A study with infants, aged 6 to 12 months, showed that napping aided memory and learning.

They [the researchers] taught six- to 12-month-olds three new tasks involving playing with hand puppets. 

Half the babies slept within four hours of learning, while the rest either had no sleep or napped for fewer than 30 minutes.

The next day, the babies were encouraged to repeat what they had been taught.

The results, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed "sleeping like a baby" was vital for learning.

On average one-and-a-half tasks could be repeated after having a substantial nap.

Yet zero tasks could be repeated if there was little sleep time.

We need to be awake when learning, but it seems that a nap right after the learning aids memory. The researchers go on to say that reading to a child just before bedtime is good.  We know that sleep helps our brains make new cellular connections and to me, the new connections help learning and retention of that learning.

I recall from a college psych class lecture, that studying for an exam and then going directly to sleep was the best thing to do.  That was for adults - and no surprise that it works for babies as well.

Having just gone through new puppyhood, I will say, it seems to work for dogs as well....

I love that more and more research on learning, brains, sleep, and memory are appearing. All these findings may help us to develop to our fullest potentials all through our lifecycle

Share your thoughts and comments below - and Thank You!!

IQ Testing:

Wizardry? Mythology?

If you are a reader of this blog, you know that I have no love for IQ tests and IQ testing as a way to determine a child's, or an adult's, or a teenager's total intelligence.  

The tests measure aspects of cognition and are useful for learning many things about a person – but they should never be the one and only test used to make serious long term decisions about any person of any age.

Now there is some research that agrees with me

Researchers that took part in the study now claim that it is a "myth" to measure human beings intelligence using an IQ, but instead say that it can only be predicted by combining results from at least three tests of our mental agility.

 

An IQ test is NOT a universal, one shot, one dimensional way to find out about anyone's intelligence…

Comments

Is childhood obesity related to antibiotic use in infancy?

Yes – It might be one of the factors!

No one likes a sick infant…

BUT – I have heard parents [and adults] say they are going to request antibiotics for what are common colds and viruses.

Antibiotics work only on bacterial infections!

And I once heard a pediatrician say that – yes – he gave parents of young children prescriptions for antibiotics because they insisted and it was easier to give that out than to keep explaining it would not work.

Our overuse of antibiotics in people and in the animals we eat has been causing problems with development…

And because that overuse has led to bigger and better bacteria, we keep designing bigger and better antibiotics and, and, and –  the cycle continues.

Now this!

Researchers from New York University studied more than 10,000 children and found that those given antibiotics before six months of age on average weighed more for their height than children who weren't given antibiotics.

Please! Parents and pediatricians [and meat growers] we do not need so much of this in our bodies!

This is an idea I have had in my head since years ago when working with suicidal male teens.

Most were suicidal because at ages 13, 14 or 15 they were experiencing a failure or a loss for the 1st time! No matter their background, they had never learned about failure.

And learning it when hormones are raging and your body is out-of-whack is not the best time developmentally to experience what you consider a major loss.

What were their losses?

• Being dumped by a girlfriend.
• Failing a class.
• Failing a test.
• Not getting a high enough grade.
• Not making the basketball team….

From an adult perspective we might not see these as major loses. But these boys were in a hospital because they did – and they wanted to end their lives!

As parents we want to help our kids and protect them from failure and here are 2 examples:

• we intentionally lose games so they win
• we do their homework so they get good grades or don't feel "bad"

But are we helping our kids?

Failure can be a learning experience – and part of growing up is learning that actions have consequences [both parental and child actions]

Parents, let your children lose that game when they are losing!

If you are capable of winning it – win it.

Yes they will probably have hissy fits but they will also learn a lot.

Talk to them about losing games and emphasize that a loss has no reflection on their worth as a person! And after a bit they know you lost on purpose anyway and that is an odd lesson!

Please don’t do their homework.

This is wrong on so many levels it needs a post of its own.

Help? Sure? But do all or most of it?

Whose homework is it?????

To be continued……..

Thoughts? comments? thank you

Part 1 was about competitive schooling.

Part 2 is about competitive toilet training and weaning…..

In the United States we tend to use a calendar or an aging system to mark when children should do things. If you ask most American parents when their children were weaned or toilet trained they will give you the child’s age at the time of the “event.”

Parents sometimes feel that the earlier the child is toilet trained, the more “brownie points” they [the parent] get.

In some cultures toilet training is just not an issue. There is rarely pressure on the child to “act like an adult” and use the bathroom. Again, in the USA parents tend to compete to be able to say, “my child was fully toilet-trained at X age.”

Sadly X may be an age at which toilet training is not all that probable or even possible. I have seen too many cases of child abuse resulting from a child wetting a diaper when the parents thought the child should have stopped doing so.

Regarding weaning, in many places in the world, an infant is breast-fed for long periods of time. [And great that more recently there has been a move in the United States to also encourage longer periods of breast-feeding.]

Still, some USA parents pride themselves for having their child drink out of an infant cup at an early age. No bottles for these competitors!

When parents ask me what's the best time for "x" – I tend to ask back "Is the time an important issue?"

And "why?"

Next: sports, birthday parties and ?

please suggest more areas where you see competing

Comments? Thoughts? Thank you.

3 tips for new parents to help you lessen guilt

Tip 1 – Stop chatting with everyone

Everyone has parenting advice – even people who have never had kids!

You start getting this mostly-unsolicited advice when you are pregnant because unless you never look pregnant, you are a target for child rearing advice.

t’s part of the human psyche to offer advice to pregnant women – and it’s been done since way back when.

Here’s the way it usually goes:

h, you’re pregnant. That’s great. I know a good pediatrician – her name is…or there are such good new toys for newborns – you can get them at… or have you heard about the new music to play while you are pregnant – it will make your child a genius – and by the way – do you know if you’re having a girl or a boy?

You almost can’t avoid this onslaught of advice – so best to be polite and say “thank you” – but do not engage in the conversation.

[This onslaught continues if you have a baby or toddler with you so practice now.]

If you engage – you are caught for a long chat about babies!

Tip 2 stop reading every book or magazine you find on parenting

Google “books on parenting advice” and you will find 1000’s of sites! You cannot read them all – even in several lifetimes. Don’t even try.

Tip 3 trust yourself

Stop and ask yourself who will be raising your baby? The people with advice?  The books?

• Who will responsible for making the moment-to-moment decisions?
• Who will feed?
• Who will diaper?
• Who will play with?

That baby is YOURS!

You the parent[s] have to trust yourself at some point and you can start right now.

Comments? Thoughts?

In the USA there are many parents who have gotten into a behavior that I call “competitive parenting.”

This competing has been around for a while – but now seems to have gotten worse – and it has spread into many more areas of a child’s development. 

Even into areas over which a parent has little control!

We hear of parents signing up their not-yet-born children for the “best” nursery schools so as to ensure future entrance to colleges such as Harvard or Yale.

What a burden on that child! What if that child does not want to go to those schools – or heaven forbid – does not want to go to college at all? Or is not accepted?

We have parents pressuring children to get “good” grades as early as nursery school and kindergarten. I knew of a child who got ulcers in the 1st grade because she “only” got an A- or B+ on some assignments and her parents were making her study more so as to raise that to a solid A [no minus marks or B’s allowed in that family.]

Somehow making sure your child is seen as better than and faster than “those other children” either makes you seem like a better parent or proves your child is genius [and of course that will reflect back on you the genius parent.]

Please stop it!

Kids have enough to do just to develop…they don’t need added pressure from parents trying to prove something to the world.

Next – competition around weaning and toilet training…..

Thoughts? Comments? Thank you.

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Please be patient – I'm still setting up the process of getting you the chapter

I sure hope you do have questions about being a parent.

My son is in his 30's and I am still learning how to be a parent.

Now it's being a parent to a married grown-up man!  And is different, I hear, from being the parent of a married grown up woman.

If you have been here before, you know I don't answer questions – or answer with specifics.

Why?

As I say in the movie and the book – ask yourself  – who is raising your child?

That person has the answers. not me. Not the books. Not your neighbors, in-laws, etc.

Comments? Thoughts?

Thank you….

From way back when I was in graduate school until today I have advocated for good prenatal maternal health as it does help reduce premature births!

Being born prematurely is, in itself, the cause of many developmental problems through life.

But some politicians and other policy makers have always said:  Nope – no care for pregnant women – not on our dime!!  Which is an odd stance since prenatal care is less expensive than a newborn's intensive care. 

I will keep advocating for better health and better nutrition for everyone for the rest of my life – because I care about human development! 

And because these many many years later – we still have statistics like this:

The world's developed countries have seen their average rate of premature births double to 6 percent since 1995, despite efforts to reduce the phenomenon…

And the United States? Were we think we have superior health care? We rank 130th out of the 184 countries in the study!

What starts labor is still an unknown. What we do know is that keeping a fetus inside for the duration or a normal pregnancy – about 40 weeks is the best for the baby. 

As this study says:

The ultimate solution — keeping every baby in the womb for 40 weeks – is a challenge. Improving maternal health by treating high blood pressure and infections would help, as would changing obstetrical practices so labor is not induced early for non-medical reasons.

"We still don't know a lot about how to prevent preterm birth," Howson said. "We need vigorous, targeted research into its causes."

 

Thoughts? Comments? Thank you!