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Visit 1 - Summary Points
Creating a loving home environment where a baby will feel safe and secure starts with Mom and Dad’s commitment to each other.
Understanding is an attribute of learning that all couples must seek to gain as they start their journey of parenting.
The best way to evaluate any parenting theory is to look at the short and long-term outcomes. Seek to follow the good examples of other parents.
Your baby’s life will be shaped by three great influences:
a. Genetic disposition.
b. God given temperament.
c. The home environment was created by Mom and Dad.
As individuals, a mother and father cannot communicate the total message of love apart from the oneness that is formed in the bonds of their marriage. That is how God designed it!
The Genesis account teaches us that:
a. Marriage is the first social relationship established in Scripture.
b. Marriage forms a complete family. Children expand the family but do not make you a family.
c. The more parents demonstrate love for each other, the more they saturate their child’s senses with the confidence of a loving, safe, and secure world.
The five principles to keep your marriage strong so you can maximize your parenting influence include:
a. Life doesn’t stop when you have a baby. It may slow down for a few weeks, but it should not stop entirely.
b. Take time to commune with God through prayer and study.
c. Date your spouse.
d. Continue those loving gestures that marked your marital friendship as special.
e. Learn to practice ‘Couch Time.’
A single parent faces double duty with the care and responsibility of rearing a baby, while often wearing several hats as homemaker, provider and parent. But a single parent loves her baby with the same passion as a couple and desires as strongly as any couple to give her baby the best chance in life.
Visit 2 - Summary Points
Every action taken as a result of your parenting beliefs sets in motion a ripple effect impacting outcomes with your children.
Every feeding philosophy sets in motion a neurological chain reaction, impacting everything else down the line.
The feeding philosophy you choose creates the first RIPPLE impacting waketime and sleep patterns which in turn impact a child’s cognitive abilities.
The infant led feeding philosophy wrongly assumes “baby knows best”. This could lead to lack of proper nutrition due to a sluggish baby not showing signs of hunger or a baby feeding too often and not receiving full feedings.
Clock Feeding does not consider any factors other than the constant of the clock. In this case, legitimate signs of hunger may be ignored.
With the Parent-Directed approach you feed your baby when he is hungry, but the clock provides the protective limits, so you are not feeding too often, such as every hour, or too little such as every four to five hours.
PDF encourages full feedings rather than snack or cluster feedings.
With PDF a parent will feed their baby upon the hunger cues but will always allow the clock to provide protective limits.
Most healthy infants have the ability and the capacity to achieve nighttime sleep between seven and nine weeks of age. It is an acquired skill that is enhanced by a feeding routine.
Routine feedings encourage the stabilization of your baby’s hunger metabolism just as erratic feeds discourage stabilization.
The three common sleep props included:
a. sleep vibration equipment
b. rocking or nursing a baby to sleep
c. using a car ride to put the baby to sleep
The death rates associated with co-sleeping with an infant are so high that many members of the American Academy of Pediatrics are calling for a complete ban on co-sleeping.
Visit 3 - Summary Points
In terms of nutrition, babies will thrive on breast milk or formula. However, when it comes to comparing the broader benefits between the two, breast milk is the perfect food.
During the first week to ten days, whether breast or bottle-feeding, the primary goal is to work with your baby to take a full feeding at each feeding rather than being concerned about actively establishing your baby’s routine.
On average, PDF moms will initially feed their babies about every two to three hours.
Babies typically lose between five to seven percent of their birth weight. This is not a loss in actual body mass as much as it is a loss of excess fluids.
Parents need to be aware that their baby’s initial alertness after birth gives way to sleepiness and the potential subsequent challenge of keeping their baby awake to take a full feeding.
Snack or “clusters of snack feeding,” throughout the day do not equal a FULL FEEDING, and works against a baby’s ability to organize and synchronize his hunger rhythms.
Remember, having a baby delivered via cesarean birth involves major abdominal surgery, requiring an incision through both the abdominal wall and the uterus.
The hormone changes Mom experiences after her baby’s birth are normal, to be expected, and temporary.
Parents can learn to monitor a baby’s growth by becoming familiar with the Healthy Baby Growth Chart provided in this manual.
Parents should not be concerned about or focused on ‘sleep training’ during the first four weeks of their baby’s life.
Visit 4 - Summary Points
Between birth and two weeks, a baby’s feeding time is his waketime.
By week six, a baby’s waketime is a distinct activity from feeding time.
The time between feedings is measured from the beginning of one feeding to the beginning of the next.
If you need to awaken your baby during the day to prevent him from sleeping longer than the 3-hour cycle, do so! Such parental intervention is necessary to help organize his sleep patterns.
A baby can sleep longer than 3 hours at night but breast-fed babies should not sleep longer than four to five hours during the first three weeks.
When attempting to establish a baby’s routine, decide the first feeding time of the day and try to stay as close to it as possible.
Having flexibility in a baby’s routine can only happen after the routine is consistently in place.
Growth spurts usually take place around ten days after birth, followed by 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months.
Babies have abnormal and normal cry periods.
When considering the type of response needed when your baby cries, parents should:
a. listen for the type of cry
b. think about where your baby is in his routine
c. pray for wisdom to accurately respond
d. take action based on actual need and context of the moment
Visit 5 - Summary Points
New parents typically find the first several days at home with a new baby the most challenging because everything they are experiencing is new and unfolding, changing sometimes moment-by-moment.
To help reduce some of the general stress associated with the first few days with a new baby in the home, it is beneficial for parents to establish a plan of mutual expectations before the baby arrives.
Be realistic: having a ‘perfect textbook’ experience void of any surprises is unrealistic. Realize there will be unexpected challenges to work through, and they may include:
a. difficult delivery or c-section birth
b. a premature birth
c. a baby with jaundice
d. a baby who has reflux
Mild to severe forms of jaundice is found in three to five percent of all babies.
Neither choosing to breast-feed nor to use formula is a measure of a woman’s devotion, care, or love for her child.
Burping a baby during and after each feeding helps release the air swallowed during feeding that can cause discomfort.
A more alarming form of spitting up is called ‘projectile vomiting’. Projectile vomiting is very forceful, producing a much greater volume, and can literally travel four to six feet across the room.
Swaddling helps to calm and comfort a fussy baby, facilitate sleep, and minimize the startle reflex.
Pacifiers can be used between feedings, such as when the baby may be fussy but not actually hungry. It can also be used to calm a baby during a fussy time or stretch the time just before a feeding.