• Think For Yourself: Okay, this isn’t my personal reason. This is from Toddlerwise. “The less skillfully you think, the more others will think for you” (page 63). There is a lot of knowledge available out there. There are a lot of differing opinions on how to raise children. No two systems are the same, obviously. If they were, there would be no need for both. When you read several different theories, you run the risk of confusing yourself and creating inconsistencies in your parenting. However, reading different theories can give you a deep pool of knowledge to draw from. You will be most successful at this if you understand your Beliefs and Goals (Toddlerwise) (found in this chapter) and can problem solve using those beliefs and goals (see Problem Solving Using Beliefs, Goals, Why, and How ). You must be able to discern what is right for you and your family. No book can tell you that. If you rely on a book, or several books, you will all be confused.
• Children Are Individuals: I have three children. While they all have similarities with each other, no two have been the same. When I had my second child, I had to consciously tell myself that she was not my son. She didn’t have the same preferences he did. For example, he hated to be cold. She hated to be hot. I could not treat her as the same baby that he was. My third child is, naturally, also an individual person. I haven’t had to remind myself to treat her as an individual now that I have been skillfully practicing that for over two years, but I have recognized that she is her own self. No book can successfully tell you what to do with your individual child unless you write it yourself, and by then it will be after you have problem solved and gotten to know your child. You need to learn how to think so you can take the principles you agree with and want to apply to your family and turn them into reality for your individual child.
• Books Are Short: No book can possibly cover every scenario you will ever encounter. You wouldn’t be willing to pay the price for that book–it would cost too much . If you know the “why” behind what you are doing, you can tailor things to your child as an individual. If you rely on “if X then Y” statements, then you will find yourself in a panic when X happens and the book didn’t cover it.
• Children Are Human: Your child is a human, not a math equation. She has emotions and physical pain and a mind of her own. Perhaps “If X then Y” is often true for your baby and for most babies. But along comes a moment when “If X is not Y”–it is actually B, or more accurately, some obscure letter you have never heard of before. Yes, this happens. If you rely on a list of equations, you will often be applying a remedy that is not going to solve the problem. And, interesting to note, that as you progress in mathematics, the problems become abstract. I don’t have personal experience with this as an English major, but my husband, the engineer, tells me this is true. So even advanced math is not as simple as “If X then Y.” Your child, the human, is more complex than any math problem.
• Bumps Are Normal: Without a doubt, even the easiest baby will come to bumps in the road. As I said, babies are human. Humans are not perfect. Your baby is no more perfect at being a baby than you are at being a parent. If you have bad days, if you make mistakes, rest assured your baby will too. Sometimes bumps are something predictable like a growth spurt. Sometimes bumps might just be because your baby is having an off day for a reason you will never know. The reasons for bumps are as varied as children are themselves. No book can predict all bumps and therefore it cannot tell you what to do in every situation. You need to know the why behind what you are doing so you can access the situation and handle it appropriately.

I hope I have effectively convinced you to learn how to think. If you haven’t done so, get your hands on this chapter, The Land of Good Reason, and read it. I think it is even valuable for a parent of a one month old. It will help you see the bigger picture of what you are doing and help you avoid becoming legalistic in your parenting.

My Blog: http://babywisemom.blogspot.com/

On Becoming Babywise II discusses the difference between childishness and foolishness on page 86. Childishness is on accident. It happens because your child doesn’t know or understand the rules. It is not because your child is directly disobeying you. Foolishness is on purpose. Your child knows the rules and disobeys anyway. It is important to evaluate if actions are out of childishness or foolishness because your response should be different in each case.

Babywise II explains it this way: Foolishness is a heart problem while Childishness is a head problem (page 87). The head problem simply needs information. The heart problem is a bigger deal because your child is choosing to do the wrong thing–choosing to disobey. Both require correction, but different methods of correction.

This might seem simple to determine, but if you have a child who is makes both childish and foolish decisions, you know that you as the parent often evaluate the situation incorrectly. Usually you are wrong in that you assume a childish action was done in foolishness. This can happen if you assume your child knows rules that haven’t been explained. You might assume your child should make connections that he just isn’t capable of connecting. Or you might be telling your child to do or don’t do something and he just doesn’t understand what you are saying. He lacks the vocabulary.

For example, you might tell your child to not run. First, does your child know exactly what running is? Even if he is running at the moment you instruct him not to, you can’t assume he will know what running is. He will think through what he was doing and try to figure out what you meant by “run.” Many will try to reenact things they were doing when they were told to not run in order to figure that out, especially if they don’t know how to say, “What does run mean?” Your toddler will be in the preschool years before he really can use words to clarify something like that. So be sure your child knows what it is you are asking of him.

You will see a lot more of the misunderstandings in the younger months. When your six month old blows a raspberry and splatters food all over you during lunch for the first time, you might touch his lips and tell him “That’s a no, you keep your food in your mouth.” The look on your face and tone in your voice will tell your baby he has done something wrong, but he won’t necessarily know what it was. Some might get it right away while others won’t. Those who don’t will usually repeat the action like a little scientist, trying to figure out exactly what wasn’t okay about what he just did. If you stay consistent, he will figure out more quickly what he did wrong. Your child will continue to be a scientist throughout his life as he grows up and tries to figure out exactly what is expected of him.

One morning we were in our church hurrying to our meeting. Our son Brayden was trying to hurry also, and started to run. I instructed him to not run. He was at an age where he knew just what I was talking about, so he didn’t run. He walked really quickly–you know that pace where they are so close to the run–, which wasn’t what I considered to be reverent enough for the church either. I might be able to expect an older child to know that if I tell him not to run that means he must also not walk quickly, but definitely not of a child this young. Also, I had made the mistake of telling him simply what not to do rather than adding in what to do. Further explanation helped him to know what it was I was asking of him. His quick walking in this situation was not a defiant action. He didn’t think, “I’ll show her; I’ll just walk quickly then.” His quick walking was a childish action. He did not yet know exactly what was appropriate and what wasn’t appropriate in the church.

Sometimes you will assume an action that is neither childish nor foolish was foolish. For example, a few days ago my daughter Kaitlyn (22 Months) was sitting on the potty. She reached out and unrolled some toilet paper. This is not something I have ever addressed with her. Brayden never touched it, so it hasn’t occurred to me to talk to Kaitlyn about it. This action was childishness. I told her we don’t play with the toilet paper. She told me “okay Mommy” then immediately reached up to it again. I started to give her my Mommy Glare and tell her that was a no when I realized she wasn’t reaching to play with it; rather she was rolling it back up as it was before she unrolled it in the first place. She was attempting to correct her wrong action. It is good to wait a moment to know exactly what your child is doing before you jump to your conclusion and start to discipline and correct.

In general, a childish act should get a verbal response from the parent. Tell the child no, explain what was done wrong, then instruct on what to do instead: “That’s a no. We don’t touch the toilet paper. Keep your hands in your lap.” You can certainly add things. If the child made a mess, you can have the child help clean it up. You can have the child correct any wrong that may have been done. Even if something is an accident, it still needs to be corrected. People don’t just get to walk away and say, “Oops.”

You can be sure an act was foolish when your child has already demonstrated an understanding for expected behavior in that situation. A foolish action will require more discipline. Exactly what you do and how you do it is dependent on the child. The child’s age, frequency of the offense, situational context, and the child’s overall behavior all factor in to deciding what to do (page 87). As the parent, it is for you to decide what to do.

Life with children is never cut and dry. Here is a story to illustrate. Brayden loves certain types of blankets. As he has gotten older, we have restricted where the blankets were allowed to be. At one point, they were allowed upstairs, but not on the main level. Then we decided it was time that they must remain in his room. I told him his blanket must stay in his room. He had a day where he left his room with it several times. This might seem foolish, but it was actually childish. He wasn’t leaving the room with it having decided to disobey, he just was in the habit and wasn’t thinking. The next morning, he left his room with it again. I told him that if he left his room with his blanket one more time, he was going to lose the blanket. I asked him if he understood, he said yes. I told him to leave his blanket in his room, he said “yes Mommy.” About 60 seconds later, he declared he needed a tissue and ran out of the room with his blanket in tow.

I knew that this was again a childish action. He wasn’t willfully defying me. But I also knew that something extreme needed to happen for him to have reason to remember the new blanket rule. I took the blanket as promised. I have never seen him so upset. He didn’t throw a fit, he was just emotionally upset at the prospect of losing his blanket. After a couple of minutes, he calmed down. He knew he had messed up and he was ready to take the consequence.

Later that day, I gave his blanket back. He was very grateful and told me he wouldn’t leave his room with his blanket any more. And he didn’t. So you can see from this story that childish actions still need correction. And just because the child understands something doesn’t mean it is automatically a foolish action.

Make the effort to figure out if your child is being childish or foolish. As you get to know your child, you will recognize cues like a certain glint in the eye when the child is knowingly disobeying. You will continue to misjudge. You aren’t perfect. I still misjudge Brayden, who is almost 4. But you will get better at it. Keep these things in mind as you determine if an action is childish or foolish:

• Don’t assume your child knows rules. Explain things to your child as age appropriate.
• Don’t assume your child will realize that if something is wrong, similar things are also wrong.
• Be sure your child understands what you are telling him.
• Be sure you tell your child not only what not to do, but what to do.
• Observe your child for a moment before assuming he is being disobedient.

Timing and signs of readiness for dropping naps is always a question for parents, even those who have done it before. It can be hard to remember all of the details. Here is a synopsis of various naps, timing of when to drop them, signs that your child is ready to drop them, and methods for doing so.

Dropping the Fourth Nap

First, we need to define nap times for newborns. I consider any sleep that happens after 7 PM to be bedtime. So a newborn who eats around 7ish, then goes to sleep (this could be considered a nap by some), and wakes again to eat around 10ish, in my definition would have gone to bed after the 7ish feeding. My reason for this is that baby never drops that sleep between 7 and 10. Baby drops the feeding around 10 at some point.

The fourth nap is the nap that occurs between 4ish and 7ish PM.

AGE: I have found the average age for this nap to be dropped is 4 months old. Some are ready earlier (but really no earlier than 3 months) and some are ready later (but few later than 5 months).

SINGS OF READINESS: For most babies, the sign for this nap to be dropped is that baby really doesn’t sleep well for it anymore. Note the word anymore. This is a typical fussy time of day for babies when many don’t sleep well in general. Don’t assume your 4 week old doesn’t need this nap because he isn’t sleeping well. By four months of age, baby is most likely playing around during “naptime” instead of sleeping. Some babies might sleep for this nap but then have a hard time going down after the 7ish feeding. Others might have sudden disrupted sleep at night.

Another sign would be that your child is ready for a 4 hour schedule. A 4 hour schedule will naturally drop the fourth nap.

METHODS FOR DROPPING: One easy method is to move to the 4 hour schedule if your baby is ready. Many babies will naturally drop this fourth nap as they move to the 4 hour schedule. As you extend your schedule, you drop feedings. As you drop feedings, you drop number of naps. Other babies are ready to drop this nap before they are ready to move to a 4 hour schedule. This was true for both of my children.

If your child is ready to drop the nap but not ready for a 4 hour schedule, you just skip the nap. Take note that the last two feedings might then move closer together because a baby can go longer between feedings if he is asleep than he can when he is awake. He also might need a bit earlier of a bedtime (30 minutes or so), at least for a few days while he adjusts. Some babies will be fussy for a few days as they adjust to the new sleeping arrangement.

One note, if you think your child is ready to drop this nap and is still taking a 1.5-2 hour nap at this time, try shortening the nap at first. Perhaps down to 60 minutes, 45 minutes, or 30 minutes.

Dropping the Third Nap

The next nap you drop is the evening nap. By the time baby is ready to drop it, it is usually a short 45 minute nap. Your baby will be on a 4 hour schedule by this point, so the nap will again be somewhere between 4 and 7 PM.

AGE: According to On Becoming Babywise I and II, this happens relatively young (around 6-8 months).

This can vary from child to child. The youngest it should be will is 6 months. The average seems to be 8 months. My son didn’t drop his until he was about 10 months old. I was reading Babywise and realized he was not supposed to need it, so we dropped it. My daughter didn’t fully drop it until she was 11 months old. one day

This can vary from child to child. The youngest it should be will is 6 months. The average seems to be 8 months. My son didn’t drop his until he was about 10 months old. I was reading Babywise and realized he was not supposed to need it, so we dropped it. My daughter didn’t fully drop it until she was 11 months old. one day

SIGNS OF READINESS: It can be hard to tell just when your baby is ready to drop this nap because it is already short. One sign is if your baby doesn’t seem tired enough for bed after napping in the evening. Other signs can be the same as the fourth nap: baby doesn’t sleep for that nap at all, baby doesn’t go to bed well after taking that nap, or baby doesn’t sleep well at night.

METHODS FOR DROPPING: This is a nap you skip. Some babies might be able to go “cold turkey,” or dropping all at once. If you choose this method, expect some fussiness as your baby adjusts. Be ready to be an entertainer. You could get a new toy or book or something to pull out only at that time of day to keep the baby happier. You could also leave the house to keep him distracted. When my oldest dropped this nap, I remember he was cranky during the stretch for several days, maybe even a week, but his body soon adjusted. before her morning nap and still waking her up from the nap at the same time. I shortened the morning nap. I also added about 10-15 minutes to her waketime between her two naps. These actions fixed things and she was back to sleeping for both naps: 1.5 hours in the morning and 2-2.5 in the afternoon. For some children, this morning nap might need to be shortened more than that. As I said, Kaitlyn is a sleeper. She is still taking a long morning nap though it is shorter than it was.

Another method is a weaning process. In this approach, you only give the nap if baby needs it that day. Some days baby takes the nap, other days he doesn’t. This is the method I used with my daughter. We started around 8 months to take it as a weaning process. If we were out in the evening, she didn’t nap. If we were home, I waited to put her down only if she showed signs of needing it. If she was awake and started showing signs of needing the nap 30 minutes before her normal feeding time, I fed her early and put her to bed early. At first, every few days she didn’t nap. Soon, it was every other day. Later, she napped only every few days. As I said earlier, she didn’t fully drop this nap until she was 11 months old.

Dropping this nap might move bedtime up.

Dropping the Morning Nap

When you drop the morning nap, you move from two naps to one. Dropping the morning nap is not as sad as it may seem. You suddenly have a large chunk of time when baby doesn’t have to be home! You baby will also most likely take a longer afternoon nap once the morning nap is dropped, so you have a longer stretch in the afternoon to get things done. This also gives you more opportunity for quality learning opportunities and activities in the morning hours.

AGE: Among the different “–wise” books, the ages for dropping the morning nap range from 14-22 months, and all are possible. Some toddlers do drop the nap as early as 14 months. My son was 17 months. My daughter is now approaching 19 months and still holding on to her morning nap. I am hoping for her to drop it soon, and every so often I try, but she isn’t quite ready.

SIGNS OF READINESS: For some children, this can be one of the easier naps to tell he is ready to drop. For others, it can be a real guessing game.

Classic signs of readiness are when your toddler is ready to drop this nap, he will still sleep really well in the morning, but for the afternoon nap, he will hardly sleep at all. This is when he is ready to drop the morning nap. This is how my son was.

Another classic sign is your toddler might not sleep for the morning nap but sleeps for the afternoon nap.

For some toddlers, things can be trickier. There is a transition time when the toddler isn’t ready to drop the morning nap, but doesn’t need a full nap anymore. My daughter was this way. When Kaitlyn was about 14 months, she started to not sleep well for both naps. This was extremely odd to me. She has always been a really good napper. She loves to sleep. I started to wonder if perhaps she was ready to drop the morning nap. It surprised me because she didn’t drop her third nap until she was 11 months old—I didn’t think she would be ready to drop the morning nap so soon after dropping the evening nap.

She wasn’t ready. Kaitlyn missed her morning nap once a week for church. She would then come home, eat lunch, and go to sleep for about 4 hours–making up for her missed morning nap. She was very, very tired when we got home. Tired enough that she usually didn’t eat her lunch very well. Based on this, I figured she wasn’t really ready to drop her morning nap.

Instead, I started lengthening her waketime

Others might be going through teething or some other disruption, which causes parents to wonder if it is time to drop the nap. Some might be able to start a weaning process from this nap where some days they take the nap, others they don’t. More on this is explained below.

METHODS FOR DROPPING: Your toddler will take his nap after lunch. For us, naptime started at 1 PM. Some toddlers need naptime to start earlier than this, at least for a period of time. You can have lunch earlier if needed and nap start earlier. Once he is back to normal, you can have the nap move to your (and his) optimal time.

With my son, we dropping this nap cold turkey just as we had previous naps. This is one option.

You can also try a weaning process. I find this nap harder to do a weaning process for. If your toddler doesn’t take a morning nap, the afternoon nap times are very different from when your toddler does. It can be hard to plan your day. If you have an open enough schedule that you can work around this, weaning is a good first step for you. If not, you will have to wait until your toddler is more ready before dropping it. You can also consider simply being more flexible for a week or two and allowing the weaning process, planning to hopefully fully drop the nap after that.

If you think your child is ready to drop the morning nap, you can always give it a try. My guess is after two-three days in a row, you will have a good idea if he is really ready or not. I suggest having other things to do to keep your toddler preoccupied. Errands to run, people to visit, etc.

I tried dropping this nap with Kaitlyn a few weeks ago. Day one was fine. Day two, she started to fall asleep while eating lunch. I could see she wasn’t quite ready yet.

In my experience, toddlers are not as cranky after dropping this nap as they are for others. When we dropped this nap with my son, the afternoon nap went to 3.5 hours instead of 2 hours and bedtime moved up an hour.

As your child gets older, the nap will shorten and/or bedtime will move back slightly.

Dropping the Afternoon Nap

The afternoon nap is the only nap of the day. Your child will move from the nap to rest time. I haven’t reached this milestone yet (though I believe we are approaching it with my son). I will summarize the information as listed in On Becoming Preschoolwise (page 100).

AGE: This is typically around four years of age, though age depends on the sleep needs of the individual child.

SIGNS OF READINESS: Your child will stay awake through his scheduled naptime.

METHODS FOR DROPPING: This nap should be “dropped” as a weaning process. You have your child lay quietly on his bed. You allow him to have a book or two to look at. You tell him if he feels tired, he should go to sleep.

If your child falls asleep but does so later than usual, wake him at the time naptime would normally be over, not X number of hours after falling asleep. He will likely be cranky from a short nap, so plan on him doing something to transition out of the nap (for example, watch a movie).

Over time, your child will nap some days and rest others. The transition period from naptime to rest time can take six months to one year. He will slowly decrease the number of naps he takes in a day.

If your child is cranky on days he didn’t take a nap, you can put him to bed thirty minutes early.

Notes for Dropping Naps

• Children are often cranky/fussy for a few days or so while their bodies adjust to the nap that has been dropped. Don’t mistake normal crankiness for signs that he wasn’t ready.
• Bedtime often needs to be moved up after dropping a nap, at least for a week or two while your child adjusts. For some naps, your child will move back to “normal” bedtime. For others, normal is now earlier.
• Sometimes the other naps are longer after dropping a nap.
• For babies and toddlers, dropping a nap doesn’t necessarily mean less sleep in the day. They simply rearrange the times they sleep.
• Don’t be afraid to try dropping the nap if you think your child is ready. If you try to drop a nap and find your child wasn’t ready, you can always add the nap back in.

My blog: http://babywisemom.blogspot.com/

I think one of the hardest things for humans to do is to be happy where they are in life. “The grass is always greener on the other side.” This isn’t always necessarily a bad trait. It motivates us to improve our lives and surroundings. It helps us to improve ourselves. But it can also help us to be unhappy with our current situation and always look hopefully to the future without enjoying the present. It is this weakness I wish to address today.

I talk about this often, perhaps because it is something that I have trouble with and find myself continually working on it. I encourage everyone (including myself) to learn to enjoy each stage of life for what it is. I often hear young mothers long for the future when they will have time to do all the things they want to do, and older mothers long for those fun times with their young children. It is good to have goals and good to have fond memories, but we mustn’t let these two things rob us of the life we are currently living.

Let’s take stages of our children’s lives. I have often shared that my least favorite stage is the newborn stage. I much prefer the toddler stage, and I love having conversations with my son. I have good friends whose favorite stage is the newborn stage. Everyone has their preferred stages. When we recognize that each stage has its benefits and its drawbacks, we can learn to be happy where we are. There isn’t a stage where everything is perfect. You have long nights of newborn life, tantrums of toddlerhood, talking back of pre-teens, and power struggles with teenagers. We minimize these difficulties through applied principles of the –wise series, but we still encounter difficulties along the way. We also have the good qualities of stages. Newborns don’t talk back and are content to cuddle with you, toddlers are constantly learning and are fascinated with every detail of life around them, pre-teens amaze us with their intelligence, and in teen years we can start to really enjoy the fruits of our labors as our children-turning-adults make wise decisions. Whatever stage(s) your child(ren) is at, I encourage you to focus on the things you love about it—enjoy each good thing that you will never see again from that child.

There is also a major lifestyle difference among all the stages of life. As a mother with two young children, I have certain times of day that we I “stuck” home, except in those extenuating circumstances when we take advantage of flexibility in our schedule. For naptime, we are home each day. This limits the number of hours we can spend running errands or playing at the park. Also, no matter how well behaved your children are, it is hard to run errands with them.

Right now, I am also pregnant with my third child. Pregnancy is hard on me; I am one of those women who is really, really sick 24 hours a day for 9 months. One day a few weeks ago, a sweet friend of mine dropped by unexpectedly with dinner for my family. This friend of mine has no children. She and her husband have been trying to have children for 4-5 years. They have tried in-vitro several times without success, and are now waiting with many other parents to be chosen as adoptive parents.

I looked at her that day as she stood in my kitchen, hair all perfect, body unaffected by children, able to come and go as she pleases, and for a fleeting moment, I envied her and longed for the day to come when I could be back to that position in life. It quickly passed me, though, and I realized she, too, must envy me. I have children. I might have a hard time being pregnant, but she will likely never know what it feels like to be pregnant. She lives each day wondering if it will be the day she gets a phone call telling her they have been chosen to adopt a baby. She might have freedom right now, but she doesn’t want it. She longs to be in the position I am: sick, pregnant, and stuck and home each afternoon as the children take a nap. I knew my desires were selfish and that I needed to realign myself and be grateful for the many blessings I have.

I have also watched women whose children are grown and getting married fall into a state of depression as they “lost” their children. They went through the marriage of their children unhappy, mourning the loss of a child rather than celebrating the addition of one. What a tragedy and loss of a moment that will never happen again.

You will be much happier in life as you come to be able to enjoy each stage of your life for what it is. Some stages will be harder for you than others. There will be stages where you wish you could freeze everyone and live that moment forever. Find the good of where you are. Relish every moment. Time does not wait while you feel sorry for yourself; take advantage of each moment you have in life, and you can be truly happy.

My blog: http://babywisemom.blogspot.com/