i believe in co-sleeping with my kids. it creates a special bond between parents and kids. of course, when both my kids were newborn, i put them to sleep in the cot. to avoid crushing on them when we sleep. you know when you just gave birth, you just to to rest and sleep. and when you sleep deeply, you won’t know what’s happening. there’s a tendency that we crush our babies in our sleep. so when both my kids were newborn, they were on the crib.

i started co-sleeping with my first baby when he got sick at 9 months of age. after that, he never went back in the cot to sleep. my second child started co-sleeping with me when she was 10 months old. we were in my parents’ house for 6 weeks and they couldn’t get a cot. so i put her to sleep next to me. when we came back from my parents place in the philippines, i asked my husband to take away our bed’s legs, so that the bed frame touches the floor. this time, because my girl moves a lot in her sleep, i was scared to put her to sleep with our bed that high. it’s nice as it is as it looks like a Modern Bedroom Furniture or a platform bed. our bed is a king-sized bed. so everybody could fit nicely in it. speaking of Bedroom Furniture, i want to make a visit to Ikea furniture mall again at Damansara. it has been a while since i haven’t gone there. they might have Contemporary Bedroom Furniture. actually, you can find all these in eroomservice.com. it is an online store for furnitures.

anyway, i and my husband keep our intimacy by putting the kids to sleep early. then we can have a time for ourselves. this way, co-sleeping with kids won’t be detrimental to our marriage.

by: janet

This post was written on April 2007, when my boy was 2.5 years old.

I started reading to my son when he was 3 months old. I noticed he had one particular story he liked… and that was Peter Pan. Everytime I read to him, he would laugh like crazy! Of course, I would read other books as well, including the Book of Psalm from the Bible… that, too he would laugh everytime I read it. I read to him, but it wasn’t regular, until he reached the stage when he didn’t wanna go to sleep until you read a story book to him. The ever present Peter Pan story has been always included during reading time.

Tonight, my husband Peter and I tried… just to see whether our son knew the flow of the story already or not coz he has heard it almost every night. We tested… Peter started reading and paused… and to our amazement, he filled out every word Peter has left out! We were so surprised! I didn’t expect it… we just wanted to see whether he knew the story line or not.

It really does pay off… to read to kids every time. Now I have to start with Samantha. I have read to her already but not on regular basis. It is really encouraging to know this new discovery. I am so proud of him (or maybe us?.. for reading to him). Hehehe.

Also, I mentioned in my previous blog that while Peter (my husband, not Pan), was in Phuket, Schenker boy and I watched the same Barney program over and over again. I almost went nuts just thinking of Barney… until one time, I led him to sing the alphabet song. I haven’t taught him this yet but it’s included in the Barney program. Again, to my surprise, he could sing the alphabet song already! Repitition does help… or watching educational programs does… whatever. These days I get too lazy to sit down and teach our boy. So i leave it all to Barney. Hehehe.

Anyways, we’re planning (again) to send him to school in July. Actually we wanted to send him to school in January already but we postponed coz we thought he was too young to be sent there. He’s not even potty trained! (But the school said it’s ok… they could train him – that would be a big relief for me then – hehehe). We’ll see.

My point here is: repetition does really help.

by: janet

be firm when you need to leave one of your children in the nursery or with a sitter or with a playgroup. Hug them, explain that you will be back to get them, and leave. Lingering sends your child a mixed signal and will increase anxiety.

by: janet