Not Quite Ready For Baby #2

When is the right time to have baby #2? That is what I find myself wondering lately. It seems everyone and their dog has an opinion about it.

"Oh... you are going to have 2 before 2? That's going to be hard."

"Three years apart is the perfect age gap."

"When is the next baby coming? You don't want them to be too far apart!"

You wouldn't believe how many complete strangers have asked me if I want another child. I feel very awkward answering them.

Essential Accessories for Camping with Children

Taking your littles camping this summer? Check out the article I wrote for FamilyFunCanada.com about the essential accessories for camping with young children! 

....Oh, and an excellent tip about camping with wine is included! 

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The "Every Single Month" Sleep Regression!

I have to get something off my chest. I am so sick of people talking about sleep regressions like they actually exist. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe children have worse periods of sleep, but is it just me or does it seem like every moth of a baby's life there is a 'sleep regression'?

The 10 month, 11 month, 12 month sleep regression....OK come on. Can we just call it like it is? Sometimes kids are jerks and they refuse to sleep! We don't need to label absolutely everything. I get that calling it a 'sleep regression' is a comforting feeling because it means it's normal; Other people have gone through it too, oh what a relief! But when literally every single month of a child's life has a period of sleep regression, I think we need to come to grips with reality.

I even did a little research before doing this blog and one of the most reputable sites was confused about where the legitimate sleep regressions happened. Just check out this screen grab from their site:

8..no wait, 9....um scratch that...10 month sleep regression!

Are you kidding me!? Even the sites claiming to help with these so called sleep regressions can't determine when they happen? Ugh!

OK... real talk for a minute: I get that every child develops as a different rate, and realistically the reason they have periods of troubled sleep is because their little brains are developing so rapidly. And this difference in development is why you can google any month of a child's life with the words 'sleep regression' after it and hundreds of articles will come up. But this is exactly my point. Can we drop the 'my kid is in the 6 month sleep regression' talk and instead just say 'my kid is sleeping like shit this month!'.

In reality it's not a big deal. I guess if it makes you feel better to use a term like 'sleep regression' then all the power to ya. It's just a pet peeve of mine that makes me cringe every time I see it! So what do you hear parents talk about or see posted on mom groups that you can't handle? Tell me in the comments below!

Miserable Milestones Every Parent Dreads

Milestones are a way to gauge if your child is 'normal', and often you will hear parents bragging that their kids reached this one or that one like they are a genius or something. But what they don't tell you is a lot of these markers of development are not so fantastic. In fact some of them are downright awful.

You see, a growing developing child is experiencing so many new sensations and realizing so many new things, that their little brains and bodies can't process it all. And that means a lot of these amazing milestones are actually torturous for both your child and you. Here are just a few of the miserable milestones every parent can expect to experience...

- The first time your child throws a full on, rolling on the floor temper tantrum in a public place.

The Up-Side Of Difficult Situations

This weekend my son full on adult threw up for the first time. This might not seem like anything super traumatic, but I only realized it happened after I smelled vomit when I went in to check on him before heading to bed. There he was, sleeping face down in, and covered head to toe in vomit. I was sick to my stomach, not because of the smell, but because of how absolutely horrible and guilty I felt.

How could I not have heard this happen? How could I let him sleep like this? I was clearly a bad parent.

I gathered my emotions and woke him up, undressing him and trying to comfort him as I dealt with cleaning up the mess.