”honey, it’s time for you to sleep now.” “but mom!!!!!!!! I’m not yet sleepy and besides I’m not even tired yet” 

This is a normal conversation between a mom and her little one who prefers playing than sleeping. During this moment, your patience will be tested and yes, It won’t be easy. It is important that your child understands why she needs to sleep.  That heavy and groggy feeling shows that your child is not at her best condition. She needs to know that her body is like a celphone battery that needs to be recharged.  So here  are the following things that you can do to help your child love sleeping.

• Sleep with your little one. It helps your child get into a routine.
• Try bedtime routines like, reading, or taking a warm bath. It helps your child to  be calm and relax.
• No sodas, ice tea or any food contains caffeine before bedtime.
• Avoid having TV inside your child’s room. Study shows that kids who have TV’s in their rooms sleep less.
• Remember that children has wild imaginations. Avoid watching scary movies or TV shows close to bedtime because it makes it hard for them to fall asleep. Just incase this situation happens, pray with your child before they go to sleep.
• Use your child’s bed only for sleeping. In that way,you’ll train your child’s body to associate her bed with sleep.
• Have a “bedtime chit-chat”. This is the time to ask your child how her day was. This will  help your child relax and It will be easy for her to sleep.

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Nick Jonas has Type 1 Diabetes

Doctors really don’t know what causes Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes. Research is being done to explore both genetics and environmental triggers, but many kids who are diagnosed with diabetes have no family history of it at all.

Diabetes is manageable; kids who have this condition can live normal, active lives if they pay close attention to treating their condition. Diabetes can’t be cured, but its effects can be minimized. If your child doesn’t do this conscientiously, he or she might develop several undesirable complications. These can include:

• Neuropathy. This is nerve damage. It commonly causes problems in the legs, but it can also affect other systems in the body as well.

• Retinopathy. Diabetes can cause damage to the eyes, including causing blindness.

• Nephropathy. Nephropathy is kidney disease. Weak kidneys allow toxins to build up in the body and make a child sick.

• Heart Disease. Heart disease is more common to diabetics than non-diabetics. It can lead to other complications such as stroke, embolism, or heart attack.

So how do you know if your child has diabetes? There are some symptoms that all parents should be on the lookout for:

• Excessive thirst. Is your child constantly asking for something to drink?

• Frequent urination. If you find yourself saying, “Are you in the bathroom again?”…pay attention!

• Drowsiness or lethargy. They fall asleep over their homework, or they just can’t get the energy to do things they used to enjoy. If you’ve tried adjusting your child’s bedtime and it isn’t helping, bring this to your doctor’s attention.

• Sugar in urine. Obviously your doctor will have to test this, but it’s a pretty significant indicator.

• Sudden vision changes. The cells in the eyes are being attacked by the immune system, so vision decreases fairly quickly.

• Increased appetite. Are they suddenly hungry all the time, and can’t seem to get enough? They could be going through a growth spurt, as all kids do…but it could be diabetes.

• Sudden weight loss. None of that food is being processed like it should be. Instead of gaining weight, they might lose weight very quickly.

• Fruity, sweet, or wine-like odor on breath. The imbalance of sugar and insulin in the blood can come out in strange ways, including very sweet breath.

• Heavy, labored breathing. Your child might find it hard to catch his or her breath, even if they aren’t doing anything strenuous.

• Stupor, unconsciousness. If diabetes goes too long without being diagnosed, it can cause kids to faint or, in extreme cases, fall into a coma.

Taken alone, most of these symptoms seem harmless, but together, they could indicate the presence of Type 1 diabetes. Don’t be afraid to bring them up to your doctor; he or she can judge whether there’s anything to be concerned about. The sooner you start treatment, the more likely your child is to live a normal, active life.

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While I always appreciate the extra hour of sleep in the Fall, when we “fall back,” that is, we set our clocks back an hour, the one in the Spring doesn’t really bug me that much.  I mean, it’s not like I get enough sleep, anyway, so what’s an hour here or there?

But it does mess with our kids’ schedules.  Depending on the time of year, we find them getting sleepy early, perhaps nodding off during dinner, or running around like…well, non-sleepy children when it’s bedtime.

Daylight Savings is this Saturday/Sunday–earlier than it’s ever been before.  I think it’s upposed to somehowe help the economy if we get extra hours to shop in the daylight–a theory which makes no sense whatsoever, but hey, I just do what they tell me.  Anyway, what can we or should we do for our kids to keep that lost hour from messing things up too badly?

• Nothing.  It’s a little bit inconvenient, but they’ll adjust eventually, within a week or so.  It’s probably more important to keep to a schedule that’s set by the clock, rather than the sun.  If bedtime is 8:00, then it should always be 8:00, whether or not we’ve sprung forward or fallen back.
• Compensate.  A few days ahead of time, perhaps Wednesday or Thursday, get your bedtime routine started 15 or 20 minutes early.  Kids won’t notice it that much, and it won’t put you out that much.  By the time they’ve lost the hour, they’ve accumulated enough extra sleep that it shouldn’t be that big a deal to settle things back at normal bedtimes.
• Take a Nap.  There’s nothing better than a Sunday afternoon nap, anyway, but if you’re missing that hour, stretch out on the couch with a kid snuggled up next to you.  If they don’t take naps anymore, have some quiet time.  They can even make a fort or tent and camp out in their sleeping bags during quiet time.  You’ll be surprised how often even older kids fall asleep if they’re tired enough.

We deal with this in some form twice a year, but still, missed sleep or disturbed sleep patterns can affect our health, our mood, and those of our kids.  It doesn’t hurt to prepare for it and make it as painless as possible.

Are you one of those parents that checks to see if your sleeping child is breathing?  Do you feel silly sometimes, but nevertheless can’t stop yourself from just checking one more time before you turn out your own light? 

That’s me, and it’s even worse when they’re sick.  My kids aren’t babies anymore; one turns 6 this week, and one turns 13 next week.  The middle child is 11, and at the moment has a terrible sore throat.  She couldn’t even stay awake during reading time, which is unusual for her.  My little night owl was asleep by 10, on a Friday night. 

So, I put her to bed and came back down to finish some articles.  I had to force myself to keep my rear end in the chair in front of the computer because I was getting anxious just sitting here.  I feel kind of stupid; I mean, it’s a sore throat.  They’ve had a million of these between the three of them.  But whether it’s a mom thing, or whether I’m just overly anxious, I worry about stuff like this.  I’ve read too many articles where some innocuous symptom (a headache, a sore throat, etc) led to a person’s death.  And I’m a hypochondriac-by-proxy–I always see major illnesses in places where there are only minor ones.  I know I over-react.  Not every headache is a brain tumor.  Not every sore throat is an out-of-control deadly bacterial infection.  Not every bruise is leukemia.  In fact, almost none of them are.  But it’s still true that two years ago, a stomach ache was actually a burst appendix, and my middle child spent a week in the PICU.  So, I don’t know that I’m willing to talk myself too far out of my worry.

I’m not normally a hovering, over-protective sort of mom.  I usually insist that my kids attempt to fix their own problems before they ask for help, and they are required to do everything they are able to do for themselves.  But when it comes to them being sick, I worry a lot… too much, maybe.  I try to hide it, of course, because my anxiety makes them more anxious.  So, just now when I went to check on my sickie, I didn’t wake her up to make sure she hadn’t slipped into a coma.  I just nudged her a little to make sure she was still breathing.