Guys I'll be praying, but you can read all the books, tv programs, Dr. spock books, etc. etc. and nothing will prepare you more than hands on with your child...instincts will kick in as parents.
Just don't get into the habit of letting your little one sleep in bed with you, roll over deaths are frequent in this type of habit. Plus it will make a bed partner in the future that is hard to get rid of, especailly for those quiet times alone to regroup the nerves, or the intimacy time with each other....they'll be beating at the door with screams of let me in!!!! I have a friend who did this with their two little girls and here they are now 9 and 10 still sleeping with mom and dad and her husband has developed an impotent problem and comes and ask me what to do. I had to explain to her you know your husband can't control his body in his sleep, especailly in the mornings and he's probably done this to himself to avoid that happening cause his daughters are in bed. It's hard enough but when one of them has been molested when she was three by a neighbor, then this adds to the husbands fears of what his body does in his sleep. He was simply shutting down all the way around to be a good father, a father that wouldn't add to his daughters problem.
My daughter is dealing with that now with her children trying to sleep with her instead of their own beds and space. Her husband would let their son fall asleep on his chest, for the first ten months of his life, well now he's detained somewhere for the next 3 months and left her with a monster....that they created....him mostly. For the last 7 weeks she's been trying to break him of it and it's a full fledge battle everytime and Jaidyn is a die hard with the insisting to take his naps or sleep on her chest. I've been telling them and telling them, especially about letting the baby sleep with them, and finally I looked in on them and found my daughter's dead weight husband's arm laying across the chest of Jaidyn at a month old, and him struggling to breathe. I couldn't wake his dead butt up, that's how tired he was, and I was yanking/pulling and his dead arm would just flop back across Jaidyns chest and finally I slapped him across the face and scream at him that he was killing my grandson with his huge dead weight arm. I told them then, from now on this baby doesn't sleep in the same bed with you, not under my roof.
So their rebellious attitude was to put him to sleep first on their chest which took hours, then put him to bed. Well as soon as they go to remove him, he screams his head off, and I mean scream, scream, scream and scream some more spending all night going through this, night after night. It's tearing up my daughter's nerves up, waking up and being exhausted all day while the hubby did his thing, and her taking care o the kids. I don't have to tell her I told you so, cause he diffinately does for me every single day with his tantrums of having it his way. She can't even get a moment of peace. So finally I told her, this is how it's done Brandi....is he wet? no.. is he hungry...no. then this is what you do, put him to bed and shut the door, and turn the baby monitor on, and down. Finally this last week he goes to bed now on his own. He'll cry for about 2 minutes or play with his toys and gives it up and goes to sleep, and when he wakes up, he'll play with his toys for a few minutes. She said I wished you would have done that sooner, it sure would've help. So then I had to ask her, would you have learned anything about the monster you created if I had? This was the alternative you both chose when I said no more sleeping with the baby in your bed, wisdom you chose to ignore, wisdom I won't throw down to be trampled on again. And I told her that when your husband gets back and you allow him to create this situation again, don't come crying to me. Cause in a couple of months when he refuses/don't pay is child support again, well he'll be detained again and leave her with the problem....again.
And this had really affected Jaidyn's learning skills, cause everytime he wimpered daddy was holding him, or he'd tell Brandi, don't let my son cry like that. Jaidyn's now a year old, says about 6-7 words, and he wonders why he's behind in learning and doing. If you could get the child surgically removed from their arms or hips and quit occupying his mind for him, he might explore the areas of learning something. I personally don't step in with Jaidyn cause he does have two parents, where Chazz had no father roll around her so my husband and I stepped in for that position as we did with our daughter as parents.
Just get them use to the own beds as soon as possible. Even if the crib is in your room, get them use to their own bed and toys so they learn as soon as possible to occupy their little minds as they grow and learn. Don't under estimate their little minds or intelligents when showing them flash cards, just keep going verbally saying what they are. They see them and hear it. The next thing you know, you're getting responses from them. If you know they're not hungry or wet, just give a little time for them to see their learning toy to scoot to them or grab them or adjust their eyes to them and interact with cooing, and smiles. Just give them a few minutes alone to learn after naps or morning wake up time after feeding. And the colors are red and black together with their toys really stimulates their little minds....suppose to be able to get them at Babys R US....they're usually red and black and white and black checkered with the red, they have all kinds but these colors seem to captivate their attention, and lengthens their attention span to want to learn, helps the focus skills and motor skills with the eyes, etc. etc... Check it out!!!
We showed Chazz flash cards of colors/numbers/shapes/alfabets/words with picture cards, and reading scripture in child form from the time we brought her home with mommy. She was talking with a 38 word vocabulary at 6 months, at 8 mths. stopped her bottle herself for a sippy cup, walked at 10 months, and simply blew the doctors away and still does at 3 1/2 years old. She's like two years ahead of the norm. She plays for hours on her own, now her new project is being little mama to her little brother. The words she uses are mind blowing just from her listening to conversations and then uses them in the correct context of her sentences. She'll come up and say Gah Gah I got to talk to you about something serious, and the point I want to make is, and she'll talk about her thing using her big words correctly. You'll ask her about something she's saying, testing her trying to question her and she fully capable of rationalizing real from unreal and then looks at you asking why you're trying to play a joke on her when she's serious. lol
But a few suggestions from a woman of 55 years under her belt, and alot of children around in my life time....hope in Christ it helps.
