Review: What to Expect the Second Year

Posted Mar 25, 2011 by Courtney Cairns Pastor

Updated Mar 25, 2011 at 03:52 PM

I got cocky as my son approached his first birthday. He was cruising along (literally, trying to walk) with no major issues to get my new mom alarm bells ringing. My copy of “What to Expect the First Year,”  which I had read fervently during my three months on maternity leave, sat on the bookshelf. I kinda felt like I was getting the hang of the whole mothering thing.

And then he started throwing little tantrums (wasn’t this too early?) and he still didn’t have teeth (wasn’t this too late?). He resisted anything involving buckles, like car seats and high chairs, and I started bribing. My husband and I debated whether we could put him in Time Out or whether that concept was over his head.

We looked at toddler books and were disappointed that most focused on the toddler years as a whole, ranging from first birthdays to preschool. They might touch on the issues we wanted but not in enough detail, or the authors would make suggestions perfect for a 4-year-old but way over my 18-month-old’s head. We couldn’t find the exhaustive information we were looking for, like we relied on when I was pregnant and during our son’s first year.

“What to Expect the Second Year” ($15.95, Workman Publishing; available April 5) fills that void, almost to the point of too many details.

Some readers gripe about the details in Heidi Murkoff’s “What to Expect” series.  When I was pregnant, the pregnancy book’s lengthy list of symptoms and possible ailments or horrific complications freaked me out to the point that I could only read parts of it. The first- and second-year books still have lots of information about childhood injuries and diseases, but I have calmed down enough to learn that not all of them apply to me. And I have pulled the books out as references to consult if a bug bite flares up or his cough seems to linger.

The newest book breaks from the pregnancy and first year editions by arranging chapters topically instead of chronologically. It does include a chapter of rough milestones by age but otherwise, you browse by subject, such as behavior, feeding, talking and learning.

I missed the milestones at first, and some of Murkoff’s suggestions – particularly when it requires clear communication with your toddler – work better with children who are 20 months instead of 12.

The information also gets repetitive if you try to read the book front to back. So don’t. The advantage of arranging the book by topics is you can plunge in on a need-to-know basis. Health, safety and injuries take up about a quarter of the book. Planning a vacation? There’s a whole chapter on taking trips with toddlers. Dealing with tantrums? Tons of stuff here. I hopped around other sections, too, dog-earing pages about picky eaters and creating bedtime routines.

“What to Expect the Second Year” is an easy read and format for time-strapped parents, thanks to a combination of Q&A’s, informational boxes and Murkoff’s conversational tone.

I hope she realizes that I’m counting on her in five months for a reference book on 2-year-olds.

---

Teachers can visit Sea World for free through end of year

Posted Mar 22, 2011 by Janine Dorsey

Updated Mar 22, 2011 at 03:01 PM

From my inbox ...

SeaWorld Orlando thanks teachers by offering a “Study Pass” to all active and certified K-12 grade school instructors.  It’s a free 2011 Fun Card allowing unlimited admission to SeaWorld Orlando now through year’s end, with no blackout dates.

For even more savings, until May 31, teachers can purchase up to six additional tickets at $20 off each admission, sharing the SeaWorld Orlando fun with family and friends. More details can be found at SeaWorldOrlandoTeachers.com. 

The “Study Pass” is intended to be an inspiration, too. Whether it’s visiting Penguin Encounter to prepare for a classroom session on environmental issues in the southern hemisphere or riding Manta, the flying roller coaster, to help explain physics and gravity, the park’s experiences give teachers the unique opportunity to use their SeaWorld visit to help enhance their curriculum.

---

Forget the view, keep children facing the rear in car seats

Posted Mar 21, 2011 by Courtney Cairns Pastor

Updated Mar 21, 2011 at 04:14 PM

It’s getting harder and harder to wedge my toddler into his rear-facing car seat, but new recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics are giving me incentive to try as long as possible.

A new policy appearing in the April issue of “Pediatrics” (online now) advises parents to keep kids facing backwards until they turn 2 or reach the seat’s maximum height and weight requirements. It also says children should ride in a belt-positioning booster seat until they are 4-feet-9-inches tall and 8 to 12 years old and stay in the back seat until age 13.

The pediatricians’ organization had said in its 2002 policy that the rear-facing car seats were safest and that 12 months and 20 pounds was the earliest parents should switch to forward facing.

The general consensus is that children are safer facing the back because of the head and neck support. Yes, their legs can get scrunched, but who wouldn’t rather deal with broken legs rather than head injuries in an accident?

But a lot of parents turn their children forward around a year. It’s difficult to maneuver a wiggly toddler in that way, and it’s frustrating as a driver to look behind you and only see the back of the car seat, especially when said toddler is fussing and you can’t see why. A lot of parents I know also think their children get bored or frustrated staring at nothing.

“Parents often look forward to transitioning from one stage to the next, but these transitions should generally be delayed until they’re necessary, when the child fully outgrows the limits for his or her current stage,” Dr. Dennis Durbin, the policy statement’s lead author, said in a news release today.

“A rear-facing child safety seat does a better job of supporting the head, neck and spine of infants and toddlers in a crash,” he said, “because it distributes the force of the collision over the entire body.”

I had talked to other moms about this online – the practice is dubbed “extended rear-facing” in those groups – and decided early on to keep my son backwards as long as I could. When I asked my pediatrician about it a few months ago, he said longer was better but waiting until 2 was probably not realistic (he is extremely practical).

That’s still my plan, to go as long as possible. I think we can make it until 2 barring a big growth spurt. His seat, however, can stay rear-facing until he is 40 pounds, and I don’t know if I can keep stuffing him in there backwards that long. On the other hand, he only knows the view out the back window and he can still point out the trucks and buses we pass. Only I know how much more he’ll see once I let him turn around, and that can wait for now.

Here are more details about the recommendations, including when to switch to a booster seat and how seatbelts should lay across your lap and shoulders.

This site is a database of contacts across Florida who can inspect your seat or make sure it is installed correctly. Florida does not require booster seats by law (it’s one of just three states nationally, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.)

The Hillsborough County Council of PTA/PTSA has a petition posted on its web site to support bills in the House and Senate that children 7 or younger and less than 4-foot-9 should ride in an appropriate child-restraint device. You can sign the petition here.

And if you still want to read more, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has link after link of recommendations, stats and where to go for more help.

---

Kids can try out Oms in free yoga classes

Posted Mar 17, 2011 by Courtney Cairns Pastor

Updated Mar 17, 2011 at 02:55 PM

As the FCAT marches closer, kids could use some help unwinding, and they may find it through downward dog.

I love yoga for the way it clears my head, melts away tension between my shoulders and teaches me to control my breathing. Although I don’t practice as much as I want to (I keep meaning to do those morning sun salutations), I frequently turn to some of the poses after a run or in front of the TV.

You figure kids spend a lot of time like I do, hunched over computer screens or desks. They may be younger, but they carry stresses, too. Why couldn’t yoga work for them?

Palm Yoga is providing the perfect chance for children 5 to 10 to check it out with free kids’ yoga this Sunday.

The Carrollwood studio will hold two 45-minute classes at 1 and 2 p.m. Teachers promise a mixture of fun games, breath work and traditional yoga poses.

Palm Yoga added its kids’ program, YamaYogis, in February. It shouldn’t be limited to test-preparation, either. Program coordinator Anna Weeks says the practice can develop compassion and improve self-esteem. Physically, it increases flexibility, which can prevent injuries in other sports kids may play.

Palm Yoga is at 13911 N. Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa, in the same complex as Huntington Learning Center.

---

Day Care Mom: Who is raising my child?

Posted Mar 11, 2011 by Courtney Cairns Pastor

Updated Mar 11, 2011 at 01:27 PM

No one ever wins the stay-at-home vs. working mom debate that flares up regularly online, but if there is one argument I wish mothers would stop using, it’s that “day care moms” aren’t raising their children.

This came up yesterday in comments on Babble’s Facebook page where a woman posted that “no job or income is worth someone else raising my kids.”

She was cheering Sierra Black’s post on Babble’s “Strollerderby” blog about the high price of staying at home with children. There’s an estimate that having a child costs a college-educated woman a million dollars in her lifetime income.

Freelancer Katy Read had flagged this figure months ago in an essay for Salon.com on her regrets about quitting her job to stay at home with her kids and the financial toll it took.

Black argues, however, that the time she has spent at home with her children has been priceless, even with its ups and downs. Though I have chosen to work outside the home, I appreciated her honesty and how she addressed her struggles with balancing motherhood and a career.

Obviously, what you decide to do and what works for your family depends on a million things – marital status, cost of living, salary, job demands, health, insurance, even your personality. But too often online, posts like Black’s degenerate into comments about how one method of child-rearing is better than another.

Which brings me to my ruffled feathers.

My child has attended day care since he was 3 months old, the maximum amount of time federal law let me stay home on maternity leave. He loves his day care, and his teachers love him. They have helped him learn to use a sippy cup, play nicely with other kids, name his body parts and eat his veggies.

But they are not raising him. His father and I are the ones who comfort him when he wakes up frantic at night, and we’re the ones who take him to the pediatrician and treat him with medicine and snuggles when he’s under the weather. We have developed a discipline strategy, had him baptized, taught him values and planned nutritious meals. We sing songs with him, chase him on the playground, show him the animals at the zoo, push him in the stroller in the park and teach him how to pet the cat gently.

If I were a stay-at-home mom and my husband worked, would we say that my husband had nothing to do with raising his child? Absolutely not. To give day care all the credit for the awesome little man my son is becoming is just as unfair.

I don’t know how my son’s personality, happiness or intelligence would differ if I stayed home full time. Second-guessing doesn’t matter. He is thriving. We sometimes wish we could do things differently – maybe send him for 5 to 10 hours a week instead of 40 – but this is the choice my husband and I made and the one we think is best for our family.

At the end of the day, it’s not day care my son turns to. I’m the only one who gets the hugs and the sloppy kisses. I’m the one who has earned the name “Momma.”

---