For many parents, bedtime can be a battle. Kids can be hard to settle, others have problems sleeping through the night, and other kids struggle with both. One thing that most parents agree on is that hugging a child to sleep while you stay in the comfort of their own bed works so well. But it’s hard when you have other kids, partners, and tasks to take care of. How many of us have tried to slip silently out from under a child only to have them wake up and be upset?
There is abundant research on the importance and value of positive relationships in overall health and well-being. Sharing is a significant part of relationship development and human growth. Sharing is not only a key aspect in the development of social-emotional skills but it influences cognitive development as well.
Toddlers are little people with big feelings. Sometimes, the only way for those big feelings to come out is through their actions: hitting, kicking, biting, flopping, or screaming.
It’s not because you’re a bad parent or that they’re a bad person. The feelings must get out and, as a toddler, there isn’t much of an ability to control how that happens.
As a new parent, one of the hardest things to listen to is your newborn crying! We want to immediately do anything we can to help them calm down and stop the crying. What we need to remember is that up until their birth, your baby had never been put down! So as a newborn outside the womb, they don’t know how to be alone and not held or rocked. Until they developmentally learn how to self-soothe and they get used to being put down, we as parents want to try and mimic things that will help them feel secure and comfortable like they were in the womb.
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