When our daughter was small and we had unresolved night awakenings I would ask our local contact Mom for her magical solutions. Her first response was always “How’s your couch time?” BTW this is a common response from all GFI alumni, be prepared….

Ok I’ve Gotta admit when our baby was an infant I found this question pretty annoying, I mean really she doesn’t know when we’re doing “couch time”, right?

Here’s a refresher on the “Couch time” idea, if you need it.

Once we have kids its our natural tendency to place all our free time and affection upon them. They are just so crazy cute! And we’ve all done the work to get them asleep at a a reasonable hour so we’ll catch up with our spouse then. Hmmmm…..

Actually, babies and children need a structured time during their day when they see Mom and Dad lovingly communicating and not focusing all their attention on baby. It provides a sense of security on their world which mostly consists of YOU and Your spouse. (If you haven’t taken GKGW I highly recommend this lesson by Gary Ezzo, it was moving for me.)

Here’s the how-to. We put our daughter on a blanket near us with a toy or a book. We tell her Mommy and Daddy are going to do couch time and she must play quietly on the blanket until the bell (kitchen timer) goes off. We started with a couple of minutes and have worked up to 10-15 minutes (depends on if we really have that much to discuss). There have been a few couch times that were short because of her wailing so loudly we couldn’t really hear each other. However, we continued to make it part of our evening routine and she now has come to accept it and even enjoy it!

Guideline: this is not the time to discuss heated subjects. As a matter of fact there are days we know that this excersise almost feels like a show to us but one we lovingly do because we have now seen results of the security it has provided our daughter.

So we work on our couch time, and I’ll admit being married to a pastor and working part-time myself some days it just doesn’t happen. But here is what I have noticed over the past few months. If we miss one night its cool. If we miss two nights its iffy-she may wake up at her favorite “Mommy hold me” time, 3am. If we miss three night its definite-I will see her at 3am, might as well set my alarm.

Needless to say, couch time is really important to me too. Side note: my love language is “quality time” so gazing into my husband’s eyes as we “talk” about our day isn’t so bad for me.

Related post – Ask GFI: Couch Time

Normally I enjoy writing on this blog to share my small parenting successes while practicing the amazing tools taught to us in Growing Kids God’s Way. I also sincerely hope my writing is encouraging to other parents too. However I thought I’d share from a difficult day, for the same purpose, to encourage you.

It’s Monday morning after a busy weekend. I have told you before I am not a morning person. The whining commences immediately, and I began to get frustrated quickly. All the old standby discipline techniques are not even phasing her. Every single part of our routine is greeted with an “I don’t want to”, then crying, next tantrum, discipline, “I’m sorry Mommy”, Do it all again. It was one of those days when I was wishing for the pre-talking time.

It was soon after a forced and seemingly unsuccessful devotion time that God reminded me about something the Ezzo’s had said once. Some days your child will seem to have woken up “with a death wish.” Today she had, and she was prepared to take me down with her.

I was thinking “Why is today so tough?” I thought through the lack of routine and stability the weekend had presented. Family and friends had kept us going and there was probably a little too much fun. Hmm…what she really needs is exactly what she says she doesn’t want.

SO what did I do? I pushed through the routine and eliminated choices. There was whining, crying, and I didn’t see much of a happy heart all day. She continued to stick it to me until the bitter end. But at the end I cuddled her, had her “Look me in the eyes” and told her how much I love her.

Tuesday morning arrives and I do a minute of deep breathing before going in to greet her, and there she is my smiling happy baby has returned-well mostly, she is two ya know!

The older my darling gets the more God teaches me about Himself. I can think of many days when I’ve said “God, I don’t want to”, I’ve cried, whined, and even a thrown a grown up tantrum or two. At the end of every day though when I stop and pray He wraps His arms around me and says I love you. And if you will continue to push through tomorrow will be even better.

The principles found in Preparation for Parenting and On Becoming Babywise have been educating parents for two decades on the importance of nighttime sleep and how to obtain it with infants. A TIME.com article highlights researchers from Harvard and other institutions who have recently published articles in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine addressing the importance of nighttime sleep in children.

The researchers quoted in this article recommend allowing a child to “cry it out” and suggest that parents avoid co-sleeping from the start. The over all focus of this article speaks more to the longer term affects of nighttime sleep. The Time article highlights some problems in older children associated with inadequate nighttime sleep like night terrors, anxiety, depression, and obesity. In response to some of these problems Dr. Elsie Taveras from Harvard says, “There’s room for prevention even in the first month of life.”

The overall theme of the research referenced in the TIME article should be very familiar for those who have read Preparation for Parenting and/or Babywise. In my first reading of Preparation for Parenting I breezed right past the Healthy Sleep Patterns section of chapter three. It was easy as a young parent to get caught up in the immediate benefits of healthy nighttime sleep experienced though PDF (Parent-directed Feeding). Right under my nose was research referenced by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo in Preparation for Parenting linking poor nighttime sleep with emotional, behavioral and learning problems. It is comforting to know that there are longer term benefits to the sleep skills that we have taught our children at a young age.

Near the conclusion of the TIME article you’ll find the following quote:

“The most important message is that there’s a lot we can do to prevent problems from starting — in sleep,” says Taveras. “Parents and pediatricians should keep in mind that children have to develop the capacity to regulate their own sleep early in life and self-soothe themselves during the night.”

This quote should offer some encouragement if you are still “working on” those healthy sleep habits with your little one.

Question:

My husband and I are about to take on the task of potty training with our 2 ½ year old son, but we’re both a bit concerned that bedwetting may be a problem since both of us had issues with bedwetting as children. My Toddlerwise book has a chapter on this subject, but is there more you can give us before we get started?
Answer:

Yes! There is more and frankly I think it should be an essential part of every young parent’s library. This little book is an amazing gem. It’s called Potty Training 1-2-3, by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo. Even if your children are beyond the potty training stage, you’ll want to have this one handy to lone to friends.

But back to your question about bedwetting. I’ll just pull this first part right out of Potty Training 1-2-3, and then include some additional comments below:

Bedwetting, or enuresis, refers to children wetting their beds at an age when most children are dry at night. It’s important to remember the last part of that sentence. Children grow at different rates, which mean they achieve nighttime dryness at different ages. Night dryness doesn’t always follow closely on the heels of day dryness. Even if that’s the case for months, it doesn’t mean your child is struggling with the medical condition of bedwetting. Some experts suggest that as many as 50 percent of children under three years of age will battle night time bedwetting to some extent.
In the medical world, bedwetting in not considered a problem until a child is about 4 or 5 years old. However, if your toddler is having reoccurring nightly accidents and you are concerned about it, consult your pediatrician. Your doctor can discover or rule out any health problems that might be part of the cause. Meanwhile, here are some practical things you can do to try to remedy this problem:
Encourage your child to wait as long as possible when it’s time to urinate. This technique can help stretch the bladder so it can hold more urine.
As your child is urinating, have her stop and start a few times. This helps strengthen the sphincter muscles that hold in the urine.
Encourage your child to take responsibility for her wet bedding, but never shame her because of it.
Consider rewarding your child for waking up dry, but do not punish her for nighttime accidents.
Consider buying a bedwetting alarm that will awaken your child as soon as she begins to wet. You can find manufacturers and descriptions of various models on the internet.
As you move through this process, encourage and support your child while holding her accountable.

One of my four fit this description to a tee. We were doing all the “at home” suggestions above, and each year that went by, we (and he) were hopeful he’d “outgrow” it, but he was still wetting nearly every night by his 9th birthday. Money was a bit tight and I assumed the alarms were beyond our budget….until I actually looked for one! We bought the SleepDry alarm from Starchild Labs. I purchased it through a healthcare supply store on-line for about $60.00. There are others out there for similar prices, and many that are much higher, but this one worked perfectly. In his case, he was staying dry every night, within 2 weeks! No matter which brand you purchase, be sure to follow the instructions exactly. Success depends as much on parental involvement and pre-activity training, as it does on the alarm itself.

My daughter Isabelle is a little over 2 yrs old now and an amazing joy to us. Just recently she has been giving us trouble going down for naps. We have our routine of book reading and rocking before nap. But recently she has been singing and playing in her crib for extended periods (up to an hour!) before lying down to sleep. This frustrated me as I began to try and evaluate what I was doing wrong. I found out that when my Mother-in-law keeps her she doesn’t do this. I started to think…was I spending too much time with her prior to her nap? Was I putting her down too late?

I started being much stricter on getting her to nap in a timely manner. I cut short our sweet pre-nap cuddle routine. I talked with her about going straight to sleep. But to no avail…the playing continued, and I felt trapped every afternoon…praying and waiting on the nap to begin and uncertain if she would even sleep on some days. Of course then being frustrated with a grumpy toddler and soon to be grumpy husband as he arrived home to the tired Mommy and child.

It was clear something had to be done so at our GEMS^® meeting I asked the most experienced and wise Mom I know if she had any thoughts on the matter. She simply said ” Have you gone in and established boundaries on what she is not allowed to do in her crib at nap?” Feeling a little silly I gave an excuse of why I felt like I hadn’t gone in and went home.

Upon discussion with my husband and further thinking I realized I was subconsciously paralyzed with fear of my toddler during naptime. Here’s why… many months ago whenever we went into her room if she woke early the nap would be over as she would not go back down. So we had informally established a “no entering” rule until we were ready for the nap to be over. I thought I was in control, but actually I had allowed too many freedoms and her crib funnel was too big.

For the past week we have set up boundaries of no singing or playing in her crib before napping. Then we have gone in when we see she is enjoying these freedoms again and verbally instructed her. She has responded well as we have pulled the funnel in again.

Here’s what I am learning…this parenting thing is ever changing as she grows and what was important before (not going in to her room until we say nap is over) is now an area she can respond to with verbal instruction. Is there an area in your parenting your child has outgrown?

That’s the beauty of being in this like minded community, I am almost embarrassed to say it but I really don’t think I would have thought of this on my own. This is my first try at parenting though…maybe I’ll remember next time!