Category: Baby stuff

Ever since the anticipation of Bryan’s arrival, I’ve been taking many early childhood education (ECE) classes at UC Santa Cruz. As a result of those classes, I have had to go to some pre-schools to make observations. Today I went to Explorer Pre-school where my instructor is teaching at. What a fun place! It makes working with computers (and adults at that) such a boring job. Two-year-olds can be such a delight as observation subjects.

The latest proven teaching method is what’s called “the whole child”. Its focus is not so much on the academics as it is on the developmentally appropriate “learning” opportunities for the children. And the approach places emphasis on individual child’s needs as opposed to a curriculum that the teacher has to follow (there really is a lot more than it sounds). The Reggio Emilia Approach has been what everybody in the ECE field is talking about for the past 10-15 years. Its success is unparalleled.

It’s really cool to see “the whole child” approach in action in contrast to the more traditional academic schools. Though academics is essential eventually, there’s also a lot to be learned for two-year-olds to just be two-year-olds with proper guidance of an experienced educator.

A relative of Grace’s was visiting. So we stopped by for a quick hello. But of course, everybody has an opinion on how to raise YOUR child. Having raised three American children whom are all very successful academically, she instructed us to ignore Bryan’s cries at night so that it’d “help him” sleep through the night. Nothing annoys me more than to have old-schoolers, whose child-rearing knowledge is obviously behind the times, to tell us what to do. She casually mentioned that was the method taught in a book by “Dr. Spock”.

So who was this crazy Spock guy to tell parents that allowing babies to cry through the night is good for them?

And sure enough, Dr. Spock turns out to be a rather famous pediatrician in the United States whose books have helped “millions” of parents raising their children. But I guess 30 years ago when Grace’s relative read his book, the trend was to let babies cry. But 30 years later, Dr. Spock knows better.

But yet there are still pediatricians telling parents to let babies cry!! Who the hell are these people getting their information from? And just how dated is that information? And for all you new parents out there — you go see pediatricians for the health of your baby, not to ask their opinion on how to raise them. Early childhood education is something clearly not their domain. Research after research shows that you need to build trust with your baby for the first 6-9 months of the little being’s life.

So don’t let the baby cry. Pick him/her up and find out why s/he is crying already! Babies can’t talk, crying is the only way they communicate their unhappiness.

This morning, at 7AM, was the first time I heard Bryan being able to coo continuously and just kept “talking” away. At one point he was so excited about talking to me that he screamed… also his first.

Bryan is also getting increasingly more and more alert during the day. This translates to less and less time for me to be able to quietly work at home. “San Jose Public Library, will you be my second home?”

Bryan’s poop is getting ridiculously humongous. Sometimes when we open up the diaper, we can’t tell where his butt ends and the poop begins.

In addition to the humongous poops, the little fella has also been pooping two to three times a day on a regular basis. What could possibly be in the formula that makes so much poop? Marvels of the human body…

Yesterday was the first day of class with this famous infant/toddler instructor in the Bay Area. She was impressive. Remember the “Cry Baby” entry I did? Well, she touched on the scientific aspect of that topic in the class. It had something to do with the inhibitory and excitatory synapses and neurons. The basic idea is, when an infant is deprived of his emotions or needs (i.e. nobody attends to his cries), the inhibitory neurons get used a lot more often and thus form stronger connections for synapses. Over time, this translates into a person who’s going to be incapable of “regulating” his own emotions and is much more likely to be depressed, stressed with less self-confidence.

With all the research and knowledge we have today (30+ years of continuous longitudinal research), I am surprised there are still people who choose to believe that attending to crying babies is a form of spoiling them.

There’s been a lot of improvements in the U.S. to make things easier for people with physical disabilities. I wonder if that qualifies infants since they, too, can’t really help themselves to do a lot of things we adults take for granted.

The simplest example I can think of is utilities in the bathroom. We have taken Bryan out a few times, and when it came to changing diapers, there’s been NO diaper changing stations in all of the places we have taken Bryan to so far. These places include two popular restaurants and a four star expensive hotel. What’s wrong with the facility owners? Don’t they have kids?

Thanks to a new proposal in San Francisco, things may soon change. The new law, if passed, would require new buildings over a certain size (or renovations that go over a certain budget) to install baby diaper changing stations. The ironic thing about that is, the proposal only came after the city supervisor had trouble finding places equipped with such utility for his own kids.

Don’t you just love it when laws are made to accommodate certain policy maker’s own experience in life? Fortunately sometimes these policies actually benefit the general public at large.

I noticed that Bryan is now able to stay focused on the mobile over his crib for 15 minutes or more each time. Before this week, it was tough to get him interested in something for more than 5 or more minutes. Sometimes he also tries to talk to the animals on the mobile.

Another new development is that when he’s on his tummy, he’s now able to hold his head up for a lot longer than he could before last week.

He also smiles a lot when talked to. I guess when he hears something he likes, he gives this big smiles, sometimes even chuckles.

Other related new developments include the ability to follow a person with his eyes, and when that person moves beyond his sight, he is able to turn his head to track the moving person. He’s also staying up a lot longer during the day and sleeping slightly longer during the night (thank god). I can’t wait to have him sleep for at least 6 hours at a time (and hopefully through the night).

詠熙現在漸漸的開始可以在同一個東西上集中注意力超過十五分鐘了。一個禮拜前要他花五分鐘看個東西的話, 他才不會屌你勒。現在他也可以趴著然後抬頭東張西望的到處看。之前他的脖子軟啪啪的, 根本支撐不了他那顆大頭。

還有就是現在可以逗他笑了。他對他喜歡聽的聲音會笑的特別開心。不要說什麼, 有時候他連做夢都會哈哈大笑。我們萬萬也想不到才五, 六個禮拜的新生兒竟然會笑。我媽明明說我們這一帶的小孩都要到三四個月才會開始笑ㄟ。難道這是人類進化的寫真嘛?

其他關於詠熙的進展包括: 他現在也可以用眼睛跟著人晃來晃去的。象現在我們走到哪他的眼睛就會跟到哪 — 超酷的。而且如果你走到他的眼線之外, 他還知道要轉頭呢! 從這禮拜開始, 我們也漸漸的發現詠熙白天清醒的時間越來越長了。不知道哪時他才可以晚上最起碼一口氣睡上個五六個小時啊。

Yes, they are here. I finally got around to publish video clips of Bryan. Visit bryan.wiredatom.com and click on the video link there (Quicktime 7.0 required). You won’t be disappointed.

花了一段時間整理後, 詠熙的 video 隆重登場了。請到 bryan.wiredatom.com, 然後按 「Video Clips」即可。到了 video 網頁後, 只要在照片上按一下就可以看了喔! 不過提醒大家要下載蘋果最新的 Quicktime 7.0 才可以放影喔。

看來可能以後要多多用雙語來部落格才能照顧到在台灣的親戚朋友們…

🙂