Early Motherhood

“At 18 months most children have the ability to understand that with a time-out you’re removing them from a particular situation,” says Howard Reinstein, a pediatrician in Encino, California and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). But that doesn’t mean it’s an effective discipline technique. Reinstein worries that the original concept of “time out” has been lost, and that parents and caregivers overuse it, especially for children under 3. “Originally a time-out simply meant not responding to a child’s negative behavior,” says Reinstein. Now it usually involves making the child sit alone in his room or a certain chair for a prescribed amount of time (often one minute for each year of age). But, says Reinstein, “there’s no evidence that using the one-minute per year marker works, or that time-outs themselves work, so I would caution parents to use this method of discipline sparingly.”

Here are our picks for some of the best child development books on the market.

Complete Guide to Your Children’s Health, by the American Medical Association
This straightforward, comprehensive reference comes from the American Medical Association, so you know it’s good material. The book features helpful pictures, charts, and diagrams on everything from childproofing to teething, as well as easy-to-read symptom charts and an A to Z health encyclopedia. The developmental information, including lists of physical and cognitive milestones and warning signs of potential problems, is divided by age group and includes simple activities and games designed to help your baby learn.

Like carbohydrates in recent years, fats have been wrongly accused of being “bad.” Although some are definitely better than others, certain kinds of fat are actually good for you and your child and are an important part of a healthy diet.

What Is Fat?
Fats, or lipids, are nutrients in food that your body uses to build nerve tissue (like the brain) and hormones. Your body also uses fat as fuel. If fats that you’ve eaten aren’t burned as energy or used as building blocks, they’re stored by the body in fat cells. This is your body’s way of thinking ahead: By saving fat for future use, your body plans for times when food might be scarce.

Preschoolers have a lot of energy, and they’re able to use it in a more organized way than when they were toddlers. Instead of just running around in the backyard, a preschooler has the physical skills and coordination to ride a tricycle or chase a butterfly.
Preschoolers are also discovering what it means to play with a friend instead of just alongside another child, as toddlers do. By having an opportunity to be around other children, your preschooler will be able to gain important social skills, such as sharing and taking turns. No doubt there will be disputes, but by the time your child is preschool-age, he or she can learn to cooperate and interact during play.

TOILET LEARNING
 
In days past, to teach children to use the toilet, parents simply undressed them and sat them in a potty chair for extended periods until they eliminated. Then referred to as toilet training, past practices and past terms have been updated. Research has shown that seeing the child as an active player makes the toileting process more enjoyable. Therefore, a more appropriate name for the process is toilet mastery or toilet learning.