Parenting Babies, Toddlers & Teens

Posts Tagged ‘babies’

Parenting Babies was Easy Work!
by Michelle Shelton

I remember when I had babies and I thought it was oh so much work! Diapers, laundry, meals, baths, dressing, feeding, eating….ahhhhhhhh.

Parenting babies is EASY!

Now, fast forward 14 years or so. My youngest is about to turn 14. The oldest just turned 24. That means for at least 10-12 years I was in this mode of cooking, cleaning, dressing, feeding, cleaning and well..you get the picture. At the time I remember feeling tired. I was tired all the time. I felt like a slave must feel.

Looking back, those were the best years of my life! As children get older they are much more difficult work. They create a need for mind work. Now my body is tired because my mind has to be on all the time and it that takes a lot more energy than mindless cleaning and cooking!

Would you think that parenting ends at say, 18? Or maybe when they get out of college? That would seem reasonable, right? Doesn’t seem to be so. My 24 year old is constantly calling and asking for things and she will tap into her winning formula of having a fit when she doesn’t get what she wants. Interesting. Of course I have some responsibility in this because if it didn’t work in some way, she wouldn’t use it. *sigh*  Continue Reading... (316 words, 1 image, estimated 1:16 mins reading time)

With my first son, Phillip, we had a great Pediatrician from India. This man was very gentle with babies and you could tell when he held a baby that he loved children. When my son was a few days old, this doctor told me something that I had a difficult time grasping at first. He said, “Don’t wipe your baby’s bottom every time you change the diaper.”

This seemed foreign to me. I listened but I walked away thinking he didn’t know what he was talking about. I was under the impression that I was to clean that baby thoroughly every time I changed him.

Well, I set out to do just what the doctor told me; after all, he was the expert and I was a new mom! I realized somewhere along the line that the doctor was right. The only time I would wipe the baby’s bottom was when he had a bowel movement never when he was wet. Looking back I realized how wise that doctor really was. He understood that the PH of the baby’s skin was the same as the acid in the urine. Rubbing the baby’s sensitive skin 9 or 10 times a day, coupled with the constant PH change was a sure cause of a sore baby bottom. The urine didn’t cause a diaper rash, the wiping did! There was one other culprit that would cause a rash and that was a bowel movement.  Continue Reading... (694 words, 1 image, estimated 2:47 mins reading time)