The Musings of a Working Mom

Like most families that are full of hungry kids - I am a member of Costco and every month I get their magazine called The Costco Connection.  Each month I look forward to the seasonal recipes and some of the featured articles.  This month, they have a great article on Bob Harper - you might recognize him as the hunky, tatted up trainer on The Biggest Loser.  He has just written a cookbook called The Skinny Rules: The Simple, Nonnegotiable Principles for Getting to Thin.   In this cookbook, Bob lists his "nonnegotiable rules" that can lead to successful weight loss.  Oddly enough, these are the same "rules" that I give to my clients when I'm coaching them for successful, healthy weight loss too!  These rules are easy to follow and can lead to healthy, attainable weight loss without trying too hard (but don't forget to add in some sort of physical activity daily to make the weight come off faster!). The Skinny Rules What's In: ...

Sleep training has always been a very sensitive and somewhat controversial topic amongst the parenting communities.  It is a very individualized technique and parents should always do what feels best and most comfortable for us and our child(ren).  Let's be honest, as parents we live very busy lives - working, caring for our children, running errands, running a household, etc.  But the one thing we all want is a good night's sleep.  But how is that possible when you have a child waking every couple of hours or not wanting to sleep at all?   Here is a very interesting article I came across in the Parenting section of Todayshow.com - The Truth About Ferberizing.  This article sheds some light on the truth behind sleep training your infant/child as advised by Dr. Richard Ferber himself.  I have had great success using his methods (modified versions to suit our needs) to sleep train all 3 of my children a...

Having a child is the most amazing and wonderful thing in the world.  After all, you carried this child for 9 months and anxiously waited for him/her to make their grand entrance into your world and everything is all dreamy and wonderful.  Then you enter into the sleepless nights of midnight feedings, diaper changes, singing, coddling, rocking, swaying, etc. and then you wonder when will you get a full night of sleep again?  Well the answer is sooner than you think!  Just to lay it out there - I'm not a sleep expert nor do I claim to be one.  But I do have experience from sleep training our 3 children and I can happily say that my husband and I have peace and quiet from 8pm on and we sleep through the night (minus sicknesses/teething issues/nightmares/etc.) because we have successfully sleep trained our children.  So back to my point... Initially, infants don't have the internal mechanism to put themselves to sleep or even to know day from night....