And the Sleep Debates Are Back On

Resist the temptation to hit the snooze button -- or to start a pillow fight. There's too much at stake in the sleep safety wars.

Another infant sleep safety study is making headline news – which means that one of the hottest debates parenting debates is back on again: whether or not you should sleep with your baby.

Here's the dirty little secret about this particular debate. The majority of parents end up sleeping with their baby at some point, whether if it's for a single night or the long haul.

That primal quest for sleep -- to say nothing of that primal drive to comfort a baby who refuses to fall asleep more than an arm's length away from a parent because the baby is lonely, scared, in pain, or simply a baby -- can lead to a rewriting of the sleep rules at any time.

When that happens, parents find themselves in the situation of having to make complex sleep safety decisions when they're at their most sleep deprived and least coherent.

And if they had never intended to bed share (and didn't bother reading up on bed sharing issues as a result), they can find themselves improvising in the area of sleep safety as well.

This is not a good thing.

The lack of any official bed-sharing guidelines doesn't make life any easier for sleep-deprived moms and dads -- or wide-awake moms and dads for that matter, either. They have to make up their minds about a complex situation without having all the facts they need to make a truly informed sleep decision. You see, in an effort to avoid doing any harm, public health authorities have failed to share sleep safety information that has the potential to prevent harm. Talk about a sleep-safety Catch 22.

The Canadian Paediatric Society is one of the few health organizations to recognize this problem and shine a spotlight on what needs to be done. Its sleep guidelines highlight the need to support parents by providing them with information about all sleeping infant environments: "No sleep environment is completely risk-free, but much can be done to educate parents on the provision of safer sleeping environments for their infants," the recommendations state.

The CPS, however, tends to be the exception rather than the rule.

Other health authorities, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have taken a much more conservative approach to providing information about bed sharing -- and been much criticized as a result. 'While bed sharing can never be publicly recommended, due to its complexity, blanket recommendations against bed sharing and eliminating safety information for bed sharing families cannot be justified either,"  respected sleep anthropologist James McKenna, PhD, has stated (.pdf), for example.

So what's a sleep-deprived and safety-conscious parent to do in the absence of comprehensive evidence-based sleep sharing guidelines?

Get informed, regardless of what you think you'll be doing about bed sharing tonight, tomorrow, or next week. Share the best sources of sleep safety information with other parents. And stay tapped into the sleep research grapevine. 

Resources:

Here are some resources you may find useful, whether you're currently bed sharing, thinking about bed sharing, or positive you won't be bed sharing ever. (Never say never, remember.) Because we're still waiting for an evidence-based set of guidelines to be released by a pediatric health authority (and we may be waiting some time for such guidelines), you'll probably want to consult as many of the following sources as possible before making your own decisions about whether or not to bed share.

• Canadian Paediatric Society: Safe Sleep for Babies
• Canadian Paediatric Society: CPS  Position Statement: Safe Sleeping Environments for Infants and Children
  
• American Academy of Pediatrics: The Changing Concept of Sudden Infant Death (.pdf)
• American Academy of Pediatrics: Other Sleep Resources
• "Sleep Arrangements and Bed-Sharing Families in the Home Setting:" Baddock et al. Pediatrics, January 2, 2007.
• The Natural Child Project: James McKenna, PhD
• PhD in Parenthood: Co-Sleeping Safety 
• A Safer Sleep (.pdf) tip sheet which I developed for a parenting workshop. It is based on a much lengthier chapter on this topic ("Bedroom Politics: Where Will Your Baby Sleep?") from my book Sleep Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler (Wiley, 2006). (More sleep articles here.)

BE SLEEP SAFETY SAVVY: Steer clear of sleep safety source that promises to offer the definitive set of do's and don'ts for safe bed sharing. No source can make that guarantee at this time; just as no source can make the opposite guarantee -- that your baby can sleep totally risk-free away from you. Nothing about babies and sleep is totally risk-free, just as nothing about raising kids is totally risk-free. "Safer" or "less risky" is the best deal going.

True Twitter Confessions: At First I Couldn't Figure Out What The Big Deal Was About

At first I couldn't figure out why everyone was making such a big deal about Twitter. I mean, wasn't it just glorified IM-ing for grownups?

It took me about 100 tweets (messages sent to other Twitter users) to go from questioning the benefits of Twitter to getting totally hooked. (Don't say you weren't warned.) And once I was hooked, I started thinking about all the ways Twitter was becoming essential in my life -- and how it could be used to make life better for other parents.

I compared notes with other parents on Twitter in order to produce this list (very much a work-in-progress) of ways parents are using Twitter in their everyday lives.

Note: The strange-looking comments that are pasted in below are tweets – the messages Twitter users send to communicate with one another. Because tweets are limited to 140 characters, Twitter users resort to diy acronyms in order to squeeze as much message as possible into the limited number of characters.

You can use Twitter to stay connected to the outside world when you're at home caring for young children.

@NicolleWahl "If you aren't into the whole gymboree/"mom's group" lifestyle, twitter's a great way to fight the isolation/occas. boredom."
@DaniGirl "I've found twitter perfectly suited to the 5 minute bursts of free time that defines the day when mothering a wee baby in a family of five!"

You can Tweet pregnancy updates.

@DaniGirl "tweetd regular updates on the end of my prgcy when I couldn't bother to blog. Worked great!"

You can tap into the endless flow of news, parenting and otherwise.

Whether you want to keep on top of news headlnes, health news, product safety recalls, find out which celebrity is pregnant (@ParentDish: "Molly Ringwald Pregnant!") and which products are and aren't worth buying (earlier today, @frozenfoods described a particular brand of ready-to-eat family-size Salisbury Steak "dog food in a cesspool of gravy").

You can pick up new ideas.

Earlier today, I was reading a @shacker's page and I found a post that read "On the hunt for used/recycled lumber – back to building a fort with Miles." Then, a few lines up on the page, he reported on his success in scoring free lumber: "HUGE thanks to Ashby Lumber for donation of imperfect wood for our fort. Even loaded it onto car with forklift!" Clearly @shacker is a genius.

You get to hang out with people who are just like you or who share the same interests as you.

When you have dozens, hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of people pooling their collective wisdom, you can imagine how inspiring the conversations can be.

You can meet other people who aren't just like you.

That's part of the fun of twitter, too: broadening your horizons:

@Doulamama Wide network of diverse folk with resources, ideas and tips. My tip: broaden your followers beyond parenting and mama people.

You'll find out about cool widgets that have just been invented – and you'll dream up fabulous ways to use them.

How about mapping out your next mommy group argument over sleep training methods using this tool, for example? (Found via @TechCrunch.)

One final tip: It's a good idea to read up on Twitter basics, including Twitter etiquette, before you start firing off spam-o-grams or nasty rants. One of the best things about Twitter is that its culture generally favors nice over nasty, but not in an over-the-top or fake way. Here are some quick guides to Twitter that will help you to sidestep the faux pas while making the most of this incredibly powerful and versatile communications tool. Have fun -- and I hope you'll take a moment to swing back and report on the many uses you find for Twitter -- things I haven't even dreamed of yet.

Sleep Deprived in the GTA? Maybe This Will Help With One of Your Family's Night-time Issues

ParentCentral.ca just launched a new series of articles on bedwetting.

I contributed three of the articles in the series -- the ones on bedwetting causes, how bedwetting can affect a child's self-esteem, and how to handle sleepovers, family trips, and other special situations.

If there's an issue related to bedwetting or any other parenting-related issue or concern you'd me to address, please let me know.

As the blogger-in-residence, I see it as my job to address whatever parenting worries and concerns are costing you sleep.

I won't have all the answers (as if!), but, with any luck, the readers of this blog will be able to pool enough collective wisdom to help you get the sleep you so desperately crave.

Books? Did Someone Say Books?

If you live and breathe books, have I got an event for you. There's just one small catch. You have to drive to Peterborough to be part of it. But it will totally be worth it! I can practically guarantee it. And that's about the best guarantee anyone is offering these days.

Here are the event details, in case you decide to make the drive. Note: Peterborough is just 1 hr. and 10 minutes from the 401 and the DVP, assuming traffic is moving well.

I'm the keynote speaker at Frontier College @ Trent University's 9th Annual Literacy Conference. The conference is being held at Peter Gzowski College at Trent University (Peterborough, Ontario) on Saturday, January 24th. The event runs from 11 am to 4 pm and will feature a variety of speakers on literacy-related topics throughout the day. You can register online. Admission is FREE.

I'll be presenting from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm. The topic I've chosen is "Books Run in My Family" -- all about the way books and the love of reading have been passed up and down my family tree. (Amazing factoid to entice you to make the drive: There are four generations of published authors in my family, three generations of them still living.) 

If you've ever heard me speak, you know that I have a pretty chatty style. I'm big on sharing personal anecdotes, life lessons learned, practical tips and advice -- plus as many from-the-trenches author war stories as I can possibly fit in. (That's the whole reason to come out to an event like this, isn't it?) 

 If you do come out, be sure to ask me about my worst author event ever (it's pretty awful) and the worst event any author ever had (it's about as awful as you can imagine -- but, thankfully, it didn't happen to me).

Be sure to bring a friend or two -- or your entire book club -- plus your best friend's book club, too. Remember, the event is free. And you know what they say about things that are free. So it's going to be fantastic, right?  :-)

Related links:

Canadian Council on Learning

Frontier College Foundation 

Frontier College

OISE Literacy Conference Findings (2003)

Sundance Film Festival - Ten Free Movie Shorts from iTunes

I came across the link to this offer while I was over on Twitter. I just downloaded the ten free movie shorts myself, so the offer is for real -- and it works from Canada, too. (Note: it's only valid until 1/25/09.)

I haven't had a chance to watch the movie shorts myself yet (I wanted to act quickly, like the offer says) so I can't speak to their content or their quality. But we're talking Sundance Film Festival Movie Shorts. For free.

Caring Parent, Caring Kid: Planting the Seeds of Change in the Hearts and Minds of the Next Generation

When I was growing up, the furnace room in my parents' home doubled as a storage room for my Dad's massive slide collection. Every once in a while, Dad would venture downstairs, haul out the slide projector and massive screen and allow my sisters and I admittance to that almost unimaginable place: the world he and mom had inhabited before we were born.

One of his slide shows took us to South Carolina. In addition to the strange-looking trees and the much-younger looking parents (always a remarkable sight when you're a kid), we saw photos of signs that captured in a way that words could not the stark realities of segregation: images of WHITE – COLORED drinking fountains; or signs spelling out who could or couldn't walk through a particular door.

The conversations we had about those photos changed my life. They forged my values and set me on a path I continue to follow to this day through my work as a parenting author and someone who is passionate about social justice.

Tomorrow is going to be a day that our generation and our kids' generation will talk about and remember forever -- an ideal time to have a conversation with your kids about what inspires you, what infuriates you, and why.

Here are some of the types of conversations I've been having with my own kids lately. Perhaps one of these conversation threads might inspire a conversation of your own:

• - Why we need leaders who will be honest and accountable (and who will not mislead the people in an effort to save their own jobs) and why the people and the media need to hold our leaders accountable;
• - Why we can't expect leaders to be perfect (because no one is perfect) but we can expect them to admit their mistakes and change course when they realize that a mistake has been made;
• - Why we should expect our leaders to ensure that all people are treated with respect and live in dignity (which necessitates action on poverty, mental health, health care, social justice issues, etc.);
• - Why we need leaders of vision (who will do what is right for the long-term health of the Planet, the good of the economy, and the health and welfare of the people rather than just focusing on getting re-elected)
• - Why it is important to be an involved and active citizen (and that doesn't just mean showing up to vote on voting day; it means being informed about the issues, understanding how government works, and determining who is going to represent you at all levels of government);
• - Why we need to join with other families to find innovative environmental, economic, and social justice solutions at the community level. That way, each of those unique local solutions can, in turn, become a building block that brings Canada closer to becoming both environmentally and economically sustainable and a global leader in social justice, peace-keeping, and diplomacy.

I don't know about you, but I'm hoping that the political winds of change will prove to be contagious -- that Barack Obama's inauguration will encourage Canadians to dare to dream big once again. Just imagine what that could mean for our children and our country's future, to say nothing of the future of the Planet.

The Challenges of a Mega-City Pregnancy: Mega and Minor -- A List in Progress

Clearly, it's no cakewalk being pregnant in New York City. According to writer Emily Nussbaum:

"No one offers you a seat on the subway. Everything smells terrible. It’s normal to walk twenty blocks through rain and heat and snow, just like a postman, except nonunion and with the mail sack tied to your abdomen. There’s remarkable pressure to look stylish and put together even when your ankles have swollen up to the size of Murray’s bagels."

Nussbaum's musings got me thinking about how being pregnant in New York compares to being pregnant in the GTA.

Here's what I've got on my list of challenges (both mega and minor) so far.

The scarcity of public washrooms. Face it, the GTA is Scroogeville when it comes to the availability of public washrooms. In fact, I have long suspected that washroom scarcity is an undiagnosed cause of pregnancy rage. Ever try to schedule your life and plan your errands around the availability of public washrooms?  Try doing that for nine-and-a-half months at a stretch and see how your mood is affected.

Lack of recognition for multi-season heroics. Depending on the date of conception and the date of delivery, a GTA mom-to-be can count on schlepping through slush/snow, splashing through puddles, and sweating through heat waves. And yet she doesn't get hailed as a hero in the same way as the folks who carry our mail do. What's with that?

Traffic: construction and weather-related. There is no such thing as a quick zip across town anywhere or anytime in the GTA. Whether your midwife is traveling to your home or you're heading to the hospital to give birth, the traffic facts of life will have to be factored into your birth plans. You can mull this over while you're commuting with a too-full pregnant bladder.

The shortage of midwives, obstetricians, and misc. healthcare resources. The supply of pregnant women hoping to have their babies delivered by midwives vastly exceeds the supply of midwives. Yep. You don't even have to be born yet to end up on your first health-care waiting list.

Now it's your turn. If you're pregnant, you've no doubt spent time in the middle of the night pondering the highs and lows of being pregnant in the GTA. And if you know a pregnant woman, you've no doubt been on the receiving end of some rants on this subject. Do tell....

Need to Get Your Family Back on Track Money-Wise in 2009?

Suze Orman's Free Book Download.

Financial planning author Suze Orman is offering a free download (.pdf) of her latest book -- Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan -- via Oprah's website. There's just one catch: you have to act quickly. The link (see top line in post) will only work until Thursday, January 15th.

This isn't my regular blog post, by the way. (Me? Be this concise? You must be joking!) But I didn't want to waste any time passing along this link because of the short shelf-life of this offer.

Note: The book is written for an American reader, but a lot of the basic money-management ideas make just as sense on this side of the border as south of it. And free is free, right?

Enjoy!

Found via Sittercity and countless other enthusiastic tweeters on Twitter. Apparently, the offer was first announced on The Today Show.

Hey, Boss, Want to Make Next Year's List of Best Employers? Here's What You Need to Know

Human Resources consulting firm Hewitt Associates Inc. has just released its annual list of Canada's Best Employers (a.k.a. the companies with Canada's Happiest Employees). The list scores companies on their ability to attract and retain employees, figuring that if your employees are happy, they're going to stick around, and if they're not, they're going to walk.

Employers who want to make the list might think they have to chase the latest workplace fads (offering on-site yoga classes and cappuccino bars). Or that they have to try something no one has ever tried before.

That's simply not the case, according to Hewitt. "The traits of Best Employers are consistent across national culture, economic conditions, and political situations. And while the specific practices and programs of Best Employers may vary from country to country, at their foundation is a basic respect for the men and women who come to work every day."

What struck me, as I was reading through the research, is how much parenting and running a successful modern corporation have in common. (Actually, I could argue that parenting is far more challenging, because you're emotionally rather than financially invested in the outcome of the corporation, but I'll leave that discussion for another day.) Consider these five traits that Hewitt has identified as being the modus operandi of the Best Employers in its analysis of its global research in this field. They certainly sound a lot like the principles of successful parenting, don't they?

1. The people in charge have to be excellent leaders. That means being a good role model yourself and being the kind of leader who inspires others to want to do their best (as opposed to motivating through fear).
2. The group has its own unique culture and, as a result, its members feel a strong sense of belonging to a unique and exclusive group. The leaders create this culture by conveying the group's mission, goals, and values; and of making a point of celebrating both group and individual milestones and achievements.
3. There is a strong tradition of a more experienced person mentoring a less experienced person (often a person of an up-and-coming generation). Both the mentor and the person being mentored benefit from this relationship.
4. Leaders model accountability from the top on down and allow others to make mistakes without feeling like their status within the group will be in jeopardy. Being accountable for mistakes plays an important role in both personal and group growth and success.
5. There is recognition of the need for flexible and creative thinking in meeting the needs of each individual within the group. People are unique and they deserve to be treated with respect.

Here's a question for you....

Given how much parenting wisdom clearly applies to the corporate boardroom, what other lessons from the world of parenting would you offer to the people in charge of running Canada's biggest corporations? (Or smallest companies. Or government departments. Or non-profits. Why should we be exclusive here?)

I'm going to toss one tip out myself, just to get the discussion going (and to give you an idea of the kind of thing I have in mind).

Then, please, pour yourself a cup of coffee (or hit your in-house cappuccino bar, if you have one), and give me the advice you'd like to give your boss (or someone else's boss) about running companies that people like to work for.

Here's my piece of advice.

Don't play favorites – particularly if you have bad taste in favorites. You can't make things absolutely fair, but avoid blatant displays of favoritism at work. You're not being as subtle as you think you are. Besides, you're not getting the full picture about the golden child. Of course, he's being adorable and uncharacteristically competent when you're in the room. (Remember how your brother pulled that trick when you were a kid? It's the same thing all over again, except we're grownups, and the stakes are much bigger because we all have mortgages now.)

Now over to you....

A Big Enough Dream

Dan Carter has a rather pointed message for anyone who is waiting for the right time to chase after their dream.

It's the Right Time Now.

"If you look back in history, a lot of the really important social movements took place during hard times. We can't afford to wait for better times. It's the right time now."

If you're being pursued by the kind of dream that won't leave you alone – a desire to work for change -- then you will want to know about Dan and his dream.

I met Dan about nine years ago, when I was a relatively new author out on the book promotion trail and he was hosting a noon-hour entertainment show on the CBC affiliate station in Oshawa, Ontario. Dan was one of those TV hosts with a really warm and relaxed interviewing style – our interview felt more like a chat – and I made a point of keeping in touch with him over the years. I made occasional guest appearances as I brought out new books and, about three years ago, I starting contributing a bimonthly parenting segment to the evening news.

All that time, I worked under the mistaken assumption that Dan was merely a good guy – the kind of TV host and producer who went out of his way to make everyone feel at home on the set. I had no idea he was actually a mild-mannered broadcasting-world Clark Kent by day and something approaching a GTA superhero after hours. You see, I hadn't been brought up to speed about Dan's plans to raise up to a million dollars to launch a centre for kids and seniors in south Oshawa. That changed last year -- I was brought into the loop -- and, frankly, I was awestruck. The centre -- which will be part of the new Oshawa Community Health Centre in south Oshawa  -- will provide disadvantaged kids with access to computers and learning materials while providing respite care to seniors with Alzheimers.

What's fueling Dan's dream is his desire (actually, let's make that need) to make a difference with his life. That's because he feels like he has been given a second chance at life and he's determined not to waste a single minute of it. Dan in incredibly generous about sharing what he's learned about hitting rock bottom and finding the courage to come back from addiction – most recently in his book which doubles as a fundraiser for The Hope Centre of Learning. And he is working each step of the plan for turning that million dollar dream into a million dollar reality.

I have no doubt that he will be successful. He will accept nothing less from himself -- not when there are vulnerable kids at stake. Put passion behind a great cause and you've got a pitch no one can resist. Case in point: I dropped by Dan's book launch in Oshawa in late October. It was the best attended book launch I've ever attended – and I've attended plenty of book launches in my time. About 250 people jammed the book store, loading up on armloads of the book. Most stood in line for an hour so they could offer personal congratulations to  Dan and his mentor/co-author Reverend Doug Schneider.

It takes a special person to attract that kind of following. It also takes a very special kind of dream – the kind of dream that is big enough to demand an entire community's support. A dream big enough for people to invest their hearts and their hope in.

That's Dan Carter's kind of dream.