What Havent They Told Me? Practical Tips for Surviving and Thriving During Babys First Year

8 ways to keep your sanity when transitioning to two kids

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I need to remember not to expect too much of him and to let him be a kid who plays and makes messes. Buy a ring sling. Well, the Moby was great when I just had one child, but it only took that one time when I had just done the required elaborate wrapping up of my baby, only to find that she was hungry again—while my toddler decided it was a good idea to eat his strawberries over the cream-colored living room carpet—to realize that I needed a quicker option.

You want to be able to slide that baby in quick so you can chase down the toddler in the parking lot. This is just a season.

Put on your own oxygen mask first. Ask for advice from older, wiser moms. Give the colicky baby to someone else while you take a bath. Put down the parenting books and read something for fun.

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Build your support network and use it. I used to hate the idea of play dates, but now I see that they are really for moms who need to know they are not alone in this wonderful, insane business. Work with the real, not the ideal. Life is not perfect.

Believe me, I am a competitive perfectionist: Since I type my password multiple times a day, I figured I would try to boost myself up. I came up with an inspirational sentence, took the first letter from each word in that sentence and sprinkled the appropriate letters and symbols throughout for password strength. In hindsight, this has been incredibly impactful to my high level of productivity since returning to work. The mind works in mysterious ways. One of the best things that I did was to begin using a meditation podcast regularly. And I could not afford long naps. And when I could find time to nap, I needed to be asleep as soon as possible to maximize sleep time, but to do that, I needed to turn off the mama-brain.

I have a friend who teaches high school and had three children under 3, the second and third being twins. She tried these and told me she used the 2nd podcast every day at work to get through the day. Once you become a working parent, you know the feeling. I love family time, but sometimes with 2 very young littles, 48 hours of family time in a row is too much. So I hired a neighborhood teenager to come to our house for 2 hours every weekend to help out.

Sometimes she played with the children so I could do my rest meditations. Sometimes she helped the older kid clean the playroom. Sometimes she fed him snacks and read him stories. I realized that at least for a while, I needed to remove as many decisions and tasks as possible out of my daily life. I wanted to be working, spending quality time with my family, or recovering. I wanted everything else OUT, at least temporarily.

For some people, recovering means going for a run, or therapeutic cleaning, or folding laundry. So everything that I consider a chore was considered for removal. I do things on my own. I had to really sit down and give myself permission to get help for myself and my family. As a child of immigrants who were the epitome of doing everything on their own, I had a very hard time with shrugging off the feeling of being a privileged prat.

But desperate times were calling for desperate measures. I was short-tempered with my kids, short-tempered with my husband, and crying at work. I needed to get over my mental hurdles and figure out what I needed and what I could afford. I gave myself a pass on exercise for 2 years. We were a cloth-diapering family, and there was just so much laundry, all the time.

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Then I found out a local laundry service that does adult laundry only, and so we could at least focus only on kids laundry. I remember feeling very uncomfortable with the idea of sending out my unmentionables to be washed and folded by someone else. I remember feeling ashamed for not being able to do it myself. Just for a while. I would much rather have laundry service than cable, so here we are. I am not going back. I made a real effort to keep our house clean on our own. We had a mini stick vac upstairs, because lugging a vacuum cleaner upstairs is just too hard when you are a sleep-deprived zombie.

We had a mini stick vac in the kitchen, because Cheerios. We had a Bona mop. Write a customer review. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. John splits the book up into twelve different sections, each with findings in neuroscience, as well as how to apply those findings practically. These sections are Survival: How our brain is a product of our evolution, and some traits it has adopted as a result Exercise: How exercise improves our cognitive abilities and staves off dementia Sleep: What the brain does during sleep, how people are biologically predisposed to various sleep patterns, and how to use naps to improve performance Stress: The various biochemicals involved with stress and how to have less stressful relationships and life Wiring: How neurons interact, develop, and function Attention: How multitasking works or doesn't work , the relationship between emotion and attention, and the need for relaxation to enhance focus Memory: How memory formation works and the optimal way to remember things Sensory Integration: How all of the senses work together to provide a cohesive experience, and how multiple senses can be utilized to improve learning Vision: How vision trumps all of the other senses and can be used to create more effective presentations Music: How music can cause improvements in cognition, be therapeutic, and how music training can improve cognition Gender: Differences between the genders in physiology, socialization, emotional reactions, and memory.

How the brain is constantly exploring and looking for novel things A lot of reviewers have pointed out that many of the tips that John gives are common sense - that may be true. However, I found that knowing the neuroscience behind many of the things which John advocates ensures their adoption into day-to-day life. Overall, a great read that has caused me to change the way I give presentations, how much I exercise and sleep, as well as how I interact with people. I am not a scientist, so I'm not approaching it from that angle. This book was helpful on so many levels.

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First, you could tell he practices what he preaches from the layout of his book. Not in quite a while have I read a book that took me a long time to read because I was reading and re-reading portions and Kindle highlighting like a madwoman. Now that I'm done reading it I need to go back through and write many physical notes because it just set my thinking cap in so many directions.

Applicable reading for formal education institutions and those teaching themselves, and please, I pray, may the business leaders of companies read this book and transform the way they handle employees, creativity, and brainstorming. There is something in this book for EVERYONE whether you are a passionate life-long learner, a parent raising children, curious about the brain, or a million other potentials.

I started out borrowing this book from the library but had to buy my own copy. I'll be going back to it again and again. John Medina breaks down brain science into a list of principals aimed directly at challenging your classroom and making your office more efficient with mostly practical application.

After taking copious notes throughout the book and reflecting on how his principles and ideas could be implemented in my classroom, I find that I will likely be returning to this gem and it's ideas in upcoming years. Medina takes the complexities of the brain and breaks it down into basic language with 12 rules that are especially applicable to the classroom and the workplace. His writing is conversational and the narrative bounces between scientific experiments, personal anecdotes, observations and ideas to implement in your classroom and office.

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To a teacher, the chapters on memory, attention and exploration are probably the most useful, as they are loaded with ideas that could alter your classroom and instruction, if employed. Other chapters, such as those on sleep and memory, are of tremendous importance when it comes to informing your students on effective learning and living and yourself. Some of the chapters gender, music and sensory integration are interesting, but don't possess the same sort of pragmatic daily applicability as the others.

One of the best things about Medinas ideas and suggestions for the workplace is that he stops short of ever saying that 'this is the way it is'. Instead, he is transparent about when research has presented us with a frank 'we don't know yet' and a shrug of the shoulders.

Tips for surviving (and thriving!) in the baby/toddler phase

Another highlight is Medinas humor and clear fascination with the field. His writing is light and his wit is often at his own expense. A quick read of the book though would be a mistake, and I recommend absorbing the material and considering its application, especially if it pertains to your field.

The only drawback to the book was that he included a section on 'More Ideas' for each chapter. Some were useful take a nap during he afternoon if you can , but others are less pragmatic. For instance, he envisions a reimagined school environment in which students experience the same content three times a day, to enhance memory. The only problem is that he spends as much space explaining he idea as he does admitting he doesn't know how this would work. The research isn't clear he admits and also considers how interacting with the material numerous times might even confuse the student.

Overall, this is phenomenal read and highly recommended! See all reviews.

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