Car Seat Tantrums – Handled With Respect

True story: Holly was a tentative mom, someone who avoided setting limits. She told me she was having an impossible time getting three-year-old Eliza to sit in her car seat. She screamed, threw a fit and flat out refused to cooperate. I recommended to Holly that she say, “I know you don’t want to, but you must sit in your car seat” and then physically place Eliza into the seat. Holly reported back to me that...

Don’t Fix These Toddler Struggles (I Love This Video)

Time and time again I see toddlers benefitting from impulse control – ours, not theirs. Our natural tendencies to project and protect when our children seem challenged invariably lead us to intervene too much or too soon.  These good intentions can then spoil rich opportunities for physical, cognitive, creative, social and emotional development.  Rule #1: More often than not, struggles and conflicts we might...

Helping Babies Sleep (With Empathy And Compassion) Guest Post by Eileen Henry

Hi Janet, My baby boy is 6 months old, and we do all we can to make sure he is happy and healthy. We realize how important good, uninterrupted, restorative sleep is – both night sleep and daytime naps – and I wonder how you might respond to the philosophy of Dr. Marc Weissbluth (“Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child”), who advocates letting a baby over 4 months cry up to one hour for naps and an unlimited time...

The Key To Your Child’s Heart (7 Ways It Works)

Write this word on your hand. It’s a magical way to connect with a child of any age, can ease tears and tantrums and even prevent them.  It’s a simple but surprisingly challenging thing to do, particularly tough to remember in the heat the moment…  Acknowledge. Before you tell your child that it’s time to leave the park, or remind him that the really cool truck he’s examining has to stay at the store,...

An Expectant Dad Ponders Discipline

I am currently in a debate with my significant other as to how we want to discipline our child when the situation calls for it. She is 10 weeks pregnant and it’s kind of early, I know, to be talking about this, but it’s just something that keeps coming up, and we can’t seem to come into an agreement on anything. She doesn’t like the idea of negative reinforcement but I feel it is important. I...

The Truth About Infant Self-Soothing

Infant self-soothing is often misrepresented by descriptive terms like tough love, crying it out, leaving babies to “deal with it” on their own, and even neglect. Apparently there are people who misunderstand the concept, or use it as an excuse to ignore a child. Perhaps it’s in reaction to those people, real or imagined, that others have wholly rejected the idea, shutting the door on the possibility that...

Should We Stop Babies From Taking Toys? (Another Respectful Debate)

After observing babies playing together for many years now, I’ve learned a lot about infant and toddler socialization and formed some fairly strong opinions. So, when I read a point of view from another professional that I disagree with, it’s hard for me to resist weighing in. Recently, I entered into a mini-debate about toddlers, toys and ownership that I thought worth sharing. The discussion was stimulated by...

These Toddlers Are NOT Sharing

Do a pair of one-year-olds squabbling over plastic hair rollers sound like fun to you? My guess is an unqualified ‘no’, but infants and toddlers define fun, play and learning quite differently than their elders. They approach social situations, even those that turn into minor conflicts, with curiosity and openness. Observing infant and toddler interactions over the years, I’ve learned that babies have volumes...