McKenna Preteen Summary: 9.25 Years Old

This is a preteen summary for McKenna from 9-9.25 years old. Information on a nine year old girl. Eating habits, sleep habits, and anxiety for a preteen girl.

EATING

Eating is great! It seems like every child has at least one thing that is just a non-issue in life, and for McKenna, the number one is definitely food. She eats well. She likes everything I make. She isn't picky at all. Her natural desire is to eat healthy foods over junk or sweets.

SLEEP

Sleep is good. McKenna did have a couple of nights during this time period where she got out of bed after being put to bed because she was worrying about something. This was definitely odd for her. I would have said sleep is another one of those things that we just don't have to worry about with her, but she did have these nights of getting up after bedtime. That has since ended, but it was a thing for a bit.

Something we did for sleep was get her a basic timer so she wouldn't stay up too late reading. She gets so into books that she blocks the world out, so we would tell her what time to stop reading and go to bed, but she didn't look at the clock until that time was long past. So we got a timer and just set it so she knows for sure what time is time to put the book down.

7 Chores Your Six Year Old Can Do

Chores Your Six Year Old Can Do. A list of chore ideas that your child can learn to do when your child is six years old.

Having a child who helps with the household chores is invaluable. Every person in the house contributes to the mess, so having everyone contribute to the clean-up helps off-load the parents. Many hands make light work! Beyond easing burdens upon parents, chores help teach responsibility and life skills. Children learn not only how to care for a home so they are prepared to care for their own someday, but they learn the value in hard work and a job well done. If they are expected to be responsible in one thing, they can be responsible for other things in life.

It is important to keep chores age-appropriate. If a child is expected to care for something beyond her capability, it can lead to frustration. If she is expected to care for too few things or items that are too easy, he is losing the opportunity to grow and expand.

Babywise Mom Reader Favorites Day 2018

Babywise Mom Reader Favorites Day. Favorite baby products, favorite baby toys, favorite toys for kids, and favorite books.

When I am looking for recommendations, I love to look for advice from like-minded moms. One of my favorite things is knowing what other people have as favorite things.

Below are the reader favorites posts for you to visit today. Follow the link and comment on the post with your favorites in that category. I will add your comments to the body of the post. Is there a category you would love to see? Go ahead and leave a comment letting me know what category you would like to see included.

Chronicles of a Babywise Mom Reader Blog Day

Chronicles of a Babywise Mom Reader Blog Day. Share your blog day.

Today is the day to share your blogs with everyone. These can be any blog that you would like to share.

Please look through the lists of categories below, choose the one that best fits your blog, follow the link, and comment on that post to share your blog. Please share your blog on only one link--choose the best one for your blog. If you don't see a category that fits your blog, go to "Misc." If/when I get enough similar blogs on that post, I will create a new category. If your blog is listed in one category but it actually fits a different category now, go ahead and list it with the better category.

Babywise Mom Parenting Hack Day

Babywise Mom Parenting Hack Day. Share your best parenting hacks for your Babywise baby.

Today is our first-ever Babywise Mom Parenting Hack Day.

Today, share you hacks you have found to make parenting easier. Any hack is great. I would love to hear any Babywise hacks you have found to make your Babywise Mom life easier. Found a way to keep track of the schedule? Found a way to to make traveling with a Babywise baby easier. Found a way to get your Babywise baby to sleep on the go? Do you have great tips for making sure you stay in the parenting funnel? These can be things you do or things you have purchased or made.

Reader Sample Schedules Day 2018

Reader Sample Schedules Day 2018. Share your child's sample schedule so you can help other parents out.

Welcome to sample schedules day! Today is the day for you to share your schedule. If everyone shares just the current schedule of one child, we can grow our resources significantly! These posts are referenced frequently so I know they are helpful to other parents out there.

Here is what you do. Click on the link to the post you want to add a sample schedule to. If your child is 9, then you will click on the link for 9, 10, 11, and 12 year olds. Then add a comment with your sample schedule. Then future parents can come look at these sample schedules to get ideas for their babies and children!

Remember, if you do not want to comment on the blog for whatever reason, you can head to your favorite social media platform and comment there. See yesterday's posts for direct links.

There are some posts that definitely could use some attention--anyone with older children! You might be less consistent each day, but even just filling in the basic info of when sleeping is taking place can be helpful. Another is the Summer Schedules post--if you have a summer routine that works for you, go over and fill that in.

Reader Sample Schedules 0-12 Months Old

Reader Sample Schedules: 12-24 Months Old

Reader Sample Tandem Schedules (Two children)

Reader Sample Schedules--3 Children or more

Sample Summer Schedules

NOTE: I am turning comments OFF of this post. I want to make sure you add your schedule to the appropriate post and not this one.

Chronicles of a Babywise Mom Reader Week 2018

Chronicles of a Babywise Mom Reader Week 2018. Connect with other Babywise Moms.

July is a different month here on the blog. We do a big BFBN week, a success story week, and a reader week. What is a reader week you may ask? Well, you are in it. It has arrived.

This is my eighth year doing a reader week in July on this blog. This is the week we focus on the readers of the blog. I love to help readers connect and to help each other out. This is a week when you all get to contribute to making this blog a valuable resource.

My posts are helpful to you all, yes, but so are your comments and contributions. It is one thing to see one mom (me) doing Babywise, but quite another to see how many moms do it. Something I love about reader week is that it adds a myriad of experiences to the mix. I haven't experienced

every parenting issue that can come up and I consistently learn new things from readers. For example, I never knew about a tongue tie until a reader told me about it. There is great value to working together and collaborating. That is why I continue to host this week year after year.

I so appreciate you readers and all you do to contribute to this blog! Even your questions you ask me contribute because it helps me know what your common concerns are and what information will be most helpful to you.

Here is the plan for the week:

How To Maintain a Sleep Schedule Amid School Disruptions

How To Maintain a Sleep Schedule Amid School Disruptions. How to ensure your baby or toddler still gets the naps needed while balancing a school schedule.

You don't know what you have until it is gone. This phrase is true for many aspects of parenting, and one of those is the nicety of the lack of disruptions in life. Yes, it can get boring to be home all day every day with little variation to the schedule. The major perk of that, though, is that your schedule is your own. You get to set it. You get to work around baby's nuances and personality quirks. You fit your family as neatly as possible into the schedule that is the most natural fit for everyone.

Then school starts for your oldest or maybe you enroll your child in something like dance class. Suddenly, you don't get to just set the schedule. You have to work around an outside force on your schedule. Even if things are perfect right now, you might find yourself face to face with having to drive your child to school or practice right in the middle of nap time for your baby.

How can you ever maintain a solid sleep schedule with all of the disruptions going on? Can it even be done? Is it worth trying?

The answer is yes. Yes you can and yes it is worth it. Here are some tips to make it possible. Use the tips that work for you. You won't be able to use every tip, so pick and choose which make sense for you.

4 Powerful Things To Know Before You Exclusively Pump

4 Powerful Things To Know About Breast Milk Before You Exclusively Pump. The facts are not cut and dry. There are factors you need to consider before deciding to pump instead of formula feed.

There is this huge push nowadays that "breast is best". So much so, that when breastfeeding isn't working out easily, many mothers are taking to full time pumping, freezing, and using this breast milk storage for their baby.

Our bodies are pretty amazing. Did you know that your body receives signals from your baby's saliva, and in turn makes changes to the composition of your breast milk? Your breast milk also changes throughout one feeding, throughout the day, and has different composition from month to month.

With all of this in mind, it made me think:

What if pumping isn't as ideal as we think?

How careful do we need to be with it?

Should a 6 month old baby, be given pumped milk from when he or she was 3 months old?

For moms that are breastfeeding, and then pumping to gain freezer storage for those moments in need... is that really the best option?

When is the ideal time to pump?

Is after a feeding ok?

As far as I can tell, there really hasn't been much research done in this area. I personally think there needs to be, however.

Since, as a society, we are pushing breast milk as the "best" option, many moms are feeling guilted into pumping and storing milk, when they otherwise may have just used formula.

Formula has been highly researched and we know it is a safe, good alternative. In fact, it has some advantages such as being enriched and fortified with iron. Pumping, storing, and feeding is most likely also safe- but what if it isn't as straightforward as we think?

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Doing a Dreamfeed

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Doing a Dreamfeed. This post discusses the good things about doing a dreamfeed for longer night sleep from baby as well as the drawbacks of doing a dreamfeed.

The Dreamfeed is a powerful tool to help your baby sleep a longer stretch through your night sleep. This allows baby to get the feedings she needs while allowing you the longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep possible.

Sleep has many powerful, known benefits. Sleep helps you heal (a benefit after delivering a baby) and helps you think through things better (a benefit for a mother caring for children). Helping your baby sleep well through the night helps your baby, but it also helps you as the mother, which in turn, helps your baby.

The Dreamfeed can be a handy tool. Sometimes it works beautifully and sometimes it is a big flop. Here are some tips, comments, and advice from Babywise moms on the topic of the Dreamfeed. In making these comments, moms were pondering if they would use the dreamfeed for their next child.

You will notice not every mom loved the Dreamfeed. For some, it worked great for one child and not well for a different child. Some fully disliked it. Most, however, really loved the Dreamfeed and found great benefit from using it. Read more about the Dreamfeed here.