By joining the Lovevery Research Community, you can help guide our creation process in ways that best fit your interest and availability. Whether you live in the Boise area or not, you can influence future products through surveys, interviews, product testing, and more.

The Lovevery Lab: learning through play

Are you local to the Boise area? Sign up to participate in on-site product testing for a chance to visit The Lovevery Lab. Opened in September of 2021, the lab has expanded the ways we can connect with and learn directly from Lovevery customers. Since then, our product research team has welcomed more than 600 families who have helped test new playthings and inspired improvements to existing ones.

How to join the Lovevery Research Community

Wherever you are, you can influence design, inform research, and explore new playthings by joining the Lovevery Research Community. Choose the research opportunities that work for your family—you’re welcome to participate in as many or as few as you like. 

Sign-up takes less than 5 minutes—just answer a few questions about yourself, your child, and the type of research you’d like to participate in. Our researchers will share opportunities to participate as soon as they’re available—we’re looking forward to meeting you and your child soon

Ways you can be part of Lovevery’s work and mission

• Home visit by Lovevery researchers

Research community members local to Boise, Idaho, may sign up for an in-home visit lasting about one hour. Members of the Lovevery research and product innovation team will observe your child’s natural play and gather feedback from you.

• Product testing in your home

Would you love to test new playthings but are outside the Boise area? Sign up for in-home product testing. To date, we have teamed up with Lovevery families in the United States, Washington, D.C., and Europe.

• Interviews and Focus Groups

Help us better understand both you and your child’s needs by participating in either one-on-one interviews or focus groups. These are global opportunities which can be conducted virtually and range from 15 to 60 minutes.

• Online surveys

One of the most flexible ways to participate in the Lovevery Research Community, online surveys are available to Lovevery families worldwide. Most consist of four to five questions and take only a few minutes to complete.

The post Join the Lovevery Research Community and explore new playthings appeared first on Lovevery.

Pacifiers are so convenient… until they’re not. At some point, there can be concerns about developing teeth and interference with speech, and weaning a child off a pacifier can be challenging.

The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and speech and language therapists recommend starting that weaning process between 6 to 12 months, and weaning entirely before a child’s third birthday. 

To guide us through that transition, My New Life host Jessica Rolph welcomes Dr. Amy Conrad to today’s episode. Dr. Amy is a mother to a 10-month-old, a Lovevery customer, and the host of the Ask Doctor Amy podcast.

Highlights:

[1:19] Dr. Amy talks about the pros and cons of pacifier use.

[3:42] What red flags should parents be looking for with regard to pacifier use?

[5:52] Dr. Amy shares her thoughts about the paci fairy approach.

[7:25] If a child is using a pacifier all through the day and at night, is it advisable to wean them from the pacifier during awake times, and then eventually extend that to nap-time and finally bedtime? 

[8:38] Can we revert to pacifiers when a child gets sick or during a trip?

[9:30] What about gradually shortening the tips of the pacifier? 

[10:40] How much of a concern is tooth decay, and how and when should we wean our child from the bottle?

[11:08] What are some signs that your baby is ready for a drinking cup? 

[12:31] How and when to use sippy cups, open cups, and bottles? 

[13:52] Jessica shares her takeaways from the conversation with Dr. Amy.

Transcript:

Pacifier pros and cons

Dr. Amy: Thank you, Jessica. I’m so excited to be here.

Jessica: Oh, it’s so great to have you. So I’d love to hear from your expert perspective, what is your position on pacifier use? Can we talk about the pros and cons? 

Pacifiers and breastfeeding babies 

Dr. Amy: For a new born, the first time a parent hears about the pacifier, often it gets brought up in the context of breastfeeding, and there’s a lot of fear, I feel like, these days, because some people think that it can affect breastfeeding in a negative way. There can be a warning that pacifier use can somehow confuse the baby. Now, in my experience, for my own son and also for my patients, I don’t actually find this to be an issue, we don’t have to be afraid that it’s going to stop breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is a wonderful process and relationship that as long as you’re being diligent and doing the feeding every few hours, I’ve never seen a patient where, because they use the pacifier, they cannot breastfeed.

Now, pacifying for babies is a natural process, like you said, and in the times and the parts of the world where there are no pacifiers, thumb sucking is something that babies do naturally. The sucking motion is not only a reflex, but it’s actually a hormonal process that promotes calm in the baby. So it’s not actually just the habit, but they literally release hormones that are calming and makes them go to sleep, so it’s a wonderful way to activate that process. So personally, I think pacifiers, I think it’s a wonderful tool in the beginning, especially to help that baby get into the rhythm of calming and soothing, whether it’s the thumb or the pacifier.

Jessica: One thing I want to clarify for listeners is that we do need to have breastfeeding established for us to feel comfortable introducing a pacifier to a young baby, so generally, breastfeeding is established between two and six weeks, it means that your baby’s nursing regularly, they seem satisfied after feedings, they’re peeing frequently, pooping frequently enough, gaining weight. That all means that breastfeeding is going well, and so then we can feel comfortable with that pacifier.

And then if you’re bottle feeding, there is no issue with introducing the pacifier, is that right? 

Dr. Amy: I think the element of confusion or the fear of it would not be there.

Pacifier side effects: teeth damage and speech delay 

Jessica: So there are these pros when they’re little, but then there can be cons later, what red flags should parents be looking out for? 

Dr. Amy: Most kids with regular use, if you leave them alone, a lot of them would independently drop that pacifying gesture, whether it’s the thumb or the pacifier. Beyond that, the problems that might arise include teeth, so you should be taking them to the dentist starting at one or at least by two years old, and the dentist would be monitoring the teeth, the shape of the teeth, the trajectory. So hopefully by three you have established dental care and past that point, we worry that having something in the mouth could affect the teeth. The speech aspect, one thing is if the kids permanently have something in their mouth, whether it’s a pacifier or a thumb, it could be robbing them off of the opportunity to try sounds and try to speak, and we do expect one or two words right around age one, give or take a few months, so pay really close attention to the speech language milestones, are they hitting the words, are they gaining the words, and are they able to remove the pacifier or the thumb, and actually answer back and speak? So we think of three as the cutoff for when they should be weaned, but even way before then, I would say by age one, those language milestones really should be hit, and if they’re not, then out of the many things that we think of, to try to diagnose that prolonged pacifier use could be one of them.

Approaches to get rid of the pacifier

Jessica: I remember noticing my daughter’s palette changing, like her teeth was trying to stick out, and she had good speech and language, but she just loves to suck. She’s a very kind of oral child. And so I just remember really feeling motivated when I started seeing her teeth moving, I was like, “Okay, we really gotta get serious here.” So let’s talk about parents who are ready, like I was to wean their child from the pacifier. I had a lot of stops and starts. I know I could have done it better. Some of our community has employed this paci fairy approach, which I didn’t know about, but they pick a date in the calendar, or they left their pacifier in an envelope, and the next morning the child finds a toy or a big party or a cake or something instead of the pacifier, tell us, what do you make of this approach? 

Dr. Amy: I like approaches that keep things positive rather than, I’m taking this away. If you can get the child aligned with, this is a step forward in some way, and I like the idea of having a party or some celebration to mark the fact that they are moving on past the paci. So I think every kid is different, and each parent knows their child best, but at a time when you feel like they might understand that we’re taking a symbolic moving on, maybe they can understand they’re replacing it with a lovey or something else. Or a party to celebrate that stage being over. I think that’s a fantastic idea, and I also love the idea of picking a date and sticking to it instead of slowly weaning, I feel like sometimes the off and on strategies don’t work as well.

Jessica: If a child is using a pacifier all through the day and at night, do you recommend maybe weaning them from the pacifier during awake times and then thinking about eventually nap and finally bedtime? 

Dr. Amy: I don’t think either approach is wrong, to me, I think that it might be more confusing for the child, but it depends on that child. In my experience, I feel like it’s been more effective when the patients, like you said, pick a date and stick to it. And I think it’s important to remember that changes often involve some discomfort. It’s probably not possible to wean the pacifier, especially if they’re very dependent without any sort of protest, but the protests are temporary and this is the step we have to go through, so I would say both strategies I’ve seen it work, but again, it might be less confusing if the paci is moving on all together.

Timing is important 

Jessica: I think it’s also about just getting ready as a parent, you’re like, “Okay, am I really ready to not sleep for a few nights or even a week, or am I really… Like is this a good time? Are we going to have a trip coming up.” So yeah, that is the hard part. I also think there’s a question of when the child gets sick, if they, I don’t know, get hurt, you do go on a trip and your off schedule, it’s so tempting to bring the paci back for those tricky times. What do you think? What do you say about that? 

Dr. Amy: It’s a crutch as much for us, maybe even more for us than for them, certainly we’ll remember it more. I think that, just like I say about potty training, picking the timing is important. So maybe not around holidays, not when people are coming to visit, Taking a trip is probably not a good time to wean because that’s the one time they really need something connecting them to home and something pacifying. So I think timing is probably more important than anything else, and then just keeping in mind, like I said, change takes discomfort, it’s okay that they’re protesting for a few days. So I think mentally, we just have to be ready and if we are confident, I think the child picks up on that, if we approach it as a positive thing, “Hey, you don’t need this anymore. Here is something else.” If we make it feel alright, I think the child picks up on that.

Jessica: What about cutting the tips off the pacifier slowly or doing… I think Frida Baby has a product that kind of the pacifier sort of just disappears as you stage through the progression of weaning.

Dr. Amy: The gradually disappearing one, I think I’ve heard of one or two parents using that again, for some babies, it works great. We’re going into this area where there’s not a lot of evidence-based approach of what is the best way. I think it’s more about knowing your child and seeing how they’re taking that. So some kids by temperament might take longer to make a transition, if that’s your child that needs a little bit longer to potty train to learn to sleep, to learn new things. I think that might be a good approach. Other kids, it depends on how they deal with transition, I think like ripping off the band-aid a couple days or the gradual approach, need to read the child.

Bottle weaning and tooth decay

Jessica: My daughter used a bottle for a long time. She just loves to suck, so we got in the habit of giving her a bottle before a nap time in bed when she was a toddler, and then I just started worrying about tooth decay. How much of a concern is tooth decay and how and when should we wean our child from the bottle? 

Dr. Amy: Tooth decay is certainly a real worry, and it’s something that, again, the pediatric dentists are always talking to us. I would prefer it if as soon as they have teeth that they don’t go to bed with the bottle or at least after the bottle, you do some sort of cleaning of the teeth. I would say by age one and a half, hopefully that they’re not going with a bottle to bed, which would make their sugars and everything stay on the teeth overnight.

When to introduce a cup 

Jessica: What about introducing a cup, what are some signs that your baby is ready for a drinking cup? 

Dr. Amy: I like to say that cups should be introduced as soon as they’re starting solid foods, which for most babies is around six months old. So the signs of readiness are the same, the ability to sit up independently, interest in putting things in their mouth. And in the beginning, it takes a while because especially for breastfed babies, their tongues need some time to take the food into their mouth. It’s a great time to also introduce that open cup and just like the cup that love every offers in the kits, the stainless steel ones, something that they cannot break, and I would just give it to them empty for the first few times, let them play with it, let them put their mouth on it, get familiar. Then I would slowly put a little bit of water in it at a time and just letting them have small sips and that’s the motor control that it takes to drink from an open cup, like that actually helps with speech development which is right around six months, the baby is starting to babble all those things go together. So I would say six months, as long as you’re introducing the food, I would throw the cup in there.

Should I use a sippy cup? 

Jessica: That’s really great to hear. And we do put that in the seven-month-old kit for a reason, and we think that that’s the right time, and I think my children used open cups, they also use their bottle. They also use sippy cups. So where do you come down on the use of sippy cups, how that relates to an open cup and how it relates to bottles? 

Dr. Amy: So there’s no physiologic reason for a baby to use a sippy cup, but I think they’re a very helpful tool. Obviously, a parent invented them to try to prevent messes, which I think is a perfectly legitimate tool. So I would say using a sippy cup when you’re saying the car or somewhere where they shouldn’t spill, is a perfectly good way to go, but I wouldn’t use that as the default because some kids can actually get dependent on the sippy cup and it delays those skills they need to drink from an open cup, which again are good for their mouth and muscle development. So I think the sippy cups are not bad to have around, but I would only use them when you really need to prevent that spill.

Jessica: This has been so helpful. Anything else you’d like to share with our listeners? 

Dr. Amy: No, I would say in general, the kids have… I believe there’s an innate knowing that they have, and I would say keep it positive, keep it lighthearted, just keep the timeline that we talked about in mind before three years wean the pacifier around six, seven months introduce the cup, and the rest of it, I would let the kid take the lead and keep it fun.

Jessica: Great, thank you so much for being with us today.

Dr. Amy: Of course, thank you so much.

Takeaway #1:

A baby’s sucking motion releases hormones that help them sleep. Pacifiers are one way to activate that process. Your baby’s thumb achieves the same thing.

Takeaway #2:

Dr. Amy says that most children will independently drop the pacifier or thumb by the age of 3. Past that point, there is a concern that having something in the mouth can affect the trajectory of the teeth. Pacifiers may also interfere with an opportunity to try out sounds, so keep a close eye on language milestones if your child is using a pacifier. 

Takeaway #3:

Rather than gradually removing the pacifier, Dr. Amy recommends picking a date, embracing the discomfort that will follow, and acknowledging your child for moving past this stage. Stay positive – your child will pick up on your enthusiasm and confidence!

Takeaway #4:

Open cups can be introduced with solid foods – so around 6 months. Your baby should be sitting up and showing an interest in putting things in their mouth. Start your baby with a small, empty cup during mealtime. Slowly add a little bit of water at a time. Fun fact: The motor development required to drink from an open cup helps with speech development. 

Children can get dependent on the sippy cup, so reserve these for times when you’re concerned about spilling, like in the car.

You can find more tips on pacifiers and cups on our Lovevery blog.

The post Pacifiers: In or out? appeared first on Lovevery.

Is your child refusing to sit on the toilet? Or waiting until the pull-up is on to go poop? You’re not alone. For a lot of parents, the potty learning process is more drawn out than we anticipate. For some, it takes months or even years.

In previous episodes, you heard some common potty-training scenarios. We shared the advice of the author of Oh Crap Potty Training and Nicole Kavanaugh’s Montessori approach. In today’s episode, Host Jessica Rolph welcomes Quiara Smith, an occupational therapist specializing in pediatric pelvic floor health, to help with the trickier cases when it comes to learning potty etiquette.

Highlights:

[1:42] What scenarios are most common in Quiara’s practice? 

[2:28]  What are Quiara’s recommendations for a child who is withholding poop until nap time or night? 

[3:25] What if the child’s sensory system is overwhelmed?

[4:55] Is there anything that parents can do to create a more favorable environment in the bathroom for their child? 

[6:46] A specific potty challenge scenario from one of Lovevery’s listeners.

[8:42] How firmly should parents hold boundaries around the use of diapers to poop? 

[9:46] A listener asks a question about how we can help a toddler to differentiate between a diaper and pull-ups/training pants.

[12:26] How can parents help their children to transition from the potty to the toilet? Listen to a parent whose child has been rejecting the regular toilet for almost a year.

[15:24] What to do when your child uses the potty at school, but not at home? Or visa versa.

[17:33] What can parents do when their child is withholding to the point of constipation?

[20:09] What is the average time frame for learning to use the potty? Is there a point at which parents should seek outside help?

[21:40] What do parents do if their child is potty trained and then experiences a regression? 

[22:36] Quiara shares tips to continue potty training while traveling.

[24:09] Quiara’s final advice. 

[25:37] Jessica gives her takeaways from the conversation with Quiara Smith.

Mentioned in this episode:

Listen to Perspectives on Toileting with the Author of ‘Oh Crap! Potty Training’ and 

A Montessori Perspective on Toilet Learning

Transcript:

Common potty training issues

Jessica: Oh, your specialty is so needed for so many families. What scenarios are most common in your practice? 

Quiara: There are many challenges that come into my practice, but I’ll share with you some of the common ones. First and foremost, withholding poop until nap time or night is huge. Another one is asking to poop in a diaper, so the child preferring to use the diaper rather than going into a toilet or a potty. And fear of the regular toilet is another big one. And lastly, withholding to the point of constipation, which we know is not comfortable for any child or any family.

Jessica: Okay, so let’s break these down, ‘cause I want to know about all of it, don’t hold back with us, okay.

So, no pun intended, but withholding poop until nap time or night, we’ve experienced this in our home. Tell me, what are your suggestions? 

Stool withholding until nap or night time

Quiara: There are a variety of reasons why a child might be doing this, and one is often constipation, that they’ve had one painful poop and they’re not comfortable yet letting the poop out in a potty or toilet, if that’s something that is expected of them. So they wait until they’re alone in their crib or in their bed, and when they’re given a pull-up or diaper or sometimes even underwear or training pants, they’re safer, their body feels more secure and they think that it’s not going to hurt as much. Another potential possibility for withholding poop until this time is the child’s sensory system is just not feeling secure for whatever reason with letting poop out in a potty or a toilet.

Jessica: Okay, what should we do about that? If our sensory system isn’t ready, what do you recommend? 

Quiara: So I would recommend having just very clear expectations on supporting the child with having poop come out. So it depends too on where they are in the potty learning process. If a child is just a new learner, we might give them a little bit more time to understand our expectations of having the poop come out in the toilet rather than their diaper or pull up, and just talking them through the steps, “Oh, before we go to nap, I know that you really want to use your pull-up or your diaper to let the poop out, but tomorrow, we’re going to practice with this”, and just giving them those clear expectations. And then, also understanding when this is happening and trying to problem-solve, if their sensory system needs a little bit more simulation, meaning maybe they need more gross motor play before nap time, then intervening and having them practice a sit time on the toilet before they go to nap in preparation for maybe the child will stool if they more in their body and also more regulated.

Jessica: I think that one of the things that we were thinking about, we wrote books about this exact scenario at Lovevery. In researching, we heard from so many families that it might be even that coziness of the diaper or that safe-ness of being… As you said, being alone, or… Is there anything that we can do as parents to create a better environment on the potty for a child to feel more safe? 

Quiara: Yeah, and when we’re trying to have that kind of safe and secure environment, I always bring play into the interventions with the children that I serve and support, and having them play with their stuffy or having them play with their favorite toy on the toilet. “Maybe you’re a little playful yourself and talk about having the stuffy wear the diaper and putting them on the potty and the stuffy talking and saying, “I really prefer to let the poop out in my diaper right now before I take a nap, and oh, one day we’ll be able to not have to use the diaper and the pool will go in the toilet”. So modeling through social play is really important and can help the child’s nervous system feel more comfortable.” Going back to the sensory component, that diaper, just that feeling of the feedback on the skin can be, for some kids comforting, other kids, it’s uncomfortable, they don’t want that feeling. But some kids who do have sensory differences will prefer having that feeling knowing that they’re safe and that the poop and pee is not going to necessarily hurt them, and then we can have those social stories around it saying, “I noticed that your body feels more safe and comfortable with the diaper, but one day when your body doesn’t need it, we’re going to be able to put it in the potty or the toilet.”

And I always like to use that future kind of thinking to support the child to say, “Right now, you’re really having a hard time, and I can see that, and I’m here to support you, but one day you won’t need it and we’re going to practice and we’re going to play through it”.

Jessica: So we asked our community to share some of their specific potty challenges, and so one mother called in with the scenario. I’m going to play it right now.

Child wants diaper on all the time

Caller 1: Hello. My son starts crying the second we take off his diaper, he wants the diaper back on. He gets really upset. Can you please tell me what should be done in that situation? Thank you.

Jessica: Yeah. Quiara, what do you… What should we say to her? 

Quiara: This scenario is also very common, and going back to that comfort and that safety and security. For some children going through that potty learning process is a big transition, both cognitively, emotionally, socially, there are so many things that impact a child’s development. And these children who are crying like this mother says, when the diaper is taken off, their nervous system is telling us, “Wait, I don’t feel so safe right now, and this is how I’m able to communicate with you”.

These are ways that they’re trying to communicate that they’re not safe or secure. So how can we as parents or even healthcare providers support this child in their moment of need? And that is to validate. Validate the feeling. Narrate what you see. Ah, I see that when I take off your diaper, you’re crying, and it seems that that’s really upsetting to you, and I’m trying to help you learn how to take care of your body, but it seems like that’s not something that we’re ready for… You’re ready for right now, so I’m going to help you put the diaper back on. And then in a minute or two, maybe we can try to wear the training pant or no diaper.” So you’re giving a choice and you’re narrating through that process where the child is saying, “I just don’t feel quite yet safe or secure for this particular task”.

Jessica: And then, would you ever pause and come back to it a few months later, or what? How much should we be persisting holding boundaries around this stuff or giving it a rest? 

Quiara: Yeah. So for that mom’s particular situation, maybe in that moment, I would pause and I would validate just how I explained. And then do a preferred activity, maybe the child really loves playing trains, and so you spend five minutes playing trains on the ground with him, really getting his body moving. And then again, maybe in 20 minutes offering that particular sequence of tasks that you’re working on, being able to take off the diaper and then counting to five and then putting it back on. And praising and saying, “Oh, I noticed that you were able to keep the diaper off and now we can move on to having a snack”. So all these little bits of opportunity to practice actually build skill. It’s these bite-sized moments of opportunities throughout their day with a caregiver or a parent or an educator who they feel safe with and who they feel confident in as well.

How to differentiate between diapers and pull-ups

Jessica: That makes sense. And so how do we get our toddler to differentiate between the diaper and like pull-ups or training pants? I have another clip to play for you from a listener.

Caller 2: My son recently started potty training, and he does well when he doesn’t have a diaper on, he can pee and poop in the potty. But once we put training pants or underwear on, he reverts back to having a diaper. So my question is, how can I get him to still pee and poop in the potty with the training pants and underwear on and not treat it like a diaper? 

Quiara: So sometimes when we’re seeing this type of behavior, it’s because the child’s what we call tactile system, might be hypersensitive or hyper-responsive to certain touch. And so sometimes children, when they’re going through the potty learning process, and they’re learning sphincter control and they’re learning the steps needed or required to be able to independently take themselves to the bathroom, they don’t necessarily… They can’t differentiate their tactile system. The way that they respond to touch is very sensitive, so once they get something on a pull-up or training pant, they just have this reaction of letting go. So how to train that is to be able to track the child’s body pattern, so knowing when they are going on their natural bio-rhythms, when they’re voiding, are they voiding every hour? Are they voiding every two hours? And then you just make it short amounts of opportunities, like I said, the practice of skill, the mastery of skill happens in small opportunities and small moments, so that could look like maybe you put that training pant on for 30 seconds in play and you’re watching, you’re not walking away from your child, you’re fully present and you’re there and you’re really observing, maybe their cues, their cues of urge could be crossing legs, maybe they’re going into that squat position.

And really understanding when they are alerting a parent or caregiver on when they might need to go and then offering to go and sit and take care of their body. And I use that kind of language of caring for their body and not potty breaks or toilet-ing breaks, maybe I will say a bio break for children who are a little bit older, but really getting them into the understanding of, “I am building body autonomy and I am caring for my body, so I can partner with my body to do all the fun things I really love to do, like play”.

Jessica: It’s really helpful to hear. So you talked about fear of the regular toilet being something else that was very common in your practice. Here, is a parent whose child has been rejecting the regular toilet for almost a year, let’s play this.

Transitioning from potty to adult toilet

Caller 3: How do we transition from the potty to the toilet? I’ve being doing this since the end of November. My son loves his potty, we have the stool, we have a small potty seat or toilet seat within the bigger toilet seat he can use. He’s done it before, he’s done it other places. But he still prefers his potty at home. Thank you.

Quiara: This transition from the floor potty to a larger potty is sometimes an uphill battle for families. Like this mother, who is sharing with us that her child can go to a public restroom or a toilet or use a toilet outside of their home, so she’s kind of confused as to why this is such an issue within her home. Often times the environment plays a huge role in how a child’s nervous system is feeling comfortable, safe or secure to be able to do something, like bowel and bladder control or voiding.

And you can ask the child if they’re able to communicate that, maybe there’s a certain smell, maybe there’s a certain sound, maybe their body doesn’t feel comfortable on that particular toilet seat insert or their feet are actually not quite touching or in the correct position of where they feel most stable to maintain that upright seated position on the floor potty, their body is very stable because it’s on the ground. These little ones have the ability to have the knees above the hips, which makes it a wonderful position to fully empty and have their pelvic floor in a relaxed position for sphincters to open and close when they need to. So I would recommend that. Another thing that I would do is transition the floor potty, so if it’s not in the bathroom environment, you slowly move that expectation of the child’s going to go into the bathroom and utilize the floor potty.

And then maybe you just practice a few sitting bio-breaks with no expectation of them to void pee or poo in, but just getting used to that positioning, sitting on that toilet in the home.

Child using the potty at school but not at home

Jessica: So another listener says her child will use the potty at school, but not at home. So do you see that often in your practice? Any thoughts? 

Quiara: Yes. So kind of piggy-backing on the last scenario that we just spoke about, it’s really looking at the environment. But also looking at the task demands or expectations of toilet-ing in the school environment or daycare setting. There are often different rules that are at school than there is at home, right? And so, we have to understand how can we best support this child’s, number one, and you always hear me say this, but their nervous system, because without that regulation, they’re not going to be able to learn the skill, but also be able to have really good bowel and bladder control and management if they’re not feeling safe or secure. And so, I think being able to understand and partner with the educators at school and asking maybe if there’s a schedule you can look at and see when are those bio breaks or potty breaks for the child? When are those opportunities throughout their day? 

How do they align with what they’re already doing at home? Maybe it’s off by an hour, so their body, their natural rhythms have to wait longer than normally. Another piece of it is, what are the expectations of the child to go independently? Do they have to ask? Do they have to get up in front of their classroom to say they need to go, or is it open access? Is the bathroom really far away from the classroom or is it at a close distance? That all is really important information, because a child, once they feel urge and depending on what’s happening, are they able to hold their sphincters close and their pelvic floor enough to get all the way to the bathroom in time?

How to handle withholding poop

Jessica: We had talked, you said kind of the top four things in your practice included the withholding to the point of constipation, that was one of the last thing that you mentioned. This is so common, it feels, at least we experience this in our home. Tell us more about this. What can we do about it? 

Quiara: So, withholding to the point of constipation is something that is a very common thing when children are not only going through the potty learning a potty training process, but when there’s different life transitions and they just sometimes don’t feel comfortable for whatever reason, letting it out. And when the child is really withholding, what happens is that stool accumulates in the rectum and with that it starts to stretch the smooth muscle in the rectum and can cause what we call encopresis or fecal leaks, and this is when there’s a massive stool in the rectum and softer stool goes around it. And the issue with that is, if they’re not… If the child is not getting complete emptying of their rectum every day or what their regular rhythm was, they start losing sensation of feeling urge.

And so, how we can help address this is kind of giving them just the education, right? The piece of, this is how the body works, and if we’re holding it in, this can happen. And a big part of my practice is that education piece with the child and with the family, and letting them know, “I know that this is hard for you right now, and this is scary, but this is also something that you can help your body with.” And then figuring out, there might be things that we have to go back to the general practitioner or the pediatrician with and say, “These things we’re noticing and we would like more support, maybe to help manage the constipation with things like supplements, or… And I like to call them supports because some children might need those supports acutely versus chronically, just to get them over this bridge of not withholding.

So withholding is such an issue because the child is volitional holding the stool and closing their sphincters and closing their pelvic floor muscles. So oftentimes, we need them to be able to stimulate that urge to go through medications or supports such as stool softeners for stimulant laxatives. And those are the types of things that the pediatrician or GI doctor can support them with.

How long does potty training take?

Jessica: That’s really great advice. Potty training rarely goes according to schedule, as so many of us parents know, what is the average time frame for learning to use the potty and is there a point at which parents should seek outside help? 

Quiara: So my clinical experience, it sometimes takes between six months to one year for a child to be completely independent in what we call a bowel and bladder management, so they’re going to… They’re feeling urge, they’re going to the bathroom on their own, and they’re not having any leaks or accidents. But when it’s not going so well or according to plan, I typically will say if you’ve tried for two or three weeks and your child is still having a lot of leaks or accidents, it doesn’t seem like they’re getting the appropriate urge or they’re withholding stool or urine, that it’s totally fine to go back to diapers and take a little rest break, but you continue to monitor their natural biorhythms. So that means looking at what time of day are they avoiding pee and poop? What are those stools looking like? Are they constipated stools or are they good? Are they emptying their bladder at regular intervals? And then when it seems like the child is in a better place or you are just feeling more confident in supporting your child, then taking up the potty learning process again. It’s so understandable and fine to take a pause and come right back to it.

Potty training regression

Jessica: Great. So what do you do if your child is potty trained and then experiences a regression, whether that’s like… It comes from, I don’t know, having a new sibling in the home or a big change in their life, they’re regressing, what should you do? 

Quiara: I would go back a step and really look at what the child was able to do before that regression and slowly help them get back to what their skill level was, doing the strategies that worked previously.  I would just try and meet the child where they’re at and help them along. If you need to put them in a diaper because you’re traveling five hours in a car where before you were able to do that and they were able to stay dry, like, that’s fine. You can always just go back to where they feel supported and you kind of work through those tough times.

Potty training while traveling

Jessica: That’s great advice and permission for us to not be so hard on ourselves, if our children have a regression. You can get support. Everybody can get support. What about traveling during this process? Do we put everything on hold while we’re away? Do you have any tips for how we can bring potty learning on the go? 

Quiara: Yeah, potty learning on the go is something that makes parents super anxious, [laughter] I’ve now noticed in my practice. But it’s something that is completely doable and you won’t believe how creative parents get, which I really love. I say, you just have to be well-equipped with things that your child are familiar with already, so something like a toilet seat insert that you want to use to help them go to the bathroom in the airport or in the airplane, make sure that they’re familiar with it. Bring it out, talk about it. Have their dollies or their stuffies, play with it. Make sure that the tools or equipment that you’re using is something that your child has seen before.

And I would also recommend understanding what your schedule’s going to be like. So if you’re traveling abroad or there’s a time difference, making sure you understand your child is still on that biorhythm that you might have to tweak along the way, but offering those opportunities for bio breaks to take care of their body during the traveling journey is going to be really helpful.

And if you need the training underwear or you need the pull-up, because you’re going to be in an airplane for a significant amount of hours, so be it. This is still a learning process for everybody, and if you kind of check in with your child during those times that you know that their body naturally needs to void, then you can kind of prevent some of those leaks or accidents from happening.

Final advice about potty training

Jessica: That’s great advice. Any final advice for our listeners that we have not covered today? 

Quiara: I think the final advice that I would give your listeners is just to be curious about how to support your child’s nervous system, I think during this new learning experience. Because it could be scary for a lot of children and a lot of parents, like, they’re frightened with this developmental milestone. And I think that finding that harmony and that balance between regulating your nervous system and your child’s nervous system can do wonders. Also, just being able to be in the moment, and I know that there’s so much noise around, this is how you should parent, this is what you should be doing, but really you are the expert of your child. And our intuition sometimes is quieted, because we think we don’t know as much, but I will tell you, parents and caregivers really know what their child needs best, and I would say just attune to that. And lastly, avoid constipation at all costs. [chuckle] If that’s something that you can avoid, it will help the potty learning journey and process, but also have this grace for yourself and your child, and you will do fine. You will do fine. 

Jessica: That’s so helpful to hear. Quiara, it’s been great having you with us.

Quiara: Thank you so much for having me, Jessica.

Takeaways:

1. It’s OK to name the behaviors you observe in your child, even if you aren’t happy with those behaviors. Articulate how you would like them to change: “I know you want to use your pull-up to poop, but before we go to nap today we’re going to practice using the toilet.”
2. Play can help your child to get more comfortable with the environment in the bathroom. Put a favorite stuffy on the potty, and construct a dialogue around that stuffy’s reservations about using the potty. Modeling through social play is helpful in so many challenging situations! 
3. If your child is upset when the diaper is off, validate their feelings and narrate what you see: “I notice that when I take off the diaper, you’re crying. I’m trying to help you take care of your body, but I see that you’re not ready to use the potty yet. Let’s try again in a few minutes.” Then take a break and do a preferred activity — gross motor play, for example, could help get them more in tune with their body. 
4. Your child may feel more secure on the small, floor potty because their feet are on the floor and their knees are up. Consider adjusting the setup on the larger toilet. The environment can play a significant role in regulating a child’s nervous system, and if your child is stressed, they may have trouble relaxing their pelvic floor.
5. On average, a child will need 6 months to a year before using the toilet independently and going long stretches without an accident. If it’s not going smoothly, there’s no shame in taking a break and going back to diapers. Continue to monitor their biorhythms during this break so you can use that information when you try again: Are they often constipated? Are they emptying their bowels at regular intervals? 
6. Constipation can create a negative cycle for potty learning. If they are not emptying their bowels daily, they can lose the urge to do so. Consider consulting your pediatrician. Supplements may help get back on track. 

New to potty learning? Check out past My New Life episodes on how to get started: The first with the author of “Oh Crap! Potty Training” and the second with Nicole Kavanaugh on a Montessori approach. Find additional tips on potty training on our Lovevery blog.

Get expert help with potty training

The Potty Learning Course Pack

Whether you’re about to start potty learning or already trying, this Course Pack has the proven paths you need, plus tools to help your child tap into their intrinsic motivation and take the lead.

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3 types of sensory input with the Spinning Rainbow

Children like different types and amounts of sensory input, or stimulation that engages their senses, according to Amani. “One child may love to swing, or get vestibular input, while another loves running their fingers through the sand, which is tactile input,” she says. 

The Spinning Rainbow is a plaything she often uses with children in her own practice and recommends to parents and caregivers. The colorful tiles, internal ball, and child-directed motion offer three kinds of sensory stimulation: visual, auditory, and vestibular, or how our bodies move in space. 

Learn how the Spinning Rainbow engages sensory seekers:

Signs your child may want more visual, auditory, or vestibular input

• A child seeking vestibular stimulation may enjoy twirling or watching wheels spin. The vestibular system consists of tiny organs in your child’s inner ear that provide their brain with information about where they are in space, making this system key to balance.
• A child seeking visual stimulation may love to look at bright lights, patterns, bright colors, or moving objects. You may notice your little one enjoying bringing items close to their eyes or watching videos with visually complicated images.
• A child seeking auditory stimulation may make repetitive sounds, such as clapping, tapping, or clicking. You may notice your little one loving dropping various objects to hear the sounds they make or playing with musical toys. 

Learning cause and effect (without grasping) with the Sensory Links

Understanding cause and effect is fundamental to making sense of the world. Many playthings that encourage this kind of learning require a child to hold or grasp the toy to engage with it. 

By configuring The Sensory Links in a certain way, caregivers enable children who have difficulty grasping or a limb difference to explore the links and learn about cause and effect. 

Learn how to use the Sensory Links in a new way in this video:

The goal of Lovevery’s Disability Support Service is to help children play and learn through playthings and activities based on skills. To learn more, reach out to Amani.

The Looker Play Kit

The Looker Play Kit welcomes your newborn with tools to help them process the world around them and build brand new brain connections with high-contrast and black-and-white Playthings.

Learn more

The Charmer Play Kit

The Charmer Play Kit is designed to let your 3 – 4 month old baby explore with their mouth, eyes, and hands as their personality emerges and their social awareness grows.

Learn more

The post Favorite activities for your child from our Disability Support Specialist appeared first on Lovevery.

We hear a lot about the first 3 years of a baby’s life — how critical those years are to brain development. But today’s guest, the author of The Baby and the Biome, would argue that the same window is just as critical for our gut. Probiotics may have a role in keeping that system healthy. But are probiotics helpful to babies? And what about when you’re pregnant? Jessica Rolph, your host, welcomes Meenal Lele, founder of Lil’ Mixins.

Highlights:

[1:39] When do babies pick up their first dose of bacteria? 

[2:54] How does birth affect this bacterial environment? How does the introduction of bacteria differ between a C-section and a vaginal birth?

[4:56]  What can people who have C-sections do to replicate the bacteria that’s introduced during a vaginal birth?

[5:58] Should parents bathe their babies right away, or is there any benefit to letting them go unbathed for those first few days? 

[7:18] What are significant sources of good bacteria for your baby to build their microbiome in those first weeks? 

[9:18] What kind of probiotics does Meenal recommend for mixing into formula? How do you work those into breast milk?

[11:11] When our babies start to eat solid foods, should we supplement with probiotics? 

[12:51] What are other benefits of probiotics and supplementation?

[14:22] What would Meenal do if she had a baby now, knowing everything she knows?

[17:18] Why have human microbiomes lost microbial diversity?

[21:52] Jessica shares her top takeaways from the conversation with Meenal.

Transcript:

Jessica: Welcome, Meenal.

Meenal: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Are babies sterile before birth

Jessica: So I read somewhere that babies are sterile before birth, so they don’t really have a microbiome yet when they’re in utero. When do babies pick up their first dose of bacteria? Am I right about this? 

Meenal: It’s not totally clear actually, it’s one of those things that’s really hard to study because if you try to sample… We can’t really sample very well a baby inside, in utero, and then every time we try to… If we try and sample the amniotic fluid or something, we’re always going to be pulling bacteria from the air and other things onto that sample, and so it’s really hard to tell. But the basic idea is, yeah, it’s a sterile environment. And that’s mostly because if you think about it, your inside organs, they’re sterile, we don’t have… You don’t have bacteria on your kidney because it’s inside your body, you do have bacteria on your skin ‘cause that’s outside your body. At the same time, there is a ton of bacteria in the urogenital tract and in the vagina, so then a baby in that sense is still somewhat interacting with the mom’s bacteria, because that bacteria that’s in the vaginal tract can actually can get up the uterus basically, and affect how the baby is developing in utero. So it’s kind of complicated, but for the right way to think of it is, I believe, is that the baby is kept somewhat sterile, and yet they’re still being influenced by the mom’s bacteria.

Building microbiome from birth

Jessica: That’s so interesting. And then what about the process of birth? Whether it’s C-section or a vaginal birth, what happens with this bacterial environment at birth for the baby? 

Meenal: Yeah. So when you’re born, you’re immediately exposed to your mom’s bacteria, and if you think about it, the vagina sort of expands and like a glove, it completely covers the baby as it’s on its way out, and so the baby’s getting completely smooshed in their mother’s bacteria. And in fact, they say it’s on purpose that the babies are born facing backwards and that most women defecate a little bit during while they’re pushing and the baby is supposed to eat a little bit, it’s a true fecal transplant, and that seeds… That’s what’s supposed to seed their gut. Their very first gut seeding is directly from the mother.

But then when you’re born by C-section, you have to keep a C-section very, very sterile, ‘cause now we’re cutting inside, again, we’re not supposed to have bacteria on the inside organs, and so they give you a ton of antibiotics for good reason, and you should get them, and they keep the operational theater sterile. And so then the first bacteria baby is exposed to are the air bacteria that end up on the surgeon’s gloves, and the bacteria that are naturally on the clean blanket that’s put down on the table where they lay the baby down immediately and things like that.

That’s the baby’s first exposure to bacteria. It’s a completely different set, your vaginal bacteria are not the same bacteria that’s in the air. And so it’s very clear that when babies are born in different ways, their first moments bacteria are totally, totally different. That obviously has an influence and yet again, every interaction that baby has from that moment on, will keep shifting their microbiome, so it’s not the last thing, it’s not the only word in this either.

Vaginal swabbing for c-sections

Jessica: This is so fascinating. I guess my question is, is, what can we do? I’ve heard about people who have C-sections in doing what they can do to replicate this bacteria that’s introduced during a vaginal birth, I’ve heard about swabbing… Can you talk to this a little bit in more detail? 

Meenal: Yeah, it’s interesting, the NHS in the UK, they actually give guidance to mothers on how to do this, and there are a couple of studies going on right now in the US about, could we create guidance around this too, but basically involves… You get sterile gauze, and if you’re going to have a C-section, you basically shove it into the vagina and let it get soak up all the vaginal fluids during birth, or maybe not during birth, actually, I think that you take it out before the C-section, but then basic, and you keep it in a sterile or just a clean zip lock bag will do kind of thing. And then right after the baby is born, you basically swab them with it, so you swab their skin with those vaginal fluids, you can actually swab kinda their lips and their nose in the exact same way that the baby would kinda scrape all that stuff up and you can, to some extent, you can replicate it.

When to bathe a newborn

Jessica: So interesting, and then what about giving your baby a bath? So I think I knew some of this when I had my babies, and I had this intuition that maybe bathing them right away, or is there any benefit to letting them sort of stay a little dirty for those first few days? 

Meenal: There is more than a little benefit to letting them stay dirty, and I have this very visceral memory of my first, my older son. And when I say this, I want to be clear, I’m not speaking ill of any of the folks, the hospital that he was born in, everyone was lovely to us, and was doing their absolute best, but I just remember watching them wash him, and kind of really scrub him and just thinking at the time like, “That seems unnecessary. He hasn’t been doing much.” But actually in the UK and a lot of Europe, you just don’t bathe babies for two weeks, they’re born with this Vernix caseosa, if I’m pronouncing that correctly. And you just let it slowly absorb and that’s it, it’s like this goopy white stuff and then it slowly absorbs into the skin, but it’s almost like imagine putting a thick layer of Vaseline on them or something when the moment they’re born and then letting that just kinda ride and that’s really… That keeps your skin from losing water and from getting bacterial infections in those first critical couple of weeks, and so yeah, there’s really no reason to wash them for a really long time.

Ways to boost your baby’s gut health

Jessica: So post-birth, let’s talk about post-birth, so let’s say you had a C-section, what are the significant sources of good bacteria for your baby to build their microbiome? Is it skin on skin, is it formula, breast milk, how do they get inoculated? 

Meenal: The bigger thing after they’re born, the bigger thing to worry about is really their gut bacteria, and that is about making sure that they’re getting the right inputs, not as many negative inputs as possible, so what are the right inputs? Like you said, breast milk. If you’re giving them, formula, a probiotic supplementation can be really helpful, even if they’re drinking breast milk, unfortunately today, because of our… Just our moms, like those of us who are breastfeeding or I was a few years ago, the breast milk we were giving our babies is fundamentally different than it was maybe even a generation ago. So a probiotic supplementation can be useful and we can talk specifically ‘cause that’s like saying take vitamins, which is not particularly useful advice, it matters which probiotics, which bacteria.

So you definitely want your baby to be drinking breast milk or formula, getting in there, getting that stuff in their diet. The big thing really to think about in those first six months, though I say, it would say is the opposite, which is try to limit their exposure to antibiotics, and now, I don’t mean to be very clear, antibiotics should be used when they are necessary. The key is to try and prevent the need for the antibiotics. So to the extent that you are not smoking in the house, something that causes ear infections, you’re feeding your baby their bottle lying down on their back, that can cause the milk to wash back up and again, cause an ear infection. Even for most ear infections you get, the baby gets, is really about talking to the doctor and saying, “Hey, is this one that would just maybe go away on its own, and could we try giving it a couple days and not using the antibiotics?” Those sorts of things are actually more protective of the baby’s microbiome than anything is not wiping it out, not putting the bleach on the counter of their growing gut.

Which probiotics make sense in early infancy

Jessica: First of all, I have couple double quick questions on this. One is, what kind of probiotics do you recommend for mixing into formula or how would you mix that into a infant’s diet if you’re breastfeeding and not pumping? So that’s my first question.

Meenal: So which probiotics make sense in early infancy? So there’s two that have good data. B. Infantis, B. Infantis is a bacteria that has been proven to help a lot of babies in early infancy, and so that specific strain for babies, you can look for they sell it, and for a baby who is breastfeeding, it doesn’t take a lot, so it can be a couple of drops that are just like you give them Vitamin D, you can put a couple drops on the nipple and then the baby can drink it, actually, you could just squeeze it into their mouth from the dropper, or if they’re formula-feeding, you can put it in a bottle. The other bacteria that has actual clinical data behind it, is L. Rhamnosus. And L. Rhamnosus, when taken by mother in the last trimester of her pregnancy, and then by mom and/or baby during the first six months has been shown to cut the risk of eczema by up to 50%. So those are the only two that really have good clinical data behind them. That doesn’t mean those are the only useful ones, we can only answer these questions kind of one clinical study at a time.

Jessica: That’s great. So you’re saying that when you’re pregnant, you should take L. Rhamnosus, and there’s in some kind of probiotic, especially in the last trimester, and then when you’re breastfeeding, take these probiotics yourself, it will transfer into your breast milk? 

Meenal: Yes, it transfers into the breast milk and babies can take it too, actually. They found some of the strongest effect when both mom and baby were taking it, but either one taking it is also quite helpful.

Jessica: Great. And so can drop it in their mouths as newborns, and it’s safe, and then as they grow, so they start… Let’s imagine that they’re starting to eat solid foods, what should we continue to do as far as supplementing with probiotics? 

Meenal: After a baby has started solid foods, there’s less data around how much probiotics help. And I think that a lot of this has to do with the fact that it’s a lot harder to study the benefits of probiotics once someone’s eating. Your food really, really changes the make-up of your gut bacteria, and it influences it quickly. So one of my favorite studies, and this is a bit of a side note, one of my favorite studies showed that when you had immigrants move from another country like Laos and come to the US, their gut bacteria had almost completely switched over and was like an American within two weeks of arriving here, and that’s how rapidly food can affect your gut bacteria. So once a baby’s eating solid foods, a lot of what’s the make-up of their gut is just going to be controlled by are they eating a lot of vegetables and fruits, and high fiber foods. That’s it.

So does a probiotic help, I think is a harder question again, because it’s going to be harder to show the benefit, it’s going to have less influence by nature. When the baby’s just on breast milk or just formula feeding, then it’s easier, it’s such a pure food that it’s easier to see the benefit of a probiotic, and so there isn’t great data after that point. So I will say that after the six-month time period, I don’t know the clinical literature nearly as well, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable making any recommendations there.

Benefits of probiotics

Jessica: And if we talked about the benefits of probiotics and supplementation for eczema, what else? What are the other benefits why should somebody bother? 

Meenal: Probiotics have only… This is really interesting. So with L. Rhamnosus, they actually did a lot of clinical studies trying to understand if they could prevent a whole host of different diseases, and the only one that really showed up was eczema, specifically atopic dermatitis, that over and over, you could see the same benefit, and they’re not really sure why you don’t get the benefit for, let’s call it wheeze or asthma or a food allergy. I think there’s just a bajillion different bacteria out there, so we’ve just not even scratched the surface of other ones that we can be studying, and so I’m sure there are other ones out there, but we just don’t really have them today. When it comes to food allergy prevention, we know that early allergen introduction is very protective, like up to 97% protective in some cases against food allergy, when it comes to asthma, for example, a lot of that has to do with not using… The fewer antibiotic insults a baby has had the better, the lower the risk of asthma and their exposure to air pollution. The less air pollution they’re exposed to, the lower the risks for asthma.

So once you get past those earlier stages, as I’m saying it’s the more and more influences on a baby, the harder it gets to control them, and that’s why those first six months can be so critical ‘cause they’re just doing so few things and you actually have a lot of control over each one.

Jessica: And so what would you do if you had a baby right now, knowing all that you know…

Meenal: Yeah, if I… Now knowing everything I know, I mean, I would take those probiotics, for example, in pregnancy, and I used to think probiotics were utter garbage, and that doesn’t mean people can’t be selling you completely useless probiotics, it just means that… There turns out to be data there where I thought there wasn’t, so I would take those probiotics in pregnancy because there’s no risk to you as a pregnant mother and to the baby, and if you get a 50% cut in eczema, that’s awesome. I would definitely leave my baby alone. I think one of the few things we did right with my older son was use cloth diapers, and the big reasons for cloth diapers is actually because they have far fewer chemicals on them, if you’re using the pure cotton cloth diaper, you’re not covering their urogenital tract area in a bunch of chemicals. But we were using a lot of the mainstream soaps in our house, and it turns out a lot of chemicals that are in products, we now know are actually very disruptive to not only the adult skin, but then 10 times so for baby skin.

We now buy all in crunchy cleaning products, so we just try and use vinegar, and it is just as few chemicals as we can in the house because I sort of was always under the impression that, Hey, this stuff has been studied, it’s been great, but they haven’t been.

They just sort of… They’ve been studied in the very, very obvious place, like if you put this on your skin will you die, and the answer is no, but there’s so many second and third order effects to the chemicals we’re exposed to that are really, really hard to study, and I get that. But so then those studies haven’t been done, and so I actually think what they call the precautionary principle. I don’t think that you should go… You have to go completely overboard in terms of being safe, but there are a lot of things that you can say this moment in my life, Do I need to be exposed to this? Do I need to do it this way? And if the answer is no, then you can just make that choice not to.

Microbiomes and our environment

Jessica: That’s so helpful. It feels intimidating, but then when you can start going through one by one and just downgrading or just going a little bit more natural in skin care and in home care, it’s not an endless… They’re not endless categories to take on. So is this related to how the human microbiomes have lost microbial diversity, is this why because we have cleaning products and we have chemicals in our skin care. I heard that Western microbiomes in humans consists of 15%-30% fewer species than non-Western microbiomes, like, What’s going on here with our diet? With our environment… Could you talk to this a little bit.

Meenal: Yeah, I don’t know that I know the answer to that. What I can say is, there’s a few things that can be affecting… And you hit on them. So our pollution, that can… Pollution can kill your microbiome, it can kill a certain bacterial strains, that could be a cause of it, two is our diet, our diets are significantly more restricted than they have historically been, so typically, you wouldn’t have… You would eat a lot of different kinds of foods. You definitely wouldn’t eat nearly as much sugar as we eat today, and sugar can actually be really toxic to certain kinds of bacteria and then promote other kinds of bacteria, but we need the first kind to help us survive, so if we’re eating too much sugar, we’re actually helping bacteria we don’t need and can actively hurt us thrive.

And then our diets in terms of how refined the foods are and things like that, again, the bias for bacteria that we don’t want or that we aren’t evolved to work with. And I use this example of, I think maybe I even say this in the book, there’s always this idea that we want to talk about bacteria as good and bad, even throughout this small chat, right, I’ve probably said good bacteria and bad bacteria like 50 times, but that’s not necessarily a useful way to think of it, because there are just bacteria that our bodies and our genetics have come to be comfortable working with and be symbiotic with, and other ones that we don’t know how to work with, and so we just have to bias for the ones that we know how to work with, ‘cause that’s just part of who we are truly.

So there’s the pollution, there’s the diet, and then honestly, the last big thing is the antibiotics. Martin Blaser, Dr. Martin Blaser wrote a book called “Missing Microbes,” that really opened my mind to this a bunch of years ago. But yeah, we consume antibiotics at a rate that you would have no… You would never believe. If I remember correctly, by the age of 30, the average American has had something close to 30 doses or 30 courses of antibiotics, it’s crazy, and that’s not even counting the antibiotics that we eat on a daily basis that are… ‘cause they’re just in your meats and in the milk. So I would say probably our antibiotic over-usage is the single biggest issue that we face, and in Sweden, I believe they did a concerted effort to try and reduce the number of courses of antibiotics people were getting, and they were able to cut out 75% of them, so like three out of four courses of antibiotics humans get are unnecessary, and yeah so that’s… I actually, my guess is that that’s probably the single biggest issue.

Jessica: Well, just to normalize, thanks for everyone here, I just started a course of antibiotics yesterday for a bladder infection, it was kind of urgent, I tried the DIY for a couple of days, it wasn’t working, just wanted to really feel good, and I had chocolate for breakfast, so I have a lot to learn, a lot to improve on. We’re all on a path.

Meenal: To that point is, again, I just want to be really, really clear that stopping unnecessary use of antibiotics does not mean that you shouldn’t take the necessary ones. If you had an infection that could have killed you right, don’t forget that through most of human history, we had a much shorter lifespan also, so trade-offs and you should take… You should clear the infections you have with antibiotics, but the problem is we take a lot of antibiotics we don’t need. Like I said, there’s no reason for the antibiotics in our meat or in our dairy, and a lot of us rush to take antibiotics when we actually have a virus, and it wouldn’t help any way… Right. So that’s what they found in Sweden, is 75% were unnecessary, meaning the antibiotics didn’t do anything positive either, but when you’re sick and you have a bacterial infection, you got to take the antibiotics, you can’t risk the death that could come on the other side.

Jessica: Yeah, well, thank you. My mom’s voice was in my ear when I was kind of prolonging this infection. It has been fascinating talking to you today, It’s been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing all this wisdom.

Meenal: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It’s really awesome to chat with you.

Here are some of my takeaways from the conversation with Meenal:

1. The bacteria that lives in the mother’s birth canal plays a role in seeding the baby’s gut. Babies born by C section can be swabbed in the same fluids to achieve a similar exposure to bacteria. The NHS in the UK actually gives guidance to mothers on how to do this.
2. The white coating that covers newborn babies is the Vernix caseosa (vur-nuhks kay-sow-suh) and helps to protect the babies skin during those first few days outside of the womb. There is no need to wash this protective coating off your newborn. It will eventually be absorbed. In the UK and much of Europe, the recommendation is to wait 2 weeks before bathing a newborn.
3. In early infancy, the focus should be about getting the right inputs. You might consider supplementing breastmilk/formula with a probiotic. Meenal recommends taking L rhamnosus during pregnancy and giving it to the baby after birth. B. Infantis is the other probiotic that has been proven to help babies in early infancy. 
4. Once a baby is eating solid foods, the makeup of their gut is going to be most influenced by the fruits, vegetables and other high-fiber foods they are consuming. There isn’t great data to suggest that probiotics do much after the six month mark.
5. Check the chemicals in the soaps and other products you are using while pregnant and on your baby. Some can disrupt healthy bacterial growth. Pollution, diet and antibiotics are three areas to examine when trying to enhance our own microbiome and that of our children.

Learn about how your baby’s brain is developing during those first 1000 days on the Lovevery blog. 

The post How to boost your baby’s biome appeared first on Lovevery.

Screens are so effective at distraction, but equally effective at causing parents angst! In today’s interview, Jessica Rolph is joined by Lovevery expert, Dr. Zach Stuckelman, to get to the bottom of the research on screens and young brains.

They examine which content is better than others, and whether those learning apps are really teaching our kids anything. They also explore the value of video chatting and looking at family pictures or videos together on a phone.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has its recommendation: No media use by children younger than 18-24 months, except for video chatting, while kids ages 2 to 5 should get no more than an hour of screen time per day, but we wanted to know why.

Zach has researched the impact of screens on children’s language, literacy, socioemotional, and cognitive development and has shared that research in lectures across the United States.

Highlights:

[2:01] Are screens bad? How much is too much?

[5:18] Zach breaks down the age bands for screens to help parents navigate what to do when.

[7:08] How do we pick the best screen content for our children? What is the difference between something like Little Bear, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and Powerpuff Girls? 

[10:14] Is video chatting with family members different than “regular screen time”?

[11:18] How about screen time on a long trip with an 18-month-old?

[12:40] Is it ok to let children look at pictures of their family and videos of themselves playing?

[13:47] What kind of time limits should parents enforce?

[14:50] What to do when an older sibling gets access to a screen and the younger child is below the ideal age range?

[17:12] Jessica shares her takeaways from the conversation.

Mentioned in this episode:

You’ll find tips on how to scale back on screen time in Jessica’s interview with Meghan Owenz from September of 2020. 

Transcript:

Jessica: Hello, Zach, it’s great to have you here.

Zach: It’s great to be here, Jessica. Thank you so much for having me.

Is screen time bad for babies?

Jessica: So Zach, this is the question that we all have in the back of our minds, whether we admit or not, we just want to know are screens bad? And at what age could they be bad or are they okay? Help us make sense of the science.

Zach: Are screens bad? I think the science would tell us, it depends on a variety of different factors. It depends on the age of the child, so younger kids don’t really understand what’s going on on screens, we’re talking about infants all the way up to two years old, they’re just not going to really comprehend the information on the screen.

And so because of that, because of that lack of understanding, giving your child to screen at the age of 14 months, really what it’s doing is just distracting them, it’s not providing any developmental benefit to their overall growth. A lot of people will rely on something called the displacement hypothesis, especially for younger kids, and that if kids are using screen, especially during those early years of development, what is that time being displaced from? So what are they not doing when they are using screens? Are they not playing with physical toys, are they not reading books, are they not just having simple interactions with their parents to learn language, to learn right and wrong, and so on. “So for younger kids in particular, there’s a lot of science out there that shows us that kids aren’t really understanding what’s going on on screens, and so ultimately there really is no developmental, strong developmental benefit.”

Now, for pre-schoolers and toddlers, that’s when you start thinking about things like the type of screen, the amount of time, and the type of content on the screen, and there in lies the bigger questions of whether screens are good or bad for educational purposes. There are years worth of research studies that demonstrate that certain types of programs… The classics like Sesame Street, there’s no argument there, it can help kids learn. However there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing.

I think it’s a balance. I think that absolutely like any activity, there is some form of neurological impact. Research has found that, for instance, that use of screens, especially excessive use of screens, can have an impact on the development of children’s white matter in their brain, that specifically kind of key to things like literacy development, language development.

So ultimately, there is still that question of how much is too much, what is the type of content that is still kind of within the realm of, this is good for your child, and ultimately, how do we strike a balance between the things that we know are good in a more traditional sense, like shared book reading, toy play, playing outside and the like, versus what the more modern technological opportunities are for kids learning and development.

Screen time recommendations by age

Jessica: So let’s break it down by age. The American Academy of Pediatrics has their recommendations. I think it’s no younger than two, and then they say 18 months for screens, if you’re sitting next to them, which I always found kind of odd, because why would you use the screen if you’re going to sit next to your child watching together. But that’s just me. Can you break down the age bands for screens to help parents navigate what to do when? 

Zach: Look, I think the American Academy of Pediatrics in a lot of ways are making recommendations based on the science, so I don’t want to discredit them at all, but I think one of the main things that they really rely upon in their recommendations are this idea of children’s developing cognition. So this goes into a lot of work by certain psychologists like Judy DeLoache, Georgene Troseth, all about these ideas of children symbolic understanding. So if we think about what a symbol is, it’s really anything that can stand for or represent something else, and so a screen in that way can be a symbol. Children come to learn and to understand that the elephant that they see on TV is not a real elephant that’s about to spray them with water from its nose, but rather it’s a representation of either like a specific elephant or the concept of an elephant, and so on. Kids under two have no ability or no strong ability to do that on their own.

A lot of research going back even to the ‘80s with something like Sesame Street, have found that children, preschoolers in particular, benefit specifically from what we call joint media engagement, which means when a parent or a knowledgeable adult partner sits with them and watches or engages. What the research and the results find from those certain joint media engagement studies, is that when children are with a parent or knowledgeable adult, they learn more; when they are not, they learn less.

Best screen time content for kids

Jessica: So let’s get into the content. There are a lot of a parent questions on content on the screens. If they’re going to use screens in this moderated approach according to AAP guidelines, how do you suggest that they pick the best screen content for their children? Can you speak to the difference between something like Little Bear, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and Powerpuff Girls? 

Zach: Well, I think the biggest thing there is whether or not it has been designed and written to be developmentally appropriate. What is the language that’s showing up? What is the animation style? So for instance, there is research out there that shows that children actually tend to learn better from realistic images and picture books than they do from animated or cartoon-ish images, I think the same can be applied or generalized to something like television shows. So for instance, if we look at something like Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, that’s a live action show. You see Mr. Rogers, you see the mailman, you see that they’re living, breathing people. That makes the connection between the sort of content that’s being promoted, like socio-emotional lessons on Mr. Rogers, much easier to transfer to real life because Mr. Rogers can look like your grandpa.

The mailman could look like you are mailman. That makes that connection for, especially developing young children who’s again, ability to symbolize and connect what’s going on on screen to the real world much easier than, let’s say, watching something like The Powerpuff Girls. Speaking of shows like The Powerpuff Girls, that to show, I think it’s a great example, Jess, of something that doesn’t necessarily have a ton of tangible lessons that come from it, especially ones that children who are younger can fully grasp on to. That show is filled with action and a lot of animation and very quick cut scenes from scene to scene. If you look at the segments of something like Sesame Street, quite often you’ll find when they talk about something super educational, they’re not cutting between Elmo and then back to Cookie Monster, and then back to Rosita, and then back to Abby Cadabby, but rather it’s maybe the Count and Elmo on screen for two to three minutes straight, talking about a specific concept.

That has a lot to do with why kids learn better from those sorts of formats than something like Powerpuff Girls, which is all about that like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And never really letting the child to have time to process what they’re seeing and settle that knowledge into their working memory and eventually into their long-term memory as well.

Video chatting as screen time

Jessica: So what about FaceTiming family members? A lot of parents have questions about this for their babies, for their toddlers, is it different than “regular screen time”?

Zach: There is no doubt about that, and that’s the reason why. For instance, the American Academy of Pediatrics came back and said like, No screens below two years old except video chat, and that’s because it presents this opportunity for serve and return. Right, it presents this ability for children to envision and see that their initiation, their verbalization is actually met contingently from the responding partner on the other end of the video chat. So when they’re video chatting, they actually get used to that back and forth that can occur in a normal language conversation in real life, they just experience it via a screen. That interaction is still important because they are starting to create that foundation that when someone talks to you, whether digitally or in real life, you can respond to them and they will recognize and then respond back to you.

Screen time while traveling

Jessica: And what about screen time on a trip, a long trip with a less than 18-month-old, what do you… What do you recommend? 

Zach: Yeah, I mean, I would avoid screens, I would say that ultimately, it may be difficult, it may be challenging, and not to say that I am trying to shame parents who do end up using screens, but again, goes back to this fact that what our children really getting out of that experience, probably not a ton. It’s really meant to serve as a distraction, that’s not a bad reason to use screens, but if there are other distractions that you can provide to your child on something like a plane ride, a long car ride, a trip… I would opt for that over the screen time, because again, the research just shows you’re ultimately just displacing other potential learning opportunities from more tangible, physical sorts of toys, books and so on, that may be more developmentally appropriate than a screen, which they may not get a ton out of, especially at younger ages.

Jessica: Very helpful, and what I do and what I’ve done, and this is just sort of our… For some reason, I’ve justified it in my head. I will, B woke up really early this morning and I was like, “Oh, I’m just really want to sleep a little longer,” and so I gave her my phone, turn on airplane mode and said she could look at pictures and videos. For some reason, I think that her looking at pictures of our family and videos of her or her brother’s playing is better… Is there any logic to that? 

Zach: Yeah. I mean, it gives them the opportunity to kind of get that stimulus that they may be crave from the phone without actually engaging in some of the more distracting sorts of features and activities that may be present, like games and videos that are ultimately just meant to serve as entertainment, which is not a bad thing, but I am a big proponent, if it wasn’t clear already, just of using screens, especially in those early years for education, not for entertainment as much. And ultimately, I think that when you face the facts, using things like photos and videos of your family is a lot better than your child, then her, playing Angry Birds for the hour or so that you want to continue sleep it.

Jessica: And I did get an extra 25 minutes.

Zach: Wow.

How much screen time is too much

Jessica: So let’s talk about limit setting, do you have any suggestions for how long you should allow your child to watch a screen, let’s say starting it from two to three or from two to four. 

Zach: Yeah, I think 30 to an hour a day is the max, right? Any less than that is also fine. I would almost use that recommendation all the way up until five and especially depending on the content, right? I think if you want to do an hour, maybe that hour is primarily made up of things like Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Doc McStuffins, programs that have developmental science that backs up their educational, potential, but an hour’s worth of playing Super Mario Brothers while can be fun and enjoyable for the child, doesn’t necessarily give them much to benefit them in other contexts, in other settings, so that…I would maybe say if you want to give your child like 30 minutes of game time, that’s maybe my max, especially for those younger, more impressionable children.

Jessica: So a lot of parents had questions about an older sibling getting access to screen time and the younger child really being out of the range, the ideal range for the AP guidelines. What do you recommend in these situations? 

Zach: It’s always hard, right? Because siblings, especially when you’re looking at younger, looking up at older, that social comparison is just always inherently there. I think, again, it’ll all depend on the age of the children, if the child who you have the screen is four or five, and the child who doesn’t is one or two, I think it’s all about distraction, finding something that they would also enjoy engaging in, that maybe the child wasn’t even thinking about because they were so focused on their sibling screen time. That’s I think super important because ultimately it’s all about the media habits that you’re setting with your child.

And obviously you don’t want to necessarily deprive one child for the sake of another, that doesn’t necessarily promote healthy habits either, but at the end of the day, you still want to ensure that you’re following those guidelines, those recommendations that under two, there really is no point and no benefit of screen time, and so ultimately, I think providing the younger child with something stimulating, something that can engage them may be that perfect solution for not ending up in a fight, a tantrum, what have you, when the older sibling is engaging with screens and who knows, maybe if you give your child something super fun and engaging, and when I say your child, the younger child, your older child might end up being like, “I don’t want to play with the screens anymore, I want to do what my little brother or sister are doing”, and then all of a sudden there is no screen time…

So, you might actually find that providing those distractions not only benefit the younger child who may not get any benefit from screens, but you actually might find that it also takes your older child away from screens and then nobody’s using screens.

Jessica: Zach, it has been so great having you with us today. Thank you.

Zach: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for giving me the platform to share what so many researchers and scientists are trying to spread and give that knowledge to parents over the past couple of years, I really appreciate it.

You’ll find tips on how to scale back on screen time in my interview with Meghan Owenz from September of 2020. 

1. Research has found that use of screens, especially excessive use of screens (2 hours or more), can have an impact on the development of white matter in children’s brains. White matter contributes to executive function skills… skills like teamwork, leadership, decision-making, working towards goals, and critical thinking. Zach recommends most children between the ages of 2 to 5 be limited to under an hour of screen time a day. 
2. Video chatting does not fall into the same category as digital entertainment. While babies and toddlers may not be able to make a connection to who is represented by the image on the screen, video calls present an opportunity for serve and return — the adult on the other end of the chat will respond as if they were in the same room. 
3. Research shows that children tend to learn better from realistic images and picture books than they do from animated or cartoon-ish images. Pace matters too. Cartoons tend to switch from frame to frame more quickly than something like Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers. This slower pace allows a child time to digest the content they are watching and make connections to real life.

You can find more ideas for screen-free play on the Lovevery blog. 

The post Screens: What the research tells us appeared first on Lovevery.

With everything we have to worry about in today’s world, it’s easy to lose sight of how our children can have their own big worries too. Things like getting nails clipped, night-time noises, strangers, doctors, even entering a pool can feel overwhelming to our children.

How do we help them push through their fears? Which are normal, and which are extreme? And how do we validate their feelings without making their fears worse? Jessica Rolph, your host, welcomes Pediatric Psychologist Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart to today’s episode. She is an expert in childhood anxiety and helps parents distinguish between appropriate behavior and something that requires more attention.

Key Takeaways: 

[1:48] What should parents do and not do when it comes to soothing their children’s fears?

[3:11] What’s the optimal way to handle fear? 

[4:22] How to tackle repetitive fears?

[6:08] When does separation anxiety become a concern? 

[8:17] Where do parents draw the line between encouraging, strongly encouraging, or even making their child try something new, while also respecting their fears?

[10:35] How can we help a child push through their fear?

[13:15] Do we push through the first time they face a fear, or can gradual exposure begin the second or third time? 

[15:07] What is a normal level of apprehension towards strangers for toddlers and what is extreme? 

[18:30] How do parents avoid over-pathologizing their children?

[21:17] Where can parents get help with their questions about anxiety? 

[22:03] Dr. Lockhart suggests parents be aware of what we are consuming.

[23:33] Jessica shares the highlights of her conversation with Dr. Lockhart.

Mentioned in this episode:

Connect with Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart on Instagram

Transcript:

Jessica: When I shared Dr. Lockhart’s specialty with our Instagram community, there was a lot of parental worry about anxiety in our children! So I decided to start our conversation by focusing on what we should and should not do when it comes to soothing their fears.

How to soothe your toddler’s fears

Dr. Lockhart: One of the biggest mistakes that parents make, including myself, is over reassurance. Over reassurance when a kid is expressing a fear is one of the biggest mistakes you can make, which actually feeds fear. What that means is that they say something like, “Well, what if I have a bad dream again, tonight, mommy?” “You’re not going to have a bad dream.” “Well, what if I do?” “Well, then we’ll check up on you.” “But what if you don’t check up on me, I have a bad dream.” “It’ll be fine.” “Well, what if I’m not fine,” and then we keep reassuring and reassuring… And it’s exhausting, because in their little minds, and they don’t realize that this is happening, because it’s on a very subconscious level, if you keep reassuring me and you’re spending so much energy trying to reassure me, there must be something to actually be afraid of, because if there wasn’t, you would stop talking. 

So that over reassurance is a dangerous cycle to get into because they just keep pulling and pulling and pulling, pulling for that reassurance, and we just keep giving it and giving it and giving it, and they just keep hearing it and they’re like, “Oh, okay, so you keep talking, so I must really need to be concerned about this because then otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Jessica: So it becomes something bigger because we are in partnership with our child in making it bigger by talking about it, how should we handle this instead? What’s the optimal way to handle a fear? 

Dr. Lockhart: Well, first, we don’t want to dismiss it and we don’t want to over reassure it, and then we also don’t want to use logic. Those are all the don’ts. We don’t want to say, “Oh, you’re fine. Mommy and daddy are here, grandpa’s here, you’re fine. You’ll be safe,” even though those are true, we don’t want to go to the logic, because what we do want to do is speak to the emotion with emotion first, before reassuring and being logical. So if they say, “I’m really scared about being in my room by myself,” you respond, “Oh, you’re really scared about being in your room, you’re really nervous about being by yourself in this new house. In the room by yourself.” So you’re responding with the words they’re using, using the emotion words that they’re using, and that’s the best way to connect first, that’s a huge do, is that you empathize and you connect and you relate based on the emotion they’re sharing.

Jessica: That’s such a great tip. And then what? So let’s say that the toddler child is having kind of a repetitive fear about you, being separated from you or them not being picked up at school, for example, you won’t come for me, what do we do with these kind of repetitive fears next? 

Dr. Lockhart: Yes. “You are really afraid that mommy is not going to pick you up from daycare. I understand that you’re afraid, you’re not sure, this is new for you, your brain keeps telling you that this is true.” So you connect on the emotion, you use their words and you kind of elaborate, expand on it. So they’re understanding that mommy, for example, is connecting with me on what I’m saying, I hear you, so that way they don’t have to escalate to prove to you how big of a fear it is. And once you’ve done that, then you can bring in the logic or the reassurance: “Every day, the same time, mommy always picks you up, every single time. You can always trust that I will come back for you, you can always trust that myself or daddy or grandpa or uncle or whoever is going to pick you up.” So you’re going to connect with the emotion, provide the reassurance in that way, and then provide the logic and the truth of what’s going to happen, and if they keep persisting, that’s when you don’t continue to engage.

And I think that’s the hardest part, because then people feel, well, you’re ignoring your kid and you’re dismissing them, no, you’re not. They already stated and you have responded, because if you keep engaging in them, then you’re going to fall into the over reassurance, you’re going to get frustrated, they’re going to get frustrated because no amount of talking is going to provide them the relief they need in that moment when they’re having these intrusive and fearful thoughts. That’s the hard part.

Separation anxiety in toddlers

Jessica: That is so smart. I did not know these things. This is so helpful. So talk to me about separation anxiety that shows up in toddlerhood, how do you think about this, when do you start to recognize that maybe this is getting to be too big for the toddler and the parent. How do you handle things? 

Dr. Lockhart: I think a lot of parents, they get concerned about the separation part and the separation anxiety about daycare and babysitters and even going on a date or going out with friends or going on a retreat for themselves. They think that their kid is going to be traumatized or it’s going to damage the attachment. And I think it’s really important for people to understand that attachment happens within the first year of life, that a lot of the developmental stage of trust versus mistrust, which is talked about in the psychological literature, is that our secure attachment is knowing in the very early months that this person who’s taking care of me is attuned to me, they’re consistent. And they show up, they respond to me, they feed me, they clothe me, they comfort me, they sing to me, they play with me. So, when you’re talking about kids who are toddler age, a lot of that, hopefully secure attachment has been formed, so even if they’re leaving to go to daycare or you’re leaving because you’re going out with your spouse or your partner, that’s not going to damage them in some way. They’re not going to start hating you in some way, they’re not going to be detached from you because you’ve done something for yourself or because you’ve dropped them off at school or daycare.

They’re going to be fearful at that age, 10 months or two years, separation from caregiver is a common fear, but it doesn’t mean that we have to have them latched on to us because they have that fear, it means that we recognize it, we provide that reassurance, and then we provide that developmentally appropriate separation.

Create a positive association

Jessica: I’m just feeling so confident in hearing you talk about this now, this is helping me so much. Let’s get into where you draw a line in encouraging, strongly encouraging or even making your child try something new while also respecting their fears. For example, getting in the water for a swim lessons. Let’s say you really do want this for safety, for their ultimate safety, they don’t want to get into the water, they’re exhibiting fear. You’re in that moment with them. You’ve signed them up, the instructor’s there, what do you do? 

Dr. Lockhart: Yes, I think you always go back to the same things. You don’t have to use the word fear all the time, but you can say, “You are concerned about this water, you’re not sure, you’re unsure, you’re uncomfortable about being here, but mommy is right here with you, I’m here to keep you safe.” Or, “You’re here to learn how to swim. And we’re going to do this every week, three times a week,” because in the back of my mind, I paid for it. And we’re going to do this darn it. But you provide that reassurance after you’ve identified what that emotion is, and you’re basically emotion coaching them through it, the Gottman Institute talks a lot about that.

It’s okay to let your kids be afraid, but we have to make sure we’re not allowing them to escape the fear at the height of the fear, because the thing about a fear response, and this is regardless of your age, 3-83. That if you have a fear response about something, and you have this heightened, heightened alert system going on in your brain and your body, and you allow yourself to escape at that heightened state, what you’ve done now is you’ve created an association between running away from that fearful situation and then feeling the relief. 

So if I run away from the swim lessons and now I’m in the corner and mommy is rocking me and soothing me and playing Peppa Pig and then giving me a snack, and now I don’t have to do the swimming anymore, and now I feel better. What my brain has now paired together is, oh, being in the water is scary and dangerous, which is why I was allowed to leave because it’s unsafe, but now that I’m out of it, I’m getting all this reinforcement outside of the water, and now I feel calm. So being outside of the water and being away from there, this situation actually feels better, and so now you’ve created this association between water and fear and escape and being calm and reassured. And so we do this very unexpectedly, and we don’t realize it, because we think we’re being a good parent by letting our kids escape things, but letting them escape and avoid actually feeds anxiety.

Jessica: That is so fascinating. I am that mom, cuddling in the corner with the snack. That’s me 100%. So let’s just tease this out just a little bit more, am I putting their toes in the water, am I forcing them physically? Sometimes there’s a physical element to needing to get something done, so where do we use our bodies to help push a child through their fear or where are we going too far and they’re just too hysterical and it’s just too much. Talk to me about that edge.

Dr. Lockhart: Totally. because it can be traumatizing, right? For you as a parent and for them, because you don’t want them again, to have that negative association, now you’re like, “You’re going to do this darn it,” and they’re screaming and they’re snotting and everything, and now it’s really a negative experience and they really don’t even want to go back. So I think that’s where if you really feel like your child is just having too much of a negative reaction, for example, to the swimming situation, the swimming lessons, then I think you do gradual exposure. And a lot of anxiety treatment or intervention, a big part of it is this gradual and systematic exposure, so that means that maybe you agree to say, I know that you don’t really want to be here. Let’s just sit at the pool with our feet in the water for 10 minutes while we sing a song. Okay, now we’ve done that. Why don’t we just sit on the step in the pool for five minutes while we splash around. Okay, what if we stand in the water where the water gets to your waist for a few minutes while we blow bubbles, okay? Okay, what if we take a deep breath, put our head down.

So again, this is gradual over time or engaging in water play, making positive associations with that child in that situation where they’re fearful of, and that could be anything like going to the doctor, going to the dentist, any of that stuff. That slow and gradual exposure can be really powerful because what you’re doing is you’re trying to create new pair associations between the situation and their emotions, their feelings, and knowing, hey, I did it, I was able to put my feet in the water and it was good, everybody was happy, I was happy, and I did it. Great, and if that’s all you accomplish, that’s a huge accomplishment, because now their feet have been in the water for 10 minutes and they didn’t have a hysterical fit, and then you could do the next thing.

Jessica: That might not happen at that first swim lesson when the big, big, big hysteria, I’ll just use that word, maybe it’s an exaggeration, but it feels like that in the moment. You might take a break that time, but make an agreement next time we are going to dip your toes in the water or something, because I’m trying to not reward their fear by making them safe over in the corner with the snack, but I’m also stuck in that moment, and I love your plan of a gradual exposure. Does that gradual exposure start… Perhaps, can that happen at the next lesson? 

Dr. Lockhart: Yeah, it can. And I think it’s really important, especially if your kid has a very averse reaction, very negative reaction to that. I think then what you do is then between lessons, you have other opportunities for water play, in the backyard, in the little shallow swimming pool, in the backyard with the hose, doing other things where there’s positive associations with them in the water, even in the bathtub, doing things where they hold their breath and they go under the water. So that there’s constant reinforcement, constant positive associations between the two. And it makes a big difference. I’ve done this even like I get a lot of questions from parents whose kids don’t like going to the hospital, especially if they had a negative experience with the hospital, and I’ll say, “Okay, well, go to the hospital during times when there’s not a medical appointment, and then buy some popcorn, have a picnic, go to the gift shop, visit other people.”

Do something that’s positive, that creates a positive association, so that way every time they go, it doesn’t have to be this big reaction, it can be now a positive connection between going and feeling good about going. And so that could be with anything, the dentist, the hospital, swimming, school, day care, any of that kind of stuff, is that we’re trying to create these connections that are positive between the two things.

Stranger anxiety in toddlers

Jessica: I love it. We do have books as tools, at Lovevery, where we make books, previewing the doctor’s appointment, previewing the dentist appointment, previewing even the scary thing like pooping for the first time in the potty, we preview that through living, a lived experience of another child, a story that they can relate to and the child gets through their fears and successful. So I think that also just giving them those tools to see ahead and talk about something ahead of time. I love your idea of visiting the hospital ahead of time, if your child has a lot of appointments coming up. These are great ideas. One question that I had is around what is the normal level of apprehension for toddlers to have towards strangers? So I know the stranger anxiety shows up, how do we tell what’s normal and what feels extreme? 

Dr. Lockhart: That’s a great question, and it’s a very hard question because a lot of people who currently have toddlers who have been born in isolation because of the pandemic. So a lot of what I’m seeing with toddlers is excessive, given my pre-COVID viewpoint of what toddler strange anxiety should look like. So I’m seeing a lot of toddlers who have a big, apparently looks like an exaggerated response to separation and strangers, but it’s because so many families were on lockdown, so many families were in isolation, so many families stayed at home and didn’t travel, the kids weren’t in day-care, they didn’t have babysitters, they didn’t see family members. So now when they see a new person, they’re kind of freaking out because again, why? Because of avoidance. For health reasons, we avoided situations, but also regardless of the reason why, avoidance still feeds on anxiety, feeds off of anxiety. So because a lot of our toddler-age kids right now, were born in a world and have grown up the past two years in a world where they weren’t interacting with people, they’re going to have an exaggerated response.

So I think we have to remember that and keep that in mind, because a lot of kids are going to have this big response and we have to remember, Okay, yes, well, my child has not been around people frequently, or we haven’t done a lot of traveling, or we haven’t done day care up until now. So it’s going to take longer because of the… They didn’t get to create a habit of being separated, they didn’t get to create a habit of being around other people other than their family unit.

When to be concerned

Jessica: That makes so much sense. And I think just having compassion for ourselves in this really tricky time as our children adjust is really important too.

So much of this has been, how can we as caregivers and parents help support our children through this? There’s a question sometimes that can linger in the back of our mind, Does our child have anxiety? Is this normal? And I think we’ve touched a little bit on this. How do we avoid over-pathologizing our children? And there’s so many connections with anxiety, ADHD, sensory processing disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, there’s all these things, and so when do we worry, when to relax, I know this is a very hard question to answer, but remembering that our audience is primarily of parents of children between birth and age 4? 

Dr. Lockhart: Yeah, that’s a great question. And it’s such a hard question. I speak to… I have a lot of colleagues who will reach out to me as well too, and ask those same questions too, because it’s so often we’re in this mode of treating a disorder or a diagnosis, and so you tend to see things from that lens, but I think parents are getting a lot of those fear messages too, and they think there’s everything, every turn, there’s something wrong with my kid. So first I would say is trust your gut that even if you’re not an expert in the field of psychology or occupational therapy or speech and language pathology, or child development, you’re still an expert on your child.

Okay, is…  Does something feel off? The other thing I think we have to ask is, does my life feel like it’s always in a disruptive chaotic state because of my child’s behaviors or emotions.

Because, yes, kids will go through phases, especially at the age group we’re talking about, 2 to 4 can be very tough for a lot of kids and parents. Because they are finding their voice and they’re becoming more independent and they realize they’re individual, separate from you, and so they go through the “mine” and “no” phase because now they can wipe their butt on their own, feed themselves and walk without your assistance, so it can be really hard, but if it feels so hard all the time, that is not typical, it should not be that way. Do I dread when they wake up every morning? Every time they come home from daycare, am I not looking forward to when they wake up from a nap? Those are all things we have to pay attention to because that should not be the case that you’re always walking on egg shells and afraid of your kid even showing up at home.

Jessica: Yeah, and I want to just help parents, I think that it’s also the persistence, right? It just needs to persist for weeks, if not… Many weeks, months, maybe. I did have a situation with my daughter where I really needed outside help, and I saw a child psychologist, we were going through a really hard time together when she was 3 and 4, she was really destructive, taking my things, nicking them and destroying them, and it was so hurtful and I also didn’t know how to react and I think I was making it worse. And it was extreme, and I could tell I was extreme because it just… It did feel like my gut was telling me this is really not a typical behavior, and the psychologist really helped me work through this. Who do we get help from? Where do we even go with this kind of question around anxiety, where do we get help? 

Dr. Lockhart: For a lot of people, I think the first stop is often going to be their child’s pediatrician, because hopefully they know the best because they’ve been following them for a while, and often with most insurances, if that’s what you’re using, the first stop is usually a referral by a pediatrician. And really documenting your concerns, keeping a running list of what are the things that you’re concerned about, whether you think they’re ridiculous or not, whether you think you’re overreacting or not, I think you should just write those things down.

Jessica: This is so helpful, thank you so much, Dr. Lockhart, is there anything else that we should be sharing with parents related to this topic? 

Dr. Lockhart: I think parents need to be aware of what they’re consuming. I’m seeing this more and more. I think we’re at a place in life that I love, there’s so much information out there, but I think parents are getting overloaded with information, and so I think I would really encourage parents to be very intentional about the information that you’re consuming and reading from books, podcast, blogs, articles, social media, because you don’t want to get to a place where you’re consuming so much information trying to find out answers about your kid that it’s creating shame and guilt and projection of your concerns on to your kid. And I think we have to be intentional about what we’re looking at, so that the stuff that you’re looking at actually uplifts you and encourages you rather than makes you feel defeated and like a bad parent, so even the stuff that… The people that I follow, the accounts that I follow, I try to be very intentional about it because it really can bring you down, it can really make you feel bad about it. So I think I really want to encourage parents, especially as parents of zero to 4-year-olds, I mean it’s going to be more and more as more and more information is out there, be very intentional about that information, so that way you are helping yourself rather than making yourself feel bad.

Jessica: We take so much care and love every to make sure that we’re providing positive, helpful information, and we know you do too, so you can follow Dr. Lockhart at Instagram and it’s just been wonderful having you here with us today.

Dr. Lockhart: Thank you for having me Jessica.

Takeaways:

Dr. Lockhart had so many great tips on how to support our children through their fears. 

1. Some parents are afraid that a screaming toddler at drop-off means attachment will be damaged. This is not the case. By toddler age, your child’s secure attachment has been formed. Our child’s attachment stems from knowing in the very early months that this person is going to show up, respond to me, feed me. So rest assured your connection remains strong even through separations. 
   
2. One of the biggest mistakes parents make when a child is expressing a fear, is over-reassurance. It can actually reinforce the fear. Dr Lockhart says, don’t start with logic: “You’re fine, Mommy and Daddy are here.” Instead, speak to the emotion with emotion first. Respond to “I’m scared being in my room by myself,” with “You’re scared of being by yourself. I understand, this is a new room for you.” Empathize, connect and relate. Then, you can bring in the logic: “You can be sure that I will be just down the hallway.” If they persist, resist engaging anymore. That only reinforces the fear. 
   
3. Letting your child escape and avoid an uncomfortable situation actually can feed the anxiety, because they will associate the swimming lesson — let’s say — with danger, and the escape with safety. Engage gradually and offer positive associations instead. Try putting your feet in the water and say to your child: “You’re unsure about getting in the pool. But Mommy is here with you, and you’re here to learn how to swim.” You’ve identified the emotion, and now you coach them through it. 
   
4. Dr. Lockhart is seeing toddlers with excessive stranger anxiety post-Covid because so many families have been isolated during the pandemic. Avoidance feeds anxiety, so continue your efforts to gradually expose them to a wider circle of people.
   
5. When to worry, when to relax? Trust your gut. It’s normal to be scared and second guess yourself, but allow your instincts to prevail. Even though it’s uncommon for kids to be diagnosed with anxiety under age 5, ask yourself: Does my life feel like it’s always in a disruptive or chaotic state because of my child’s behavior and emotions? Is this behavior persistent? Does your child feel like an outlier when compared to their peers? If it feels like you’re perpetually walking on eggshells, consider getting professional help. The first stop can be your child’s pediatrician. 

You can learn more about your child’s development on the Lovevery blog. 

The post Normal fears vs. anxiety with Dr. Lockhart appeared first on Lovevery.

Independence, freedom, order, beauty. These are all elements of the Montessori play space, and who doesn’t want these things for their child? However, sometimes adopting a Montessori approach can feel like a high bar.

Jessica Rolph, your host, is joined by Simone Davies, author of The Montessori Baby and The Montessori Toddler. She can also be found online at The Montessori Notebook, where she gives tips, answers questions, and provides workshops to parents.

Simone would argue that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing when it comes to embracing Montessori at home; there are many small ways to incorporate Montessori, practices that not only reduce clutter but also bring more ease into our daily routines with our toddlers. 

Key Takeaways:

[2:06] Does Montessori’s focus on real experiences get in the way of a child’s natural inclination towards fantasy and imagination? 

[4:05] How does Montessori reconcile this focus on the “real” with a child’s enthusiasm for dress up and fantasy play? 

[5:18] What are the differences between Montessori at school and Montessori at home? 

[6:31] How long should caregivers allow children to be immersed in self-driven tasks? 

[7:44] What does it mean to be a Montessori parent? Who is Montessori for?

[8:42] What does freedom within limits look like in a Montessori home setting?

[9:28] Is there a Montessori view on discipline? 

[11:14] What does “Follow the child” entail?

[13:20] What are some ways to create a “Yes space”? 

[14:49] How can parents support their child’s freedom of expression and movement in a small home? 

[16:02] Simone talks about how having a beautifully prepared environment can feel out of reach for some people.

[17:26] What is the best way to implement toy rotation?

[19:40] What are some ways that families can incorporate Montessori at home without spending any money? 

[22:10] Jessica shares the highlights of an inspiring conversation with Simone Davies.

Transcript:

Simone: Hello, so lovely to be here today, I’m so honored to get to speak with you and your community.

Does Montessori discourage creativity?

Jessica: This is a big deal for me because we have been following you and reading your books, and our community is so excited. So I want to jump right into it. Does Montessori’s focus on real experiences get in the way of a child’s natural inclination towards fantasy and imagination, because we’ve heard that some parents fear it might actually hinder creativity.

Simone: I love this question because I think a lot of people think that Montessori means that kids can’t be creative because they have to use materials in a certain way, or that because we say like, “Don’t offer the child too much fantasy play while they’re in their first six years. They think, “Oh, then we don’t want to provoke their imagination.” But like you said, if you offer real life experiences, then the child themselves has this hands-on experience, and then they can build on that as they move into the, what we call second plane of development, from 6 to 12 years old, so if you give them what’s based in reality, for example, a tower, and then they might see the Eiffel Tower or they might see a tower in your city, and then they’ll be able to imagine their own tower, so by having a concrete real experience, then they can build on with their imagination, and I have to say that if you speak with any six to 12-year-old Montessori children, you can just see the imagination explodes in that second plane of development, so just trust the process of giving your child like real life experiences now, if they’re in the zero to three, three to six age group, and with sensorial experiences so they’re taking in everything through their senses in that first six years and their imagination…

You can already see it, they play out like real life situations, so they might have a language basket, for example, with different fruits, and then they’re pretending to make a fruit salad and because they see their real life and they’re making a way of processing what they see in their daily life, and then they do their own imaginative play in that way, in those three to six years.

Jessica: Yes, my only challenge with sending all my three children to Montessori schools for about a decade was the day that they really… There’s always going to be that day where they want to wear their costume to pre-school, or they want to wear a costume element or a character or something on a t-shirt. I remember negotiating with the front desk and saying, “Can he wear his socks? They have capes flying from the back of these socks. But, could he wear those?” So, what’s your comment on the sort of natural inclination for children to just love to dress up and do fantasy play and… How do we address that in Montessori? 

Simone: Yeah, well, I think they’re interested because for them, everything that they see in their years, they can see is real. So if you give them a fantasy person that is wearing a cape, then to them that’s very real. For example, if your child has seen a character on television, they’re going to invite them to their birthday party ‘cause they think that they are a real friend, so it just goes to show like, input is output. So, I would limit sometimes the amount of things that are more fantastical and try and find books, for example, that are based in reality, and they’re often the ones that I see the children gravitate back to time and time again, the ones about the vehicles, the ones about getting dressed in the morning, the ones just about going to the dentist or the things that they’ve experienced, so it’s not a problem if they do, you can just say, “Oh, you felt like you wanted to wear such and such today.” And that’s what I would say, because they’re usually really proud of it, I don’t make a big deal about it, but… Yeah, I can also show them real experiences as well.

Integrating Montessori at home

Jessica: That’s so helpful. I wish I’d had you in my ear, in all those years, those early years. So Montessori at school versus Montessori at home, what are the differences to know for those who are just getting started? 

Simone: Yes, I think that everyone thinks that my home has to look like a Montessori classroom and it’s your home, and so you want your child to feel comfortable in every single space in your home, but the Montessori materials for example, particularly if your child starts going to a Montessori school, you don’t want it to have things like a pink tower and a broad stair, because those are materials they’re going to get in their school, so what you want to do more at home is have real life activities, so, things in your daily life… Just involving them in the cooking and going out into nature and reading books and having conversations and being creative with materials, so back to creativity, rather than telling them, “Here’s a coloring sheet.” You can just give them a blank piece of paper and have some beautiful markers or some pencils that make a really lovely color and get them to explore that way, so we give them all of the tools and then we let them express themselves in any way that they want.

Jessica: I totally agree with you. I don’t think it makes sense to see the same materials at school and at home. And then, furthering this distinction between classroom and at home, a hallmark of Montessori is allowing these long stretches of time for children to be immersed in this self-driven task… How long are we talking? 

Uninterrupted time

Simone: Okay, so one thing in a Montessori school is that we offer a three-hour work period, and that’s basically an uninterrupted block of time for children to be able to go deep into their areas of interest and without being stopped to say, “Oh, let’s go and do yoga now.” Or, “Let’s do singing time and let’s all snack together.” Or, “Let’s all go to the toilet at the same time.” So, having large blocks of uninterrupted time at home can be really useful too, ‘cause I think some kids these days are so over-scheduled that they’re going to all these extra classes, and they could just be more blocks of time for them to wonder and to explore what’s around them. Then on specific activities, it could be literally as short as 30 seconds as a concentration span, and it could be as long as 40 minutes as they get older, and it depends on the child as well, so there are some kinesthetic learners who might look like they’re not doing anything ‘cause they’re touching and moving around and putting things in and out, and that to them is actually concentration, so it can look so different as well.

Who is Montessori good for?

Jessica: I do feel like my kids and so many children are over-scheduled and they just… They do love that free space and time, so I really love that point that you made. What does it even mean to be a Montessori parent? A lot of parents are asking this question, and who is Montessori for? 

Simone: I love Montessori parenting because I really get behind the ideas of gentle parenting, but that only provides one part of it, which is like how to speak respectfully to your child and all those kind of things, and when you add in the other parts, which is like the environment and setting up at homes in this Montessori way, and the activities, like being able to observe our child and see what they’re really interested in and that they can deep dive and we can really help them develop their, you know, to be the best person they can be. Then you have like a trifecta, because you don’t just have gentle parenting, you can really meet your child where they’re at and support them, and you have this child who can deal… They’re learning how to deal with all that life throws at them, so not just being able to concentrate on an activity, but also the social and emotional side of life as well.

Jessica: Yeah. And talking about the sort of limit setting side of, you know, there’s a lot of discussions around the gentle parenting movement and limit setting, what does freedom within limits look like for a Montessori home setting? 

Simone: Freedom within limits is a term that we use because I think some people think that Montessori kids are allowed to do whatever they like, and then some people, as I said earlier, think that it’s really strict in like how we expect them to behave and that kind of thing. Actually, Montessori falls somewhere much more in the middle, and that would be like the freedom within the limits, so then freedom in limits at home might be, for example, they can eat whenever they’re hungry, except the limit might be that I’m not going to let them graze all day, what I’ll do is I’ll put the amount of raisins that I’d like them to eat in a little box in the cupboard, and this is their snacks for the day, so if they eat them at nine o’clock, they’ll know that there’s no more raisins, that they’re all gone. So that might be one way of having a limit.

Discipline from a Montessori perspective

Jessica: Is there a Montessori view on discipline? 

Simone: Discipline is such an interesting word, isn’t it? ‘Cause I think most of us think of punishments and things like bribery, and how am I going to get them to do what I want, and actually in Montessori, we think about self-discipline and how am I going to teach my child something or how can they learn something from these situations. So actually, when you have two children fighting, instead of thinking, “I have to discipline my children.” I’m thinking, “Oh, great. This is an opportunity for them to learn how to become siblings and how to solve problems together.” So I’m going to be their guide and over time, I’ll need to intervene and help less and less as it goes on, so what that might look like instead is supporting them to be like a translator for them, “Oh, it looks like you wanted that toy and you also wanted that toy. How can we solve the problem?” And even… You might think, “Well, my child’s two years old and their sibling is six months old, so I mean, how are they possibly going to come up with that?” But my son was playing with his trucks and Emma went over to take it… She was still crawling and when she took it out…

Of his hands, I said that exact thing, “How are we going to solve the problem?” We have two kids who want to play with the same truck, and Oliver actually managed to take the front wheels for this vehicle off, and he took the front wheels and gave her the back wheels, and they both like were playing with the car and I was like thinking, kids come up with the most amazing solutions, like I would be trying to like, “Oh, maybe we need to get another car.” Or I’m trying to say, Oh, you have to share that one and give it to her ‘cause she’s younger.” And instead, when we get out of the way they can come up with ways to solve their own problems, and that is going to be in the long term, much more useful than putting them into time out or telling them they can’t play with each other or taking away the toy, that kind of thing.

“Follow the child” concept

Jessica: Yeah, that makes so much sense. And it is this “Follow the child” concept. So what does “Follow The Child” entail in Montessori? Can you flesh that out a little bit and how might this mantra get misconstrued? 

Simone: Yeah, it is often misconstrued, but “Follow the child” means, look at your child and what are they interested in right now, so let’s in some ways throw away the developmental charts that say, “My child needs to be doing this at this age and this at this age.” So that I can actually really look, “Where is my child doing the fine motor skills, gross motor skills, language, their social-emotional development, cognitive development.” All of the different kind of parts that make up a human, and I get to learn about my child and I’m going to then see what they are most interested in or see what makes them, you know, support them if something is difficult for them, so that’s how we follow the child, but sometimes people think that follow the child means that we’re allowed to let the child do whatever they like, and that’s actually this free-range parenting, which means that they learn no limits at all, and actually, our child is going to live in society, and so there are limits in our family, like what’s okay for me and what’s okay for them, and we’re trying to find ways that both of us can have our needs met…

And when we go out into society, if we want to use a loud voice and it’s bothering somebody else, it’s like, “Okay, let’s see how we can… Should we go outside if you want to use your loud voice, or do you want to stay inside and we can use a quieter voice?” So we’re always then showing them… Yes, we’re following the child, but that doesn’t mean at the expense of everybody else. We’re living in a community.

Creating a “Yes space”

Jessica: So some of our community asked about tips for creating this “Yes space” in a very small area such as a shared bedroom, do you have any thoughts on “Yes spaces” and how to create them? 

Simone: Okay, so in a small space, for example, a bedroom, I would almost take everything out and then put only back in what you need, because if you find that you’ve got a desk in this little room and the desk actually isn’t being used very much, ‘cause they mostly play in the living area, then you actually can create more space and that’s not going to cause a problem, and so “Yes spaces” mean that the child can explore freely without us having to say, “No, don’t touch that. No, don’t touch that.” So if it’s a bedroom space and you want them to be quiet and to play by themselves when they wake up, then choose things that are appropriate, like maybe not that like noisy toy that your aunt gave you that plays Sesame Street songs or something like this, but some quiet toys that they can have on a low shelf for them to explore at their own pace. I always… Whenever I’m setting up a space, I always sit on the ground as well to see what it might look through their eyes, and if you’re working with a really small space, you can see that it gets really cluttered really quickly, so you’re going to probably spend more money on storage than you will on any other piece of furniture in that room so that you can store most of the things and just rotate out a few things at a time.

Jessica: Yeah. And I think that sometimes there’s this notion that “Yes spaces” can kind of be like baby jail or toddler limiting too much, the space because they’re often… Sometimes people get the “Yes spaces” and if you don’t have a lot of space in your home, and then you’re creating this more limited contained area that maybe could hinder freedom of expression and freedom of movement, how do you reconcile this? 

Simone: Yeah, I tend to actually allow the child access to almost the whole home, so that my home ideally is a “Yes space” for them to explore, but you have to see what your child will do, so I’ve had some children that come to my classes who will be able to climb on top of the washing machine to reach something that’s up high on a shelf behind there, so then you might want to say, “Okay, well, I’m going to put a lock on their door, so that they can’t get in unattended.” But mostly, I mean, most children will, if you put out engaging activities, they’re going to be more interested in the activities that you put out and are engaged in, so… “Yes spaces” mean, “I feel welcome here.” It’s not limited in that it’s sterile or anything like that, it’s actually very beautiful and engaging and inviting, so I think that’s how I would do it, try and make everything as accessible as possible, but of course, if you need to put a barrier across because of stairs or because of how your house is set up, then… Yeah, make the area as big as possible, so they have freedom of movement, ‘cause that’s a really big principle of Montessori as well.

Jessica: So now I want to ask some questions about the stuff and why there’s such a focus on that, you know, beautifully prepared environment. I think it can feel out of reach for some people… Can you talk to this a little bit? 

Simone: Yeah, the reason that there is such a focus on the environment is it’s what our child is taking in and it’s a physical environment, so it’s that beautiful space, but it’s also the emotional environment, so that’s us as the prepared adult. So that sounds like a big responsibility and does sometimes feel out of reach, but we can start small, you know, just make small tweaks to say, “Okay, I’m going to make a reading corner and… Yeah, there’s a window in my home, so I’m going to put it there and I’m going to have just a few books so that they can access them themselves.” And then you’ll immediately see how much they gravitate towards it and keeps them engaged as opposed to when we have an unprepared environment, then if they don’t know where to even go, because there’s so much stuff sometimes, or maybe there’s not enough that’s available, ‘cause we’ve hidden it all in cabinets, so of course they’re going to run around in circles because they’re not engaged, so it’s starting at one little bit at a time, start with a book corner, maybe start by the front door and think, “Okay, getting out the door is really hard…

Right now, what we’re going to do is have some little hooks and then when they come in, they’ll be able to put their coats and their bags on the hooks and the shoes in this little basket, and then when it’s time to leave, we wont be going… “Where is everything?” They’ll be able to go over and find their things ‘cause they have a really strong sense of order when we set that up. I always like thinking of it as an intentional space, so rather than focusing on perfection, focus on intention.

Montessori toy rotation

Jessica: We obviously at Lovevery want to make it easy for parents related to the materials, you know, in a lot of our community is asking about toy rotation or material rotation in the Montessori world. What is the best way to implement it? Like, there’s so many questions like, “How many toys do you leave out? How often do you rotate? What if they’ve already mastered an activity?” Like what you just said, do you still rotate that item back in later? 

Simone: Yeah, so how many things to have out? I won’t say like put out six things on a shelf, and for some reason everyone said, “You need six activities on the shelf.” But I just wanted to say like, if I put out 20 things that’s going to probably be overwhelming and really hard for your child to find things. And if you only had two things out, there’s not enough choice, so around six for each child in your home, so if you have two children, it might be then 12 activities that they’re choosing from, then they have some variety, but if you’ve only got six things out as well, then you really need to observe your child to see what they’re most practicing at the moment, so that they can be really effective because if you still have some baby toys kicking around and your child’s one and a half, then they’re just going to get up those toys and they’re going to be throwing them everywhere, so that’s when I tend to rotate their toys. If I see they’re throwing their toy, it’s usually a sign that it’s too hard or too easy, so too easy and that they’ve probably mastered it, and too hard, these pieces, I thought, “What a beautiful puzzle,” I thought it was beautiful…

When I put it out and actually they can’t do it yet, and so they’re getting really frustrated. “What I do like to do with things that they’ve mastered is putting it away for some time, and then you can always bring it out, and like I said, sometimes they use it then in a completely different way. So I run parent child classes, and what I see is that a child from 16 months old might be… There might be an activity that’s out for them, and then the three-year-old will come back over and use that activity in a different way. They’re really working out why is the ball going down the ramp, and what happens if I put this ball straight after this ball, and they’re almost doing a physics experiment.” So there’s definitely a case for some things coming back out.

Jessica: Yeah, there’s so many creative ways. I just had somebody DM me on Instagram where she said that she brought out the tissue box and… The love every magic tissue box, and then she also had this puzzle, our garden puzzle, and so she put the pieces of the puzzle inside the tissue box and the child had to feel for the shapes and say, “Oh, that’s the spade,” or, “Oh, that’s the radish,” or “That’s the carrot.” So there’s so many different ways to extend our materials, I love these ideas.

Simone: Yeah.

Montessori on a budget

Jessica: What are some ways that families can incorporate Montessori at home without spending any money? 

Simone: Yeah, well, what I love about Montessori is it doesn’t have to be about the material, so even if you had no money and you couldn’t buy it, and you can still do Montessori in the way that you parent your child by allowing time, by having conversations together, by really allowing time to listen and connect, and then there’s time for movement, so you could go out to a playground or a park or the mountains or whatever nature you have nearby, and even if you don’t have nature nearby, you could be walking around the block and looking for nature, you know, coming out of the footpath and those kind of things. I love books, so you could go to the library and get books with your child so you can read together and discover new things that are beyond your local community by finding out more about books, and then those daily life activities. So you’re going to be preparing dinner anyway, and your child can stand on a stool to peel some carrots or if they’re younger, they might be peeling the banana and taking that to the bin, and so you’re allowing time for them to be involved and that might not be at every meal, and if you’re a working parent…

It might be just on the weekends, but they’re actually starting to feel like I can contribute to the house, and they’re really learning that I’m an important part of this family as opposed to thinking that, you know, my parents do everything for me, or my caregivers can do everything for me, and instead, all I do is play, they actually feel really important when they’re involved in some of those important tasks, from setting the table to clearing the table and being involved in that food preparation as well. So if there was nothing else that you could do with your child, then I think food preparation goes a long way, and you can also see that they learn so much from that, there’s language, the names of everything that you’re using, from the utensils to the fruit or vegetables that you’re working with and going to the bin, there’s movement, their fine motor skills as they’re peeling and grating and slicing and all the things that they have in their fine motor skills, and then that communication as well between us and the connection you’re building, so they get so much out of the food preparation.

Jessica: That’s so wonderful to hear all of these real accessible ways that we can incorporate Montessori into our homes, so Simone, it’s been so wonderful being with you today. Thank you so much.

Simone: And thank you for all the questions on the community, I love getting to answer them, and I hope that it’s been helpful to everybody.

So many highlights to draw on! Here are my takeaways from the conversation with Simone Davies:

1. Montessori encourages limiting things that are more fantastical in the early years, and instead offering books, materials, and experiences that are based in reality. This provides the foundation for imaginative thinking that can come later. 
2. If you intend to send your child to a Montessori school, there’s no need to replicate the classroom materials at home. At Lovevery, we make sure our items don’t overlap and rather build on what you might find in a Montessori program. 
3. In today’s busy world, it is easy to jump from one activity to another. Try to offer your child longer blocks of uninterrupted time at home to wonder and explore. This can be anywhere from a few minutes for a baby to 40 minutes for a preschooler. 
4. Some people think Montessori gives children free reign to do whatever they like, but in fact, a Montessori home or classroom involves limits — ones that respect the child’s independence. “Freedom within limits” is one way to describe discipline within a Montessori setting. It can look like a box of raisins in the cabinet: The child is free to have it when they please, but when they are gone, there’s no more snacking. 
5. While “yes” spaces can be wonderfully liberating for children, Simone prefers to make the entire house as accessible as possible. Think about what furniture and accessories you might be able to remove to make your home safe. And here’s a bonus to all that decluttering: Children tend to be more engaged when there is an ordered environment. When setting up a space, Simone likes to sit on the ground to get a perspective similar to that of the child. 
6. If you are trying out toy rotation, Simone recommends making available around six materials at any given time. If you have 2 children, it might be 12 activities they are choosing from. Once the material has been mastered, put it away for some time. But then a few months later you can rotate it back in. You may find that your child will use that item in a different way the second time around.
7. A few ways to implement Montessori that cost no money include taking time to really connect with your child in back-and-forth conversation; engaging in some sort of movement outdoors, whether that is in a park or walking around the block and observing nature; reading books together at the library; and inviting your child to work alongside you in the kitchen. 

You can find more Montessori tips, including “How to Montessori a child’s play space” and “7 key elements to create a Montessori nursery” on the Lovevery blog.

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The benefits of reading with your child are well known, and having the right books for each developmental stage makes story time even more meaningful. Our subscriber-exclusive Book Bundles deliver more lasting favorites with every Play Kit.

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There are many health and emotional benefits that can come from loving and being loved by a pet. Studies suggest that a child’s relationship with a pet can have a positive effect on their self-esteem, capacity for empathy, and ability to cope with both grief and loneliness. 

Spending time with a dog or cat—or both—can also help strengthen your child’s immune system. For example, babies who live with dogs, in particular, get fewer respiratory infections and ear infections than children with no dogs at home, according to a study in Pediatrics.

4 ways pets may build skills and attachment

As your child grows older, there are additional benefits to be gained from having an animal at home (and not just a dog or cat—the same goes for turtles, rabbits, hamsters, and other species): 

1. Learning how to care for another living thing through age-appropriate chores such as filling up a water dish.
2. Having another source of unconditional love and comfort in times of stress. A pet can help them calm down and increase their sense of security.
3. Experiencing the consequences of pushing boundaries. If your child pulls your cat’s tail and the cat darts off, you can help them understand by saying something like, “the cat didn’t like that, so she ran away.”
4. Building social-emotional skills. Your child can share their thoughts and feelings to a sympathetic and captive audience. 

A few pet safety tips

The human and animal members of your family can enjoy a rich relationship, as long as all of them—especially your toddler—are kept safe. 

• Never leave your toddler and an animal alone together, even for a moment.
• Some dogs have issues around food, so even as you start including your child in pet-related chores and tasks, don’t involve them in feeding.
• Keep your toddler’s play areas clean and free of any animal waste.
• Immediately address even the slightest aggressive behavior toward your child.
• If you have a pet exit on your door, make sure your toddler can’t fit through it.

Read more about the research

Bergroth, E., Remes, S., Pekkanen, J., Kauppila, T., Büchele, G., & Keski-Nisula, L. (2012). Respiratory tract illnesses during the first year of life: effect of dog and cat contacts. Pediatrics, 130(2), 211-220.

Blue, G. F. (1986). The value of pets in children’s lives. Childhood Education, 63(2), 85-90.

Purewal, R., Christley, R., Kordas, K., Joinson, C., Meints, K., Gee, N., & Westgarth, C. (2017). Companion animals and child/adolescent development: a systematic review of the evidence. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(3), 234.

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