Reddit mentions: The best child counseling books

What a great question! I am really fascinated by the field of infant/early childhood mental health and social-emotional learning in general. It's a fascinating topic that is also somewhat in the early stages. There is much that we need to learn, but also much that we do know, as well.

Priority number one in promoting positive mental health, particularly with children with speech delay and other developmental challenges, is enabling the child to feel safe and calm. There is something called neuroception, which is a person's physiological ability to detect a threat to their system. This term was coined by Dr. Stephen Porges and he has a wealth of information on the subject that you can find at his website if you are interested. Whatever you can do to teach the child how to regulate themselves to a place of feeling calm, at ease, and relaxed is paramount to anything else. For it is in this state that a child is most ready to learn (both academically and also ready to receive instruction or discipline from caregivers). Children and adults are much more receptive to all that we have to offer them when in a state of calm and safety. This allows the pre-frontal cortex (the most advanced part of our brain that regulates higher level thinking, verbal processing, and many other functions) to be fully engaged and receptive. If there is any sense of threat or danger to a child, this portion of the brain goes completely off-line and is rendered useless as the amygdala and limbic system (fight, flight, or freeze response) takes over. There is an incredibly useful explanation of this that you can actually use to teach the child greater awareness of their own brain and how it works. You can find it here.
It is an incredible tool in teaching positive mental health and teaches children how to notice their own physiological responses to events in their daily lives, which leads to greater self-awareness and regulation of their own mental state.

Once you have taught this hand-model of the brain to the child, you can then use it as a way of warning them when their "lid is about to flip" and then provide them with strategies for calming themselves down. You could offer a visual wheel of choice that gives the child options of what to do when they are feeling stressed, angry, etc. This is something you can develop alongside the child and elicit ideas from them when they are calm and relaxed with you. Making it visual will be particularly important and useful to a child with speech delay as they are limited in their ability to verbally express their feelings which can lead to more behavior.

If you are not able to prevent the behavioral issues, then allow the behavior to happen while being present with them and ready to comfort them when they are finished. Be ready to help them calm themselves down by modeling calmness yourself, deep breathing, etc. So much of promoting positive mental health in our children is about cultivating our own positive mental health for ourselves and then modeling that to our child. If we have the reserves to maintain a sense of calm in the midst of stress, then the child will feel the space and freedom to do the same.

I hope that addresses at least some of what you are after. I would appreciate it if you could follow up with some clarifying questions, if not, so that I can better assist you. But before I finish, I wanted to direct you to some really great resources on the topic. There are two great books by Dr. Dan Siegel and Tina Payne-Bryson Ph.D. The first is The Whole-Brain Child which does a great job of explaining, more in-depth, the concepts that I have discussed here. I know you will find it valuable and useful. The second is No-Drama Discipline. This takes the theory of The Whole Brain Child and applies it to discipline, offering practical and useful strategies for use with kids. The third is a book by Dr. Mona Delahooke and is called Social and Emotional Development in Early Intervention. This is a fantastic book, but is also geared toward professionals in early intervention programs. I still believe that you will find a lot of useful ideas and concepts in there, though. Also, be sure to check out Dr. Mona Delahooke's blog for excellent articles addressing these issues. There is a wealth of resource there.

I wish you well as you explore further on the topic. Please let me know if I can clarify anything or provided further resources. All the best to you!

Warmly,
Jeff

Not all of these are "parenting" books, but they get at various aspects of what you might be looking for/need to help you prepare (in no particular order):

• Bringing up Bebe - Tells the parenting story of an American expat. living in Paris, and how she observed different parenting techniques between American and French families, and how that plays out in children's behavior. It is a fun "experience" story and I think it lends some interesting insights.
  
  
• Pregnancy, childbirth, and the newborn - I think this is the most informative, neutral, pregnancy book out there. It really tries to present all sides of any issues. I can't recommend this book enough. From here, you could explore the options that best fit your needs (e.g. natural birth, etc.)
  
  
• Taking Charge of Your Fertility - Look into this if you find you are having trouble conceiving, or if you want to conceive right away. Really great tips on monitoring the body to pinpoint the most fertile times and stay healthy before becoming pregnant.
  
  
• The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding - This is published by Le Leche League and really has everything you need to know about breastfeeding, pumping, etc. After baby is born, kellymom.com is a good resource for quickly referring to for breastfeeding questions later, but seriously don't skip this book - it is great!
  
  
• Dr. Spock's Baby and Childcare - Really comprehensive and probably the most widely read book about every aspect of child health and development (and also a lot of what to expect as parents.)
  
  
• NurtureShock - by far the most interesting book I've ever read in my life. Basically sums up research on child development to illuminate how many parents and educators ignore research based evidence on what works well for raising children. If you read nothing else in this book, at least read the sleep chapter!
  
  
• What's Going on in There? - This book was written by a neuroscientist after becoming a mom about brain development from pregnancy through about age 5. It has some of the same research as NurtureShock but goes way more in depth. I found it fascinating, but warning, I could see how it could scare some people with how much detail it goes into (like how many people feel that "What to Expect When Expecting" is scary.)
  
  
• Happiest Baby on the Block - There is a book, but really you can/should just watch the DVD. It has 5 very specific techniques for calming a fussy baby. Here are some recent reddit comments about it. Someday I will buy Dr. Karp a drink - love that man!
  
  
• The Wholesome Baby Food Guide - this book is based on a website which has some of the same information, but the book goes way more in depth about how to introduce food, with particular steps, to set baby up for a lifetime of good (non picky) eating habits.
  
  
• A variety of sleep books, so you can decide which method you might be comfortable with (I believe the Baby Whisperer and Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child are pretty middle of the road, but you can look into bedsharing (The Dr. Sear's books) or the other end (Babywise) as discussed in other comments already here, etc. - these last two links I am letting my personal bias show - sorry, but I just think it is good to know all sides of an issue.)
  
  
• Huffington Post Parents section often has "experience" articles, and browsing subs like this can help with that too.
  
  
• A lot of people love the Bill Cosby Fatherhood book too, but my husband and I haven't read it, so I can't say for sure what is in it, but I imagine it is "experiences" based
  
  
• The Wonder Weeks - describes when and how babies reach developmental milestones, what to expect from those, and how to help your baby with them.
  
  Edit: I wanted to add brief descriptions and links (I was on my phone yesterday when I posted this.) I also added in the last book listed.
  
  I have literally read hundreds of parenting/child dev. books. I consider these to be the best of the best in terms of books that cover each of their respective topics in depth, from almost all perspectives, in as neutral of a way as possible, so that you can then make decisions about which more extreme (I don't mean that in a bad way) parenting styles might work for you and your family (e.g. attachment parenting, natural vs. medicated birth, etc.)
  

I'm going to sound like a broken record on this site when it comes to sleeping, but everyone whose ever told me about the sleeping problems of their child gets a copy of "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child."

Here: http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Sleep-Habits-Happy-Child/dp/0449004023

The problem you have sounds like one our friends were having when the child was seven. The book explains sleep, the importance of sleep, and the evolution of healthy sleep habits that has helped literally everyone I know who has read the book and followed through. Your situation was solved by my friend in seven days after five years of frustration. I personally think her victory came because she was given a very educated explanation of why it would work and she stuck with it. Process was a lot of it, but the real lesson is, stick to what you find working until it works. Don't give up. It may take two weeks, but then you are done forever.

For your particular sleep routine, I believe the book would recommend sitting in a chair right beside the child's bed until they fall asleep. No talking to them, just gentle putting them back in bed when they try to 'escape'; no real interaction other than a gentle 're-tucking-in' to mimic your initial tuck and establish the continuity for later when your child finally gets it.

My friend's child was seven and she sat by the bed 2.5 hours the first night reading (today we would have an ipad and reddit vs. a book, times change). Something quiet and out of sight (and interest) to the child. The next night, she did the same thing for about an hour and a half; less the third and fourth night but I remember her showing amazing resolve for four nights. On the fifth, sixth, and seventh nights respectively, she was staying in the room less and moving the chair closer to the door. Night Eight, she was outside the room with the door cracked for about twenty silent uneventful minutes and the child dozed off. Night nine, she got a good nights sleep and my wife and I got two comp'd airline tickets anywhere in the continental US. Woot!

I have recommended/given this book to perhaps thirty couples. Some get offended at the thought of getting a book to rear a child, but I really champion sleep habits as I've seen the impacts on the families who try the book; the relationships between parent and child and the interpersonal relationships between spouses. We've seen 'tough' children take a toll on everyone involved including grandparents who won't watch the kids and friends who avoid another's house around bedtime, dinner time, eating out, etc. The beauty of the book is the "quick tips" sections at the end of each chapter so you can start in minutes and 'catch up'. We were behind with my first child and literally by the book with our second. We spent a grand total of six nights on developing the sleep habits of two children that are still strong today at ages 8 and 9.

One thing that I hear a lot, and not trying to instigate in anyway, but it is an underlying theme of the book that I observe to be true in all families: "we've tried everything". Children are taught AND parents are taught. The child wants attention at bedtime and that is what you have to be disciplined enough to remove. No interaction. The friend I described above had the oldest child I've known these lessons to work on. He was seven, and I think she had the toughest challenge I've seen and showed the best discipline in 'ignoring' the child. When her child resisted initially, she would firmly and gently hold him in place until he stopped. The woman was a saint.

The "total meltdown" you describe is the payoff for the child. They don't infer victory, but there is an innate need that is fulfilled by that attention and if it never comes, it does subside. Remember that you've been taught how you are going to act at bedtime by your child for two and a half years and it may take a bit of reprogramming for both of you, but each time you stray from the continuity of the lesson, you are actually succeeding in teaching a different lesson. I really hope this helps. You need some rest!! (this will work for /u/underthewisteria as well, I believe) Good luck all!

I want to encourage you and say your CPTSD won’t affecting your parenting and you providing her with love and security is enough, but I also don’t want to delude you into a false sense of security. To answer your question as to how I do it: Firstly, I put in a massive amount of effort everyday to keep myself grounded and mindful and conscious of how I’m acting/reacting towards my child. On top of that, I never let myself slip into depressive states. On top of that, I have learned to manage and control all of my triggers so that my emotional states never negatively affect my child.


One major element of CPTSD is that it is an attachment disorder. This attachment disorder WILL affect your ability to provide a consistent sense of safety and security to your little one unless you learn how to manage and counteract those insecurities. Another element of CPTSD is that it causes you to develop a distrust/distaste for humans, and a desire to avoid human interaction. This will be absolutely detrimental to your child as he/she ages. All children rely on their parents to provide them with safe, healthy and consistent family and friends. It’s a very tiring and very difficult job, but it creates a ‘safety net’ of security on which your child can lean. How you interact with and value others will turn into how your child interacts with and values others. You will have to spend lots of time around other moms, letting your child play with their child. It’s a strain on you emotionally and mentally, but it’s necessary for healthy child development.


The best advice I can give you as a fellow parent with CPTSD is to start searching for a trauma psychologist and get an appointment scheduled ASAP. Of course anyone can recover from CPTSD without the aid of a psychologist, but when you add a child to the mix, quality and speed of recovery becomes a very important factor. Getting a psychologist to help you process your trauma and learn newer and better ways to do things will save you a lot of time and heartache. A psychologist will also teach you the importance of obtaining and maintaining friendships, and how to better manage all the triggers that parenting will bring up for you.

In the meantime, here is a short list of my all-time favorite parenting books. I’ve read probably hundreds of parenting books at this point: most are bad, a few are great. These are the best, most knowledgeable books I’ve found for ‘people like us’, at least in my opinion:

The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering our Children

ParentSpeak: What's Wrong with How We Talk to Our Children--and What to Say Instead

The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind

The Parents We Mean To Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development

The Attachment Parenting Book : A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind


Feel free to PM me anytime :)

Wow - thank you so much for your kind response.

Just writing out my comment really helped me too. Even though I've studied a lot about the brain of young children and have been practicing positive parenting for 2.5 years it is sooo easy to get caught up in the moment and be tired or stressed or pressed for time and forget what is going on. I find that especially to be the case now that I have a toddler and a baby - someone is always suffering. I have to constantly remind myself to calm down and breathe.

As a working student and single parent I can't even imagine how busy you are! Even if you can start by giving your daughter 10 minutes of undivided attention a day this should really, really help. Here's a great intro to special time - have I mentioned that I love this site? Of course, if you can do more than 10 minutes, that would be great too.

It doesn't sound like you don't have a lot of spare time but if you get a chance I really recommend the book The Philosophical Baby - it is written by a leading psychologist and basically lays out the evidence that from a neurodevelopmental perspective, children under 5 are almost another species. They are like the butterflies and we adults are like the caterpillars - they are beautiful and creative and explorers while we take care of business. It doesn't offer a lot of practical advice about parenting but is like a love story about how magnificent children are and how so much of their behavior is totally normal and necessary for development. I finally read it last fall and found it really inspiring.

** corrected funny typo - children are explorers, not exploitative

Just as a point of reference, my 3 year old cries like that quite a bit. Usually over quite trivial matters. This morning, she cried for 15 minutes straight because her daddy plugged in her ipod to the charger instead of letting her do it.

So some of it is just developmental and/or personality at that point. Stay patient and just keep letting him know that you are there for him. At some point, you'll notice a bit of a break in the crying and that's when you ask if he wants you to hold him. If you have a rocker of big comfy chair, that would be nice to snuggle up in. Maybe offer him some water or juice and to read a book or something.

I know this sounds shitty to say but don't frantically offer him up all kinds of stuff to do or big treats just to make him feel better. He'll figure out that this is how he can get stuff. Just be there to comfort and let him get it all out. If you validate his feelings and mirror them back to him, it'll help him be able to talk about them in the future. It also decreases the crying. You literally just say exactly what he's saying back to him. "you want your daddy. yes, you want your daddy." It really helps them to feel like they've been heard rather than, "It's ok" because in his mind, it's really not ok and to be told that is rather confusing.

Some good books to read are this series:
Your Three-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy (this title always cracks me up)

and

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk (this one has some really old school illustrations but it's great for talking to kids and adults of all ages)

Good luck, you are doing a wonderful thing taking him in. I'm sure transitions will get easier from here on out.

>I don’t regret having one, just extremely ashamed of being sexual and communicating it to girls and also showing it to the world. Attracting girls’ attention and whatnot isn’t very hard but progressing things to dating, holding hands and eventually sex is impossible. I can’t even call them or message them on Facebook or Whatsapp because I just feel like an idiot for doing so. Making a move in clubs and bars is also difficult although I once got close to leaving with a girl but she didn't want to. I got made fun of a lot growing up for not having a girlfriend and this made me feel like i do not deserve one. It doesn't matter if I've got the green light to go ahead I just feel really ashamed do it. Even something like looking at a fit girl wearing a short skirt makes me feel bad for checking her out and that I shouldn’t be doing it.


I know what you mean. I've been there myself, but even when I was there I was entirely self-aware of my shame and I was skeptical of the validity of my emotional reactions; I realized they were ingrained. Being aware of your emotional reactions allows you to be emotionally proactive. Your sex-negative problem is mostly an emotional issue, and not much else, right? I've been there. I wouldn't doubt that you are also decent looking and have both latent and actualized social skills. Most intelligent introverts have a lot of potential to be who they want to be because they know themselves more deeply than others. You must use your introverted nature to your advantage and recognize the differences in others and yourself. In all honesty, there are an infinite number of unwritten rules; everyone's abstract/emotional logic is different. Many of them are foundational and predictable, however; including yours and mine. Like anything else, being emotionally predictable is not a black/white issue. It is a grey area, and you have to balance your reliability with creativity.


Being made fun of for not having a girlfriend is just as sexist as being made fun of for not having a boyfriend; gender equal too. Were you ever shamed for not having a boyfriend? It's clearly a matter of groupthink and extroverted style; not for everyone. Dating relationships, for extroverts especially, are often attention-getting and showy. They wear their relationships like trophies won. Usually introverts prefer a more private relationship because they have less social desire and are often shamed because of it. Introverts are “themselves” more often in private. Extroverts are “themselves” more often in public. There is no shame deserved either way, regardless of popular opinion. Both styles have their strengths and weaknesses, and you should try to introject some of the traits that you enjoy in others; regardless of type. That is how you become balanced.


>I’m receiving counselling from a pastor who advocates the whole “no sex before marriage” thing and believes that people should only date to get married and sex is only for making kids which is stupid IMO because I do not plan on getting married anytime soon.


Counseling from a Catholic pastor? Watch out, that is one of the most notorious sex-negative societies out there. They own the abstinence-only charade while they parade horribles. Marriage is not the answer to anything; it is an institution of the state. Anything else attached is sentimental.


If you haven't already, I recommend doing an in-depth study of animal sexual behaviors; especially the most intelligent animals. All animals have sex for pleasure, but some animals are only driven to have sex at certain times of the year; humans are on a 24/7 system.


>I’ve tried the no fap route and gotten very high days counts but that hasn’t really helped me at all.


Sexual frustration doesn't help anyone. If you are mindful, then you can use your libido to further your goals, but it is not an all-cure.


>Got any sources to help overcome sex-negative perspectives? I’m interested in recreational sex not baby making sex.


Absolutely. I recommend starting with actual sex science and learning about male and female psychology and neurology. Then work your way into reading about sex culture. You should also study developmental psychology as you will probably need the clinical context in order to objectively self-evaluate your childhood influences; it is necessary for self-therapy. The best therapy will always be self-therapy; no one will ever know you better than yourself.


Evolutionary Science and Morals Philosophy:

The Selfish Gene

The Moral Landscape

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?


Sex Psychology, Science, and Neurology:

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

The Female Brain

The Male Brain

Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love

What Do Women Want

Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between)

Sex: The world's favorite pastime fully revealed


Behavioral Psychology and Abstract Economics:

How Pleasure Works

Freakonomics

Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking

Thinking Fast And Slow

We Are All Weird


Developmental Psychology:

Nurture Shock

Hauntings: Dispelling The Ghosts That Run Our Lives


Empathy Building:


Half The Sky

The House On Mango Street

Me Before You

The Fault In Our Stars

Also check out James Hollis' Understanding The Psychology of Men lecture if you can find it.



Movies: XXY, Tom Boy, Dogtooth, Shame, Secretary, Nymphomaniac, Juno, Beautiful Creatures, and The Man From Earth.



All of these things are related, but it is up to you to make the connections; pick and choose which material suits your interests best. These are the things that came to mind first, and they have all influenced my perspectives.

Yes. I didn't recognize my mom as a narcissist until after I had a baby (who's now a toddler), but I think about this a lot now. I'm actively working on it by reading a lot of books on how to be a good parent, like No Bad Kids and Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child. I've also been talking about this worry with my therapist. She pointed out that I'm approaching empathetic parenting with intention, so that already seems to set me apart from my mom. That makes me feel like I'm on the right path.

I've also been thinking lately about how my mom and my MIL, who is also a narcissist, expect my husband and I (and our siblings) to take care of them. They're not infirm or anything - they've acted like that our entire lives. I remind myself frequently that it's my job to take care of my kid, not the other way around. When he acts out, it's because he's having a hard time. It's not something he's doing to me.

To be honest, it is sometimes a challenge. Even when I feel like I'm doing everything right, I wonder if he'll feel more positive about me than I do about my mom when he gets to be my age. But working on my relationship with him isn't draining in the way that my relationship with my mom is. I feel like all the hard work I put into myself and my relationship with him will pay dividends. If he knows I love him for who he is, I will have succeeded.

This sounds like my son at that age, who was also middle of the spectrum. the developmental pediatrician recommended Floortime for us, which is an approach that was developed by Stanley Greenspan (child psychiatrist) together with Serena Wieder (I think psychologist). Sadly, Dr. Greenspan has passed away. However, I found those books and materials helpful, and we also received some help from trained Floortime therapists in our area.

Here is a youtube video of Dr. Greenspan helping a family: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vApghedypFc. That same channel has a whole bunch of videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/greenspanfloortime/videos

Here are some things you can check out in that direction, if you are interested:

1. one of his books ("engaging autism") on amazon, it has a bit of a preview you can look at: https://www.amazon.com/Engaging-Autism-Floortime-Approach-Communicate/dp/0738210943. same book on google books has a preview, not sure if it's the same preview! https://books.google.com/books?id=6MkBAwAAQBAJ&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&dq=%22engaging+autism%22%5D%5D&source=bl&ots=Kifx6vM8fg&sig=odVVaeTq0bBI68Ak3IKNThnE3SM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjh76X-mKjWAhWBOSYKHYOsBDkQ6AEIMjAC#v=onepage&q=%22engaging%20autism%22%5D%5D&f=false
   
   
2. some materials from the florida department of health about implementing the approach: http://www.floridahealth.gov/alternatesites/cms-kids/providers/early_steps/training/documents/floor_time.pdf
   
   
3. a short 2-pager from one of the organizations that implements the approach: https://www.stanleygreenspan.com/swf/The%20DIR%20Floortime%20Model.pdf
   
   In addition, this book here changed my life in terms of altering my outlook and helping me think more positively -- the authors are parents and doctors, and the mom-doctor is a neurologist, in fact -- there are some concrete helps in here -- a lot of the material is better for when your kid is older, maybe, because a lot of it is about helping them at school, but it helped me to shift my focus in a more positive direction, and just gave me a good framework for understanding things: https://www.amazon.com/Mislabeled-Child-Solutions-Childrens-Challenges/dp/1401308996/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505513398&sr=1-1&keywords=the+mislabled+child
   
   Finally, I recommend this book, which can help you understand the sensory issues: https://www.amazon.com/Out-Sync-Child-Recognizing-Processing/dp/0399531653/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505513523&sr=1-1&keywords=the+out+of+sync+child.
   
   And then get this one: https://www.amazon.com/Out-Sync-Child-Has-Revised/dp/0399532714/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=7NP2KCQY50ZRWTC9JQA0, which will help you design activities around the sensory issues.
   
   I stopped here because I didn't want to overwhelm you, but let me know if you want more recommendations, more info, or more shared experience. happy to help, just let me know. feel free to pm me also. my kid is now 10.

My 4 year old is also very strong willed. I remind myself daily that he is going to do wonderful things as an adult, or so everyone tells me. I constantly tell myself to breath first, think second, respond last. I do my best not to respond with anger, because IMO it only adds fuel to the fire. Redirection at this age gets more difficult, but I still practice it. I often find that sometimes taking action instead of using words is tremendously effective. IE the four year old has a strong decisive to continuously climb on the counter. I tried the, "you're going to get hurt, it's dangerous, etc." route, which did nothing. I then started removing him from the counter without words, setting him on the floor, and firmly saying, "We don't climb on counters."

I've also come to realize saying things like, "please don't climb on the counters," isn't effective. It has to be a firm set of directions (not harsh).

We've also started positive affirmations daily. And lots of appraisal for "good behavior" for positive reinforcement. Like.. "Thank you for cleaning up your toys!" With a happy dance and clap of the hands. Or when he follows a set of directions without telling him half a dozen times I be sure to tell him, "that was an excellent job listening to the directions I gave you, thank you!!"

Something my job taught me was to say a set of silly phrases before responding to a situation that makes you angry, "yellow butter, purple jelly, red jam, black bread." I say that to myself often before responding to my 4 year old. If you're interested two books that really helped me are Peaceful Parents, Happy Kids and No Bad Kids. Hope this helps!

I don't know if you saw my post in your previous thread. My son was enrolled in Early Intervention and started Occupational Therapy at 10 months and was in Speech by 15 months. Because he was in Occupational Therapy and the system so early, they were able to put in a referral for a developmental pediatrician at 15 months, he was diagnosed at 17 months, and received ABA therapy starting 18 months. At 17 months, he had a risk score of 16/20 on the MCHAT. Now, at almost 2, he can understand pointing and 80% or so of words, has a vocabulary of 60 or so words, and has a MCHAT risk score of 3/20.

Tell the EI person everything you notice, no matter how tiny. My son was cleared by EI the first time I asked for an exam at 6 months. The next time around, I pointed out how he'd always turn away when I played close up games like patty cake. That small observation caused the EI person to use a more detailed test, which enabled him to enroll at 10 months.

Start testing her receptive language (that's how much she understands). Some speech therapists will be reluctant to take a patient so young. I was able to get speech at 15 months because I had done numerous tests and knew that he had no receptive language. For example, I'd ask him if he wanted a banana (he loved them) from behind him and observe no reaction. Show him the banana, and he'd get very excited.

I was devastated when my son was diagnosed with autism, but it was because I didn't understand autism. Since his diagnosis, we've realized that I have a brother with autism and my brother is amazing. Seriously, he's a really great guy. Autism is not something that needs to be cured or removed from your daughter if she is autistic. If she is, she can have a great life with her autism, not in spite of it. She is still the amazing child you have always loved.

Go get An Early Start for Your Child with Autism from the library. If your child is autistic, it's a great start. If not, the games aren't going to hurt. I also really like Engaging Autism: Using the Floortime Approach to Help Children Relate, Communicate, and Think. Again, the games are such that, in the worst case scenario, you might have extra fun with your daughter. :)

Feel free to PM me with any questions or concerns.

Babies don't eat pizza!!?? Oh yes they do! - I gave my baby girl some crust when she was teething and she loved it. But she REALLY likes food.

Here's my advice, in no particular order:

1. Cut yourself some slack. Like a lot of it. The first baby is a huge adjustment and you're not going to be perfect and that's ok. Love him/her and do your best.
   
   
2. Take care of yourself! Do whatever makes you happy when you have a minute - paint your nails, watch tv, whatever. You will be taking care of baby 24/7 so give yourself as much YOU time as you can.
   
   
3. Babies and kids go through phases. So when you're in the middle of a rough patch, know that it will end. You have no idea when, but eventually it will end. Likewise, when your baby is being super sweet and cute and everything is sunshine and roses, enjoy every second of it cause that too will end!
   
   
4. Buy this book, read it and follow the advice. Many moms recommended it to me over the years, and I didn't buy it until we started having major sleep problems with my 3 1/2 year old. I've been using the techniques on him AND my 9 month old daughter and I so wish I'd used it on him since the beginning. Sleep is such a big deal in parenting and this book made it really pretty simple.
   
   
5. Cradle cap - rub olive oil on babies head, let sit for 10 minutes, scrub off with a comb while baby is sleeping. Works.
   
   
6. Here is a hand drawn chalk drawing by my son of himself and his baby sister. Notice his war wound - sliced his earlobe open last week and got 4 stitches.

Almost done reading "Brain Rules for Baby", and have really enjoyed it so far. Covers the babies brain development from in the womb and how the mother's diet, stress, etc. effect it all the way to the best way to physiologically teach and help develop you child's mind in the first few years.

http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Rules-Baby-Raise-Smart/dp/0983263302

You’ll learn:

• Where nature ends and nurture begins
  
  
• Why men should do more household chores
  
  
• What you do when emotions run hot affects how your baby turns out, because babies need to feel safe
  above all
  
  
• TV is harmful for children under 2
  
  
• Your child’s ability to relate to others predicts her future math performance
  
  
• Smart and happy are inseparable. Pursuing your child’s intellectual success at the expense of his happiness achieves neither
  
  
• Praising effort is better than praising intelligence
  
  
• The best predictor of academic performance is not IQ. It’s self-control
  
  
• What you do right now—before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and through the first five years—will affect your children for the rest of their lives.
  
  

I bought [The Baby Book] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Baby-Book-Revised-Edition/dp/0316198269) before I even started trying to conceive with my first, just on a whim, having never heard of Attachement Parenting and everything clicked. It's a great resource on babies in general, but from a gentle, AP perspective. I'd recommend this book for ANY expecting parents, honestly.

[The Attachment Parenting Book] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Attachment-Parenting-Book-Understanding/dp/0316778095/ref=pd_sim_b_9?ie=UTF8&refRID=0WC7WNX0VS1BQNCQTK5F) contains a lot of the same information, but with some additional resources, and if I recall it goes into slightly more detail.

I'd also highly recommend [Attached at the Heart] (http://www.amazon.com/Attached-Heart-Parenting-Principles-Compassionate/dp/0757317456/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=0JWRN280KQTRGGP6NH0M) as an excellent resource for new moms who want to practice AP.

As for other resources, I belong to a lot of AP and gentle parenting groups on facebook which, while sometimes overly preachy or cloying, often offer great blog posts or affirmations to mull over. Even when I'm super busy with kids and life, I can usually spend five minutes to read a facebook post and often that's all I need to recenter myself and keep myself focused on my parenting goals.

1. Pregnancy test in your presesnce.
   
2. Go to the doctor with her. My sister had a chemical pregnancy, no baby, it happens.
   
3. Get all kinds of counselling together. If abortion is off the table, fine, get adoption counselling everywhere. Explore every option you can when it comes to adoption.
   
4. Be nice to to her during all of this, not for her, but for the life of your child. You don't want her blood pressure up like crazy and have to take care of a premature baby and all that comes with that. I'm not saying get back together but be patient, kind, and supportive, what you do now determines the rest of your life. Remember a kid is with you forever, it doesn't go away at 18 any more than you've gone away from your parents existence. If you are a dick now, you are going to pay for it forever. So be smart about this.
   
5. Lawyer up now. NOW, son.
   
6. Go to every doctors appointment with her.
   
7. Read This baby book. YOU NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING IN HERE.
   
8. Tell your family, the sooner the better. 17 year olds think hellfire will come from their parents, I should know, I had a baby at 18. I've seen this situations many times and read about it even more. It usually goes just like this.. read this thread [update]My(19m) gf (17f) of a year and a half is pregnant. We are really confused and feel pretty different about it. What should we do? How should we tell her parents?
   
9. Get two or three jobs. Work 12 hours a day 7 DAYS A WEEK. When I was 18 I worked two jobs, a day job and a night job, 7 days a week. I busted ass in two restaurants. At this age, you have the energy, so do it. Work harder than you ever have. Do this so you can prove yourself, get promoted somewhere so you can make a good salary while you are going to school.
   
10. Breath. Remember, I said I had a kid at 18. I'm 32 now, my son is 13. Everything was fine. Society brainwashes you to believe that having a kid while young will ruin your life. The truth is, having a kid is what you make it. If you want to know about how those 13 years have gone so far, PM me. My kid has grown up with me and we will share a lifelong relationship far superior to any other because of it. I wasn't too old to understand him, and tl;dr it's been great. Also, my mom had me at 18.. everything was fine. Young parents have been the standard since the dawn of time, older parenting is historically a very new thing. So relax, nature will prepare you to nurture.

These are a couple books/resources I found most helpful:

https://www.amazon.com/Heading-Home-Your-Newborn-Reality/dp/1581108931

https://www.amazon.com/Your-Baby-Child-Birth-Five/dp/0375712038

https://www.amazon.com/Your-Baby-Speaking-You-Behaviors/dp/0547242956

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/Pages/default.aspx

https://www.circleofsecurityinternational.com/

https://www.marchofdimes.org/nursing/modnemedia/othermedia/states.pdf (This is a great explanation of newborn states of arousal. However, I think the information at the end about co-sleeping may be out of date at this point.)

This is my favorite breastfeeding resource. If you are formula feeding, the AAP book as well as Penelope Leach's book both have good guidance. Formula fed babies, like breastfed babies, should be fed on cue/demand, and allowed to determine their feeding volume and schedule. https://education.possumsonline.com/programs/gestalt-breastfeeding-online-program

http://www.zerotothree.org is a great reference for normal development and milestones.

This is a great read about co-regulation, or the process of how babies and children learn to self-regulate:

https://fpg.unc.edu/sites/fpg.unc.edu/files/resources/reports-and-policy-briefs/Co-RegulationFromBirthThroughYoungAdulthood.pdf

Lots of people hate on Ferber, but his book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems has good information on sleep cycles. You don't necessarily have to implement all his techniques, although in some circumstances they are useful.

There are a lot of different soothing techniques out there. The Happiest Baby on the Block covers the basics. Most newborns like to be held flexed with firm touch. They like movement. They like to be close to another human. They like access to their hands. A baby who is in a frantic or crying state (see the march of dimes link) often needs help to come back down to a quiet alert or drowsy state, and soothing by an adult caregiver can be the key. You don't necessarily have to soothe them all the way into sleep, though, especially as a newborn. Sometimes just getting them calm and drowsy is enough that they can do the rest. In addition, a baby who is crying too frantically will have a hard time latching on to a breast or bottle so it is a good idea to feed before they become frantic since it can be difficult to soothe them if they are frantic with hunger. However, even offering a pacifier or finger to suck on, gently bouncing, or holding them can help them get calm enough to eat.

I hear you. I have n-parents as well and a toddler and another on the way.

For me, it has helped to read books about normal parenting. I like "Touchpoints" a lot. It is really basic and was recommended to me by my therapist.

And, then there is my therapist. I have a therapist that specializes in pregnant women and moms. Honestly, I am doing well enough that I probably don't need a therapist, but I feel a lot better having a therapist to bounce ideas and problems off of. She has been a huge help in building my confidence as a parent. Maybe in a few years, I will let go of therapy, because I am doing so well. But, for now, this is a tool that I think is valuable enough to me that I am not ready to let go of.

We also have a subreddit dedicated to ACONs who are parents: /r/RBNChildcare. If you ever want to post in a smaller sub that is more specialized, you can post your concerns about parenting there. But, you are also very very welcome to post at /r/raisedbynarcissists as well. Whatever you like. :)

I can't answer the question definitively, but an interesting phenomenon that I've observed as a teacher is how teaching infants sign language allows them to exhibit their cognition and thought process. I teach in a Montessori infant classroom and I've taught babies (under 18 months) signs that I then see them use in different but totally appropriate ways. For example: we use the sign "outside" to mean literally out-of-doors in the fresh air. But we have kids who then use the same sign to mean "out of the classroom", "out of this area", "come to this side of the fence," etc. They are showing that they understand this concept of "i am here and I want to be elsewhere". They don't have the verbal/physical words, but the neural pathways are certainly there, and every time someone uses that sign or says "outside" that pathway is being reinforced. Obviously, I don't know for sure, but I would imagine that since these children are signing in response to heard words, if you could see a brain scan you'd see areas lighting up for thinking of the sound of words, and also motor skills for thinking about the movement of signing.
Now I want to see if anyone's done this kind of study, and if not, why not?! Off I scuttle to do some research....

Edit: a really terrific resource for understanding infant cognition is Alison Gopnik. She's a cogsci researcher out of UC Berkeley and she's written the following:

[The Scientist in the Crib](The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind https://www.amazon.com/dp/0688177883/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_bboSybE1V7Q9G)

[The Philosophical Baby](The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312429843/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_QboSybDSGGJZQ)

I can't speak for [her new book](The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374229708/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_udoSybM1SFBSC) but I can tell you that the first two completely changed the way I view babies. They really are amazing little people with astounding cognitive abilities from birth!

You might find the book "The Explosive Child" helpful in understanding your child's behavior. My son sounds very similar to your daughter (and honestly, much, much less of an explosive child than what the book is truly intended for). However, the premise of the book is that kids who explode like this are lacking in the skills of flexibility and adaptability and that helping them learn these skills is far preferable to punishing bad behavior that stems from a lacking skill.

My pediatrician also recommended the book, "The Whole-Brain Child", which helps explain some of the way children's brains functions. This book is especially useful because it explains why, during huge meltdowns, your child is really incapable of rational thought. You have to wait until the child is calm again before trying to address any of the challenges you're facing.

With that being said, I have noticed in particular that my son has a lot more frequent meltdowns when he is 1) tired or 2) hungry. Asking "are you hungry?" and offering him a snack sometimes snaps him right out of it.

Interacting with him/discussing his feelings/giving hugs during the meltdown seem to make it worse (contrary to my initial impulse which is to walk him through his feelings). This is really only possible AFTER the storm has been weathered. Isolating him, which is pretty much my least natural response, is what seems to work for him the best. We simply tell him he needs to stay in his room until he is calm and ready to talk about what's going on. He calms down MUCH faster by himself and half the time, he ends up falling asleep (and wakes up in a perfectly happy mood).

Always check out your local library for these recommendations first. These are mostly the books I liked enough to buy after reading.

Parenting books that I've liked best:

Adele Faber's "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk". This book has exercises to try and breaks things down by different ages so you can refer to it whether you're having trouble with toddlers or teenagers. I also have her companion book Siblings Without Rivalry.

Kim John Payne's Simplicity Parenting. This book emphasizes the importance of developing routines, helps emphasize that you DON'T need to get tons of toys or extra activities for your kids, and helps you organize your life even if your life is a little crazified by frequent job traveling or divorced parenting or stuff like that.

I... can't remember my other favorite book. Might've been a book for baby ages.

Now, for read-alouds. There are lots of nursery rhyme books, my personal favorite is Sylvia Long's Mother Goose, but my kids are really fond of Iona Opie and Rosemary Wells' Mother Goose. Either way, I recommend the ones that have only one nursery rhyme per page. The classic collections by Blanche Fisher Wright tend to have six or eight crammed on to each page and their illustrations don't hold my kids' attention as well. With one rhyme per page, as they get older they can remember what each page's rhyme is and can "read" it to themselves.

Alice Shertle's Little Blue Truck book is probably the #1 most favorite board book in the 1-2 year old range. Seriously. If you get only one read-aloud book, this is it. Other than that, hit up the board books at your library. I've found a ton that I like and a bunch that get recommended (like Sandra Boynton's books) that don't personally appeal to me. I love Leslie Patricelli's books, but I bet she drives other parents crazy to read.

I was on mobile before and couldn't answer as thoroughly as I'd have liked.

Basically, I take the approach that my kid hasn't read the books and doesn't know how they're "supposed" to act regarding sleep or potty training or anything else. So I read as many books on as many subjects as I can, figuring that there will be something useful from every expert. So for example I read all the big sleep books out there, from Ferber to Pantley to Sears, and I picked and chose what worked for me. I read about attachment parenting AND Babywise. I read Baby-Led Weaning and Super Baby Food. And it's ALL come in handy - my oldest hasn't fit a single mold perfectly, but having all those tools in my toolkit helped me help her (and myself).

For baby development, one of my favorites is [Baby Meets World] (http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Meets-World-Journey-Through/dp/0312591349) because it talks about what happens in the baby's first year but also gives a really good historical overview of different practices like feeding (from wet nursing to pabulum to the current breast/bottle debate), which helps me stop freaking out about the latest trends - basically, it gave me perspective. Touchpoints is another great development book, and The Language Instinct is a fascinating read on how language and cognition develop.

For blogs, I like Ask Moxie's archives.

I found Brazelton to be very helpful. He's not for or against cosleeping, not for or against sleep training, not for or against attachment, breastfeedung, gluten free, organic, baby wearing, elimination communication, or whatever. (Those are the major dogmatic divisions currently) He's a pediatrician, and he's an advocate for taking the time to understand the youngest infants and to take good care of them. And to take care of the parents too. Just the facts on ages and stages, you as a family decide how to get there. I'm in this flexible school: know the enemy baby, victorious in every battle.

The Happiest Baby On The Block book is very popular as well. A lot of people swear by it, I thought it made a lot of sense too but I didnt find it fitting for my baby. So staying flexible is good.

As a family you should talk about sleep now. If/when things get super bad, how will you handle it? Cosleep? Scheduleing? To what age? After sleep, everything is easy.

When kid is older you can discuss free range options, what to do with stranger danger, strategies for lost child, discipline and acceptable motivations/bribes. Good luck!

I'm a passing by Chinese mom. We got a lot of support for sleep scheduling, and a lot of flak for not making custom congee meals for babe, but ymmv.

Not a problem! Ah yes, I was wondering if, since you did a fairly extensive reno, you did some soundproofing in the ceiling/floor.

For what it's worth, we just moved into a new home and did some renos, all of the doors are hollow. Downstairs we have a combo mud/laundry room that is directly across the hall from the stairs that lead upstairs and our living room upstairs is adjacent to those stairs. The washer and dryer are fairly old and noisy. If laundry room door is open, the sound just travels right up the stairs and we can clearly hear the washer and/or dryer running. But when that door is closed, there is a slight noise if you listen carefully, but even with a hollow door, the sound is significantly reduced. We don't have any insulation between floors. Then, in our master (upstairs down the hall), if both the laundry room door and master doors are closed, we don't hear a thing.

So, my two cents, ya you probably want a solid door for that electrical closet just to cut down that noise for general living as well as your situation. But I think you could get away with hollow for your other doors. And hopefully any remaining residual noise would just be of the white/muffled variety.

Actually speaking of white noise, you/your wife may want to think about getting a white noise set-up. It would totally block out any residual noise coming from below. Then once kiddo arrives, you have white noise to help them sleep. When we had our twin boys 5.5 years ago, white noise was a great help in allowing them undisturbed sleep when we were in a much smaller house. We just used a old ipod nano with some ocean sounds plugged into one of those cheap iPod players... actually we're still using it now!

And, sorry getting off topic a bit here... but if you don't have it yet, please buy this book - http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Sleep-Habits-Happy-Child/dp/0449004023. Trust me on this, buy it and do what it says... it's really short and simple, but it's indispensable. Because if it (well, the special twin version), our kids are sleeping champions.

A play therapist named Lawrence Cohen wrote a great book, [Playful Parenting] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0345442865), that has a good discussion of this issue. He suggests some games and play strategies you can use to help your son work through his difficulty losing.

>[S]witch gears from playing the game to playing with these themes [of winning and losing]. For example, set up a game where they will always win, and pretend to be a ridiculous figure of a sore loser. Or brag about how great you are, then miss every shot -- whatever helps them laugh and release that feeling of life or death over the outcome of the game. Make up a game with a funny rule, like "No hitting me with this pillow," and then act goofy when they -- surprise -- hit you with it. "Waaah, you cheated!"

He also recommends a game he calls the "winning and losing game":

> This is a game where the focus is on playfully addressing the emotional layer underneath. It can be anything at all, as long as there is playful use of the ideas of winning and losing. For example, flip a coin, heads or tails; if you lose, go into a Shakespearean death scene because you lost...If you win, announce that you are the greatest coin flipper in the history of the universe, do a little victory dance, and then act real surprised when you lose the next toss.

For anyone else saving this for future reference I'd like to add Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child to your reading list.

We did gentle CIO the first time and it worked great, but as Dr. Weissbluth points out in the book all kinds of stuff happens (vacations, colds, dropping a nap) where you kind of have to start again, although it's far easier each progressive time. I've reread sections of that book a dozen times and each time they make the process far smoother.

CIO is so hard, but truly my baby is happier and more alert when she gets good sleep. It IS for her benefit and it's probably far harder on me than it is on her.

Honestly - it all goes out the window the moment you actually get into it.

But two books I found useful to some degree:

Wonder weeks - really useful for understanding the mental leaps your child will experience. It's more helpful at the time - but it's a nice thing to browse.

Solve your child's sleep problems - This is the ferber (cry it out) method for sleep training. I am not saying I entirely followed this book - but I did find the sleep patterns and cycles to be useful to understand WHY my kid was having issues on occasion. I did not follow the ferber method to a T though - however, I did do a modified CIO method with my dude and it was pretty successful (though it's sort of more about training you than the kid, IMO).

I also recommend anything by the Mayo Clinic (and avoid all of the "What to Expect..." line).
It's scientifically based and doesn't treat you like an idiot. They have a pregnancy book and a first year book, both of which I liked quite a bit.

Other than that - start browsing /r/beyondthebump and /r/toddlers - they are both great places to go when you are feeling insane and just need to hear that "this is normal".

P.S. You may want to try posting to /r/babybumpS - it has a larger following. :)

There's a really good weekly show called The HighWire with Del Bigtree that is presented by one of the producers of Vaxxed. It is quite well produced and I can't think of a better way to get familiarized with the anti-vaccination side than to watch some of the shows.

For example:

Del Bigtree interview with Al Jazeera

interview with Andy Wakefield


It's also important to realize that the reason so many people - especially parents - have come to question the safety of vaccines is because they have seen first hand one of their children get injured after receiving a vaccine. Most of them will freely admit that until that point, they had no reason to question things and were quite happily following the CDC vaccine schedule. So to understand why this is such a large movement, it's really useful to read or watch some of the testimonials of these parents.

written parent's testimonials

video interviews

2 particularly heart wrenching interviews:

The McDowell triplets in Michigan

Gardasil (HPV vaccine) injury


If you want a couple of book recommendations:

How to End the Autism Epidemic by J.B. Handley

Unvaccinated: Why growing numbers of parents are choosing natural immunity for their children by Forrest Maready

Vaccine Epidemic


Some articles:

No, the Safety of the CDC’s Routine Childhood Vaccine Schedule Has NOT Been Scientifically Demonstrated

RFK, Jr article

Confessions of the Vaccine-Educated

> I've taken away toys, time outs, charts, talks, leaving, rewards, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and on and on.

Well, none of those things solve the underlying problems so that doesn't surprise me much. I always like to recommend The Explosive Child (and the companion website); though the process is bound to be a bit more difficult with a younger child who is less verbal, it's certainly doable (the first couple radio shows on this page address the age issue, which may help you if you go this route).

One further thing to note:

> We don't play rough with him because we don't want to encourage the behavior

It is natural for children to roughhouse, and there is purpose to it. There's an entire chapter about roughhousing in one of my favorite books, Playful Parenting, and I'll excerpt just a bit here:

> Many animals wrestle, including humans, and we seem to do so for a variety of reasons. Children wrestle and roughhouse as a way of testing out their physical strength, as a way to have fun, and as a way to control their aggression.

>Boys and girls—rambunctious children and quiet ones—all benefit from thoughtful physical play with adults. The active ones, who are going to be in the thick of the rough and tumble in school and on the playground, need a chance to do it first with someone who can give them undivided attention, help them deal with their fears, hesitations, impulses, anger, etc. ...

You kid needs to roughhouse. You can help him practice and learn how to do it carefully and safely with you, or you can leave 100% of that job to other kids who are less capable of handling him.

How old is your child? Can you think of specific situations you have struggled with?

First, full disclosure. I'm not a parent, but I am wrestling with this myself while waiting to adopt an infant. I am also acting as a pseudo secondary mother to my teenage sister who is still under the thumb of our nmom. The work for the former, in conjunction with facing issues with nmom head on, has resulted in a huge difference with my sister. I used to perpetuate my mom's abuses, but since then an increase in empathy, patience and respect for autonomy has made all the difference. Situationally it looks different with younger kids, but it comes from the same place.


YMMV of course, but thus far our philosophy can be boiled down to a few core elements:

• Children are immature yet whole beings, entitled to every bit of respect that adults are entitled to
  
  
• Discipline means literally "to teach." Discipline =/= punishment, humiliation, or shame
  
  
• We "work with" instead of "do to"
  
  
• Parenting is the gradual process of perpetually stepping back
  
  
  Of my giant stack of books, I'd recommend:
  
  
• Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn Resource on gentle parenting. Heavily cited and supported by evidence. Also see The Myth of the Spoiled Child.
  
  
• Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Siegel Addresses attachment theory, how it effects brain development, how childhood attachment style and trauma effects your parenting as an adult, and how to work with it. Also key is the difference between enmeshing yourself in your child's feelings vs guiding them through them.
  
  
• No Drama Discipline by Daniel Siegel I haven't read this yet, but I'm a fan of Siegel, so...
  
  
• How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber This is a classic, very readable. Gives concrete strategies, and walks through practical scenarios. Discusses natural consequences vs purely punitive measures.
  
  
  If you're a busy parent who doesn't have time to read, I highly recommend this Siegel playlist about attachment and this video about communication and boundaries. Those two will probably lead you down a pretty decent youtube rabbit hole.
  
  Good luck!

get in good shape, take care of yourself.
Get rest
I wouldn't really be angling for a promotion right now

When the baby is born, and this may be a couple of months in. If possible, through bottle feeding or pump - and - serve, try to find a way to go 2 nights on 2 nights off when it comes to waking with the baby in the middle of the night.

This isn't possible for everyone, but my wife and I did it with both of our kids, and I think we were better for it.

Read Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child www.amazon.com/Healthy-Sleep-Habits-Happy-Child/dp/0449004023 or at least the summaries.

Happiest baby on the block by Harvy Karp was helpful as well. "Treat first 3 months as 4th tri-mester" is the general idea.

Ideas:

1. Have kiddo watch Signing Time on Netflix. It is an amazing show that will help with his language development. No guilt.
   
   
2. Get the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Sleep-Habits-Happy-Child/dp/0449004023 Our 2 year old sleeps from 5pm to 7am every day, and our 6 month old just started doing the same thing with only one wake up overnight. There are, of course, several naps throughout the day. Yes, my son and daughter sleep around 14 hours each night and with naps they sleep a total of around 17 (2 yo) to 18-20 (6mo) hours PER DAY. More kid sleeping time means more relax time for mommy and you.
   
   
3. Give her every Friday night off. Tell her to get out of the house. Find a friend of hers, make plans if you have to, send her to dinner or a movie or SOMETHING.
   
   
4. Do you have a spare room? Arrange to let a nanny live rent free (room and board) in exchange for assistance 20-30 hours a week.
   
   
5. Pick a whole WEEK where each person is on overnight duty. One week you are on duty. You feed little one every time. Next week she is on duty. I read a study that showed doing this week by week made a HUGE difference in the amount of sleep each partner got and their ability to function. Do not take "no" for an answer here. She needs to be able to sleep. Have her pump her breastmilk into bottles and so you can help feed the little one overnight that way.
   
   
6. Do you have a spare room? Put the baby in there immediately. My wife was unable to sleep with our baby in our bedroom because when she made the tiniest noise it would wake my wife up. Putting the baby in the other room allowed both of them to sleep MUCH better.
   
   
7. Is she depressed? Post Partum Depression is real. My wife got put on some meds and it made a world of difference. (For the record, I am anti-meds unless it's really necessary ... and these were amazing.) Have her talk to a doctor, it can improve her quality of life DRAMATICALLY.
   
   Divorce doesn't seem like a wise option. Are you going to take care of the kids? Don't be silly!

Not really sure if this will come off as condescending but here are some books for general parenting or parenting kids with behavioral issues. For any folks out there looking for resources.


The Connected Child
https://www.amazon.com/Connected-Child-healing-adoptive-family/dp/0071475001
Mainly focuses on attachment, or lack there of, for adoptive parents but some of the info is good for parents with children who have behavioral issues caused by attachment issues. Does have some religious aspects but also creates space for non-religious folks as well.

The Whole Brian Child
https://www.amazon.com/Whole-Brain-Child-Revolutionary-Strategies-Developing/dp/0553386697 great general parenting book.

No Drama Discipline
https://www.amazon.com/No-Drama-Discipline-Whole-Brain-Nurture-Developing/dp/034554806X help me understand what’s happening in my kids brain in misbehaving and tactics for working through various issues.

These really helped me feel empowered and informed as a parent. Every time we do well with the stuff we feel like the best parents in the world. Hope this helps anyone out there that might need it.

Edit: links and formatting. I suck at it and I’m on mobile so...
2: a word

I posted a whole response, but based on what else you've said it sounds as though any amount of crying is a no go for you. Lots of people feel this way and go with it, but there are no magic bullets. If you don't want a baby that fusses even a little at night then you'll have to wait until baby is ready to sleep through the night.

It's a perfectly legitimate way to do it, but from your post you sounded like you were looking for advice, not support. I think it may be a little bit confusing. The advice is either wait until baby sleeps through the night, or work on sleep training baby which will involve some amount of fussing. u/counterfitfake had a pretty gentle method for CIO (which was too gentle for us when we tried something similar as we couldn't be in the room at bedtime at all, but awesome that it worked for them!)


If you really do get to your wit's end with the wakeups I highly recommend Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. Some crying required, but if you believe (as I do) that a baby that wakes up repeatedly through the night is not well rested then the trade off may become worth it.

I'd just like to preface this by saying I'm not an economics major, I majored in Physics\Chemistry. This stuff has always been a bit of a side hobby.

1. I'd just like to say that even with all it's flaws, the Soviet Union managed to go from a nation of farmers to a technological power able to rival and even in some areas beat the most dominant power left after WWII. The Soviets hold many firsts in space exploration.
   
   
2. A communist society is far more suited to combatting climate change, the UN climate chief agrees. Capitalism requires perpetual growth to function and we all know that perpetual growth in a closed system is a no-no. It's a wildfire that'll happily burn the forest to the ground if not kept in very close check.
   
   
3. Hopefully once the profit motive in it's current form is removed, these deceitful practices will no longer be fruitful. The driven want to succeed in the system and they'll do so by whatever means necessary. Change the game -> change the player.
   
   
4. Humans are naturally cooperative, my time with the Australian Aborigines has only affirmed this more. Capitalism is a modern invention. I'd say it was invented in the 20th century although some date it back as far as the 16th century in Europe.
   
   -------
   
   As for book recommendations, perhaps one of the works of Richard Wolff would appeal to you. He has a great style and he's getting a bit of a following in the USA: http://www.rdwolff.com/content/contending-economic-theories-neoclassical-keynesian-and-marxian
   
   Here's an unrelated book I really enjoyed on critical thinking, recommended by Sagan!
   
   http://www.amazon.com/How-Know-What-Isnt-Fallibility/dp/0029117062
   
   My local leftie bookshop has a decent inventory, have a bit of a browse and if anything catches your eye, punch it into amazon: https://www.resistancebooks.com/

Not that this helps - but my daughter used to drink 64oz+ of formula a day, about half at night until we switched to food when She cut down to 40ish ounces. The pediatrician always thought it should be less but we never got there. She's skinny for her age but we share meals and she usually eats a bigger breakfast, lunch and dinner than I do plus 3 or 4 healthy snacks (cheese, nuts, hummus, fruit, etc)

I give her a sippy full of water every night and she usually finishes it. I personally wouldn't be freaked about diabetes/whatever unless she's drinking that much water at night. Kids are different, and some eat way more than others.

I'd get rid of milk, cold turkey and just offer water. My daughter never accepted water in a bottle so we just put a non-leaky sippy in her crib with her at night. It seems to me like the milk is how she's soothing herself back to sleep and she's just going to have to learn to do that part on her own, minus the milk. It's tough and there's a lot of differing opinions, but I'm (now) a big believer in cry it out. I like this book and it's gotten us through everything so far.

As far as neighbors, I'd be really honest and really nice. Go down, tell them you are trying, the next 3-4 days will be rough. Maybe bring them cookies and ear plugs as well. We lived in an apartment when my daugher sleep trained and my neighbors were surprisingly nice about it when I gave them a head's up on what was happening and apologized both before and after.

'How Not to Achieve Freedom' is an entire book on libertarian infighting by Stef. Just sayin'.

I try to keep libertarian infighting to an minimum that I possibly can although I probably take more potshots than I should (although I try to be fair in the shots that I take).

Divorce rates by faith group according to the Barna report [1]:

All adults 33% 3792

Evangelical Christians: 26%

Non-evangelical born again Christians: 33%
Notional Christians: 33%
Associated with non Christian faith: 38%
Atheist or agnostic: 30%
All born again Christians : 32%
All non born again Christians: 33%

Protestant 34%
Catholic 28%

Upscale 22%
Downscale 39%

White 32% 2641
African-American 36%
Hispanic 31%
Asian 20%

Conservative 28%
Moderate 33%
Liberal 37%

Also

>In addition to finding that four out of every five adults (78%) have been married at least once, the Barna study revealed that an even higher proportion of born again Christians (84%) tie the knot. That eclipses the proportion among people aligned with non-Christian faiths (74%) and among atheists and agnostics (65%).

OK I generally agree with this video, even if I don't entirely agree with the methods.

According to this very weak study from a biased source, families who practice Natural Family Planning have a 5% divorce rate [2], substantially lower than the typical rate even among Conservatives.

If you want to lower your chances of divorce, be an Asian Catholic who is also conservative and doesn't use contraception. Are Asian Catholics who don't use contraception the most influential demographic in America? No not really.

It's funny that Stefan strongly criticizes the demographic with the lowest divorce rate while also saying that libertarians should move towards being the population with a low divorce rate that forms strong families, while simultaneously encouraging people to join the demographic with the lowest marriage rate (by far) with a moderately high divorce rate.

I think that not spanking children is preferable. However, many families that do practice spanking lack the sophistication, IQ, and cultural cachet to otherwise raise their children. It's like commanding innately incapable people of being smart enough to have high paying jobs. "You really should not be dumb, you person who is not capable of being intelligent." It's a nice sentiment but the people who need to hear the message the most aren't going to be the ones capable of acting on it.

Libertarians or anarcho-capitalists don't need to be THE strongest faction in the world to thrive and survive according to sets of rules that make us happy. We just have to be strong ENOUGH. We don't have to be 100% unified on every single issue that's conceivable. We just have to be unified sufficiently to reach a threshold that makes independence feasible. A lot of hopelessness arrives from setting goals that are unrealistic or too high or deferred too far into the future.

You're not going to convince 220m Indonesians to stop spanking their children. It's also not entirely clear to me that spanking has the same effects across all cultures in all contexts. This book, 'Nurtureshock,' sold a lot of copies and raised a substantial debate about it. [3] Science is a complicated back-and-forth of debate and experimentation. It's incredibly hard to divine ironclad moral norms based on isolated studies that make a naive connection between spanking and IQ.

[1]https://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/15-familykids/42-new-marriage-and-divorce-statistics-released#.UgLq8pJJPXU
[2]http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/natural-family-planning-builds-a-culture-of-life/
[3]http://www.amazon.com/NurtureShock-New-Thinking-About-Children/dp/0446504130

“Consequences” don’t really work for toddlers. The best kind of consequences they can experience are natural ones. Meaning if they spill water on the ground, they have to help clean it up. Have you read this book: No Bad Kids by Janet Lansbury ? I know everybody recommends it for like every post about discipline, but it is a really good book!

The best way to handle behavior at this age is to guid them into appropriate behavior. If they are doing something inappropriate, guide their behavior into something better. Encourage them to behave well more than you discourage bad behavior. Toddlers are much more receptive to positive than to negatives.

The book I didn't like (despise is too strong, it was just too simplistic) was What to Expect.

I loved Mayo Clinic Guide to Pregnancy. It felt in depth and comprehensive while still being practical.

Another two books I've loved have been "Brain Rules for Baby" and "What's Going On in There". Brain Rules is written for more of a layman's audience while the second is very very technical if you're not familiar with neurology, though the author does a good job of explaining things. They both touch on pregnancy and how different things affect the developing brain and why something is good or bad. It also talks about what you can do now, while pregnant, to give your child the best chance you can and all backed up with peer reviewed research. I loved them!

Babies under 4 months have no set sleep pattern at all. Waking every 2-3 hours at night is perfectly normal. Hell, my son didn't even sleep through the night completely until like 18 months, I think. My daughter started doing it at 1 month, but I think it is because she pretty much didn't nap all day long. Every kid is totally different.

I highly suggest picking up Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It's a really great book and goes into detail about the sleep habits of kids at various ages, as well as how to get them on a set sleep routine. It was invaluable for my wife and I. 4 months is a good time to start sleep training.

Brain rules for baby. Available on audio book.

It's a very academic heavily-sourced, book on parenting techniques, generally advocating authoritative parenting.

As far as schools, visit a few, look at the grounds, and talk to the teachers. Much of what they'll be learning at age three will be social, and whether it be Waldorf or Montessori, they'll mostly be playing with legos and in sand boxes at this age.

Structured play is great. Pretend time is great. If you can set up some cardboard boxes, and let him play pirate, that's pretty good for him.

There's plenty of debate on whether stay-at-home parenting is superior to day-care/pre-school, but suffice to say that it depends on the kid and both are totally viable options depending on your circumstance.

It's not serious to not be fully-potty trained yet, but you should probably get on that, especially considering it limits your preschool options a lot.

There are things called "swim diapers"

use sunscreen, but not spray on

Use shoes in dangerous environments but barefoot is okay on grass and dirt.

A three year old can climb up a play structure just fine all by himself.

Good Luck! :)

I've been reading this book and am about 1/3 of the way through. The author makes some really good points about how we arrive at beliefs and the mechanisms we use to discredit things that conflict with those beliefs. I can't go thought point by point in the entire book but here is a couple things he brings up:

>People's preferences influence not only the kind of information they consider, but also the amount they examine. When the initial evidence supports our preferences, we are generally satisfied and terminate our search; when the initial evidence is hostile, however, we often dig deeper, hoping to find more comforting information, or to uncover reasons to believe that the original evidence was flawed.

and

>The important point here is that although evidence and reality constrain our beliefs, they do not do so completely. For nearly all complex issues, the evidence is fraught with ambiguity and open to alternative interpretation. One way that our desires or preferences serve to resolve these ambiguities in our favor is by keeping our investigative engines running until we uncover information that permits a conclusion we find comforting.

How old is the toddler? Janet Lansbury has some great books about discipline, like this one. It's geared toward parents, but there's a lot of useful info in there for caregivers. Toddlers are little boundary-explorers, and creating a secure, consistent environment where they know what to expect is the goal, but it's easier said than done. Behavior is communication, so if you can figure out the underlying need that's leading to the behavior, and meet the need, that's the ideal situation. It's a daily balancing act of figuring out where to put the boundary and then how to hold the boundary firm.

Admittedly I’m not where you are yet, but I have recently read this toddler discipline book for help with my 11 month old. She’s been pulling the cats’ tails and petting them roughly and I felt I wasn’t getting through to her. The book is Janet Lansbury’s No Bad Kids. I’m following her sample script of “I won’t let you touch the tail,” and removing my kid from the situation. She goes into wayyyy more detail and I really like her approach. I read the ebook pretty quickly.

Edit: I know 11 months is pretty young but I’m proud to say she is petting the cats much more gently now! We have success at least half the time after only a week. Admittedly she was never being rough with them out of anger, but it’s still a learning curve for her. She looks over at me while doing it to gauge my reaction.

"Brain Rules for Babies" by John Medina may be of interest to you. I haven't read "Expecting Better," but based on the blurb it seems the two books have similar goals: providing peer-reviewed information and avoiding the propagation of myths.


At the beginning of my pregnancy, I worried I wasn't doing enough to optimize fetal development. There's so much information to be found on pregnancy and child care, I kept wondering, "Which advice should I follow? What helps and what hinders?" It was overwhelming! I'm a FTM, and I've never been around babies, so I was clueless. The pregnancy chapter in "Brain Rules" really simplified it for me: take care of yourself physically and mentally and let the fetus do it's thing. The book continues to cover relationships, brain development, emotional development, and moral development with similar clarity.


I have a few other books such as "What to Expect the First Year" but I just keep them around for reference, haven't actually read all the way through them. Other books I've considered buying are "Mind in the Making" and "NurtureShock."

Babies are resilient. Don't get too worked up on making sure everything is perfect. When your baby is an infant, make sure you are taking care of yourselves; a frazzled, sleep-deprived parent isn't what your baby need.

As your child grows, don't over-protect them and don't do for them what they can do for themselves. Sure they'll get a few bumps along the way but they will grow into a much more confident and secure person.

DO NOT, I repeat, do not read the book "What to Expect in Your First Year". We got that one, as well as "What to Expect When You're Expecting" as gifts. They should be called: "What Are All The Extremely Unlikely, Horrible Things That Could Possibly Go Wrong"

On the other hand, I highly recommend: NurtureShock. It is not specifically about infants but it does have a chapter that discusses the latest research on the downside of the "Baby Einstein" type videos. Also, it is full of advice for every stage of development from baby through adolescence. Sure wish I had it 10 years ago.

I am not against vaccines, no, but there should plenty more research done on their safety. Even the well-known memed saying "autism is caused by vaccines" is starting to seem more and more real every day.

---------------------

>In early December 2017, Dr. Chris Exley of Keele University in England and his colleagues published a paper that for the first time looked at the brain tissue of subjects with autism to determine the level of aluminum (note: they spell “aluminum” as “aluminium” in the United Kingdom) found within their brain tissue. For anyone trying to convince the world that “the science is settled and vaccines don’t cause autism,” the study’s findings are deeply contradictory to that statement. In a blog post written by Professor Exley on the day his study was published, he explained the groundbreaking results:

> “…while the aluminium content of each of the 5 brains [of people with autism] was shockingly high it was the location of the aluminium in the brain tissue which served as the standout observation…The new evidence strongly suggests that aluminium is entering the brain in ASD [autism spectrum disorders] via pro-inflammatory cells which have become loaded up with aluminium in the blood and/or lymph, much as has been demonstrated for monocytes at injection sites for vaccines including aluminium adjuvants.”


I strongly suggest anyone genuinely interested to read the following page, if you wish to see a very different view (filled with research of course) on the vaccine/aluminium link and its possible relation to autism:

-Aluminum in vaccines and the autism epidemic

The man behind this research is J.B.Handley. He has a child with autism and has dedicated his life to solving and researching the issue - and preventing the modern autism epidemic.

He even has a book on this issue, available here:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Autism-Epidemic-J-B-Handley/dp/1603588248/
https://jbhandleyblog.com/home/2018/4/1/international2018

---------------------

Here is another link to a research paper connecting the usage of aluminium adjuvants to the rise of autism:

Do aluminum vaccine adjuvants contribute to the rising prevalence of autism?

This research is sadly not freely available, but if you wish to read it anyway, you can get around that with a page like www.sci-hub.tw

In which case it becomes more readily available:

https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0162013411002212


--------------

Recently, even a respected (now smeared and his reputation destroyed of course) vaccine medical expert, employed and tasked to destroy the autism-vaccine connection has come out with info that the link undoubtedly exists. There is an interview with him on Shirley Attkinsson that can be found on YouTube.

Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson: January 6, 2019 - The Vaccination Debate

James Corbett: Vaxx Propaganda in Overdrive as Vaccine/Autism Link Confirmed

Playful Parenting by Cohen.

It's a great book about how important play is to kids and to parents. Using play to stay connected to my son and get him to behave feels like cheating sometimes. We have a great relationship, and he's really well behaved.

It also has great tips for using playtime to help circumvent and or conquer unnecessary fears in a toddler or young child.

3 YO brains aren't like little adult brains - they are so different that leading developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik describes them as almost being another species. Or at least like the butterflies to our caterpillars.

Little kids have way more neural connections than adults - over time they get pruned based on the kid's experiences. This means that they see limitless options where we just see a toothbrush. They also have very underdeveloped frontal lobes so are not able to control themselves very well.

In addition to these structural differences, children need play and exploration to prepare their brains for academic learning, creativity, and focus when they are older. If a parent were to totally scare a kid into always doing everything the parent wants all the time that wouldn't be healthy for cognitive development.

There's lots of great advice here about how to deal with this. If you want to read more about why klittle kids are the way they are I really recommend Dr. Gopnik's book The Philosophical Baby. It doesn't
give strategies for handling little kids but it does give you a wonderful appreciation for why they act the way they do and how important it is for development. http://www.amazon.com/The-Philosophical-Baby-Childrens-Meaning/dp/0312429843

Engage your kids. Now that clothes are done gather all the books and divide them by kid and sit with each one and ask if they want to give it a home on their shelf or give it to a kid who would like it more or be more age appropriate for. My 7 year old doesn't need the baby books any more so she purged those along with those with topics that don't interest her any more.

We did stuffed animals after clothes and she got rid of 50%. The big thing for her is that I remind her that if she keeps it, it needs to have a home in her room, not just piled in the corner or in a tub. She will pick the "easy" items first, those she knows bring joy. Then the shelf is full and she isn't interested in making a "home" for what remains and is okay with putting them in the to-go bag.

We preserved the Legos and Playomobil (two or three sets total) and she sorted through the rest of the toys, mostly Happy Meal quality small plastic crap and old crafts. After she selected the good stuff she was ready to move on and I told her we had to finish but she was allowed to decide that the rest could "move on". She picked out three more small items, said the rest could go and went off to play with friends. I put the rest in a trash bag and put that out of sight (so she can't go back). So far no complaints, just lots of positive attention from visitors for having such a peaceful and tidy room. Still plenty of books and trinkets but with room to breathe.

Edit: also this book, Simplicity Parenting, address the obwervation you made: being overwhelmed by too many toys.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Baby-Book-Revised-Edition/dp/0316198269

All of the Dr. Sears books are great. They treat you and your baby like people, not projects to schedule or manage.

http://www.amazon.com/Thats-What-Theyre-Definitive-Breastfeeding/dp/159337285X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397570127&sr=1-1&keywords=so+thats+what+they%27re+for

This is kind of old, but a funny way to learn to succeed at breastfeeding.

http://www.amazon.com/The-No-Cry-Sleep-Solution-Through/dp/0071381392/ref=pd_sim_b_13?ie=UTF8&refRID=0NSBRKTSW2JNFCDDDGK6

This is the gentlest way to deal with sleep issues if you have them. I have never had sleep issues, though, as we coslept. In fact, I have never slept as much as I did when my oldest was a newborn. I slept 12 hours a night.

One of the best books regarding debunking popular parenting myths:

Nurture Shock, by Bronson and Merryman
http://www.amazon.com/NurtureShock-New-Thinking-About-Children/dp/0446504130/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303248620&sr=8-1

It highlights the importance of effort vs. talent, and much more. One of my favs is stressing that the brain is like a muscle, regularly working it strengthens intelligence. Kids need to work on being smart~

Awesome book for any parent.

Have you ever heard of the book Wonder Weeks?

The Wonder Weeks: How to Stimulate Your Baby's Mental Development and Help Him Turn His 10 Predictable, Great, Fussy Phases into Magical Leaps Forward

https://www.amazon.com/dp/9491882163/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ccFaBb65AZTVC

It explains different phases the baby is going through. There is a “leap” around 8 months which it sounds like your baby may be going through. There is also an app that goes along with it that explains the same information but just not in as great of detail. My LO is the same age as yours right now and she’s going through the same behaviors you’re talking about. Just know this behavior is temporary and once your LO completes this “leap” they will be back to their normal, awesome little selves.

You’re doing a great job!

I don't have any boy book suggestions, but one book I really enjoyed was The Emotional Life of a Toddler (http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Life-Toddler-Alicia-Lieberman/dp/0028740173) Sorry, can't do fancy pants links.

I also really enjoyed NurtureShock (http://www.amazon.com/NurtureShock-New-Thinking-About-Children/dp/0446504130/ref=sr_1_56?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369239257&sr=1-56&keywords=science+of+child+development)

Neither of these are parenting books, but really helpful in how you think about parenting and your child.

This is such a hugely controversial topic that I hope you don't get the "How could you let your child cry??" responses. But for me personally, I read the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" and it helped me tremendously. It explains the science behind the whole concept of sleep training and my soon to be 4 year old daughter has been sleeping great since she was 6 months old. It started off rocky, like you're experiencing and I would literally turn off the monitor and go to the other side of the house so I wouldn't have to hear it. But eventually all the crying started to taper off. She never woke up angry with me. As soon as I saw her smile, I knew that there was no resentment. After a week or so, she'd cry for maybe 5-10 minutes before a nap. Usually at night she wouldn't cry at all. Quickly after that, she started sleeping through the night (once my Dr. said it was ok to drop the middle of the night feeding) because she had learned to put herself to sleep which allowed her to fall back asleep. Since then, we've had very few troubles with sleeping even when we travel or when her schedule gets thrown off. I fully credit sleep training for that. I wish you the very best!

First I'd like to recommend this book. It made a huge difference in my relationships and understanding of my children.

Next, I am seeing a lot of posts about ADHD. Don't put a label on your child. You may need to seek professional help for her, and they may come up with a diagnosis, but until that time comes she's your little girl and you main job is to love her, not put a label on her. Also keep in mind, if you go looking for a diagnosis, you're likely to get one.

Third keep in mind teachers are people too. Some teachers will just "get" your little girl better than others. You may want to talk with other teachers your child has contact with (music, art, and physical education) are they having similar problems? If not you have two options. Leave her in the class she is in to teach her some life lessons on learning to deal with people you don't necessarily like, or roll the dice and have her moved to a new class and take your chances with a new teacher.

Lastly, you're doing better than you think.

Penelope Leach's Your Baby and Child does a really good job of explaining situations in a way that represents a young child's perspective of them. It can be easier to empathize with your kids if you can understand how they view the world.

With that said, you should be proud of the way you are responding to a situation that really disturbed you as a parent. Putting yourself in timeout, calling your spouse and your therapist, and investigating ways to handle things better in the future are all really positive ways to proceed. You clearly have developed a lot of skills and emotional tools that your parents didn't have, and that's the result of a lot of hard work on your part. Hang in there!

For all you would be parents out there, I would suggest this book. Hands down the best book I ever read on parenting. Want your child to sit in their high chair for dinner? Show them their stuffed animal doing it. Want your child to overcome their fear of loud hand dryers. Pretend to dry your hands at home and make a game of it. Want your kid to stop pretending to play with guns? Pretend their gun sends love your way. Everything a child does and learns is through play. By demonstrating outcomes and behaviors you want your child to do / have through play, parenthood becomes easier. (all of the above are real stories from the book that the author, a therapist, walks through)

He may even out soon. Between a solid schedule, a stable home environment, and good old growing up, he may chill out sooner than you think. The threes are a tough age. But (in my experience) the fours are better. My son, now 4.5, is like a completely different kid from when he was 3. With the exception of yesterday, when he was an ass all day, he's an even tempered, low maintenance, chill kid. He's maturing, and it shows.

How did we deal in the meantime? This amazing book. It's a short, quick read, and it really helped my husband and I understand our son as well as help care for him, through the highs and lows.

Check out Playful Parenting:
https://smile.amazon.com/Playful-Parenting-Connections-Encourage-Confidence/dp/0345442865/ref=sr_1_3

The basic thesis is that at this age, you can get the kids to do what you want by making it fun for them. It's like Mary Poppins said:
> In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and - SNAP - the job's a game.

Thank you! And, great question! I have several thoughts on this:

1. Barter and trade is alive and well in our community and I've heard from other parents that this can be a great way to secure "free" lessons for kids. I did a recent post on this with FW reader suggestions on how they barter for their kids' lessons/sports.
   
   
2. Stuff for kids is (fortunately) cheaper out here in rural VT than it was in the big city.
   
   
3. She will learn early on that we don't get everything we want in life and that she'll need to prioritize.
   
   
4. One of the reasons we're FI is that we pick and choose the stuff we want to spend our money on. Paying for Babywoods to take classes she wants to take will be one of those values-based spending priorities.
   
   
5. I'm very much of the 'Simplicity Parenting' mindset (I highly recommend the book!!), which adheres to the notion that kids thrive on unstructured time during which they're allowed to explore/play/discover independently--especially in nature!
   
   My approach to parenting evolves as Babywoods grows, but it always retains the lens of frugality and simplicity because I believe this approach yields tremendous dividends for not only our finances, but also the way we like to live our life.

I would highly recommend the book: Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids. It gave us some great strategies!

My husband got me a book called Experimenting with Babies: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform on Your Kid that explains this and other neat developmental phenomena. It is great fun.

Good for you. You must feel real smart.
Maybe start with this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-End-Autism-Epidemic-Revealing/dp/1603588248
Or maybe don't? Sup to you. Good luck, peace.

Maybe see a pediatrician, like others have suggested. It's also possible that there's nothing wrong and your baby is just having a developmental leap. The Wonder Weeks (The Wonder Weeks: How to Stimulate Your Baby's Mental Development and Help Him Turn His 10 Predictable, Great, Fussy Phases into Magical Leaps Forward(5th Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/9491882163/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ErWoDb6MX31CR) is a good book to check out.

Continue with the counselor. Don't be afraid to see a different counselor that is a better fit for you. The problem with the term "counselor", is that is could mean someone with 1 year of college experience or a person with extensive residency with 7 years of university experience. I would look for a registered psychologist who specialized in CBT or EMDR. Although all professionals legally have to report child abuse. However, I don't think simply having the desire to strike your child would be grounds for a CPS call granted you aren't doing it.

First off, I would find a new child care provider. Your mom is still abusing you. The more you are around your mom and subject your children to her behaviour, the worse it will get. There ARE child care providers that are versed in allergies. You may need to pack lunches as well as provide a list of do's and don't's. Consider a in-home nanny, or a child care provider with training.

It is really hard to re-train your brain. You have trained your brain to act out with violence/anger when upset. Retraining that will take serious time, mindfulness, and patience. Consider looking into more anger management courses as well as parenting courses. When in doubt, if you feel like you are going to explode. Make sure your kid is in a safe environment, and leave the area. Go to your room/bathroom. Relax. Takes some breaths.

I can suggest these books:

• https://www.amazon.com/Peaceful-Parent-Happy-Kids-Connecting/dp/0399160280/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0399160280&pd_rd_r=7PMR1CTCYJGZDGWNWE6F&pd_rd_w=jL1qX&pd_rd_wg=kE4mT&psc=1&refRID=7PMR1CTCYJGZDGWNWE6F
  
• https://www.amazon.com/No-Drama-Discipline-Whole-Brain-Nurture-Developing/dp/034554806X/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=034554806X&pd_rd_r=ACH627BTDQ8YCYQ5SF1R&pd_rd_w=uZWwA&pd_rd_wg=tbVWJ&psc=1&refRID=ACH627BTDQ8YCYQ5SF1R
  
  Simply asking for help shows you care.

It sounds as if you've tried a lot of things, but how long have you stuck to just one consistent routine? I understand that sleep training is very difficult to get through, but it's really important to stick to one method for at least a week or two before deciding that it absolutely doesn't work.

We used a modified CIO method for our daughter, The Sleepeasy Solution and it worked really well for us. Other friends of mine have raved about Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, which advocates an extinction CIO method, but that wasn't for us.

I know it can be really, really hard to listen to your child cry, but if you set strict check in times and stick to your routine for the long haul, I think that helps more than anything else. Our baby's sleep improved within a week or so once we stuck to a plan. She still has bad nights occasionally, but as long as we always go back to the same routine, she knows what to expect. Good luck!!!

> What are some things that we can do early on that yall wish yall had done?

Start a budget and begin tracking your spending. I really like mint.com because it integrates all your accounts and categorizes spending automatically. The budgeting tools are also really intuitive and work well. I'd suggest figuring out the baby's monthly expenses and then starting to set aside that amount of money each month starting now. You'll help to build savings and also you'll get to simulate living on a baby budget.

If you're planning on using daycare, now is the time to start looking. Any place that's good will have a long waiting list for infants, and the cost is definitely something you want to start working into your budget. Here's a useful page I added to the wiki to help navigate this minefield

If you get the financial stuff figured out early it will minimize freaking out later on when you have fewer options and less time.

Oh, also, I found that reading about pregnancy was simultaneously boring and scary. I prefer to read about parenthood instead. I would recommend The Baby Book. It is biased toward attachment parenting for sure, but there is also a lot of great objective information about baby's developmental milestones as well as frank discussions about common problems that arise and several (attachment parenting) approaches to addressing them.

A couple of thoughts:

1. Quit telling her that she's doing a good job. Tell her instead "you're working hard at that." For a gifted toddler, their vision of what they want will never ever be as good as they can create. You want her to learn that it's about the process, not the product. You really want to avoid praising her for being "smart" (and having others do the same) when she starts school. Read Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset: https://www.mindsetworks.com/parents/default\
   
2. Figure out YOUR boundaries and then when you set them, be firm. Smart kids who can win arguments with you as toddlers NEED clear boundaries that you enforce no matter how hard they tantrum. Like typical 2-5 year olds, they're trying to figure out how the world works. If it works differently on different days or differently if they tantrum vs. not, then they are very unsettled and the unknown makes the world a scary place. I recommend Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's book: Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles. Stanley Greenspan's The Challenging Child also helped me a lot.
   
   1. If dad says no story until something is tidied away and she says "mum can read the book," then your reply is "You need to tidy that away before anyone reads to you." Let the ensuing tantrum happen (see below).
      
   2. For the light example, I'd say "you're right, that one doesn't hurt. What's the difference? Can you always tell the difference? That's why we have to be careful." Not everyone bit of her "defiance" is true defiance. She's trying to figure out the boundaries of her world. She's two and so she's still very very literal. (When my son was two, I told him that all cars had exhaust pipes. He had to check each car we saw for the next week.)
      
3. Give up trying to avoid distress. Instead focus on helping her cope with her distress. I, too, have a super bright, emotionally intense daughter who's now beyond early childhood. She feels deeply, she's easily frustrated, and she has experienced more negative emotions than many other children. I don't want her to feel less, because that's part of who she is. She feels passionately about social justice and is now finally in a position to begin to work with organizations to effect this change.
   
4. Teach your daughter (a) that negative emotions can be withstood and (b) they are not the end of the world. You have to figure out what helps her when she's in distress. For one of my kids, I needed to back off and leave him alone because ANYTHING I did overstimulated him. When he calmed down on his own, we could cuddle and talk. For another, I need to be there to help her calm down (even now as a teen). I would lay down with her on the bed and hum very softly while she sobbed. For helping kids recognize emotions and deal with them, I recommend Dan Siegel's work: The Whole Brain Child and How to Talk So Kids Will Listen by Faber and Mazlish.

the baby book. my daughter is a week tomorrow. love this book, lots of great tips, great information for both partners. coming from a dad.


http://www.amazon.ca/Baby-Book-Revised-Everything-About/dp/0316198269/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374470043&sr=8-1&keywords=the+baby+book

One I liked was Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five by John Medina. He makes a point of using information that is supported by multiple studies.

There's also Bright From The Start and The Science of Parenting, both of which had helpful scientific information.

You need a pack n' play.

You don't need a car baby mirror.

You need about twice the number of pacifiers you have already bought. Because they disappear.

You don't need the head insert for the car seat.

Your wife needs a boppy.

You don't need special "burp cloths." You know what works great? Dish towels.

You need a baby monitor.

You don't need special baby Q-tips.

You need diaper rash cream. Boudreaux's, whatever.

You don't need wipe warmers.

You need those fabric boxes. Like these. You will put a lot of stuff in them.

You don't need a ton of toys. Especially the make-your-kid-a-genius ones. You don't need those. Know what they will want to play with? The spatula. Your keys. You know, whatever you are holding.

You need this book. It is the best thing I have ever read...both kids sleep through the night like rocks because of this book.

At least, those are the lessons I think I learned.

Get this book.

My first little guy is 5.5 months old, and he had been needing to be held to go to sleep. He was going to bed around 10, waking up two times per night and needed to be held to go back to sleep. Now, he goes to sleep at 8, wakes up once around 3 or 4 to eat and immediately goes back to sleep until about 7:30.

It also teaches you about the signs of when they are tired during the day so that you can put them down to take naps at the right times. Timing their sleep cycle can be hard work, but now that we are in a routine, my wife, my baby and I are all happier.

I cannot recommend this book enough. My wife has been doing it all, so I don't know how early the book recommends using some of these techniques, but do yourself a favor and get it. Don't suffer through sleepless nights like my wife and I did.

If I could just recommend an amazing book that concerns things like this:

How We Know What Isn't So by Thomas Gilovich is absolutely one of the greatest and most life-changing book I've ever read.

I think a lot of it depends on temperament. She might not be suited to CIO w/ checks. A friend of mine recommended a book, "healthy sleep habits, healthy child" link:

https://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Sleep-Habits-Happy-Child/dp/0449004023?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

We're on night 7 of Ferber and he went from 120 min (day 1) to 50, to 10, and diminishing from there, but I think the first night lasted so long because us going in to comfort him actually worked him up more

But Ferber has a chapter on "what if it's not working..." have you bought the book? That chapter might be really helpful for you

Yes and maybe no. All logic starts with principles that are unprovable; but this does not mean they are "outside" reason. It only means that they are principles in no need of proof, or "per se notum quoad nos", as the Scholastics would say: known to us through itself (and in need of nothing else). The first such per se notum is "being"--and not to defer, but understanding just what means turns out to be pretty complicated, so I wrote a (really overpriced but right now a whole $15 off!) book about it.

That said, I'd say there are some pretty good a posteriori reasons to prioritize human existence, not only ones which are sentimental. After all, no other known lifeform has yet to evolve capacities for language (determined by a specific grasp of symbolicity--Terry Deacon having an accessible if disputable argument about this, as well as what I think is an inaccurate interpretation of Peirce, on the whole--as opposed to speech).

I know Weissbluth recommends earlier bedtimes to make sure they are getting enough sleep (it's easier to put them down earlier than to get them to sleep in, allegedly). It works for us (daughter is two and goes to bed at 7:30, and is up by 7:30) but every parent has to do what works best for their families. I also appreciate having adult time with my husband for a few hours a day, it helps us reconnect and unwind after a stressful day.

Getting your kid to sleep is the ultimate opportunity to show some alpha. In my experience, moms are way more likely to cave when the kid starts crying/won't stop crying. This is when you hold strong. Hold Mom in your arms, "Baby is fine. She needs to learn to put herself to sleep. She can do it." Etc., etc.

This book changed our lives: http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Sleep-Habits-Happy-Child/dp/0449004023.
Our little girl sleeps so well now, takes regular naps, and overall is a much, much happier baby.

As others are saying, most of these sound like reflexes. My friend gave me a book called Experimenting With Babies that ended up being pretty fun to go through at different stages. It could also explain some of what you're experiencing with your kid.

I thought one of the coolest experiments was this: When your baby is standing (on the floor) and holding your hands, lean them forward slightly. They will reflexively move their feet as if they are walking (right-left-right-left). They do this up until about three months old, then the reflex goes away to prepare them to crawl. As they start to learn to walk it comes back.

I came here to cautiously recommend therapy. My recommendation caused strain on our relationship. It turns out guys don't want you to send constant emails about every therapist within 20 miles who sees kids... If they go to therapy and you're privy to the info, read up on the diagnosis to see how you can help them thrive! I'd also spend less time parenting and more time reading up on step/parenting. Terrible twos often bleed into the threes. Reading was incredibly therapeutic for me.

Stepmonster - popular here, I'm a fan
Single Girl's Guide - never read, well reviewed
How To Talk So Kids Will Listen
The Whole-Brain Child
Subtle Art - best book ever

Don't get too used to that! :) The first few weeks are a fake-out. They sleep all the time and then they flip it on you!

Seriously though - buy this book. Personal anecdote is that this was a life changer for our two kids.

Good luck and enjoy every second. My oldest is already three and I know that will turn around and tomorrow he will be 20.

I'm having a good time with Happiest Baby on the Block (though I think it's really slow and repetitive, and their "conclusions" (it isn't this, this, or this, so it MUST be this) are a bit, uh, presumptuous; I think the book is spot on for how to treat the baby, especially in the "4th trimester") and The Nursing Mother's Companion. And these aren't baby books, but my husband and I are also reading Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and The Birth Partner to prep for labor.

I have a few more books on my shelf to reference just in case, like Sears' The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two (but I am wary of anti-vacc notions of the book), Brain Rules for Baby, and for fun, Experimenting with Babies.

came here to recommend this. Not only about babies, but a little bit about what to expect between parents (affecting relationship) as well, and how to deal with them. Definitely useful.

Link here

Random enough, somebody shared this book in my local Buy Nothing group on FB this week. Might be just what you’re looking for.

Experimenting with Babies: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform on Your Kid https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399162461/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_rfJRDbR3FKY4Z

FWIW - I have not read the book so I’m not endorsing it or experiments on your children. 😄

The vaccine rabbithole runs deep.

> ⁠Are all vaccines bad, or just certain ones? Are some necessary and some not?

A really tricky question I’m not sure all vaccines are bad but they haven’t been safety tested thoroughly like we’ve been told. (1) (2)

> Why is the FDA not involved in vaccines? Or are they?

They are involved but sadly it seems the FDA is friends with outside influences. Same with the CDC.

CDC and FDA both get money from pharma. The former head of CDC left and went to work for Merck. An inside regulatory capture.

> Was the study on the link to autism really debunked or is that miss-info too?

Andrew Wakefield was destroyed by a journalist who made allegations named Brian Deer. This is where all the information surrounding him stems from. He soon made the movie Vaxxed which exploded the discussion on this issue and authoritarian push on forced/coerced vaccine laws and mandates. That’s all I’ll say.

> Do vaccines really prevent the spread of diseases?

Yes. Vaccines do prevent diseases. Although the history of diseases is masked and influenced, wholly pushing an image saying vaccines are the one whole reason why we aren’t filled with a cesspool of diseases which is false. Proven by Suzanne Humphries book Dissolving Illusions.

Another great book. (Amazon is surprisingly a great resource. Hurry before censorship comes)

> And is it provable by a study of actual facts?

The science on vaccinology is complete sound science coordinated with epidemiology and infectious disease experts. However, you don’t get the full truth on the downsides regarding the ‘effectiveness’ of vaccines just like the safety. They need to spread fear among the diseases and offer the solution: vaccines. For example, they won’t tell you any alternatives like vitamin A for the treatment of measles. Even the World Health Organization an adamant pro-vaccine org recommends vitamin A.

Page 42

> Are compounds worse?

Compounds?

> I am aware that the mercury levels are poisonous in a lot of cases. Why does that only affect some people?

Thimerosal was used widely back in the day in many vaccines. It’s 50% mercury by weight and has been implicated in many diseases. Tons of research is in Pubmed on Thimerosal the only research defending it is directly from the CDC. Moreover, another toxin named aluminum is used in vaccines as aluminum adjuvants. Sadly it’s key component in the autism epidemic. Chris Exley recently found huge boatloads of aluminum in autistic brains. Injecting aluminum is probably one of the worst medical disasters in history. A hidden medical endemic. And you can’t blink without seeing a association between aluminum and lots of chronic diseases humans face today.

For more research on aluminum:

• Google Chris Shaw’s papers.
  
  
• Chris Exley’s Youtube lectures.
  
  
• http://vaccinepapers.org
  
  
• http://vaccinepapers.org/vaccine-aluminum-travels-to-the-brain/
  
  
• http://vaccinepapers.org/the-foundation-for-al-adjuvant-safety-is-false/
  
  
• https://www.jpands.org/vol21no4/miller.pdf
  
  
• https://vaccinesafetycommission.org
  
  
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/21568886/
  
  
• https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-14
  
  
• https://jbhandleyblog.com/home/2018/4/1/international2018
  
  
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22099159/ (ecological study)
  
  
• https://childrenshealthdefense.org/research_category/aluminum/
  
  > Why aren't there more studies showing that vaccines cause...whatever and an instance where this has happened?
  
  Funding dries up when you publish a paper around controversial issues. Especially when it’s implicated in business ex. Tobacco. There are many links in the current scientific body of literature.
  
  Dr. Moss talks about this in his testimony. He also talks about the CDC Whistleblower exposed in the documentary Vaxxed.
  
  Or your labeled an antivaxxer and the paper will be heavily criticized. Pressure will succumb by journals (trolls etc.) and will be soon retracted which further destroys your credibility.
  
  Example: https://www.autisminvestigated.com/tell-frontiers-publish-mawson/
  
  Sorry if I bombard you with information
  
  That’s the outline of the entire story circulating. Any more questions I can try to answer. Hope this helps. Have a good one.

Kids need consistency and love a schedule. You (not your son) need to set the time and stick with it. We did the let them cry method, but there are other methods as well if it's too hard to deal with.

re: the 5.30 wakings. if you can, let him cry until it's the time you want him to get up. he'll eventually get the picture that he isn't supposed to be up or at least be quieter. This can take a week or two which is hellish, but just keep an eye on the prize.


Lastly, for my wife and I the book Healthy sleep habits happy child has been huge. It has a lot of excellent advice on how/when to alter sleep patterns depending on what age/problem they are experiencing, and different methods to deal with them.

Parents are responsible for their childrens behavior. This could be a blind spot preventing you from holding your own parents accountable. If you can't emotionally understand this you wont logically understand this following argument.

If a parent needs to get their children to do something or not to do something out of fear of punishment then it's not a relationship. It's dictatorship and you'll never get respect or compliance from your children when you act like you know what's best for them - and this is the reason why abuse escalates.

It's the parents responsibility to teach their children right and wrong by talking and listening to them, helping them understand, and ultimately modelling that behaviour themselves.

Before you have children, it's important to work on yourself because everything you experienced as a child from abusive parents thats lingering in your unconscious will come to the surface when you have your own children.

It seems you area already projecting some of this by thinking experimentation like smoking in the room or lying about homework is bad. Wouldn't it be better to foster a relationship where your children can you tell they tried a cigarette or don't want to do their homework? That way you can actually be involved in their lives.

If you raise your children correctly I wouldn't worry about most bad activities because you'll give them the skills to know better. The science shows that addictions, victim of bullying and peer pressure are all caused by child abuse and an unstable home. If you want to know more about this look up Gabor Mate (I have more resources).

Actually as children get older they become easier to parent when you raise them peacefully and being involved because you have built up a relationship.

Here are books I'd recommend:
Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Love-Matters-Affection-Shapes/dp/1583918175

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self http://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901

The Truth Will Set You Free: Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Will-Set-You-Free/dp/0465045855[2]

For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence http://www.amazon.com/Your-Own-Good-Child-Rearing-Violence/dp/0374522693[3]

Stefan Molyneux: Real-Time Relationships: The Logic of Love http://www.freedomainradio.com/free/books/FDR_3_PDF_Real_Time_Relationships.pdf

On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion http://board.freedomainradio.com/blogs/freedomain/archive/2008/09/11/book-on-truth-the-tyranny-of-illusion.aspx

Between Parent and Child: The Bestselling Classic That Revolutionized Parent-Child Communication http://www.amazon.com/Between-Parent-Child-Revolutionized-Communication/dp/0609809881

Playful Parenting http://www.amazon.com/Playful-Parenting-Lawrence-J-Cohen/dp/0345442865

Unconditional Parenting http://www.amazon.com/Unconditional-Parenting-Moving-Rewards-Punishments/dp/0743487486

Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves http://www.naomialdort.com/book.html

Parent Effectiveness Training http://www.amazon.com/Parent-Effectiveness-Training-Responsible-Children/dp/0609806939

The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life http://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Baby-Childrens-Minds-Meaning/dp/0374231966

What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Going-There-Brain-Develop/dp/0553378252

Becoming the Kind Father: A Son's Journey http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Kind-Father-Sons-Journey/dp/0865715823

Connection Parenting http://connectionparenting.com/connection-parenting-book.html

Last semester, I took an awesome intro to biological anthropology class and we read excerpts from the professor's book (so I have not yet read the entire book, though I plan to do so soon!) Maybe this is something you'll be interested in; hope this helps!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Symbolic-Species-Co-evolution-Language/dp/0393317544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343888665&sr=8-1&keywords=the+symbolic+species

NurtureShock is great for the overall picture of raising a kid to adulthood. Pretty scientific and very thoughtful.

Congratulations! Parenting is a learn as you go excercise (every child is different), so I will not offer advice. However, we found the baby book useful.

Also, please read up on febrile seizures. This is not to alarm you, but it is the one thing the wife and I wish we were better informed about. Febrile seizures are not a big deal and have no lasting effects, but can be a bit nerve wracking if you're unprepared.

I'm sure you're getting great advice. I just wanted to put forward a book suggestion that helped my family immensely. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.

More informational censorship disguised as doing it for the common good.

Unfortunately, the science is not settled for vaccines. In fact, they passed a law making vaccine manufacturers immune from lawsuits in response to vaccine injury for the express reason that "vaccines are unavoidably unsafe".

The US Supreme Court ruling in 2011 supporting vaccine manufacturers’ exemption from any liability for vaccine damages, because vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe” (Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC)

So to create a video expanding on this FACT should not be suppressed or demonetized. The truth always prevails, and people should not have the powers that be telling them what the truth is, especially given the tendency for the government or the powers that be to lie for private interests.

If you're wanting to learn more about vaccine controversy, I suggest this book:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1603588248/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8

He explains the problems with the current vaccine schedule and teaches you how to implement vaccines in a way that minimizes averse affects. One doctor tried his method and saw his autism rate drop from 55 per year to 0 per year following his suggestions.

Protect yourself and your loved ones, using science and facts!

Is she three and a half? That's when they usually go crazy. This book helps understand where they are developmentally. In short, though, 3.5 is a wild ride, so do what you can to get through it and remind yourself every day that it will be over soon. It's usually a lot better by age 4. Remember that even though she sounds really grown up, she's mostly still a toddler with undeveloped self control and big feelings that she doesn't know what to do with. The more you are able to remain calm and regulated (which is tough in the middle of a megatantrum), the easier it will be for her to calm herself.

You aren't doing anything to cause her to go crazy, nothing is wrong with her, it's hard, and it will pass.

Oh, also, on the practical side, do whatever you can to make sure she's getting enough protein and sleep. That seemed to help my kiddo to avoid the meltdowns a little.

Oh hon, I feel you. This gets me because I felt the same way. I still do. I have a 19 month old toddler.

Start here: Parenting from the Inside Out.

This book will really help you decipher your family, and really give you hope and tools for not reproducing their problems onto your little beauty of a tiny awesome person.

It's pretty straightforward and incredibly useful.

Then read this and this. Yes read them while you're pregnant because again they will give you hope and insight.

Buy this book and start reading it now too. We call it the Baby Bible in our house.

It's a survival manual for the first year of their life. It has everything. I don't know how many times we've pulled it down and flipped to the index at 2:00 am. It's better than Google. It's fantastic. (That said, it has an angle like all parenting books, even though it tries not to. They are attachment parenting writers. Nothing wrong with attachment parenting per se, just an awareness all parenting books have angles, even the impartial ones.)

Also, if you're anything like me, avoid all the happy, glowing, blowing-stardust-and-glitter-up-your-ass, pregnancy books out there. These did nothing but enrage me. I'm talking about What to Expect and similar. Unless you like stardust and bullshit, avoid avoid avoid.

Basically if you go to a thrift store and there's 8 copies of the damn pregnancy or parenting book on the shelf, don't buy it.

Instead check out books like this and this and this.

Now I haven't read those exact books, unlike all my other recommendations above, all of which I've personally read as a scared, overwhelmed pregnant lady or new mom. But as long as you stay in the 'brutally honest' lane and away from the 'syrupy sweet, guilt laden, shame' lane, then you'll be fine.

Even in 2019 there's a mountain of mommy advice bullshit books out there. Keep your instincts and your wits about you, don't forget who you are. Stay strong. And work on yourself with books like Parenting from the Inside Out and the How to Talk books.

Engaging Autism is fantastic. Even if your school doesn't use a floortime approach, it's still extremely helpful in providing strategies. https://www.amazon.com/Engaging-Autism-Floortime-Approach-Communicate/dp/0738210943

Simplicity Parenting has a wonderful chapter about toys and how keep them meaningful but under control. It's a fantastic book.

2 months is too young to 'sleep train', but they're never to young for you to train yourself how to help them sleep :). We read this book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Weissbluth

http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Sleep-Habits-Happy-Child/dp/0449004023/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425928308&sr=8-1&keywords=healthy+sleep+habits+happy+child

It starts from birth and talks all about how important sleep is, how to recognize tired cues, how to get your baby to sleep, etc. So its 'sleep training' but its not 'cry it out'. But really your 2 month old may not go more than 3-4 hrs during the night at this stage.

>My child is much safer with vaccines mate, rather trust decades of scientific research than minutes of facebook research.



Well that's just not true at all.


>Seriously scary stuff. When further research is not encouraged in a certain area, then it's clear you are treading in dangerous waters.
>
>
>I do think these debates are important, especially nowadays when people are crucified simply for bringing up the issue of possibly improving vaccines and not simply trusting corporations blindly.
>
> As I usually say, vaccines do not need to be abolished, they can and should be improved. The issue is not as black and white as people portray it.
>
>The amount of research that has sprung up connecting the usage of heavy metals as vaccine adjuvants to neurological problems, as well as autism is considerable, yet is rarely discussed.
>
>---------------------
>
>>In early December 2017, Dr. Chris Exley of Keele University in England and his colleagues published a paper that for the first time looked at the brain tissue of subjects with autism to determine the level of aluminum (note: they spell “aluminum” as “aluminium” in the United Kingdom) found within their brain tissue. For anyone trying to convince the world that “the science is settled and vaccines don’t cause autism,” the study’s findings are deeply contradictory to that statement. In a blog post written by Professor Exley on the day his study was published, he explained the groundbreaking results:
>
>> “…while the aluminium content of each of the 5 brains [of people with autism] was shockingly high it was the location of the aluminium in the brain tissue which served as the standout observation…The new evidence strongly suggests that aluminium is entering the brain in ASD [autism spectrum disorders] via pro-inflammatory cells which have become loaded up with aluminium in the blood and/or lymph, much as has been demonstrated for monocytes at injection sites for vaccines including aluminium adjuvants.”
>
>
>I strongly suggest anyone genuinely interested to read the following page, if you wish to see a very different view (filled with research of course) on the vaccine/aluminium link and its possible relation to autism:
>
>-Aluminum in vaccines and the autism epidemic
>
>The man behind this research is J.B.Handley. He has a child with autism and has dedicated his life to solving and researching the issue - and preventing the modern autism epidemic.
>
>He even has a book on this issue, available here:
>
>https://www.amazon.com/How-Autism-Epidemic-J-B-Handley/dp/1603588248/
>https://jbhandleyblog.com/home/2018/4/1/international2018
>
>---------------------
>
> Here is another link to a research paper (by Tomljenovic, Exley not involved here as far as I know) connecting the usage of aluminium adjuvants to the rise of autism:
>
>Do aluminum vaccine adjuvants contribute to the rising prevalence of autism?
>
>This research is sadly not freely available, but if you wish to read it anyway, you can get around that with a page like www.sci-hub.tw
>
>In which case it becomes more readily available:
>
>https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0162013411002212
>
>
>--------------
>
>Recently, even a respected (now smeared and his reputation destroyed of course) vaccine medical expert, employed and tasked to destroy the autism-vaccine connection has come out with info that the link undoubtedly exists. There is an interview with him on Shirley Attkinsson that can be found on YouTube.
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>Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson: January 6, 2019 - The Vaccination Debate
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>James Corbett: Vaxx Propaganda in Overdrive as Vaccine/Autism Link Confirmed
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>For an absurdly high amount of research papers, check out this comment here.
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Address the root cause, not the symptom. They have misunderstood science, the scientific method and sprinkled conspiracy theory on top. They probably harbor a distrust in science as a whole.
Luckily for you, the topic at hand is more accessible to laymen than physics; it's introductory philosophy of science, but you can avoid the academic jargon.

You have to establish trust in science first. Questions you need to raise and discuss are (in no particular order):

• what is science and what is it not? (I.e., what is pseudo-science and demarcation)
  
• what is the scientific method?
  
• what counts as evidence? (Also evidence levels, from opinion to randomized controlled trials for instance).
  
• what counts as proof?
  
• whose burden is it to provide evidence or proof?
  
• what is research? (Present them an actual paper, many have never seen one. Take for instance one by Einstein, LIGO's gravitational waves or why not Angela Merkel).
  
• where is research? (Present them to journals, etc.)
  
• peer review
  
• how can we trust science?
  
  Obviously you need to learn these topics first. Use a book on philosophy of science or equivalent. In my country it happens to be a mandatory very short course for all engineers.
  
  How you go about introducing these topics to them depends on their personality. You can discuss IRL, motivating them to take a course or, if they'll read it, give them an book such as the one above or something simpler. Regarding conspiracy there are plenty of fun books, especially on self-delusion, like How we know what isn't so or You are not so smart. The latter is also a podcast.
  
  In general avoid using youtube as a source, but if they won't listen to anything else there's a ton of videos raising the topics above, see the veritasium channel for instance.
  

So far my highly recommended ones would be:

NurtureShock

Your Self-Confident Baby

Dear Parent: Caring for Infants With Respect

It's OK Not to Share and Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids (Currently reading this one now)

I tried reading The Baby Whisperer The Child Whisperer but couldn't get past the second chapter. It reads like an infomercial for the book and it was just awful.

1. Simplicity Parenting - by Kim John Payne
   
2. 10/10
   
3. Parenting advice
   
4. A little different from what would normally be recommended but hey...if you have a kid, are about to have a kid, know someone having a kid or ever want to have a kid, put this book in your queue. Great advice through out and I can't wait to apply it more with my new family.
   
5. Amazon

I'm a vegetarian. But I don't have qualms with eating locally grown fish/livestock on rare occasion. So maybe! If I'm ever over there. Also, great response.


This book may be of interest to you btw: http://www.amazon.com/How-Know-What-Isnt-Fallibility/dp/0029117062/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1

Topical - Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345507983/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_LAXQBb6Z6ZVB9

Terrence Deacon's The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain is definitely a must. Great read, too!

EDIT: Notice that it's not about the development of language in evolution, but how language and evolution co-evolved. If you're into human vs animal communication, neuro-stuffs, even semiotics, this book will be for you. Oh, and yeah, he criticizes Pinker, Chomsky, et al. So if you already know about generativism, this will be a good gateway towards modern cognitive science and cognitive linguistics.

This all sounds pretty normal, and like a non-'problem' that will fix itself before you know it.

At least the kid sounds normal. What doesn't sound healthy:

> He blames me for the way she is.
> He says she's spoiled

You can't spoil a kid with love; dude has some bizarre thinking on this. And you both need to stop blaming and nagging. There's nothing wrong with the kid and if you spend the early years sniping at each other you will miss out on a really lovely time that flies by really quickly.

I would do more reading on normal babies -- this is something you might both read together.

> When I'm home and I try to hand her off for a bit she usually cries.

So don't hand her off. Stick around while she gets to enjoy both of you. Have family meals; have dad provide any needed assistance with solids. Play games together as a family. The more secure she is that mommy isn't just going to take off and leave her with daddy and never return, the easier it will be for you to leave. Keep building a good secure foundation, and don't force things she's just not developmentally ready for.

My wife and I are/were/are going to be again in a similar situation. We came to this agreement:

• She agreed to take the nights after 12pm (when i go to bed).
  
• On weekends we both get a day to sleep in
  
• On weekends/days off I try to get up with the baby (I also can sleep through the baby)
  
  Some other things:
  
  
• I don't think you need to go to the baby every time (obv. not everybody agrees with me on this), get rid of the baby monitor, if your kid is anything like mine, you don't need it
  
• When you talk to your wife about this, acknowledge her difficult position, then acknowledge yours (hopefully she acknowledges yours).
  
• Be ready to take that baby when you get home until you go to bed; this part will suck
  
• Sometimes you will need to suck it up and be sleep deprived.
  
• When you start sleep training (we did this at 5 months), everything gets immensely better
  
• We found the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child to be very helpful (http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Sleep-Habits-Happy-Child/dp/0449004023). This is not for everyone, but it was for us.
  
  
  edit: I forgot to mention, it does get easier.
  

There's a good chapter in NurtureShock about that. It mostly tells you what you already know about the adverse effects of praise, but also goes a bit into keeping an eye out for and rewarding effort.

A good parenting book- I always loved Penelope Leach: http://www.amazon.com/Your-Baby-Child-Penelope-Leach/dp/0375712038/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Sleep-Habits-Happy-Child/dp/0449004023

This book is awesome and talks about kids and sleep and how to help them from infancy to adulthood

This is our child sleep bible. Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child. Our kids are 5, 4 and 2 and it is still useful.

First, I have to ask, what is the significance of potatoes and oatmeal?

Now for suggestions:
If she has a mac or a light colored laptop you could get her one of these

I don't know what a child life specialist is, but this book was awesome

This book looks cool

A wallet/coin purse with her favorite disney character

Correct.

When our ancestors developed stone tools, they became hunters not scavengers. The nutrient dense meat supported our larger brains and hunting created a "portable food niche" enabling them to leave the jungles and follow game out into the savannah and beyond.

Hunting in groups and still living in multi-male/multi-female groups defined humans as a species, encouraging monogamy, language development, and even controlling the evolution of our physiology (larger brains/smaller teeth).

Essentially MEAT IS WHAT MADE US HUMAN.

4 Month Sleep Regression! From here on out, all bets are off, sleep-wise. Babies develop new skills and new physical abilities that mean they need extra contact and reassurance (often through sleeping on you, nursing, being worn in a wrap...any close contact really) during the night hours.

Most of child development is one step forward, two steps back. The books Wonder Weeks and Touchpoints are really helpful for this sort of thing because it helped explain what was going on, week to week, and why baby might be sleeping poorly one week and fine the next.

I’d recommend The Whole Brain Child My SO and I reading it together during the last bottle feed and it’s pretty solid in our opinion.

It's hard to make sense of the world without an understanding of basic science and statistics. Our brains are constantly looking for patterns and associations. We make a large number of correct observations, but also a good number of false ones. Rejecting a false observations relies on our rational thinking to overcome our emotional response. If you have a child who gets a bunch of vaccines, and two months later start to exhibit signs of autism, your first instinct is probably to blame the vaccine. Your baby is fine before hand, and not okay afterwards. It's only be going back and testing this observation in a scientific manner can we determine if this is an anomaly, or factual. Before you dismiss these people, look at how many irrational beliefs you harbor. Do you believe that basketball players have hot streaks? Clutch hitting in baseball?

A good book about perceptual biases, etc:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Know-What-Isnt-Fallibility/dp/0029117062

Take a few parenting classes with your wife! You'll bond and you'll know what to expect.

There's also this book called Brain Rules for Babies about the do's and don'ts of raising your child to be well-adjusted kiddo. Easy read, basic stuff, but it backs stuff up with science. so. that's always good.

You can gift back How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life, by Thomas Gilovich.

Free PDF version

I'm a nanny and we just started doing a "modified cry-it out" method. We put her in her crib and if she cries, let her cry for 5 minutes. Go in, pick her up and do as little coddling as necessary to calm her down. Put her back in her crib. Wait 10 minutes and then we go in, and repeat adding 5 minutes to the time. If it lasts more than an hours worth of time, we get the baby up for a while (maybe even 15-30 minute) then try again. Though she is only 5.5 months, I suspect it would work the same with your 8 month old.

I believe this was in Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child

Good luck!

I found Your Baby and Child by Penelope Leach to be a very good read. It's not focussed at the dad, but I found it to be very reassuring. It covers a lot more than just pregnancy, labour and birth.

for practical / medical books, my wife and I would highly recommend the Dr. Sears book to all of our friends. our son is 4 and our daughter is 3 months, and we still reverence it :

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0316198269

I bought my husband this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Experimenting-Babies-Amazing-Science-Projects/dp/0399162461

It's a very easygoing read and the 'experiments' are simple and fun

http://www.amazon.com/Experimenting-Babies-Amazing-Science-Projects/dp/0399162461

This was a fun book and explains a lot about development. It helped my husband bond a bit more when he felt like there wasn't much he could do.

This is my next read, now that I find myself saying, "no!" Like allllll the time :)

Our stack of books is about a foot high and growing, and my favorite book so far has been Brain Rules for Baby, a book with a lot of great guidance backed up not just by anecdotes but also sound science. As a counter to our instincts to be over-protective, the other book my wife and I have both really enjoyed is 50 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do.

It's a little early as you don't even have your kid yet, but there are a couple books I found really helpful as a new dad:

No-Drama Discipline for helping frame frustrating situations and to give me some tools to deal with them in positive and productive ways.

Parentspeak: What's wrong with how we talk to our children because I really needed to be more aware of how the things I say shape the developing mind of my kid. I'm not saying this one is for everyone, and some people reject it out of hand because they don't believe that seemingly innocuous words impact their kids, but I found it gave me a lot of things to think about.

Experimenting With Babies. Love that book!

The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents


The second has an unfortunate title to share with a parent but it’s really good insight into emotional development.

The book Nurtureshock (http://www.amazon.com/NurtureShock-New-Thinking-About-Children/dp/0446504130/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324347141&sr=8-1) has a lot of fascinating studies about children and teens (including the one you mentioned about starting school later) that, as the description says, "upends a library's worth of conventional wisdom."