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Almost got one, Dad! MVP Drew Brees lifts his son Baylen Robert — who was more interested in grabbing at the celebratory confetti! — into the air after his team, the New Orleans Saints, defeated the Indianapolis Colts in Sunday night’s Super Bowl.

Baylen is the first child for the Saints quarterback, 31, and wife Brittany. He arrived on Jan. 15th, 2009 — Drew’s birthday!

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Filed under: Babies, Dads, Main

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Creed frontman Scott Stapp and his wife, Jaclyn, who announced their pregnancy in December, have found out the sex of the baby, and they can barely contain their excitement.

“We’re having a boy!” Scott excitedly volunteered to Celebrity Baby Blog exclusively at the Saturday Night Spectacular party hosted by Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy.

The couple, who have two children — daughter Milán Hayat, 3, and son Jagger, 11 — realize that adding a new baby to the mix will change their lives.

“I think every year, our relationship evolves and grows,” stays Scott, “and with a new child comes new responsibility. But I tell you what, I fall in love with Jaclyn more and more every day.”

Scott, 36, and his wife have chosen a name for the baby, due in July: Daniel, after Jaclyn’s brother.

– Steve Helling

Filed under: Dads, Exclusive, Main, Moms-to-be

Scientists have reason to think that even the tiniest babies dream. The regions of the brain that control dream sleep develop early and become fully functional even before birth. We don't know exactly what children see in their sleep, but certainly we can make guesses based on how their thinking and imagination develop as the months and years go on. If your little one has started to have nightmares, it's important to know that it's a normal part of development and there are ways to help keep a few nights of scary dreams from turning into something bigger.

Babies spend a lot more time dreaming than adults. After seven months in the womb (and until about three months of age) a baby spends 50 percent of its time in REM sleep, the stage where most dreaming takes place. Dr. Said Shanawani, a neurologist and sleep specialist, explains that REM is controlled by the brainstem, which is one of the first regions of the nervous system to come online. The brain in REM is like the waking brain: active and constantly processing information. This is why scientists believe it's vital to a child's development. A fetus might dream about the muffled sound of his mom's voice or the filtered light that makes its way in through her belly. A newborn might dream about the faces and shapes she's learning. In fact, scientists have shown that an infant's visual cortex is highly active in sleep, so baby dreams could be especially vivid.

Even though we know that babies have the mental machinery for dream sleep, it's hard to say if they have nightmares. Babies do have the capacity to form memories in the early months, so even a three-month-old has experiences stored up, and there's no reason to think that the discomforts of babyhood (being cold or wet, Mom taking too long to heat the bottle) wouldn't be fair game for dreams. But these should be distinguished from what are called "night terrors" — a completely separate phenomenon occurring in non-REM sleep, in which the child cries or screams, cannot be woken, and has no memory of the event later.

Nightmares typically become more of an issue around age two or three. Yes, this is when kids have the language to describe them to us, but it's also when children start to grasp the concept that bad things do happen in life, according to Jodi Mindell, associate director of sleep disorders at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. By the preschool years, kids have a sense that there are risks and dangers out there, and their fears about the world can come out in the stories they create at night. 

Another reason preschoolers are visited by the boogieman is that their brains are developing the capacity for imagination and creativity. Starting around 18 months — coinciding with the burgeoning use of language — toddlers start to put concepts together and think symbolically. The frontal lobes are connecting and processing more conscious and abstract thoughts. The same leaps in cognition that lead to tea parties, dress up, and elaborate cities of trains and Lego buildings also make it possible for children's brains to form bizarre and unsettling stories while they're asleep.

Bad dreams are completely normal for young children, but because we know how unsettling our own dreams can be, it's natural for us to worry. Mindell recommends supporting the child during the day and holding boundaries after dark, because a series of scary night-wakings can quickly snowball. She recommends teaching the child a proactive way to conquer a bad dream so that they feel in control: make a "dreamcatcher" together and hang it over the bed, draw pictures of the nightmare and crumple them up, or tell your child that they can flip their pillow over if they have a bad dream and it "changes the channel." And she advises that you keep your child in his room and reassure him there; don't get in the habit of letting him sleep with you many nights in a row. Send calm, confident messages to your little sleepers that they are secure. Let them know that the waking world is a safe place where things will make a lot more sense.

Find more:

Memento: What do children remember, and what do they forget? The Babble Sleep Guide: Your toolkit for getting your baby and you a good night's rest. Enter, Sandman: This sleep coach works nights, cribside. Polly Moore: The sleep guru defends her technique.

This article was written by Heather Turgeon for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

 

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o nipples really get calloused from breastfeeding? I don't see anything about it the breastfeeding book I have, but people keep telling me my nipples will toughen up. Sounds unappealing. Though I guess it will help with the pain?

—I don't want to get tough ?

Dear I Don't Want To Get Tough,

There's no medical or physical evidence to support the idea that nipples are calloused or "toughened up" by breastfeeding. But people still say it all the time, perhaps to try to provide some strange reassurance: suffer now for future ease.

It's true that breastfeeding in the newborn phase is much more likely to hurt. And it's definitely helpful to hear that the painful phase is temporary.

But pain is not an inherent part of the process. Nipple soreness can happen for a number of reasons. The most common is an issue with how the baby's mouth connects with the breast, or a "bad latch" in lactation parlance. A bad latch can be resolved by repositioning the baby and/or the baby's mouth on the areola. Latch can almost always be improved with more practice and good support. Lactation consultants or other mothers experienced with breastfeeding can look over your shoulder and give you some pointers, if this should arise for you. There are also some well-illustrated books that can help.

Soreness can occasionally be caused by other issues, such as an infection or a plugged duct beneath the surface of the nipple.

In any case, if you're having a lot of pain when you nurse, it's a good idea to investigate it. There may be something you can do about it, and if so, it's better to act sooner rather than later. Latch issues are easier to tweak early on, and an infection that's left unchecked can get stronger and more problematic.

Stick with a good breastfeeding book and get good support. And if you're worried about your nipples from an aesthetic perspective, don't fret. We've never heard of a woman bemoaning her rugged elephant-skinned nipples post-breastfeeding, and we doubt you'll be the first.

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com

Find more:

Foods for Breastfeeding: Are there any foods I should avoid while breastfeeding? Breastfeeding Complications: What are common breastfeeding complications? Babble Best: Breastfeeding Accessories: Five products to help you enjoy nursing.

This article was written by Rebecca Odes and Ceridwen Morris for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

Click to buy Ceridwen and Rebecca's book!

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t's Saturday morning, and my five-year-old and I are on line at Target. I've let her rummage through my purse as I check my e-mail. "Mommy, what is this?" Sabrina says. I look up to see her holding a tampon. "It’s for mommies," I mutter and toss it back into my bag. But she’s not done: "Mommy! I see you in the bathroom using that!"

I shove a People magazine into her hands to distract her and stare fixedly ahead, making eye contact with no one.

As any parent knows, kids specialize in moments of parental mortification. Not that they mean to. Explains Betsy Brown Braun, a child development and behavior specialist and author of Just Tell Me What To Say: Sensible Tips and Scripts for Perplexed Parents, "Young children have little impulse control and are only starting to cultivate empathy and a sense of other people’s feelings." So how's a mortified parent supposed to handle her child and save face? Take this advice from top experts for 8 very common sticky situations. — Ellen Seidman

 

Your child announces, "Mommy! Look! That lady has such a big tummy!" and the woman is not pregnant.

For starters, get down on the child?s eye level and quietly say, "You are right, and I will tell you about it after we leave," says Brown Braun. If said big-bellied woman is glaring at you, you could try tossing off a remark like, "Kids really do say the darndest things!" then move away, fast. Later, you can explain to your child that bellies come in all shapes and sizes, and since she didn?t know how that lady at the store feels about her belly —maybe she likes it, maybe she doesn't — it?s better to not say anything about it. Then pray she never notices how jiggly your thighs are.

 

Your child hits another kid at the playground.

Young kids are highly territorial, and those under three also sometimes struggle to express feelings with words, and may resort to using their hands. You want to get down on your child’s eye level and say, in a firm voice (don't yell), "We do not hit." Ask the other child if he is okay, then tell the mom, "We’re sorry, we’re just learning about using our words, not our hands." It doesn’t pay to force your child to say sorry, says Brown Braun, because young kids are not sorry and they'll only get distracted from the point of learning to not hit.

Then take your child away to a bench, wait for him to calm down and acknowledge what happened: "You wanted to use the boy's bucket and he didn’t let you. Next time, please use your words and say 'I want a turn.'" Give your child another chance to play nicely, letting him know that if it happens again you will take him home. Then reinforce any good behavior: "Look at how well you’re playing! You’re sharing and using your words!"

 

Your child said a bad curse word in front of another adult.

A friend of mine has the mother of all stories: Her daughter's kindergarten class has a letter of the day, and on "F" day (you can guess where this is headed), the teacher stopped by her child’s chair and asked what word she had written out. "Fuck!" little Lucy replied. Taken aback, the teacher asked what picture Lucy had drawn. "That’s my Mommy," said Lucy. "She says that word all the time." When the teacher called home, my friend wisely blamed her potty-mouthed husband, apologized profusely, and asked the teacher for advice. Watch your mouths, said the teacher (in the most polite of ways), and reinforce the "no-nasty-word rule" if they heard Lucy say the word again.

"It’s best not to harp on a curse word unless a child repeats it regularly" says Susan Newman, Ph.D., a social psychologist and author of The Book of No: 250 Ways To Say It — And Mean It. Kids often use foul language because they're giving it a test run — to see how a word sounds and gauge the reaction they’ll get. If you make a big deal about it, they may delight in repeating it to get your attention.

If your little love-y drops the f-bomb in front of another parent, you can say, "I can’t imagine where she heard that!" (go on, play dumb). Then tell your child, "You know, those are words we don’t use in our family." And try not to recount this story to your friends within kids' earshot — if they know you think it’s amusing, they’ll keep at it.

 

Your kid has just pooped/vomited/spewed snot/deposited some other bodily fluid on someone else's couch or rug.

Comedian-actress Amy Wilson, author of the upcoming book on motherhood When Did I Get Like This, once had to deal with a major throw-up fiasco. "One Sunday afternoon, we went to visit friends who had recently moved," she recalls. "As I held my 13-month-old and admired their new hallway Oriental rug, the baby suddenly projectile vomited all over it. We stood there, horrified, until my husband said, 'Tell you one thing, that was one hell of a housewarming gift!' That broke up the tension, and everyone laughed, helped clean the rug and went on to have a great afternoon."

At times like this, the best you can do is make sure your child is okay and show remorse to the other person ("OH MY GOD, I’M SO SORRY!"). If you can, says Newman, call up your sense of humor. Then pitch in with the mess, enlisting your child if possible and offering dry-cleaning money. Try to take it in stride; vomit/poop/icky stuff happens.

 

Your kid has a meltdown in the supermarket and everyone is staring.

"You might want the floor to open up and swallow you whole, so if it’ll make you feel better, remark to people nearby, 'Do you remember what it’s like to have a three-year-old?'" says Brown Braun. Adds Newman, "Keep in mind that you will never see any of these people again!" As for your inconsolable child, inform her, "We do not have tantrums like this," pick her up and walk out of the store (inconvenient, but necessary). Acknowledge what the issue may be — "I know you are tired/hungry/wanted that toy." Then lay out what will happen next: "When you calm down we’re going to go back in, buy milk, cottage cheese, and burgers, and will you help find the buns? I need a helper. Then we'll go home."

In general, try to hit stores only when kids are well-fed and rested up so they’re less likely to explode. Distraction can also do the trick. Says Brown Braun, who brought up triplets, "When I’d take them to the supermarket as kids, I’d weigh three giant apples and give them to them — reminding them, of course, we’d have to pay for them. They kept them busy the whole time. You can also do it with a roll."

 

Your child opens up a birthday present, looks at the giver and remarks, "I already have that!" or "I don?t like it!"

Until that day comes when your kid learns there are some thoughts you keep on the inside, you will need to do damage control. If it’s a duplicate toy, tell your child, "Yes, you have that, and now you’ll have two! Uncle Harry looked all over for that present, so let’s thank him for finding something so great." Next tell Uncle Harry, "You knew just what he would like!" Then mention that when a friend comes over, he’ll have one to share or that it’s great to have a copy to keep at grandma’s house. Later on, remind your child that Uncle Harry wasn’t trying to give him a bad present, he tried his best, so it’s important to just say thank you.

If your little one has, however, slammed whatever present Uncle Harry gave him, lighten up the situation by saying, "You know, Uncle Harry, this is not my child. My child would never say something so rude. Give me a minute while I go find my child." Then trot your kid out of the room and say, "I get that you don’t like puzzles, but Uncle Harry didn’t know that. He tried hard to get you something you would like and telling him you didn’t hurt Uncle Harry’s feelings. Next time, just say 'Thank you' and then later you can tell me or Daddy in private that you do not like it."

To avoid gift awkwardness in the future, Newman suggests that you "have a little refresher course before birthdays or holidays about what to say in these situations." Of course, you could just wait till everyone goes home to open the prezzies — the safest bet of all.

 

You?re breastfeeding in public and accidentally flash a room full of people.

Most nursing women have exposed themselves at some point or another ? it?s inevitable when you?re dealing with a squirming baby. If someone makes a snippy comment such as, "Cover yourself up, will you?" Newman?s advice is to simply say, "I apologize if I?ve made you uncomfortable" even as you think "He/she needs to get a life!" You?re doing something wonderful for your child, what?s a little flashed nip?

 

Out of the blue your child proudly announces to someone, "I have a vagina!" or "I have a penis!"

"This happens frequently when kids are two and three," notes Brown Braun. "Often, they?ll say 'I have peanuts!' or 'I have a bagina!'" So if your child has actually used the right word, try to be proud even as you turn a lovely shade of red. Meanwhile, all you have to tell your "I?ve got a vagina!" child is "Yes, you do!" You don?t want to put the kibosh on her willingness to talk about her anatomy by asking her not to discuss it.

As for how to handle adults who may or may not be amused, toss off a remark like, "Wow, my child is really learning her anatomy!" And remember, says Newman, that this situation and other mortifying ones are excellent fodder for the future: "Think about what fun you will have at your child?s wedding rehearsal recounting them!"

What are your cringe-worthy kid moments? Tell us in the comments!

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This article was written by Ellen Seidman for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

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elcome to January, season of frozen fingers and chilly cheeks. Happily, it’s also the perfect time to stir up a supply of the antidote to cold: steaming bowls of homemade soup. Filled with flavor, healthier than their sodium-heavy store-bought cousins, chock-a-block with fuel to stave off the chill, and easy to prepare in bulk and squirrel away for last minute meals, a varied roster of stews and broths can be an invaluable weapon in any parent’s winter kitchen arsenal.

But maybe you aren’t up for much more than boiling water? Or have a little one who will eat anything ... as long as its beige? Relax. You don't have to reinvent the wheel or channel your inner Julia Child to find success over the stockpot.

Here are five tips and five recipes to make soup a simple part of your child’s diet. But remember: smaller mouths tend to be more sensitive to heat than adult ones, so serve your child’s soup at a slightly cooler temperature than you might prefer. A quick fix: stir in a small ice cube.

 

Kids Like Colors.

When it comes to new foods, they respond to lots of the same seductive qualities — like color, texture, and design — that grown-ups do. Try surprising them with the riotous orange and layered flavors of this carrot ginger soup.

 

Immersion blenders work like magic wands.

Marialisa Calta, food columnist and author of the family cookbook, Barbarians at the Plate, says "kids will tend to accept vegetables — like broccoli, peas or even onions — mixed together in soup in a way they might shy away from if those same veggies were just sitting on their plate."

 

Learn the classics ? but don't be afraid to reinterpret them.

There?s no question that one great chicken soup recipe can last you a lifetime, but you shouldn't feel trapped by tradition. Try ethnic variations or experiment from your own base. You could make a different one every Sunday and never run dry.

 

Embrace the unexpected.

Who says soup can't be sweet? A simple Hungarian "borscht" is little more than fruit blended with a few scoops of yogurt or sour cream. Or, for a good winter warm-up, try this sweet potato and coconut soup, guaranteed to satisfy the sweet tooth and stick to the ribs.

 

Accessorize your soup.

Admit it: sometimes the best part of a soup supper is the goodies that come alongside it. Calta says that if you're short on time, "You might opt for prepared soups from the store and put your time into making an easy bread or some other accompaniment. Kids see these and suddenly a simple soup seems like an event." But remember when choosing packaged broths and soups to opt for low-sodium versions.

This article was written by Sarah Karnasiewicz for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

Find more:

7 Best Recipes For New Cooks: Try these no-fail favorites your family will love. Babble Best: Kids' Cooking Tools Small Plates: What 5 chefs feed their kids. More Soups on Nibblers!

What soups do your kids eat? Got any favorite recipes? Tell us in the comments below!

 

Iknocked on the door and waited to see what the family on the other side would be like. I was greeted by a man who briskly told me to come in — no "Hello, how are you today?" or "So glad you were able to come this morning." As I surveyed the house, I was shocked at how messy and disorganized it was. It took the father at least 30 minutes to finish what he was doing and round everyone up to come downstairs and meet me for my interview. There seemed to be no consideration for my time. Finally, the parents threw a series of questions at me. I felt as if I was being interrogated, rather than interviewed. When the questions ended, the parents simply said, "Okay thanks. We will call you by the end of the week and let you know what we think. Bye." No time was included for me to ask questions. They didn't bother to ask what I expected from them, whether I sensed that I could build a rapport with their children or if I even thought I'd want the job. This is a surprisingly common mistake made by families when conducting interviews of potential babysitters. What most parents don't seem to realize is that while they're judging and analyzing us, we are doing the same to you — and we may not like what we see.

To ensure that you can continue to enjoy those nights out without the children, here are a few tips to get yourself a great reliable sitter … and even harder, keep her. — Shannon Rasmussen

 

The Interview

Do not treat this like an interrogation! Instead, in addition to your own questions, ask your potential sitter what made past "clients" good or bad for them. Ask her about her interests too — if she is an indoor person and your kids love the outdoors, this won't be a good match. Also make sure that you are both on the same page in terms of expectations of success on the job.

 

You Get What You Pay For

Money is perhaps the most awkward topic for babysitters to raise when starting work for a new family. We don't want to ask for too much because we fear not getting the job, but we don't want to sell ourselves short either. Despite what some parents may think, we do not come over to watch your children just for fun. While it's crucial that your babysitter and your children enjoy each other, this is our job — and it's not easy. It's important to pay fairly and competitively — but only if your sitter deserves it. I know plenty of teens who think babysitting is a great way for them to sit around and get paid. Many others, however, are like me: we're babysitters because we love working with children, but love alone won't pay the bills.

 

To Trust Her Or Not To Trust Her?

Not entrusting your babysitter enough. While a friend of mine was caring for two ten-year-old twin girls, one of the girls went into a strange seizure. It turns out that the girls had a slight history of seizures. The parents thought they didn't need to inform my friend about this, because medicine usually controlled it. It's important to tell the babysitter about anything this extreme or anything that has even a small likelihood of happening. Entrusting too much to the babysitter. No matter how good the sitter, he or she cannot replace the parent. One story that made the rounds of my friends was that of parents who left their daughter home with a sitter when she had a 103-degree fever. Luckily, the sitter was competent and knew what to do in an emergency, but a sitter DOES NOT replace a parent.  

Keeping Her

After you've bagged that perfect babysitter, the deal is not closed yet. We usually take the first week or two on the job to feel out what your family is like and how well we get along with your children. During these initial weeks especially, show her that you consider her part of your family. If she feels like she could easily be replaced by someone else, she won't be loyal to you. The best families for whom I have worked always made me feel welcome and wanted in their home, which made it a pleasant working environment. I enjoy forming a relationship with the moms and dads just as much as with the kids. When you have a good relationship with your babysitter, it not only makes the relationship more enjoyable but also helps avoid potential problems. If I don't feel comfortable enough with the parents to discuss issues I'm experiencing with their children, stress will accumulate and contribute to other problems down the road — often leading to a sitter/parent "divorce." I worked for several families who would take the time to sit down with me and discuss how the job was going; depending on the age of the children, we often would discuss disciplinary issues with them as well, so I was seen as a team with the parents. 

 

Partners and Allies

The best babysitters and nannies are partners in raising your children. However, it's also important to give good babysitters some space. The children need to know that the babysitter is in charge when they are on duty. They won't get that message if you are always telling her what to do. Treat your sitter like she is responsible and your kids will take the cue.

 

Find That Happy Medium (Relationship)

Parents also need to be careful to preserve a professional relationship even while they are being friendly with a sitter. For instance, it's good to invite the sitter to the children's birthday parties and to show an interest her studies, but it would be going too far to share your marital difficulties, invite her to confide about escapades with boyfriends or have a drink together. Babysitting is a job, and you both need to keep a measure of distance with each other to allow unbiased judgment when needed.

These are just a few of the stories that illustrate "the good, the bad and the ugly" of babysitting — as seen through the eyes of your caregiver. When I tell these stories, parents always listen in awe, thinking they would never do that … But the fact is, most parents do something similar or equally problematic; they just aren't aware of it.

Find more:

3 Most Common Mistakes: Choosing Childcare Babble talks to the hippest male nanny in America. Babble's Nanny Special Issue While You Were Out: A teen babysitter confesses.

This article was written by Shannon Rasmussen for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

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These lovable, quirky creatures from the kids craft book More Softies Only A Mother Could Love are the softest and cutest way to introduce you and your little ones to sewing. And as your needle and thread skills advance, so does the difficulty of the 20+ toys in this colorful, charming collection. With gnomes, circus elephants, and even Sgt. Pepper?s turtles, More Softies gives you lots of options for choosing ? and constructing ? plush pals your kids will cherish. — Andrea Zimmerman

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L ast year, I made more money than my husband did. The difference wasn't enormous — only 20% — but it was meaningful. At first, I felt pride — I had made a career of my writing life; I was helping to get my family back on our feet financially (after buying a house and car we?d been knocked around a bit) — but, over time, this morphed into a sense of thwarted power. When I cut my work days short for school pick up, or when I loped down the aisles of Target trying to find a pair of elusive "water shoes" or when I simply called the pediatrician, I would sometimes find myself thinking, Have I not bought my way out of this? How can I make a full-time salary and attend to its full-time pressures if so much of my day is stolen away by the responsibilities of parenting?

Certainly, it was this same righteousness that allowed businessmen of the fifties to return from the office, kick off their shoes and throw back a martini. When Ali Edwards, a 33-year-old Oregonian with her own scrapbook design business, started to make more than eight times what her state senator husband made, her expectations shifted. "I?d say, 'I make the money, why do I have to do all this?' It was my end-of-the-rope card, the most hurtful thing I could say."

Now that mothers have increasingly become more powerful in the workplace, how do they not resent their husbands for not becoming cozy homemakers in return? The first step may be, ironically, to stop striving for equality. Much has been made of today?s 50/50 marriage — husband and wife striving to perform the demanding tasks of work and family in equal measure — but Kyle Pruett, a child psychiatrist at the Yale Child Study Center and co-author of Partnership Parenting: How Men and Women Parent Differently Why It Helps Your Kids and Can Strenghten Your Marriage, says that "once you start keeping track of how many diapers are changed by which parent, your relationship and your energy are being squandered because it will always be about disappointment." Not all high-earning women feel this sense of entitlement; in fact, many feel guilt at not being able to be as active of parents as they?d like to be because their jobs are so demanding. Although the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics says about one woman in four now earns more money than her husband, a quick survey of my female friends revealed six out of ten who did, yet all of these women considered themselves more involved than the men in the running of their families.

Monica McNeil, a 32-year-old C.P.A. in Dallas, lives with her husband (a software designer), and their five-year-old son. Her salary is 40% higher than her husband?s. Amy Landecker, a 39-year-old actress in New York, tends to make ten times what her writer/photographer husband makes. Both of these women hesitate to hand over the reins of parenting to their husbands. "There is this catch 22: I?m the moneymaker but I also have the guilt," says Landecker. "I think I?m a crappy mom if I?m not the one to pick my daughter up from school." McNeill made a similar point: "I want to be the strong caregiver in our house, but I also feel because of our financial situation, I have to be on my top game at work. That puts more pressure on me than on my husband." Both of these women feel, as I have, the pull of traditional motherhood in conflict with their being the primary earner. "It?s like the re-submission of women," says my mother, whose own marriage came of age (and fell apart) in the feminist-era seventies. But the women I interviewed didn?t want to see their relationships as a form of oppression; they were searching for an answer to the riddle.

When I explained this tug-of-war feeling to Pruett, he suggested we consider the unwitting parties involved in this dynamic: our children. Women?s newfound financial power may demand that fathers step up more at home, but this also requires some letting go by the mothers. And that can actually be a good thing for, as Pruett points out, when a child has strong relationships with both parents, they are getting more of their needs met because they are interacting with two different people and, therefore, two different sensibilities.

But most importantly, he stresses: "The focus needs to be on your child, not on bean-counting. That is a dead end road and, at the end of it, is a giant pile of resentment. If what you want is a solution, you need to be talking more about what is good for your children than what is good for you." The main point that Pruett makes is that our endeavor as parents, both financially and emotionally, is to support our children. We need to see beyond our personal grievances and instead see the needs of family. He has also found in his practice, interestingly, that children don?t ask for more time with their parents as much as they ask them to be less stressed and distracted when they are present.

Families today seem to be in the midst of a generous improvisation: women taking on men?s roles, men taking on women?s roles, and many of us reverting back to tradition when needed. If we are able to acknowledge this and leave behind idealized notions of equality, we might actually strike the balance we?ve been searching for all along.

Find more:

Working Mom's Paycheck Takes Childcare Blow Do moms give up too much? How an equal division of labor almost ruined my marriage. 7 Tips For Equally Shared Parenting

 

This article was written by Nell Casey for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

 

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orried that your kids aren't getting enough exercise? If you find it hard to find time for the recommended half-hour a day of active play, we've got a quick and easy solution: turn everyday situations into occasions for moving and shaking. In their new book, Sneaky Fitness, Missy Chase Lapine and Larysa Didio share lots of great ways to slip exercise in to humdrum activities like doing laundry or waiting for the school bus. The best part? Your kids will be having so much fun they won't even know they're burning calories! — Andrea Zimmerman

 

Sock Hop

Finish folding the laundry with your hopping helper.

 

Just Bag It

Squeeze in some strength training while you shop for fruits and veggies together.

 

Bus Stop Hop

Transform the dreaded (and freezing cold) bus stop wait into a secret cardio blast.

Excerpted from the book Sneaky Fitness: Fun, Foolproof Ways to Slip Fitness into Your Child's Everyday Life by Missy Chase Lapine and Larysa DiDio. Excerpted by arrangement with Running Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2009.

Find more:

12 Ways to Find Work Out Time: How to balance a fitness routine and a baby. Easy, Healthy Oatmeal Recipe — and more healthy recipes for kids on Nibblers. Winter Activities for Kids: How to entertain when the playground is frozen.

1,001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up is an impressively comprehensive — well, let's face it, dauntingly comprehensive — guide to the best children's books out there. We'd all like to share author Julia Eccleshare's zeal, but to get us started we wanted to isolate ten of the best from her gigantic list — and not just the classics we already can recite by heart. New additions to your child's bookshelves or not, here's the tip of what we promise to be an enormously rewarding iceberg. — Andrea Zimmerman

Find More: Babble Best: Baby Books Toddler Must-Reads: What are your kids favorite books? Read 'em and weep: Motherhood changes everything, especially reading habits.

W

e just found out we're having a girl. I have been trying to be rational about it, but I can't help feeling disappointed and also a little worried. My whole life I've been much more comfortable with guys. I don't even have that many female friends. I feel really unprepared to have a girl and I worry I won't be able to rise to the occasion. What can I do? 

— Wanna-be boy mom

Dear Wanna-be boy mom,

Most people have some preference about what their kids' sex will be, even if it's just a flicker. Rather than try to talk yourself out of your feelings, we suggest that you allow yourself to be disappointed for a while. Shutting the negativity away now makes it more likely that the feelings will bubble up later. After you've done some mourning, it may be time for some self-examination. Maybe there is something in your past that turned you off to female relationships and is now making you worry about having a daughter.

But keep in mind that what you're dealing with now is how you imagine motherhood. The reality of what you'll feel like as a mother of a girl (at 1, at 8, at 13, at 32 … ) is yet to be determined. The brains of parents-to-be are filled with hypothetical scenarios formed by our hopes and fears about the future. Some of it is unrealistically gorgeous and perfect, other parts are all gloom and doom. There's no way to shut down those little crystal balls, and we're not sure you'd want to. Pregnancy is also a time of intense planning and preparation; this kind of imagining can be helpful.

You will probably find, once you have her, that hanging out with your daughter is a lot different than hanging out with girlfriends. Motherhood is not friendship. Nor is it daughterhood. It's a new role for you, and with it will come lots of surprises and challenges. Perhaps your daughter will benefit from your easy rapport with men. Who knows? You have an opportunity for a different kind of relationship with a girl now. And it will evolve and change over the years.

A big part of the whole project of becoming a parent is constant adaptation. Your real-life kid will constantly bump up against your fantasy of how a kid should act and how parenthood should be. Life with children is pretty impossible when expectations are firm. To let them go is not easy, but it can be enormously gratifying.

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com

Find more:

Boy or girl? New test reveals sex at 5 weeks. Pick a sex, any sex. Some couples will do anything to guarantee a boy or a girl. Don't like your baby's gender? Sweden rules 'gender-based' abortion legal. Babble's Sex and Gender Issue.

This article was written by Rebecca Odes and Ceridwen Morris for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

Click to buy Ceridwen and Rebecca's book!

The portrayal of fathers in movies is thankfully broader and fairer than that of scientists (always bad dressers, socially awkward), airline ticket agents (agitated, silly), and writers (lazy, self-absorbed). Perhaps there's a wide range of dads because fathering in the movies, unlike mothering in the movies, is almost always a second job. Movie dads come in many forms, from well-meaning bumblers (George McFly, Back to the Future) to sadistic perfectionists (Lt. Col. 'Bull' Meechum, The Great Santini), from the paternally indifferent (Lester Burnham, American Beauty) to those who will do anything for their kids (Guido Orefice, Life is Beautiful, Ted Kramer, Kramer vs. Kramer, Carl Lee Hailey, A Time to Kill).

Among the 2010 Golden Globe-nominated movies, no father character makes an immediate claim on our hearts and minds. (The Hangover? Up in the Air? Avatar — in 3D or not 3D? Hardly.) So we looked back to find our favorite movie dads. To make our list, a dad has shown his movie children and us something — love, understanding, strength — in an unforgettable way. In no particular order, the seven movie dads we love most:

 

Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck), To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)

The narrator, Scout Finch tells us that her father, the widower Atticus, expresses doubts over his child-rearing abilities, but it's easy to see what a model dad he is. Atticus shares fine moments with his son Jem, but his scenes with Scout resonate particularly deeply, perhaps because well-wrought father/daughter relationships are so much rarer in Hollywood movies than father/son. We see Atticus gently reprimanding Scout, instructing her on shooting her first rifle, beaming as she wears her first dress, bolting through the door after she is attacked by the decadent Bob Ewell. Yet the lasting image is the final one: Scout curled in Atticus's lap while he reads at the bedside of the unconscious Jem. "He would be there all night," Scout tells us. "And he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning."

 

Noah Levenstein (Eugene Levy), American Pie (1999)

Noah does his loving, bumbling best to help his teenaged son, Jim, navigate the rough waters of adolescent sexuality. Even before the signature moment of American Pie, Noah, to his great credit, sits down with his walking erection of a son and presents him with porn magazines. Later, when Jim violates an apple pie his mom has baked for him (to eat), Dad walks into the kitchen and somehow finds a way to maintain dignity. "I guess we'll just tell your mother that we ate it all," he tells his boy, after the shock has subsided.

 

Mac MacGuff (J.K. Simmons), Juno (2007)

Like the dad in American Pie, Mac is dealing with a teen overwhelmed by burgeoning sexuality (though she pretends she's not). Mac is spectacularly ordinary — in accomplishment, awareness, insight — yet his concern for his little Junebug is unshakeable, even as he's rattled by her pregnancy. Despite his banter ("Thank you for having me and my irresponsible child to your home," he says as he enters the house of the couple hoping to adopt Juno's baby), he is gravity to his daughter's outward levity. Fathers, real and movie ones, don't always know what to say to their teenaged daughters — especially when they're sixteen and have just given birth — but as Juno lies there in the maternity ward bed and her daddy says, "Someday, you'll be back here, honey . . . on your terms," it's clear he's done the best he can. And his best is pretty damn good.

 

Daniel (Liam Neeson), Love Actually (2003)

The most touching of this movie's numerous plotlines concerns Daniel, a London widower clueless about raising his sensitive and still grieving 11-year-old, stepson Sam. At one point Daniel says, "This stepfather thing seems so suddenly to somehow matter like it never did before." And that's what's remarkable: The two form a blended family in which the blending is barely mentioned. Daniel agonizes over Sam's pain, prepares chicken kebabs for him and sits up nights strategizing ways for Sam to attract his crush. The relationship satisfies because not a lot is made of it; it just is. Step, shmep. When Daniel encourages the heartsick boy to confront the girl of his dreams, Sam replies that it's time to "go get the shit kicked out of us by love." In that moment, Sam effortlessly switches from using Daniel's first name and now, once and forever, calls him Dad.

 

George Bailey (James Stewart), It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

When he returns home on Christmas Eve, George Bailey's state of mind is palpable — the five o'clock shadow, the mussed hair, the forgotten coat, the sniping at Mary and the kids. When he ascends the stairs to visit his sick daughter, Zuzu, and the staircase finial breaks off in his hand for the thousandth time, we feel his rage. Stewart, as George, is a marvel in this scene, as he fights to alter his dark mood for the child's sake. When Zuzu asks him to paste together her damaged flower, he summons what energy remains to make it all right. Yet his expression reveals the unbearable heaviness of being George Bailey, the anger, frustration and despair.

There are four Bailey children — they form a boy/girl, girl/boy palindrome — yet there's no denying the place Zuzu holds in daddy's heart. She alone gets the quirky nickname, the pet phrase ("my little gingersnap"), the ride on his shoulders. In the film's most cathartic moment, when Bert the cop confronts George as he considers jumping off a bridge, his bleeding lip is a portent, but Zuzu's petals are the talismans that provide redemption. They, like the loose finial George kisses after running home — it's come off in his hands for the thousand-and-first time as he ascends the stairs to embrace his children — have become transcendent.

 

Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), The Godfather (1972)

Yes, Don Corleone: maker of widows and orphans. Clinically depraved but unquestionably a devoted father. We see it when young Vito agonizingly watches his infant son, Fredo, struggle with pneumonia, when he sobs over Santino's bloody corpse ("Look how they massacred my boy!"), and especially when he hands over the family business to Michael, his favorite son and the one most like him. There are stark differences between the two, each representing versions of America: One, the savvy immigrant who landed penniless and frightened on Ellis Island as a boy, but thrived here without ever truly assimilating; the other, New York-born, Ivy League-educated, a decorated war hero and husband of a New England WASP, a believer in the American Dream. Time and circumstance alter their relationship. Michael had been the prodigal son, the "civilian" who rejected his father's ways, the patriot who chose country over family, at once both Prince Hamlet and Prince Hal. His long journey back begins the night he protects his father from assassins in that deserted hospital wing — when he leans in and whispers, "I'm with you now." Vito's response, a tearful smile, supplants words. He is not The Godfather here but, simply, the father.

 

Clifford Worley (Dennis Hopper), True Romance (1993)

How can a list of great movie dads include Hopper, whose later career is defined by psychos, killers and fidgety loners? Yet in this brief role as Christian Slater's father, reformed alcoholic ex-cop living in a trailer, wipes away years of crappy dad-ness by making the ultimate sacrifice for his kid.

Thugs had appeared in Cliff's trailer to find the son. They pull a gun and slash his hand to force him to reveal where his son is. Cliff says he hasn't seen him in years. When they see through this lie, Cliff admits he saw him — but lies that he has no idea where he went. The chief thug, Vincenzo — played by Christopher Walken, the only actor who can regularly out-psycho Hopper — sits across from Cliff, informing him with menacing restraint that, one way or the other, he will get from him the boy's whereabouts.
Realizing there is no escape, Cliff proceeds, calmly and witheringly, to insult Vincenzo, particularly his Sicilian ancestry, knowing Vincenzo will explode and kill him quickly, thereby preventing Cliff from possibly revealing his son's whereabouts after continued torture.

 

Find more:

26 Most Disturbing Kids Movies Ever I used to love horror movies. Then I become a mom. 10 kids movies that were better than the book. Which cartoon mom are you?

This article was written by William J. McGee & Andrew Postman for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

My milk came in five days after my son, Ezra, was born in 2007. I was able to feed him successfully until he was six weeks old. At that point, things changed. Ezra began to feed for four hours at a time, gnawing and tearing at my breast, which I began to fear was a dry well.

My pediatrician said the more the baby sucks, the more milk you make, end of story. A lactation consultant told me that if I could just relax more, my body would provide. I took all of their advice: I drank more water, took herbal supplements, pumped after every feeding to stimulate further production and even took a "nursing vacation" — three days in bed with baby, ready to feed at all times (the idea being that once you've removed stress and outside interference, and all you're asking your body to do is keep the milk a-coming). Nothing worked. A week later, Ezra had lost half a pound.

Why was my milk supply drying up? It turns out I had what is denigratingly called "lactation failure" — a condition shared by 15% of nursing mothers. But what I didn't know, and what many women don't know — is that it's not our fault.

There are two types of lactation failure: primary and secondary. Secondary failure, which affects 11% of women, means that they were able to produce enough milk at one point, but then their production dwindles, typically due to insufficient nutrition, poor milk supply management or problems with the child's sucking.

But 4% have what is known as "primary lactation failure," which means that no matter what you do, you just can't make enough milk. Common reasons for this are glandular tissue problems, breast-shape, prior breast surgery or Sheehan's syndrome, in which women who have a massive postpartum hemorrhage experience shock to the pituitary gland. (The pituitary regulates prolactin, the hormone that supplies breast milk.) Less common causes of primary lactation failure include high or low blood pressure, anemia and certain medications.

Primary, secondary — Ezra didn't care about my diagnosis; he was starving. As I strove to find the answer, not one of the half-dozen L.A-based professionals I spoke with mentioned that there was a condition called primary lactation failure. In fact, every time I asked if it was possible that I just couldn't produce enough milk, each told me there was no such thing. One said that if I had tried a little harder, then perhaps I wouldn't be in this situation. I was inconsolable.

The La Leche League website was no more helpful. All I could come up with was a page that suggested I was either not breastfeeding enough, malnourished, dehydrated or just doing it wrong. "Some mothers think their babies are not getting enough milk when they are actually getting plenty of milk," it reads. What it doesn't say: You might not be capable of making enough milk.

These resources are surely helpful for treating someone with secondary lactation failure, but for the rest of us, they're not only useless but guilt-provoking. Why won't anyone acknowledge that some women simply don't produce enough milk?

As it turns out, the answer may have to do with the origins of the lactation movement. "There's an older generation of lactation consultants that came out of the La Leche League," says Veronica Tingzon, a certified lactation consultant since 2005. "Like any movement, it was built on passion. These are some tough women who had to really fight to get women off formula and bottles."

"I believe the reason women aren't told about lactation failure is that there is a fear that it will lead to many women giving up before they've given breastfeeding a fair shot," says Daria Hoffman, a certified lactation educator in Los Angeles. "It's already often a struggle to prove to women that breast milk is superior to formula, though our numbers are improving, finally." She's right. In 1980, breastfeeding rates for women who breastfed "for at least some period of time" were at 54%. By 2004, it was up to 75%.

"Many women doubt their bodies and their ability to properly provide milk to their babies," Hoffman continues. "The number one concern women have about breastfeeding is that they won't — or don't – have enough milk. Just think of the language associated with the term "lactation failure;" it denotes that as women, we have failed to provide this basic necessity to our child."

"In a lot of the [consumer breastfeeding] literature, they call lactation failure 'perceived insufficient milk,'" says Dr. Marianne Neifert, author of Great Expectations: The Essential Guide to Breastfeeding and co-founder of one of the first breastfeeding centers in the U.S. "Yes, some of it is perceived, but there is a lot of real low milk [supply] out there. The typical attitude is that everyone can breastfeed except the ones who have bad attitudes or did something wrong, [but] there are so many factors that lead to not making milk."
Corky Harvey, co-founder of The Pump Station in Los Angeles, believes that many lactation professionals fear that women will stop breastfeeding if it seems too challenging. "Perhaps, in their zealousness, [lactation professionals] want you to understand that you can do this. Maybe they don't mention the fact that a very small percentage can't."

Though Harvey is not directly referring to La Leche League when she says this, LLL's influence is clearly in play. Formed in 1957 by seven women who were alarmed at the drop in breastfeeding rates to 20%, La Leche has global reach and is the world's premier organization for breastfeeding support. They train leaders to visit or call new mothers who need help with breastfeeding, and many women who have trouble end up on their website or help line.

When I asked LLL why there was no hint as to the possibility of lactation failure on their comprehensive website, Loretta McCallister, LLL's press representative, told me: "It probably hasn't come up. It might be a story that hasn't been presented. We are in the process of continually changing things on the website. That story would be a good addition."

It's impossible to believe that the go-to source for breastfeeding support has yet to come across a woman with primary lactation failure. In the numerous instances on the website where women ask about low milk supply, each time they're greeted with the same answers I got: hydrate, eat well and try herbs like fenugreek. "Most commonly, the reason for low milk supply is a wrong position or something they're not doing correctly," says McCallister. "If I tell them it's possible they won't produce enough milk, they'll use it as a crutch. They'll give up. We want them to stay positive." Perhaps LLL should acknowledge that it's especially hard to stay positive when the supposed experts tell you you're doing something wrong.

McCallister confirms that when a woman calls LLL and speaks with a leader, she is never told that primary lactation failure may be at play. "We ask questions and try to identify problems." So are leaders trained to identify primary failure? "They're trained to be reflective and empathetic. Most women just need some confidence and support. If they call back after trying everything the leader says, we tell them to talk to their health care professional."

I understand that breastfeeding is an emotional and political subject. I understand that LLL and other breastfeeding advocates are fighting against an often hostile culture. There's a war going on, but I feel like a victim of friendly fire. Had I been lucky, I would have consulted with The Pump Station and not just LLL before resigning myself to formula.

Harvey insists that while there are some overzealous lactation specialists, a good consultant sees the unique woman behind each pair of breasts. "We help you try. We do whatever it is we can to help. And in the percentage where nothing helps, in primary lactation failures, we say, 'It's okay for you to say uncle.' We cry with them. [Imagine] the relief on women's faces, on their cheeks, when they find out that there was a real reason they struggled, that they were not failures."

Find more:

15 Breastfeeding Myths Explained Moms taking drugs to stop lactation. Dad trying to lactate so he can breastfeed child. Breast Friends: I nursed my friend's baby. The Breastfeeding Myth: Believe it or not, formula isn't poison.

 

This article was written by Taffy Brodesser-Akner for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

 

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Toddlers are notoriously bad at seeing things from other people's perspectives. Any parent who has tried patiently to explain that hitting hurts, only to be swatted yet again, or discussed sharing for the twentieth time, knows that little kids are not the most empathetic creatures. But that's okay; they're not supposed to be. Understanding that other people have thoughts, feelings, and perspectives different than our own is what psychologists call a "theory of mind." And until they are four, children's brains simply aren't wired to do it yet. For a long time it was unclear what causes this quantum leap in empathy, but recently scientists got some important answers.

Testing For Theory Of Mind

To figure out if a child has a theory of mind, researchers use simple scenarios, called "false belief tests" that any parent can replicate at home. In one test a child is shown a bag of M&Ms, but inside there are pencils instead of candy. A second child comes into the room (not privy to the switch in contents). Researchers ask the first child what he thinks the second will say is in the bag. Three-year-olds say "pencils," because they know the pencils are there (so everyone else must too). Four-year-olds say "M&Ms" because they know the other child will assume the bag is carrying its usual goodies.

Of course empathy doesn't develop overnight. Its roots can be seen even in babies. When an eight-month-old points at a dog and looks back at mom, she's showing "joint attention", a skill that means she is aware that Mom might enjoy the furry animal too. Around 18 months, children start with pretend play — rudimentary at first, but later playing "house" or imagining that a toy figure is a racecar driver. By this point kids can see that people have distinct roles and behaviors. But it's not until around a child's fourth birthday that he really grasps the fact that the racecar driver and he (and Mom and Dad for that matter) have separate thoughts and feelings.

When Theory Of Mind Is Delayed

Many doctors believe that a delayed theory of mind is one of the main features of the autism spectrum disorders. For these children, social communication is hard, in part because their ability to see from another's perspective can lag behind that of a typically developing child. This makes relationships difficult, because interpersonal skills really hinge on our ability to imagine the mental states of others. People with autism tend to struggle with the give and take of social dynamics that comes more naturally to many of us. Through functional MRI tests (brain scans taken while a person is performing certain tasks), scientists can see the regions of the brain that give us a theory of mind — an area between the temporal and parietal lobes and the amygdala, an emotional center, seem to be key. Tests are underway to figure out if this region of the brain might provide clues to the origins of autism.

In the last year, scientists have figured out that language may be central to acquiring a theory of mind. Researcher Jennie Pyers used the false belief test with a population of deaf people in Nicaragua, who had created their own sign language in the 1970s. The first generation, who had only a crude form of sign language, failed the false belief test more often, even though they were the oldest of the group. The second generation had developed a more sophisticated sign language, and did better on the test. Researchers suspect that listening to someone articulate their point of view — using advanced words and concepts — allows kids to see that each person has his own distinct thoughts and feelings.

Theory of mind is a developmental milestone, just as reliable as learning to walk or seeing in full color. And the possibility that language is what eventually makes it possible means that our verbal and emotional interactions with our kids are that much more important. Rest assured that all of your diligent explaining that, "it hurts Mom when you hit" is not going to waste. Just don't expect it to sink in until all the proper mental machinery is in place.

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Find more:

Getting real about autism: It's not a discipline problem or diversity issue; it's a disability. Autism's False Prophets: Vaccines don't cause autism. So why do so many people believe they do? Dr. Harvey Karp: The "Happiest Baby" author on his autism theory. Memento: What do children remember and what do they forget?

This article was written by Heather Turgeon for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

 

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In the movie "Away We Go," Lily, a mother of two, proclaims that she no longer worries about a bra, she just tucks her breasts into her socks. Yes, it’s a sad state of affairs when the boost of pregnancy and nursing subsides and we’re left with a pair of breasts that we may not recognize. Whether they hang lower, have nipples that seem to droop, or they’ve shrunk to a size you haven’t seen since junior high, the bottom line is that our breasts do change — and not for the perkier.

Factors Involved In Breast Changes

Women with smaller breasts are most likely to notice the changes from pregnancy to post-breastfeeding, says Wendy Haldeman, co-founder of The Pump Station in Los Angeles. These moms have less fatty tissue overall, so changes to the glandular tissue — responsible for milk production — are really apparent. When progesterone and estrogen rise in pregnancy, all the inner structures of the glands grow, like the alveoli (where milk is actually made and stored) and the ducts (the middle man between the alveoli and the nipple). This network is in constant prep mode when baby is on the way. Meanwhile on the outside, Mom might be working her way through every bra size in the alphabet.

On the way back down, whether it’s from two years of nursing or no nursing at all, the picture is more complicated. Most moms do lose some fatty tissue, and the connective fibers that give your breasts their shape are elongated to accommodate growth, so they lose some of their spring. Many moms think that it’s the process of breastfeeding alone that takes a toll, but remember that breasts grow and change in pregnancy to prepare for milk production, whether or not you nurse. Haldeman points out that it is actually a combination of factors, such as genes, age, and body type that determine the condition of our post-baby bosom.

When will my breasts start changing?

Haldeman’s colleague Jessica Sacher also reminds us that we naturally start losing fat in our breasts as we get older — and remember, biology would have us conceiving children at 18, not in our 30's, as many of us do. So in the two years or so that might have passed between the stick turning pink and weaning, age and gravity have still been at work.

For the mommies out there who feel as though they went from a voluptuous mother-earth type to looking eerily similar to summer camp photos of themselves at age 12, there is hope. According to Haldeman, studies indicate that the fatty tissue in the post-pregnancy breast can regenerate, even though it might take up to three years. So cross your fingers and maybe buy yourself a little extra support for now. And if you're planning on having another child, your breasts may be on their way up again soon enough.

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Find more:

The Breastfeeding Myth: Believe it or not, formula isn't poison. Freedom of Expression: Why the new pro-breastfeeding laws may actually limit women's rights. Breastfeeding Pain--Ouch! Are my nipples ever going to toughen up? The Breastfeeding Conspiracy: Some women just can't produce enough milk.

This article was written by Heather Turgeon for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

 

The ingredients: one 2-year-old boy, one stay-at-home mother, year-round Southern California weather and no backyard. This recipe makes us the perfect candidates for the park, which is close by and big, with plenty of kids and bounteous equipment. So what kind of mother would deny this idyllic stomping ground to her son?  

I honestly don't think I'm a bad or unloving mother. From the time my baby turned 3 months, I was so eager to do a good job that I had us on a rigorous schedule of music classes, museums, library story hours and play-dates. "He's just luggage until he's 6 months," my friends would say. "Just go on with your day the way you normally might. Get your nails done. Go to the movies." Why, so I would get a break? No, thanks. I would do anything that might provide the stimulation and give him an edge in this hardscrabble world.  

But I couldn't do the park. The park may have incredible climbing ropes, twisty slides, and lush hills through which a child may frolic, but it also has sand teeming with parasites from dog excrement, piles of juice boxes, crackers and broken shovel pieces. I've seen countless broken bottles, condoms (shudder), adult men's briefs (double shudder), and, on one occasion, a plastic shopping bag from Target with razors inside (granted, they were unopened in their clamshell packaging). With all this garbage, how can I just let my son roam free there?
 
My husband argues that our son needs to be around other kids, not to mention the physical exercise the playground provides.
 
"But I found razor blades in the sand!"
 
"They were packaged," he replies. "You can't accidentally break open clamshell packaging."
 
"Razorblades!" I answer.
 
"You're talking about the ones you took home and used, right? Those razorblades?"
 
"Razorblades!"

My grandstanding about safety and cleanliness, I admit, isn't the real reason I hate the park. I hate it because it's boring. My son loves it, but when I'm there, I am deafened by the voice in my ear that asks me how I could leave an orderly life and thriving career to muddle around in dirty sand, chasing a boy with no game-plan and no understanding that he should be grateful that I've taken him there instead of just pissy when it's time to leave. 

I am deafened by the voice in my ear that asks me how I could leave an orderly life and thriving career to muddle around in dirty sand, chasing a boy with no game-plan.

Furthermore, being at the park depresses me, especially when I'm faced with the other mothers and see how worn-down we all look. We all wear the same yoga pants and flip-flops. We talk the same: "Sweetie, I hear that you want to use the slide, but it's time to take turns." And, finally, we act the same: we go into a trance. At the park, we're Trance Parents. We zone out in an effort to endure the long hours spent watching, not able to do what we want or what would keep us active. Very few of us can stay fascinated by our children during all their waking moments. Our kids are way more boring to us than they are to the working mothers and fathers who only get a few hours a day with their little ones. Kids are endlessly needy, they can't hold a conversation and they don't know anything you don't know. All these things make for day-long stretches of tedium. And though they're cute as hell, and though we're genetically wired to be crazy about them (and we are!), I still often find myself decidedly unstimulated — especially when I've been pushing the swing for sixty-six straight minutes. 

As I push my son in a baby swing, I don't coo at him and play depth-perception games. I endlessly pound on the refresh button of my mobile device, desperate for some communication from the outside, desperate for proof that I still exist. I look at my watch, unable to believe we've only been there for five minutes. I stand in a row of mothers, all of us who want to be applauded for doing the hardest job and I, too, am on the phone, ignoring the fact that my child has asked to get off the swing for the last five minutes now.

When I am somewhere else with my son, or just at home, I am giddily in love with him. I am interested in trying to piece together words that he might be using to make a sentence. I sit with him as we watch Sesame Street, counting together, trying to name colors and characters. We stack blocks, knock them down, say hello and goodbye to his toys. It's only at the park that things turn.

I am not self-righteous about my hatred for the park. I salute the other Trance-Parents there for their ability to withstand an endless, life-sucking outing to the playground.

And I envy all the non-Trance-Parents. Though I suspect (hope?) that they are putting on a show, or that they are working parents just taking a day off from their other grind, they actively engage with their children, and don't just check their iPhones. They play in the sand, get dirty and have what appears to be fun.

Trance parents make me upset by reflecting my own complacency, but non-Trance-Parents add further insult by, well, doing what I should be doing, what I thought I'd be doing.  
In an ideal world, I'd love the park. I'd run through the grass, holding my son's hand. I'd watch his look of wonder as he whooshed down the slide, smitten by his laugh. But this is not an ideal world, and I am not an ideal parent. When I'm not at the park, it is easier to forget that.

 

Find more:

Rules of the Game: My crash course in playground etiquette. House Trap: Will staying home with my toddler get easier? Bad Parent: Game Over: I hate playing with my kids.

This article was written by Taffy Brodesser-Akner for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

Kids these days are stressed — that's no surprise to any parent. But what exactly stresses them out may surprise you. A "Stress in America" survey by the American Psychological Association found a whopping 30% of children lay awake at night worrying not about school or friend trouble, but about family money problems. Even more alarming: 25% of tweens felt their stress has increased in the last year. So what can parents do to help? Three family experts weigh in. — Rachel Aydt

 

Watch your outflow of info.

When you're stressed out, it's easy to forget your kids can hear and understand most, if not all, of what you say. Do you and your spouse frequently talk about paying bills? Do you fight about money or worry about a sick family member? Michele Borba, Ed. D., author of The Big Book of Parenting Solutions, suggests parents keep it on the low-down.

Parenting Tip

Limit kids' exposure to your stress, as it will only amplify tensions of the situation.

 

Know stress signs and be vigilant.

"If something big changes in a family, like a parent becomes sad or withdrawn, children automatically adjust their behavior to accommodate them and recreate the balance," says Dr. Cynthia Langtiw, a child psychologist in Chicago. "If you're making dinner, and your kid comes up and gives you a hug out of the blue, they probably know you're feeling sad. Your problems are affecting them even if you think you're hiding them."

Parenting Tip

Know signs of stress in children: tantrums, clinginess, change in eating or sleeping habits, headaches or even potty-training regression. Be vigilant. If you notice any of these changes, talk early [see next tip].

 

Talk Early and Often.

Kids often imagine the worst. If they have an inkling that you're in danger of, say, having your home foreclosed on, it's important to map out a coping plan."If their worst fears are a reality, explain they'll have a new place to live that will be lovely," explains Golda Ginsburg, Ph.D., a child psychiatry professor at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. "They need to know they'll be taken care of."

Parenting Tip

Tell them they'll still be able to decorate their room, they'll still be close to their friends, they'll still go to the same school. If there's a threat you'll have to move away, tell your kids about an old friendship with someone far away who you've kept up with. Let your kids know they can maintain their most important friendship with emails, phone calls and visits when possible.

 

Make Family Routines and Fun a Priority.

No matter how stressed you get, try to maintain normal, daily routines and family traditions. In shaky times, Ginsburg says, kids need structure and familiarity more than ever.

Parenting Tip

Make every effort to keep up family movie nights, adventure drives, sit-down dinners, or however your family reconnects. Even simple activities like taking a walk or giving them an extra story and cuddle before bedtime makes them feel bonded.

 

Get Yourself Help.

If you're having troubles, consider therapy: it gives you a safe place to blow off steam away from your family, and your therapist is objective. While it might be helpful to talk to friends or relatives, they're not professionals, and their own perceptions might color their opinions.

Parenting Tip

Don't write off therapy as being out of reach financially; it's often offered on a sliding scale. If therapy is still too expensive, set up a weekly coffee date with a friend or two. Knowing they'll be there for you every week can give you some relief.
 

Don?t Take It Out on Your Family.

Every parent and spouse blows a gasket from time to time. It's normal, and there's no shame in occassionally raising your voice. Remember, it's good for kids to see their parents show real emotions and not be robotic perfect people 100% of the time (how would that teach them about their own volatile feelings?).

Parenting Tip

Pay attention to your behavior in times of extra stress. Are you more critical? Demanding more? Losing patience? These are the little shifts in behavior that add stress to the little people in your life. Remember: Your kids are most important, whether or not their toys are put away or their teeth are brushed. Give them some slack, and they just might give you some right back.

Find more:

How The Recession Is Stressing Out Our Kids A no-fail stress reliever product. Do kids lower your blood pressure? 50 Things Not To Worry About

This article was written by Rachel Aydt for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.

Serving up healthy meals every night for you and your kids can be tricky — but it doesn't have to be. Just follow the advice of Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and longtime contributor to The New York Times. In his new book Food Rules, Pollan lays out simple, no-nonsense guidelines for eating well and enjoying every bite. Here are a few to share with the whole family. — Andrea Zimmerman

Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.

Imagine your great-grandmother (or grand-mother, depending on your age) at your side as you roll down the aisles of the supermarket. You're standing together in front of the dairy case. She picks up a package of Go-GURT Portable Yogurt tubes — and hasn't a clue what this plastic cylinder of colored and flavored gel could possibly be. Is it a food or is it toothpaste? There are now thousands of foodish products in the supermarket that our ancestors simply wouldn't recognize as food. The reasons to avoid eating such complicated food products are many, and go beyond the various chemical additives and corn and soy derivatives they contain, or the plastics in which they are typically packaged, some of which are probably toxic. Today foods are processed in ways specifically designed to get us to buy and eat more by pushing our evolutionary buttons — our inborn preferences for sweetness and fat and salt. These tastes are difficult to find in nature but cheap and easy for the food scientist to deploy, with the result that food processing induces us to consume much more of these rarities than is good for us. The great-grandma rule will help keep most of these items out of your cart.

Note: If your great-grandmother was a terrible cook or eater, you can substitute someone else's grandmother — a Sicilian or French one works particularly well.

Eat your colors.

The idea that a healthy plate of food will feature several different colors is a good example of an old wives' tale about food that turns out to be good science too. The colors of many vegetables reflect the different antioxidant phytochemicals they contain — anthocyanins, polyphenols, flavonoids, carotenoids. Many of these chemicals help protect against chronic diseases, but each in a slightly different way, so the best protection comes from a diet containing as many different phytochemicals as possible.

Avoid foods you see advertised on television.

Food marketers are ingenious at turning criticisms of their products — and rules like these — into new ways to sell slightly different versions of the same processed foods: They simply reformulate (to be low-fat, have no HFCS or transfats, or to contain fewer ingredients) and then boast about their implied healthfulness, whether the boast is meaningful or not. The best way to escape these marketing ploys is to tune out the marketing itself, by refusing to buy heavily promoted foods. Only the biggest food manufacturers can afford to advertise their products on television: More than two thirds of food advertising is spent promoting processed foods (and alcohol), so if you avoid products with big ad budgets, you'll automatically be avoiding edible foodlike substances. As for the 5 percent of food ads that promote whole foods (the prune or walnut growers or the beef ranchers), common sense will, one hopes, keep you from tarring them with the same brush — these are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.

This should go without saying. Such cereals are highly processed and full of refined carbohydrates as well as chemical additives.

Do all your eating at a table.  [Ed note: Unless it's fruit and veggies!]

No, a desk is not a table. If we eat while we're working, or while watching TV or driving, we eat mindlessly — and as a result eat a lot more than we would if we were eating at a table, paying attention to what we're doing. This phenomenon can be tested (and put to good use): Place a child in front of a television set and place a bowl of fresh vegetables in front of him or her. The child will eat everything in the bowl, often even vegetables that he or she doesn't ordinarily touch, without noticing what's going on. Which suggests an exception to the rule: When eating somewhere other than at a table, stick to fruits and vegetables.

Treat treats as treats.

There is nothing wrong with special occasion foods, as long as every day is not a special occasion. This is another case where the outsourcing of our food preparation to corporations has gotten us into trouble. It's made formerly expensive or time-consuming foods — everything from fried chicken and French fries to pastries and ice cream — easy and readily accessible. Frying chicken is so much trouble that people didn't use to make it unless they had guests coming over and a lot of time to prepare. The amount of work involved kept the frequency of indulgence in check. These special occasions foods offer some of the great pleasures of life, so we shouldn't deprive ourselves of them, but the sense of occasion needs to be restored. One way is to start making these foods for yourself; if you bake dessert yourself, you won't go to that much trouble every day. Another is to limit your consumption of such foods to weekends or social occasions. Some people follow a so-called S policy: "no snacks, no seconds, no sweets — except on days that begin with the letter S."

Find more:

Babble chats with Michael Pollan about the root of our national eating disorder. Got a picky eater? How to get your kids to eat more than French fries. 10 expert tips for saving money on healthy meals. Try one of our many delicious family recipes on Nibblers!

This season's sitcom darling Modern Family offers up a wickedly funny and keenly observed portrait of contemporary domestic life. Following the intertwined branches of the Pritchett family tree, the show takes us into three households filled with enough diverse couplings and kids of all ages and stages that it's hard not to identify with (and love) one, if not many, members of the wacky clan. Whether it's Jay, Gloria, and their step-son, Manny, dealing with culture clashes, generation gaps or step-parenting, or Phil and Claire and their gaggle of bickering tweens and teens, or gay dads Mitchell and Cameron adjusting to new parenthood with adopted baby, Lily, there's definitely a "modern family" in the group to call your own.

But upon closer inspection (and several rewinds on the TiVo), it's easy to see that Modern Family does double duty. Not only does the show hold up a mirror to our familial foibles, fibs and tender moments, it offers up gems of parenting wisdom in almost every episode. From sleep-training to Internet safety issues, from dealing with in-laws to lying kids and lusting spouses, each week contains insightful tips and tricks (and more often, cautionary tales) to tackle the dilemmas that threaten to upset domestic bliss. — Romi Lassally

       

How can we make our kids understand a little thing called "consequences"?

Phil is the most "discipline challenged" of the Modern Family group and, despite knowing better, has a very hard time doling out punishment when his kids cross the line (which of course they do ALL THE TIME). But things change in the episode "Undeck the Halls" when a mysterious burn shows up on the living room couch, and Luke, Haley and Alex plead the fifth. Heightened by the pressures of the holiday season, Phil is finally pushed to the brink and comes out swinging: He takes away Christmas! Ultimately, it's revealed that the couch burn was not the result of an illicit cigarette but a rogue Christmas light, and peace and holiday cheer are restored. Phil pats himself on the back for helping his kids understand consequences, but we came away realizing something more important: The punishment should fit the crime. Taking away Christmas was extreme — and punished Phil and Claire even more than the kids. But we still give kudos to Phil for trying.

       

How do I teach my kids responsibility?

Absent-minded Luke is a 10-year-old "every-boy" who can't seem to keep track of (or take care of) his things. As a result, in "The Bicycle Thief," Luke gets punished by having to ride a girlie hand-me-down bike instead of getting one of his own. Claire had laid down the law, but Phil's "I'm your buddy, not just your dad" mentality gets the best of him, and he overrides her and buys Luke his dream ride. Within hours, Phil discovers Luke's new bike on the street and fearing an "I told you so!" from Claire, decides to "steal" it to teach his son the lesson he now realizes is necessary. The plan backfires: The bike Phil steals isn't Luke's (though later it actually does get stolen!), and it becomes crystal clear that the one who needs to learn responsibility is Phil. The takeaways here: 1) Let kids learn from their own mistakes and on their own time. It's a guarantee they'll make them — and in most cases, they will learn. 2) When attempting to instill values and virtues, defer to the more rational grown up in the house. In this case, it's obviously Claire.

       

How do I get this baby to sleep through the night?

Almost every parenting struggle is taken to new, hilarious heights when neurotic and loving dads Cameron and Mitchell are involved. In "Up All Night," they confront one of the most confounding and polarizing issues in or around a crib: sleep — and how to get baby to do more of it. Clearly the more structured of the two, Mitchell wants to sleep train with the Ferber method, but Cam, who wears his XXL heart on his XXXL sleeve, can't bear the sound of Lily's cries. Any couple can tell you that the cry-it-out method is hard no matter how you slice it, but the only way to survive it is to GET IT OVER WITH, and conventional wisdom says that, whatever method you choose, both parents should agree. Watching Cam and Mitchell, we say that as long as one parent has the courage of his/her convictions, they should put a stop to the partner who is sabotaging the plan (hello Cam, stop hiding in Lily's room!) and just DO IT.

       

My husband and stepson don't get along ? and my son idolizes his unreliable father!

Jay and Manny struggle with the classic step-father/step-son tension, helped along by Gloria who does her best to foster the relationship between father figure #2 (Jay) while trying to get Manny to understand the realities of father figure #1. In "The Bicycle Thief," Gloria puts Jay and Manny together for a home-repair project while Manny waits for his real dad to show up and take him to Disneyland. Jay gloriously botches the ceiling fan installation and, ultimately, the forced bonding episode fails as well. But when Manny's dad is a no-show (no surprise to Gloria, still a surprise to Manny), Jay saves the day, and he and Gloria take a detour from their romantic getaway to take Manny to visit Mickey Mouse. The lesson here: there isn't one definition of "good dad," and it's not always what you do, it's how you do it. And as Jay says himself, "90% of the time, being a good dad means just showing up." And show up he does.

       

We're afraid other parents will judge us and not want their kids to play with ours.

Most parents will admit to an occasional worry about being judged by others. Mitchell's anxieties, however, are more than occasional, afflicting him from the plane trip home from Vietnam with Lily to the hilarious scene when he and Cam venture out to their first "baby-and-me" gym class. It's hysterical watching the two men attempt to "play straight" or seeing Mitchell worry that Lily is developmentally behind the other kids. When another gay couple conveniently bursts into the gym, Cam and Mitchell let down their guard — a little. But by the time Cam regales the group with his butt-slapping "horsey move," we know that the men will eventually grow comfortable with their less-than-traditional family. The delightful lesson here: Be yourself and don't worry what others — especially other parents — think of you. Parents judge, and, yes, you will too. And don't compare your kid to others either; there's always someone stacking blocks higher, walking earlier and speaking in full sentences.

       

How do I give my kids enough freedom but still keep them safe?

Put kids and Internet browsers under one roof and you're likely to be confronted with the 21st-century dilemma of privacy vs. safety. This problem gets a Modern Family twist in the episode "Not in My House": first Claire finds risque photos on her computer (she suspects her 10-year-old son Luke, but we know it's actually the father, Phil's), then Haley believes her diary has been read and her privacy violated. Phil's solution to the problem is to "reprimand" Luke (while really getting advice on how to erase his computer history) and as usual, he hides the truth from his wife. Comedy ensues, but in between the laughs, the message is loud and clear: Put filters on all your computers to prevent problems before they start. And while you're at it, tell your teens that if they put their diary on YOUR computer, you reserve the right to read it.

       

We are worried our kids won't find their passion.

In the episode "En garde," all three families wrestle with old emotional baggage and new fears when gathered together to watch Manny reveal a hidden talent for fencing. When Jay acknowledges that it feels pretty good to "be the father of a champion," Mitchell and Claire look back on their own childhoods (in which they were clearly not champions) while Phil and Claire take an honest look at the their own kids (again, no champions yet.) The impact of sports, competition and excellence on both kids and parents is really put under the microscope: Phil expresses his fear (and a very common, yet often unspoken parenting fear it is) that none of his kids is "the best at anything" while Claire tries to convince herself that her kids will "find their path" — though it's clear she doesn't believe it. In true Phil fashion, he thinks he can expedite things, and we watch him apply Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours to excellence theory, heading out to the driveway with Luke and a baseball. What finally comes out in the wash are valuable lessons for every family: 1) It is quite gratifying to be the parent of a kid who is really good at something. As Jay says, "We tell our kids it doesn't matter if you win or lose .. .but winning sure feels good." 2) Kids will find their own path, but it might not be your vision of greatness. Still, you should remain their biggest cheerleader and fan no matter what.

Find more:

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This article was written by Romi Lassally for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.