Baby Will Never Choose

Both child gates were closed; my wife behind one and I behind the other. I notice my son was standing between us so I say to him “Come over to Dad. Come to the one you love best.”

My son looks at me and smiles, then looks to his Mom. He raises his foot to take a step, then sets it down and looks at each of us again. Finally he yells “BAD!!!” as he turns and runs as far away as he can get from either of us.

My son doesn’t take sides.

The Second Pregnancy

The second pregnancy is a big step in your life as a parent as well as in the life of your first born. On one hand you are embarking on a familiar journey and have a sense of what you can expect, while on the other hand you have a new set of responsibilities to juggle as you make the transition and become a larger family.

Am I Missing Out on the Pregnancy?

It takes a lot of resources – both financial and time – to raise a child. With all those demands constantly pressing on your time you may feel like you’re “missing out” on the new pregnancy. Many second-time parents fear that they will not bond as strongly with the new baby because so much of their time is taken up.

Will I Love One Child More Than The Other?

Many parents fear they will not love the new baby as much as their older child, or that the older child will feel replaced or unwanted. The older child is starting to become more independent and needs less hands-on time, but will they feel completely shut out when there is a new infant taking all of tired mom’s energies?

Safe Transitions

The best way to proceed will of course depend on the temperament and age of your oldest child. You can explain to a five year old what is going on and involve them in planning and decorating for the new baby, but a two-year-old won’t have the same level of comprehension – they can tell “something” is changing, but need to be carefully handled so they don’t wake up one morning and lose their room, lose horseback-mommy, and have to learn all new routines.

Much like the first pregnancy, they key to a comfortable transition is beginning early. No one gets a right to complain – mother nature gives us nine months to get our things in order and prepare for the change in our lives. Second-time (and third-time and fourth-time) parents have an ace up their sleeve in that they already know what to expect when bringing home an infant.

Stop. Breathe in. Breathe out. Now go and enjoy this amazing time!

Online Walk of Shame

While writing The Parent’s Nook, I struggle to find balance between my desire to share the exciting things going on with my own child’s development, and the desire to keep the tone of the site somewhat neutral.

Certainly the main goal for this blog is to share with other parents some of the tricks I learn and discover as I go through this journey, but it’s sometimes difficult to know when I’ve focused the discussion too much on myself and my own thoughts (except, of course, for this particular entry).

This web site is certainly not a journal by any definition, but in some ways it is journal-like because the topics I write about tend to be the ones I’m dealing with at the moment. My intent is to make you better, dear reader. So if I go on too much about myself please tell me in the kindest way possible.

This is where I should promise to write more often and get back to my regular daily posting schedule. The problem is many bloggers will do that and then not post. So here’s to the spirit of posting regularly, and let’s see that it happens!

The Child’s Eyes

In Grade 10 biology, you may have learned about recessive versus dominant genes; particularly for eye colour, brown is “dominant”, blue is “recessive”, therefore the offspring of a brown-eyed parent and a blue-eyed parent would always have brown eyes. The rules seem to change somewhat when you finally have a child of your own – even though your spouse has brown eyes your child is born with big blues.

Don’t get too attached – many children’s eyes change colour between 6 and 18 months of age.

You can calculate the “odds” of your children having a particular colour of eyes by using the Eye Calculator.

BPA’s Shiny Friend

It seems like everything we do is bad for us. Now that we have switched all of our bottles to glass we thought we could take a moment and be proud that toxic chemicals can’t leech into our child’s food. No such luck!

While we no longer have to worry about Bisphenal A from plastic bottles, we aren’t totally protected because whenever we prepare a can of formula concentrate we are dealing with a product that may contain a questionable dose of the chemical.

As mentioned earlier, Bisphenal A (BPA) is added to plastic products to increase their strength. A lesser known use is as a component of the liner within tin cans. In both instances, when the container is heated the BPA leeches into the food contents. For those not in the know, canned food is heated to kill any bacteria that may be present thereby increasing its shelf life.

What I want to know is – did our switch to glass bottles really make a difference? Is my son getting half the dose of this toxic chemical? How worried should I be?