rice Cereal for Baby.

Sit your baby in a highchair and prop them up with some pillows if you need to. Make sure he’s sitting up straight right in front of you and facing you so he’s less likely to choke. Hold the spoon out in front so he can see it and wait for him to pay attention. Let him touch the food and discover the new sensation. Don’t rush things. It’s OK to talk and comfort your baby, but don’t get all crazy and excited to make him think its play time. Let your baby set the pace and set how much he wants to eat. To start with, try putting the food on his lips so he can use his sucking skills.

Mix the rice cereal with some pumped breastmilk or formula for the first feeding. Do 1 tablespoon with 4 tablespoons of breastmilk. Do this once a day. Then, each day, add another tablespoon to the mix until your mixing 4 tablespoons of cereal and milk together.

Pay attention to your baby after he eats. You want to make sure he’s not going to have an allergic reaction. If he gets a rash, diarrhea or vomits, stop feeding him and call your pediatrician.

After 3-5 days of giving him a food has gone by without any allergic reactions, you can introduce another kind of single grain cereal, like barley or oatmeal. And once he’s OK with those, move on to multi-grains. And so on and so forth, moving through cereal, vegetables, fruit and meat in that order as time progresses. A good rule of thumb is to allow a month in between introducing a new food type.

Parenting, Solid, Food, Feeding

Today’s Tip - If you haven’t had that “I’m a parent” moment yet…you will

Up until now, I hadn’t really felt like a dad. Not when I marked down on registration forms that there was a child in my household. Not when people wished me a happy first fathers day. I was beginning to think it would be this gradual thing that sort of came over me after a year or so.

But today was the day that we started our son on solid foods. I found myself at work getting all excited over going to the grocery store, buying some rice cereal and then setting up the video camera to videotape our son’s first foray into solid foods. And that’s when I realized that I was responsible for nurturing another life. I was looking forward to seeing him grow and accomplishing things in life. The only thing I wanted to do tonight was to make sure I was around to feed my son with my wife. Tonight was the night I finally felt like a father. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, don’t worry. You’ll have your moment.

Parenting, Fatherhood

Today’s Tip - Track your baby’s milestones to make sure they’re developing correctly

Its important to make sure that your infant doesn’t have any developmental problems, but if he or she seems slow in one area, don’t worry about it too much unless they’re way behind or your pediatrician seems concerned. Everyone loves to compare their accomplishments to others, but the fact is some babies are fast in verbal development, but slow in the physical department, or vice versa. If you’re worried about it, ask your pediatrician. At the end of the third month, your infant should be able to:

• Lift their head up 90 degrees
• Laugh out loud
• Follow an object in an arc about 6 inches above the face for 180 degrees (from one side to the other

Probably will be able to:

• Hold their head steady when upright
• Raise their chest with the arms on their stomach
• Roll over (one-way)
• Hold a rattle held to the backs or tips of fingers
• Pay attention to a raisin or some other small object
• Reach for an object
• Squeal in delight

They might also be able to keep their head level with their body when pulled to a sitting position, turn in the direction of a voice, especially his parents, say ah-goo or some other vowel-consonant combo, make a wet razzing sound, bear some weight on their legs when upright, sit without support, fuss if you take an object away or turn in the direction of any voice.

Taken from What to Expect the First Year

Parenting, Verbal, Physical, Development, Emotional