Counting Our Blessings.

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IWMP
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Re: Counting Our Blessings.

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drumdude wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2025 2:41 pm
IWMP wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2025 10:42 am
Last 4 weeks are the hardest for mum, drumdude. in my opinion.

It's the time where you just want it over with. Everything is hard. And it DRAGS. It's like 3 months. Hope it goes smoothly and super exciting :D
That definitely tracks. She’s in a lot of pain and very emotionally sensitive, trying my best to support. I’m so ready to move on to the next stage too.
Awww. Bless her.
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Re: Counting Our Blessings.

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I don't know how many times you may have been through this before, drumdude, but for our first child we did a series of birthing classes. There was information about what to expect, and we practiced these breathing exercises. Those exercises didn't end up helping much in our particular case, but just having them as an idea of what we would do when labor came helped to calm us, I think. And the classes were something to do besides just fretting.

The classes explained lots of advantages of breastfeeding. It practically seemed to make babies bulletproof. The classes kept saying, "If you decide to breastfeed ...", though. I couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't. What they didn't tell us was that it's not always easy to get breastfeeding to work, even if you really want to do it. It's not so uncommon for people try, and have to resort to bottle feeding to give the kid enough food. I wish we had known that ahead of time because my wife did have trouble and she felt bad about it. Our kids have turned out fine anyway.

Otherwise the main thing that surprised me about babies was how everybody in the world seemed to know exactly what you always had to do to look after them, and be eager to tell us the important rules, but everyone's rules were all different. Even doctors and nurses were like that. We decided to listen gratefully to all the advice but then decide for ourselves which things made most sense. That seemed to work out.
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Re: Counting Our Blessings.

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Physics Guy wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2025 9:05 pm
I don't know how many times you may have been through this before, drumdude, but for our first child we did a series of birthing classes. There was information about what to expect, and we practiced these breathing exercises. Those exercises didn't end up helping much in our particular case, but just having them as an idea of what we would do when labor came helped to calm us, I think. And the classes were something to do besides just fretting.

The classes explained lots of advantages of breastfeeding. It practically seemed to make babies bulletproof. The classes kept saying, "If you decide to breastfeed ...", though. I couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't. What they didn't tell us was that it's not always easy to get breastfeeding to work, even if you really want to do it. It's not so uncommon for people try, and have to resort to bottle feeding to give the kid enough food. I wish we had known that ahead of time because my wife did have trouble and she felt bad about it. Our kids have turned out fine anyway.

Otherwise the main thing that surprised me about babies was how everybody in the world seemed to know exactly what you always had to do to look after them, and be eager to tell us the important rules, but everyone's rules were all different. Even doctors and nurses were like that. We decided to listen gratefully to all the advice but then decide for ourselves which things made most sense. That seemed to work out.
Sounds like great advice. I think it's sad that we don't have the communities that some do or did in the past where lots of people do it together. There are some great groups online though.

Breastfeeding is hard. Tongue ties can make it hard and a lot of people don't realise their children have a tongue tie. I just kept going to a breast feeding group with my son and they weren't shy in physically helping but I'm glad I did go because eventually I got the hang of it and so did he. There are different ways to do it that can help.
I think a lot of new mums get down heartened if it doesn't go smoothly and then have the guilt but at the end of the day, they grow up and formula fed babies are healthy too.
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Re: Counting Our Blessings.

Post by Moksha »

drumdude wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2025 2:41 pm
I’m so ready to move on to the next stage too.
Best wishes to the two of you and the future little drumdude.
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Re: Counting Our Blessings.

Post by drumdude »

Thanks everyone! This is my first time around but my wife’s second, so it’s definitely a little easier I think. She’s kicking a lot, I think she’s just as ready to be out as we are ready to meet her. :lol: Her sister is only 2.5 years older so it will be fun watching them grow up together.
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Re: Counting Our Blessings.

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drumdude wrote:
Fri Jan 17, 2025 5:04 pm
Thanks everyone! This is my first time around but my wife’s second, so it’s definitely a little easier I think. She’s kicking a lot, I think she’s just as ready to be out as we are ready to meet her. :lol: Her sister is only 2.5 years older so it will be fun watching them grow up together.
Lovely. <3
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Re: Counting Our Blessings.

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So, maybe a little braggy but more just sharing how proud I feel. My daughter, has always been behind with reading and in her school reports, most areas she didn't meet expected levels. ( She is good at art and maths for her age). I was wondering if she is dyslexic because she still gets letter and number directions mixed up and she also sometimes reads the phonics of a word in the wrong order. Anyway, she had a phonics assessment last week and has been moved up two reading levels. This is very exciting. We worked very hard last year to learn how to spell red words for Y1 and it was exhausting but Super proud.
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Re: Counting Our Blessings.

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IWMP wrote:
Fri Jan 17, 2025 7:53 pm
So, maybe a little braggy but more just sharing how proud I feel. My daughter, has always been behind with reading and in her school reports, most areas she didn't meet expected levels. ( She is good at art and maths for her age). I was wondering if she is dyslexic because she still gets letter and number directions mixed up and she also sometimes reads the phonics of a word in the wrong order. Anyway, she had a phonics assessment last week and has been moved up two reading levels. This is very exciting. We worked very hard last year to learn how to spell red words for Y1 and it was exhausting but Super proud.
That's just AWESOME! She's doing great over there! My personal opinion for what it's worth is that in contemporary society children enter school and begin instruction far too early. If I could change the world children in this country wouldn't enter school until age 8. That is when they are developmentally ready for formal instruction. In reading for example, there's not a preschooler who can't already read symbols. I'll demonstrate in moment. Letter symbols are more complex because they represent a sound, a string of letters represent a word and so on and so forth.

A four year old can read but not in the way we think of as reading. They can read environmental print. In my classrooms, for example, to begin name recognition I labeled their cubbie spaces with a symbol. It might be a blue dinosaur. Half way through the school year I would replace the label with a blue dinosaur with their name written on it. In second semester I took away the dinosaur and replaced it with just their name. We never emphasized reading the labels, children learn to recognize the enviromental print first, then what is on it...etc. In all three stages children could identify their names and the names of their classmates on cubbies. Child development is fascinating! (Of course I would say that.)

Back to the value of environmental print as a first step. There's not a 4 year old child in the US (or possibly a 3 year old) who doesn't know what this sign "says".

Image

I made whole books of symbols such as that. So fun to read with children to support their reading development and self esteem! One success leads to the next.

Little P has much to be proud of and so do you for working with her one:one! Believe it or not there are many parents who don't take time to do what you did even those SAHMs who really do have time to devote to it. Even when they do they might not be consistent so good on you for your devotion to strengthening her skills!
I was wondering if she is dyslexic because she still gets letter and number directions mixed up
Probably not dyslexic. It's a feature of typical development for a child to reverse and/or invert symbols even those who correctly formed symbols, sometimes lose the ability temporarily as their brain is working at something else. I've seen children write their own name with one or more letter reversals and also backwards and upside down! I had one child write her first and last name (long names, too!) with every letter reversed, name written backwards, and upside down. If you held a mirror to it you could see it with every letter perfectly formed. :D It's kind of amazing!

Happens all the time in across developmental domains. The baby begins standing and cruise the sofa, starts to walk on their own, then suddenly it's back to crawling when their language development picks up speed or baby suddenly stops talking while learning to locomote their body to the walking stage. Does that make sense? by the way, walking development begins in infancy starting with upper body strength by gaining control of the head, then head and neck, then shoulders raising the head and neck while on the tummy. It all begins there.

Given the outcome of her reading assessment, I'd say you can comfortably rule out dyslexia. Development isn't linear, it's kind of like your brain is juggling balls. You drop a ball while trying to keep the others up in the air when you are first practicing, then learn to juggle them all at the same time without dropping them. Our brains are doing that constantly while multitasking development in every domain in early childhood. By the time a child is on or around age 8, you're pretty much cooked but continue to tweak through early adulthood.*

Human development is fascinating to witness!

Okay I'll stop talking shop here! I got excited over your good news!

*Yes, I said cooked. :lol:
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Re: Counting Our Blessings.

Post by IWMP »

Jersey Girl wrote:
Fri Jan 17, 2025 8:56 pm
IWMP wrote:
Fri Jan 17, 2025 7:53 pm
So, maybe a little braggy but more just sharing how proud I feel. My daughter, has always been behind with reading and in her school reports, most areas she didn't meet expected levels. ( She is good at art and maths for her age). I was wondering if she is dyslexic because she still gets letter and number directions mixed up and she also sometimes reads the phonics of a word in the wrong order. Anyway, she had a phonics assessment last week and has been moved up two reading levels. This is very exciting. We worked very hard last year to learn how to spell red words for Y1 and it was exhausting but Super proud.
That's just AWESOME! She's doing great over there! My personal opinion for what it's worth is that in contemporary society children enter school and begin instruction far too early. If I could change the world children in this country wouldn't enter school until age 8. That is when they are developmentally ready for formal instruction. In reading for example, there's not a preschooler who can't already read symbols. I'll demonstrate in moment. Letter symbols are more complex because they represent a sound, a string of letters represent a word and so on and so forth.

A four year old can read but not in the way we think of as reading. They can read environmental print. In my classrooms, for example, to begin name recognition I labeled their cubbie spaces with a symbol. It might be a blue dinosaur. Half way through the school year I would replace the label with a blue dinosaur with their name written on it. In second semester I took away the dinosaur and replaced it with just their name. We never emphasized reading the labels, children learn to recognize the enviromental print first, then what is on it...etc. In all three stages children could identify their names and the names of their classmates on cubbies. Child development is fascinating! (Of course I would say that.)

Back to the value of environmental print as a first step. There's not a 4 year old child in the US (or possibly a 3 year old) who doesn't know what this sign "says".

Image

I made whole books of symbols such as that. So fun to read with children to support their reading development and self esteem! One success leads to the next.

Little P has much to be proud of and so do you for working with her one:one! Believe it or not there are many parents who don't take time to do what you did even those SAHMs who really do have time to devote to it. Even when they do they might not be consistent so good on you for your devotion to strengthening her skills!
I was wondering if she is dyslexic because she still gets letter and number directions mixed up
Probably not dyslexic. It's a feature of typical development for a child to reverse and/or invert symbols even those who correctly formed symbols, sometimes lose the ability temporarily as their brain is working at something else. I've seen children write their own name with one or more letter reversals and also backwards and upside down! I had one child write her first and last name (long names, too!) with every letter reversed, name written backwards, and upside down. If you held a mirror to it you could see it with every letter perfectly formed. :D It's kind of amazing!

Happens all the time in across developmental domains. The baby begins standing and cruise the sofa, starts to walk on their own, then suddenly it's back to crawling when their language development picks up speed or baby suddenly stops talking while learning to locomote their body to the walking stage. Does that make sense? by the way, walking development begins in infancy starting with upper body strength by gaining control of the head, then head and neck, then shoulders raising the head and neck while on the tummy. It all begins there.

Given the outcome of her reading assessment, I'd say you can comfortably rule out dyslexia. Development isn't linear, it's kind of like your brain is juggling balls. You drop a ball while trying to keep the others up in the air when you are first practicing, then learn to juggle them all at the same time without dropping them. Our brains are doing that constantly while multitasking development in every domain in early childhood. By the time a child is on or around age 8, you're pretty much cooked but continue to tweak through early adulthood.*

Human development is fascinating to witness!

Okay I'll stop talking shop here! I got excited over your good news!

*Yes, I said cooked. :lol:
<3

That all makes sense. I don't know what that symbol means but I know what you are saying. My daughter didn't know the alphabet til she was 5 so she really has come on well. My son was already able to read and kind of write before school age. He just did it, I actually don't even know how looking back.

With P, what we did last year was we stuck all the red words she needed on the wall. We worked out which ones she had already learned to spell and for each one we stuck a picture of a 20p in a picture of a jar and changed the word for the same but coloured green. Then she picked about 4 words each week to write and spell and we changed them for orange shapes (20p shape with the word inside) and all week I would say how do you spell.... Just randomly when out and about and then each week test the words again and see if she has learned any others and check the ones she already knew (sometimes she would forget) and add the 20ps and change the colours. There were about 40 words and we filled the jar with these printed 20ps. In the end, I think there were about 4 she couldn't spell. She has set her own goal of learning how to write cursive this year. She has forgotten more but there are a lot more words this year.

Thank you for the reassurance, she started on orange books this September (read write inc) and then just before Christmas started yellow, she had done one yellow book and today has brought home a grey book (skipped the rest of yellow and all of blue). I'm a little nervous because when we read the yellow book she was panicking so, I'm really unsure how it's going to go but school seems sure that she can so I'm just giving her lots of praise and trying to boost her confidence so she doesn't give up before she starts. I think she will like books when she is fluent because she loves audiobooks and has a vivid imagination. We make up stories and we take turns to add a new line to the story with O too. Got her an animal encyclopedia this week because she likes animals a lot. She's particularly in to fish and likes to watch videos about them.
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Re: Counting Our Blessings.

Post by Marcus »

Jersey Girl wrote:
Fri Jan 17, 2025 8:56 pm
...There's not a 4 year old child in the US (or possibly a 3 year old) who doesn't know what this sign "says".

Image
I'm more than happy to admit I don't have the abilities of a four or even a three year old in the US because I have no idea what this sign would universally mean to children. Can you give a hint?
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