Hi Amy,

I am a first time mother of an incredibly sweet 3 month old boy. I don’t really have a problem that I need help solving , just a question about sleep training. My son has been sleeping 10-12 hours thru the night since he was 6 weeks old. Around 6:30 at night he gets a bath and eats for the last time and is typically asleep by 7pm. He also takes about three 45min to 1hr long naps during the day.

For him to fall asleep I have to dance him around the living room for about 15 min before he drifts off and then I can put him in his crib and he stays asleep. Now here comes the question: Should I be trying to train him to fall asleep on his own? Both my mom and my grandmother have asked about his ability to put himself to sleep and have pressured me to start sleep training. But I’m worried that it will make him insecure and his days of sleeping thru the night will be over. I don’t want to ruin the good thing that we have going on.

I appreciate your help!

Oh, mothers and mothers-in-laws and grandmothers. They are SO GOOD at asking those sorts of questions, aren’t they? And making you worry you’ve let your baby fall behind on some great mystical calendar that THEIR BABIES all followed, and ALL BABIES have followed since the beginning of time, amen. Sleep-train from birth! Cereal at three months! Wean from the breast at six! Get them potty-trained at 12! He’s thirsty, get him a bottle of water. He’s crying, stop spoiling him. And why isn’t that baby wearing socks? It’s 70 degrees outside HE MUST BE FREEZING.

I’m sure your mom and grandma mean well, but seriously: Do yourself a favor and learn to start tuning them out, sometimes. If you and your baby are happy with things as they are, it’s highly, HIGHLY unlikely that you are doing something super-terribly WRONG. Even if it’s not the way THEY did things, or more accurately: The way they think they did things, through the haze of many decades. Because lord, I can’t even nail down what specific month my babies started doing A, B and C, or when I started trying X, Y and Z without consulting my stupid blog archives, and it was just a couple years ago. I hereby go on the record and promise any future daughters-in-law that I will pretty much always claim senility and keep my milestone-related assvice to myself.

(My mother-in-law insisted throughout Noah’s babyhood that her children were fully, independently potty-trained by their first birthday. Finally, it dawned on her — I think when she realized most babies are just taking their first steps around that age — that it was actually much later. Oops.)

That said, there’s nothing WRONG with the idea that a baby should learn to fall asleep on his own. I actually agree! And some sleep-training programs will say they can be started as early as three months. As in, that’s the absolute earliest you should even start thinking about it. As in, you are not behind the eight ball or doing anything wrong by letting your tiny little three month old fall asleep in your arms right now.

Personally — and I mean this 100% PERSONALLY, my own judgment call, your mileage may vary — I could not even fathom trying to sleep-train a three month old. Particularly a three month old who is sleeping SO WELL! Why go and invent problems? So he needs some rocking and pacing right now! Give it to him! At some point, if you notice he’s in that halfway-to-dreamland state where he isn’t totally asleep, you can try putting him down in his crib and see if he drifts off the rest of the way. Pat him or sing to him so he knows you’re there. If he freaks out — no biggie, you can try again another night.

Sleep training at three months is probably one of those old-school things — most of the stuff I’ve read (and agree with and find tolerable) suggest six months at the earliest. We flailed around with Ike until seven months. He was never the good sleeper your baby is, so we officially had sleep “problems.” He ABSOLUTELY needed to be taught how to fall asleep on his own and STAY asleep. It was just not happening on its own. Since there was already SO MUCH CRYING going on no matter what I did, I bought Ferber’s book and followed his method of loving routine, in bed sleepy but awake, gradual extinction with very short intervals of crying (three minutes, five minutes, eight minutes, etc.). I braced myself for a week of horror.

It took a freaking night and a HALF to fix the whole mess. A night and a half. Naps fell into place, Ike was clearly happier and less stressed about bedtime and I was no longer afraid of falling asleep behind the wheel while driving my kids to school in the morning. I have zero regrets and zero doubts that we did the right thing, but it was MY CHOICE and MY CALL, and not because anyone was hovering over my shoulder and clucking their tongues at Ike’s inability to self-soothe at seven months.

Point is: If we waited as long as we did to get serious about the self-soothing and it all worked out, I again urge you to not let those comments get under your skin and make you think you’re doing your son a disservice right now. Noah and Ezra never really required sleep training — they were naturally good sleepers, like your son probably is. They figured it out once I gave them the opportunity to try and put them in the crib slightly awake. I have no idea how old they were when it happened, but it was PRETTY LIKELY FOR SURE older than three months.

It’s hard to trust your instincts when it’s your first baby ever and you feel like you should defer to “experts” who did it before. But you HAVE instincts and they should trump outside any advice that just doesn’t “feel” right to you.  (You should see the handout on sleep training my pediatrician’s office gave me. 45 solid minutes of crying at bedtime! An hour, if need be! No loveys or music or mobiles! Don’t even go in the room for middle-of-the-night wakings! ARE YOU KIDDING ME NO.) Your son sounds like an angel straight from heaven who will probably not let anything get in his way of a good night’s sleep, and will figure it out on his own if you give him the chance. But there’s no need to rush. Those 15 minutes of living room dancing with your newborn curled against your chest will be minutes you’ll treasure forever and talk about wistfully someday, because oh, they were over far, far too soon.

This post is Sponsored by Old Navy.  Shop the funtastic Kids & Baby Sale, now through February 22nd.  Also, read below how you can enter the sweepstakes for the $500 Old Navy Gift Card we’re giving away.

I have a lot of little boys in my house. Three of ‘em. I also have four nephews and a ton of friends with little boys. This means I have approximately three million tons of little boy clothing. Three. Million. Tons. Barely exaggerating.

So in honor of today’s sponsored Old Navy post and giveaway, I’m sharing a few tips, tricks and general ramblings about hand-me-downs and how to keep them awesome — money-saving for you and exciting for your kid.

1) Stay organized. Your efforts to recycle a wardrobe are doomed to miserable failure if you don’t keep the clothing organized. I’ve learned this one the hard way, repeatedly. This winter I determined that all the size 6-12 month clothing we had was off-season and summery. So I bought some warmer clothes for the baby and then literally tripped over a mislabeled box in the basement as I was pulling the new stuff out of the dryer. We had plenty of clothing for him, but for some reason had it in a cardboard box (labeled “COATS”) far away from the other hand-me-downs.

The best and most space-efficient way to store a lot of clothing is to separate things out by size AND season, then use those vacuum-sealed space-saver bags. I like to also include a written list of the contents and put it on top, so I can scan the bags if I’m looking for some specific (sweaters, hoodies, socks, etc.). But I also keep several roomy plastic bins in the kids’ closets for tossing outgrown or out-of-season clothing in between the big sorting/organizing extravaganzas. This way I can keep all usable clothing in one place so I’m not perpetually trying to permanently store stuff only to find yet ANOTHER stack of 2T shirts the minute I seal a bag up.  When the plastic bins are full, that’s when it’s time to sort and store. (And usually time to pull out the next size/wave of clothing anyway.)

2) Be honest. You probably don’t need to keep every. Single. Thing. an older child wears for his younger siblings. Particularly if you’re getting hand-me-downs from other friends and relatives. Some of it might not be to your taste, or maybe always fit kind of strange, or is looking a little worn or stained. Do I really desperately need to hold on to allll these saggy-butt cotton jammies? And if you never put it on your kid the first time around, you probably won’t put it on the second or the third. (Ask me about my box of immaculate shoes with laces that never stayed tied or were a pain in the butt to get on!) Your stash of clothing can rapidly become more of a hoard, so don’t feel guilty about donating stuff your kid technically COULD wear again, but probably won’t. Better to give the clothes off to someone who will, for sure.

3) Sun solves almost everything. It happens every time, especially with baby and toddler clothes. I lovingly pack clean, nice-looking clothing away and then pull it out much later to find it’s yellowed and gross. Spit-up and poop stains that I swear weren’t there before…are. For organic baby-related stains, let those clothes dry outside in the sun (or at least on a hanger rigged up in front of a sun-facing window) and they’ll look as good as they ever did before.

4) One shirt, two seasons. You know this style shirt for boys? The kind that’s meant to look like they’re wearing a tee over a long-sleeve shirt?  They’re everywhere, in every possible style. They’re also the most easily recycled shirts in the world — just snip the long sleeve part off and you’ve got a perfectly-usable short-sleeve shirt.

I do this for three reasons: 1) the seasons change but my child’s clothing size has not, 2) my hand-me-downs are the right size but the wrong season (i.e. I need spring stuff in 3T but all I mostly have is winter), and 3) my children absolutely DESTROY the cuffs and sleeves of their shirts — particularly white ones. After a few months of messy preschool art projects and snacks, the cuffs and elbows on a lot of their long-sleeve shirts are hopelessly stained and worn out. But buying the faux sleeve style means I can still reuse the rest of the shirt. (Then I add the cut off sleeves to my emergency scrap fabric pile…you never know when they’ll come in handy.)

5) Know when to spend money and when not to.  After I had my second boy, I had a brief spell of “I’m buying nothing but AMAZING clothing for my first because I can use it all again! Wheeeeee!” I was justifying this because up until that point (he’d just turned three), he was remarkably easy-going on his clothing. I was able to pack away most of it. But then…I don’t know. Preschool. Three years old. A lot more rough-and-tumble going on at the playground. Suddenly his clothes were wearing out before he even outgrew them. And I realized that there was absolutely no increased chance that the $25 pair of jeans would last any longer than the $10 pair. Sure, maybe the less-expensive jeans were a bit more worn in the knees, but guess which ones he was bound to be wearing when he got his hands on a permanent laundry marker?

Things I will “invest” in are now pretty much limited to outerwear — a good coat (be it winter or spring) will last like nothing else, and is absolutely worth the money. I also don’t skimp on shoes (though I do love a good sale on good brands)…not because I have much luck reusing them from kid to kid anymore, but ill-fitting shoes are never a good idea, and as quickly as kids’ feet grow, I’ve learned that buying super-cheap shoes can mean I’m buying a second pair in the same size because they’ve worn out so fast. (And I HATE THAT.) And once a year I do splurge on nice holiday clothes for my boys. Coordinating sweaters and shirts and such for photos. These have all held up beautifully and I’m now able to buy just one outfit for my oldest and let the younger ones wear hand-me-downs that still technically match. Because the holiday stuff? Is always pretty much the same year after year.

Everything else is bought to be worn hard and played-in hard. If it lasts — and so much of it does, despite the cheap price tag — bonus. If it doesn’t, at least I know I’ll get my money’s worth and not be annoyed that I overpaid for something that got destroyed in art class.

6) Boost the hand-me-down inheritance with some personalized new stuff. While I suppose it’s true that little boys don’t care about their clothing to the extent that many little girls do, I do buy clothing that I know my oldest will like. Especially in the graphic tee department. He liked trains, so I bought him a lot of cute train shirts. Snoopy, Smurfs, Star Wars, etc. When he went through a Harry Potter phase he insisted on every shirt being red. It’s not fair then, to just expect my younger son to be just as excited by these clothes. He didn’t like Thomas or Elmo, but he loved Yo Gabba Gabba and fire engines. So I always try to pick up a few inexpensive t-shirts that I think will excite him, and be something he enjoys wearing. He gets to pick out his own shoes (be it at the store or from the hand-me-down box) as well. I basically try to give him control and choices whenever possible, even if it’s just handing him two pairs of mittens to choose from.

Right now he’s pretty chill about wearing everything that comes out of the hand-me-down boxes. It’s all new and cool to him. Sometimes he declares that he doesn’t like something, and if I think he means it, back in the box it goes.  Life’s too short to fight over a pair of track pants, even if I know they were barely worn twice. Plus hey, I’ve got a whole other little boy to dress in a couple years, maybe he’ll think they’re awesome.

Now, we’d love to hear you make the most of your kids’ wardrobes.  Where do you save and splurge?  Leave a comment below to be entered into the sweepstakes giveaway for a $500 Old Navy Gift Card.  Wa-hoo!!

Sweepstakes Giveaway Details:
The Sweepstakes begins today, on February 9, 2012 and ends on February 15, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. ET.  Leave a comment for an entry; only one entry per person.  This sweepstakes is only open to   legal residents of the United States (sorry, international readers!) and those that are 18 years or older.  One winner will be selected randomly via random.org, will be contacted via email and will have 5 days to respond. No Purchase Necessary to enter and you can find the complete official rules here.
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This post is Sponsored by Old Navy. Shop the funtastic Kids & Baby Sale, now through February 22nd.

I found that Clover has the most handy dandy tool to make pom poms. It makes it super simple and quick, especially for children. I bought the small set.

You simply open up the little plastic tool, wrap each side, cut (good job for an adult), tie,  pull plastic piece apart and you have a perfect pom pom!

Add some googly eyes to turn your pom pom into a warm fuzzy!

We hot glued ours to a pencil eraser top to turn our warm fuzzy into a pencil topper! We are gluing  some to clothes pins to clip a little love note to!

Love you, your blog, your kids…My problem is lice and how to handle my daughter’s BFF who always seems to have them and always passes them to my daughter.  I love this little girl and she spends whole weekends with us all of the time, but I have to head check my daughter every time she leaves and without fail, we have lice, again and again and again.  You get the idea. Her mom knows that it is a reoccurring problem, but I think she thinks they are passing it back and forth, which isn’t true.  We clear it up and we get it again.  I don’t want to upset the little girl or her mom, but geeze, there is only so much nit picking one mom can handle.

Thanks, actually, for this dose of perspective. I’ve spent the last couple months railing against the unknown culprit who keeps sending a lice-infested kid to my son’s school so, like you, we clear it up and BAM, a month and a half later we’ve got it again. But now I realize that just because you *know* the source of the little critters doesn’t actually make the finger-pointing and demanding action any easier.

This is awkward, yes, but this is also a situation that requires the VERY ADAMANT PUTTING DOWN OF FEET. Head lice don’t carry disease or anything dangerous, but they are an incredible nuisance, not very comfortable for your daughter and can lead to missed days at school and/or teasing if her classmates start picking up on the problem. Plus, if you were to ever miss an infestation, your daughter could spread it to classmates or extracurricular teammates and THEN you’ve started a whole other cycle of kids’ parents not clearing it up all the way while the kids swap it back and forth and on and on it goes.

The next time your daughter’s friend comes over, invite her mom in for a little chat and come-to-Jesus moment. Tell her you’d really like to put a solid end to the “passing it back and forth” routine and come up with a battle plan together for ridding your households of lice. The frequent reoccurrences in her daughter suggest that she’s simply not doing enough to prevent a re-infestation – there’s SOOOOO much more to fighting lice than just a single shampoo and combing for nits one time, as I’m sure you know. Perhaps she needs a little educating on that part, but I think you can frame it in a non-accusatory way if you’re like, “hey, I’ve been doing some research and I think I’ve figured out what we both need to do to put a stop to this once and for all.”

Then like, hand her something you printed from the Internet. Here, like this! This is our personal Lice Battle Plan, adapted from an email I got from a very nice, very lice-experienced reader. IT IS AWESOME:

In addition to making sure your home is free of eggs and bugs, of course, there’s the whole delousing of the child part. I’m sure you have your own preferred process/products for that, so again you could go over that part with the mom in a “hey let’s compare notes” sort of way. Ask her questions as if you’re curious and trying to educate yourself. What products are you guys using? What are you treating the sofas and mattresses with? (Don’t be surprised if she admits it’s “nothing.”) Any chance the bugs have developed a resistance to RID or NIX and it’s time for us to switch things up? Have you tried using a repelling shampoo (with tea tree and rosemary) or spray in between treatments? Have you talked to your pediatrician about a more heavy-duty treatment shampoo? Do you know there are professional nit-picking services? Crazy-sounding I know, but I’m getting pretty tempted! Here’s the website, if you want to check it out, etc.

By the end of your chat, try to have come to a polite agreement that this needs to END. NOW, and you’ll both be following a set of all-inclusive steps to rid your girls and homes of the problem…AND that get-togethers absolutely must be preceded with a head check. It’s horrible that you basically have to ask this woman to please not send a child with an active lice infestation into your home, but as long as you agree that the checks will go both ways and you will cancel playdates and plans if you find nits on your daughter, I think you can keep it out of the accusatory “I think you’re a neglectful idiot” realm.

If it continues to happen even after this talk — that you’re confidently lice-free until the girl visits, you MIGHT need to conduct the head checks yourself. And then call her mom and tell her that sadly, the visit needs to end. I know this will be heartbreaking for both of the girls, but at some point you have to get a little tough love about this, or else resign yourself to having lice until this girl moves away or stops being friends with your daughter.

In the meantime, make sure your daughter knows to do everything she can to stay lice-free even around someone with the problem. NO combing each other’s hair or sharing brushes or dress-up hats or clothes. Try to keep them sleeping separately, with their own pillows and bedding, and “helpfully” bag up her friends’ sleeping bag and pillow as soon as possible in the morning. Spray lice repellant on everything before a visit. And good luck. Imma go try to stop scratching my own head now, because lice talk still gives me the heebies.

In our family culture, we place importance on good mornings. This does not mean we are good at mornings.

No, most mornings catch me not ready and not fully awake. My bed is warm and my pillow soft.

So many mothering columns talk about the beauty and importance of getting those minutes of alone time before the kids wake up, and I couldn’t agree more, in theory. Minutes is true. I get about two of them before the kids wake up as well. They’re light sleepers, and they’ve always woken up early.

Most days I try to stay in bed a little longer, knowing that as soon as I move they will wake up as well. If I stay in bed longer, then there is a chance they will sleep longer too. This was true when I had a nursing baby next to me, and now when our two year old climbs into our bed sometime around five. I’d wake up and need to stretch or go to the bathroom, but instead I would tell myself, “Just don’t move. Don’t move anything or you’ll wake him. Just lie perfectly still.” I memorize what it feels like to have kids sleeping on both sides of me, to be the middle of a kid sandwich, and save that memory for later.

Even from their own bedrooms they’ll hear any sound and get out of bed. The little kids wake up with no grogginess and feel perfectly refreshed. If you could put that in a pill form and bottle it, you’d make a fortune. It doesn’t seem to matter that it’s still dark outside. They silently creep into my room and over to my side of the bed, wearing their cute footie pajamas and standing a few inches from my face. “Mama, can I have a snack?”

“It’s still dark. Go back to bed.”

“I’m hungry, Mommy. Mommy? Mommy?”

I’m not at my best this early in the morning, and it’s hard to be instantly on demand. Kids, help mommy get her coffee before you start asking for things.

Sometimes my husband tries to have a conversation with me while I’m still asleep in bed and my eyes are closed. Later he’ll wonder why I don’t know what he said.

“We talked about it.” he’ll say.

“Was I awake?”

“I talked to you and you answered me.”

“Yes, but did you wake me up first? Because I can’t be responsible for the things we talked about while I was unconscious.” He doesn’t understand after eight years because he is a light sleeper.

The good news about having kids who wake up early is that we rarely run late, except for that one day (it was the third day of school) when we all woke up late for some reason and had five minutes to get ready. We did our best to pretend we weren’t rushing as we both worked to get our daughter dressed and fed in that short amount of time. Instead of her usual scrambled eggs for breakfast, she had cheese. “Am I late?” she asked.

“No, but let’s hurry.” I want to send my daughter off to school all bright and shiny, without worries.

Trying to have good mornings doesn’t mean we have worked out the right morning routine. We work on keeping pleasant attitudes, and faking it when needed. Sometimes when I do something wrong, or if the adults get angry, we wait until after 8 a.m. to talk about it. Sometimes just waiting or keeping my mouth shut will diffuse an argument in the first place.

My family will face struggles during the day, but while the day is still fresh and new, we can stay positive. That will put them in the best possible position to face the rest of the day.

One day we’ll have our morning routine all figured out, the kinks smoothed out and the snooze alarm never pushed, but I’m not going to wait for that to happen before I enjoy good mornings.

What makes a good morning for you?

Hey Amy,

Please forgive me if this is a repeat question – I’ve checked out the archives, but nothing I’ve found is quite specific enough. My son is 5, and suffers from mild but pretty constant eczema on his hands (typically red and dry) with flare-ups elsewhere when he comes into contact with something he shouldn’t. My question is actually about his dry, dry, dry scalp. We try to use natural products as much as possible, but as far as shampoo goes, many of them (I’m looking at you, Burt’s Bees!) seem to dry his scalp out further. His dad suffers from dry scalp as well, but I mention the eczema because I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s all one and the same. I’m hoping that you might have some product or lifestyle advice to help us out.

Thank you!!

So there’s the advice I would give you for run-of-the-mill dry, itchy scalp…and then there’s the advice I would give you for eczema break-outs on the scalp. Eczema and a little dandruff are not the same thing, so I guess my first and top-level advice would be to take your son to a dermatologist and find out exactly what you’re dealing with, under his hair.

If it’s eczema, you may want to learn how to apply a wet dressing to his head (using a bandana) to keep his scalp cool and moisturized, and a dermatologist can also give you tips on what to do if your son’s scratching leads to an infection. He/she may also recommend keeping cortisone cream on-hand for those flare-ups you describe, even if they’re mild. (Eczema can either be one of those things that your child outgrows — Noah did — or suddenly take a giant leap into severe for no specific reason.)

In my experience, some dermatologists aren’t exactly the best resource for natural product recommendations and you might balk at the commercial, chemical-laden shampoo brands you’re told to use. If that happens, head back to the baby shampoo aisle and look for things formulated for cradle cap, eczema and/or super-sensitive scalps. Here’s one for babies and small children by Exederm – note that I have never used it, but I know it is 1) super popular and 2) super-free of all kinds of garbage.

If you’re now sorry you even brought up the eczema possibility and think that no, the scalp problem isn’t anything that serious, good news! I can offer several more recommendations that we have actually used ourselves. Like you, I have a husband with dry scalp and after years of using Nizoral a couple times a week, he now keeps things under control using natural products 99.9% of the time. He uses a tea tree oil shampoo by JASON and it’s awesome. I’ve been using it once a week or so this winter too, since the dry air and hot showers have left me a little itchy and uncomfortable. (We also use it on the boys occasionally, since tea tree oil is also a natural treatment/repellent for head lice. [Shudder.] So far it’s done a great job at 1) sparing us the necessity of going nuclear with RID every time it happens, and 2) keeping the bugs from spreading beyond the Child Who Is Bringing Them Home From School Because I Swear It’s Not Our Fault.)

Note that this is NOT a baby/tear-free shampoo, so your son will need to cooperate during bathtime to avoid getting it in his eyes.

For tear-free options, go with Weleda Baby Calendula Shampoo or California Baby Calendula Shampoo. (Both double as body washes too.) Calendula is a great ingredient for super-sensitive and easily-irritated skin, and for skin prone to eczema and rashes. (The JASON Tea Tree Oil Shampoo contains it as well, plus chamomile.) I think most natural kids/baby skincare lines make their own version of a calendula shampoo — these are just the brands I’ve personally used and would recommend, but if you can’t find them near you or have another brand you like (or one that’s cheaper) that has a calendula formula, go for it.

Remember, no matter WHAT you’re dealing with, eczema or plain ol’ dry scalp, to NOT wash his hair any more often than you absolutely need to. (Same with baths in general, especially in winter.) Even if you’re using the best shampoo/body wash in the world, the scrubbing and exposure to hot water will dry his skin out. I know it sounds disgusting, but seriously: Bathe your child when he’s dirty, and lotion him up good afterwards.

You also want to keep his head from overheating — which ALSO goes against every bit of advice you’ll get from old ladies at the playground, but be careful about overdressing him and insisting on heavy winter hats on days when he might not actually need one. If his hair looks sweaty after coming in from the playground, he was probably better off without the hat. Get him some earmuffs instead, but let his scalp breathe. Sweaty hot skin is more likely to turn into dried-out irritated skin.

We love Valentine’s Day over here.  For years we have been creating and gathering ideas for easy Valentine’s Day cards for kids, homemade Valentine’s Day gifts, and fun Valentine’s Day projects.

But I also love what I see out there on the web and want to share some of my favorite Valentine’s Day gift ideas for kids (which I have been obsessively collecting on my Pinterest board).

Candy Valentine Ideas for Kids

Clockwise from top left:
1) Ring Pop by Martha Stewart. Even though this idea is from a bridal shower, I think it’s a great gift for Valentine’s Day for kids especially if your young son, like mine, has a certain school girl he wants to make feel extra special.
2) Lollipop Valentine by Design Mom.  I copied my friend Gabby last year and made a series of these but used heart-shaped lollipops.  It was surprisingly easy to execute with my photo printer.
3) Cherry Lollipop Valentines by Les Petits Presents.  Love the simpleness of this Valentine.
4) iPhone Valentine by Living Locurto.  Do your kids and their friends all want an iPhone as much as my eight-year old son does?  Let’s make their dreams come true with this easy printable that you attach to conversation hearts.  Okay, candy is a good second.

Clockwise from top left:
1) Candy Necklace in a fancy jewelry box by Martha Stewart.  This is another bridal shower favor but also a great idea I think as a Valentine’s Day gift for kids.
2) Chocolate Rice Krispy Heart Pops by Korean American Mommy.  YUM.
3) Lollipop heart flowers by Family Fun.  A nice simple and sweet gift.
4) Lips & Mustache Lollipops by Blonde Designs.  So clever and fun.

Non-candy Valentine Ideas for Kids

Clockwise from top left:
1) Wild Valentine Cards by Design Mom.  Gabby knocks it out of the park again and she shares her printables so that you can make some too.
2) Valentine Pencils by One UpDesigns.  These sayings are too adult for kids, plus they’re sold out already.  HOWEVER, you can still order your own personalized Valentine pencils for the entire class from Explicitly Yours (I’ve used and like them thanks to Jordan‘s recommendation) and then put packages together for the class.  You can use positive phrases and compliments  like “You’re a Great Classmate” and “You Make Me Laugh.”
3) Pirate Valentines by MerMag.  I think these are great on their own and Meri provides the printable for you to use.  You can also attach a candy as well.
4) Why I Love You Valentine Card by Small Notebook. Perhaps too personal for class valentines, but something you can make for your children or have your kids make for a parent or sibling.  I made one for my son one year and he loved it.

Dear Amy, she who is raising 3 boys with a healthy appreciation of Star Wars, I am in need of guidance:

My twin boys are nearly 3 and half, and have recently developed an obsession with “bad guys” and being bad guys in particular. This can take many forms. In its most benign, they crash play cars into other play cars. But it escalates — riding their bike into their brother, using toy cars to bonk each other, “capturing” each other around the neck etc all with the excuse of “it’s a bad guy” or “but, I’m a bad guy!”

We have a pretty basic approach to discipline. If you hurt someone, you ask how to make them feel better, do that and then you take a break in your room. We also have talked about what is a bad guy (someone who makes bad choices and doesn’t fix their mistakes) and what happens to bad guys (they get taken to jail with no comfortable beds and no blankies). I think we’ve made it clear bad guys are not welcome in our house.

I know on some level, this is how little people work out their fears. They play pretend to help work out all their feelings. But hurting each other (or FTLOG, other kids) in the name of play is not acceptable. I’m wondering how to guide their play a little bit to allow for some “bad guys” stuff, but avoid them actually hurting each other. And I also realize this is just a stage, but I need to stay sane, and keep everyone safe in the middle of it.

Our TV habits tend to the preschool shows, but we have watched a few movies with “bad guys” (Cars 2, I’m glaring at you), but we have avoided non-Disney versions of bad guys.

Thank you!

This is a really, really good question, and one that I think a lot of us mothers have struggled with, usually from across the room while our sweet innocent baby boys beat on each other with pool noodles, right as one of them suddenly goes from gleeful squealing to furious wailing because HE HURT ME, MOMMY.

Repeat after me, though: It’s just play. It really, really is just play. They aren’t really bad guys, they don’t want to be bad guys, they absolutely will not grow up to be bad guys. But pretending to be bad buys is fun, and in play, it’s a safe, developmentally appropriate place for them to explore fears, wishes, fantasies, etc. Figuring out the boundaries between what’s real and what’s imaginary. Playing “bad guys vs. good guy” is EXACTLY the kind of imaginative pretend power play your boys are supposed to be doing at this age.

…Says the mother of one boy who was still lining up trains and then refusing to make them go anywhere at three years old. The day he cautiously picked up a toy lightsaber and pretended to “fight” with it was a day of celebration. And the day I learned to take a much-needed chill pill about my boys and how they play and roughhouse.

Honestly, I don’t think the physical escalation in your boys’ play is THAT related to WHAT they’re playing. It’s just…what they DO, even without the hero/villain concepts in place. They get excited and their little bodies get away from their brains and suddenly “consequences” (either for themselves or for others) aren’t part of the processing program, nor is listening to their mother’s nagging voice from the sidelines warning them that “SOMEBODY IS GOING TO GET HURT.”

The other day Noah was outside riding his bike with a neighbor. They were not playing anything more elaborate than a “race.” No good guys, no bad guys, just “let’s race.” I’m not entirely sure there was a real set start and end point or if it was just whoever got to an indeterminate point first. And then another spot. Okay, again! And after awhile, it devolved into chaos and ended with someone deliberately crashing his bike into the other. (No one was hurt, but obviously could have been. HELMETS, people. ALWAYS.)

Were they fighting? Were they angry? Nope. Just doing whatever it took to win “the race.” We had a little talk about cheating, good sportsmanship and not hurting our friends (that probably went in one ear and out the other) and then sent them off again. The excitement level had been mercifully reset and the game resumed at a less frantic pace.

And that’s the big difference: Your boys are getting roughed up during play, but aren’t deliberately, calmly going up to each other and hurting the other on purpose. They aren’t riding their bikes over the cat just because, or bullying kids at preschool. THAT’S what “bad guys” do. Stuff that happens in play when one or both of them are clearly not thinking about the consequences or INTENDING to hurt the other…well. It happens. And it’ll happen again, until they develop better self-control and more mature social skills (i.e. he won’t want to play with me if I’m too rough and not careful and that would be bad for me).

We don’t punish over anything we feel was done accidentally. You must say you are sorry, even if you didn’t “mean it,” and do the “let’s make him feel better” thing. But if I was sending someone to their room every time the other one decided to wail and cry and accuse the other of hurting them, gah. They would ALWAYS be in their room. I used to enforce a lot more time-outs — especially for Noah, since I thought he needed the break to reset and get his body back under control — but then figured out that Ezra would basically shriek over NOTHING and get Noah “in trouble”…just so he could get custody of whatever toy Noah had. Are you KIDDING me, you guys?

There are, of course, deal-breakers that mean I WILL intervene immediately and separate them and take toys away or send them to time-out. I have a zero-tolerance policy for rough play around or involving the baby. Name calling or bad language. Jumping on and off the furniture. For injuries inflicted “on purpose” like punching, biting or deliberately throwing a toy at someone with the intent to hurt. This can sometimes mean I’m making judgment calls all the livelong day about whether someone “meant” to do something — and of course I’m a nonstop barrage of cliches about “if you guys can’t play nicely I will take that toy away/separate you both/turn this car around/I DON’T EVEN KNOW.”

I always THOUGHT my zero-tolerance policy would extend to toy weapons, but I admit that idea went out the window by the time Noah was five, which means Ezra and Ike will basically always have plastic-y fake weapon toys around. (NO realistic weapons, though, at all. Real weapons are not toys and toys should not look like real weapons.) But the other night Noah wandered around the house with a Star Trek phaser looking for bank robbers while Ezra followed behind with a lightsaber challenging him to a duel. “I DARTH EZRA! I FIGHT YOU!” And then they battled and I knew someone would eventually get whacked in the head…you could see the inevitable end from SPACE, I’m sure…but I allowed the game to continue anyway. They had a blast together. A frantic, rough-and-tumble, head-whacking blast.

I don’t know if I’ve offered up anything remotely USEFUL to you here, but I do hope I’ve reassured you that playing “bad guys” is soooooo not a big deal. At all. And even though they’re using it as an “excuse” for their less-than-awesome behavior in a particular play scenario, trust me when I tell you that kids will ALWAYS have an excuse. “I’m the bad guy!” “He started it!” “But that’s mine!” “I was just trying to save the galaxy from the killer robots and he was holding the killer robot and I had to kill the killer robot and anyway that’s why I stepped on his head by accident.”

Obviously, it’s good to make sure your children aren’t exposed to crazy levels of violence on TV, but there’s also something to be said about allowing the good guy/bad guy concept to be played out for them in appropriate ways. If anything, it helps them define the roles — WHY so-and-so was a bad guy, and what happened to him — and then they can act out specific scenarios that might end in a way you’re more comfortable with. (Instead of the game just going on and on until someone gets hurt, the good guys wins in the end because that’s the storyline.)

My kids didn’t really like Cars 2, but they love plenty of other movies with very clear hero/villain distinctions…and some where the main character is a bit more complicated and may straddle the good guy/bad guy line a bit (Despicable Me, Megamind, etc.). Rather than inciting a rapid desire to take over the world and/or set each other on fire, the occasional exposure to a new good guy/bad guy storyline lets us talk to them about it in more concrete terms: Your boys may sort-of understand the CONCEPT of jail and why it’s bad, but I feel like conversations where I can reference specific characters and actions is more accessible and enjoyable for them, rather than me lecturing and waiting for them to parrot back my canned responses.  (“What bad things did the bad guy cars DO in that movie? Oh no! That’s terrible! What happened to them in the end? Who won? Lightning McQueen did? Awesome! That made me happy to see, what about you?”)

If you don’t feel comfortable with any further movie villains, start looking for books that have slightly more advanced stories and plots to satisfy your boys’ interests in heroes and bad guys. Stuff that might fall just short of “scary” and in that “thrilling” sweet spot for a three-year-old. (Am blanking on specific recommendations for that young age though…maybe Maurice Sendak? Some modernized takes on Grimm’s Fairy Tales? Ezra, for all the Star Wars/Harry Potter knowledge he’s gleaned from his brother, is actually quite timid when it comes to “scary” things, so we’ve been reading The Monster At The End Of This Book and The Nightmare in My Closet to work through the real vs. pretend stuff.)

But really, your boys already understand a lot about good guys and bad guys. Right now, playing the bad guy is just more fun. It’s dangerous, thrilling, the opposite of who they are and what they do. And it’s okay. Then by October you may find yourself in the throes of a major superhero phase where they’re fighting because NEITHER of them want to play the bad guy, or the role will fall to some poor formerly beloved teddy bear, who will now be regularly fired at with lasers and thrown across the room into a pit of firery lava.

Do yourself a favor: Always keep a video camera handy. Film as many of their crazy imaginary scenarios and stories as you can, even if it means footage of the occasional head injury. One day when they outgrow this phase and leave all their toys behind, you’ll be so glad you did.

We made matchbook valentine cards with stickers inside to surprise friends on Valentine’s Day. Make yours with our printable template!

Print the pdf template on 8.5×11″ paper. Bright-colored paper looks best.

Cut the cards on the solid lines, and fold them on the dotted lines.

Cut sheets of small stickers into a size that will fit inside the matchbook.

Staple the stickers inside the lower flap of the card. Place the staple close to the edge so that you can tuck in the top flap.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Hi Amy,

First, let me say that I religiously read pretty much everything you write on my… lunch break… at work. Thank you – it’s been a blast. And also, you talked me into using cloth wipes. Which now smell like they’ve been in an unfinished basement crawl space for two weeks (I wouldn’t know as I live in a teeny apartment in DC, but this is what I imagine those things smell like). I use the prince lionheart warmer (not the one made for cloth wipes but the other one) and I’ve tried buying a new pad thingy, changing them out everyday, washing everything with vinegar to strip them, etc etc. I only use water in the warmer, but it’s tap water. I just can’t figure out what the problem is, but they constantly smell terrible after just a day. What am I doing wrong? My husband just banned us from using them until I figure it out. The internet keeps telling me to use tea tree oil, which I learned from you is pure evil, so here I am. Any suggestions??

Thanks again for being the awesome sauce on the internet burrito.

Best,
Jessica

Ok! Don’t worry, I’ve got you. We can do this. Easy peasy.

First, though, we need to clear up a little miscommunication here re: tea tree oil. Which is 100% absolutely NOT pure evil. At all! It’s not recommended in large, regular amounts for pregnant women, but that’s it. Tea tree oil is fantastic. It’s a natural anti-fungal, and your best shot (besides bleach) at killing the mold/mildew situation you’ve likely got going on with your wipes. I use it on my nails, my husband uses it for his dry scalp, we use it as a natural lice treatment/repellent on the kids (shudder), it’s great as an acne spot treatment, etc. Go, my child, and use the tea tree oil without fear.

I’m GUESSING you’re mixing tea tree oil up with lavender oil, which I have cautioned against — albeit too harshly, in retrospect. Since the alarm was initially raised that the estrogenic properties of lavender oil in baby products (and let’s be honest, it’s in a TON of baby products) could be causing some bad hormonal changes in boys, there really hasn’t been any further research or study. At least nothing big and significant and peer-reviewed. I am PERSONALLY still cautious about using the stuff IN EXCESS. (I do not believe “natural” ingredients should get any more of a pass from us than stuff created in a lab, especially in an age of pesticides and genetic engineering and the fact that “natural” ingredients can still be processed within an inch of their atoms before they’re actually added to our products.) If my kids are using a shampoo and body wash with lavender in it, I make sure I’m using a lotion that doesn’t. I still prefer NOT to use it in anything diapering related, and since it’s an ingredient that really serves no real purpose besides making things smell nice, it’s pretty easy to find alternatives that work just as well. That said, it’s no longer a knee-jerk deal-breaker for me, since the possible dangers have simply not been definitively proven.

/end soapbox

Aaaaand now back to your wipes. There are a few things that you might be doing “wrong” here:

1) Polyester in the wipes. Non-natural fibers — like microfiber, polyester fleece, etc. — retain odors. Natural fibers — like cotton– resist odors. Check the fiber content of your wipes. I like 100% cotton, be it flannel, terry, velour, birdseye, whatever. These fabrics resist the stink! Anything with a percentage of something manmade will be more prone to smelling funky. I’ve pretty much banished anything manmade from my diapering line-up, save for a few old pocket shells (that I stuff with prefolds instead of microfiber) and a couple stay-dry inserts. My stash has never smelled better.

2) Your warmer. You’re not using a warmer designed for cloth wipes, so maybe it’s not the best choice for cloth wipes? Not that I’m saying rush out and buy the cloth wipe version (if there really is any difference — I honestly don’t know). I used the Prince Lionheart cloth wipes warmer for awhile, and I gotta say, as it aged (like after 6+ months) I experienced a lot of problems with it. It leaked, the pads would turn brown and singe, my wipes smelled musty and weird, etc. (Any of that sound familiar?) I pitched it when Ike was tiny and went old-school with my wipes. Sure, my wipes aren’t AS warm when they were with the warmer, but a) Ike doesn’t seem to mind, and 2) in the end the convenience was being far overrided by the problems.

3) Your wipes-to-water ratio IN the warmer. If you really think your warmer is functioning fine, it could be that you’re simply trying to store too many wipes in it. As roomy as the warmers are, it’s best NOT to pack it to capacity, because you’re just not going to get through all the wipes fast enough. Thus the ones on the bottom sit in a moistened sauna for a couple days and smelly things start growing. Put enough wipes in it for just one day, then restock at night, after putting your baby to bed. Don’t add too much water, either. You want the wipes to be slightly moistened, not sopping wet. If you have to wring the wipes out before using them, there’s too much water in there. (I always used tap water in my warmer, too, but maybe you should experiment with filtered water as well.)

Oh, duh. I just re-read your letter and realized I missed that you have tried changing the wipes out everyday. Which is good. Keep doing that. (If you decide to keep using the warmer, that is.) But that’s unfortunately not going to undo the stink problem on its own. Wash the wipes on hot with a little tea tree oil. Or bleach. Then double rinse. The smell you’re describing sounds like mildew or mold (as opposed to detergent build-up funk, or poop not rinsing out). Those are living organisms that must be killed dead, so you may need to go nuclear with a little bleach. If the thought of bleaching something that will touch your baby’s bottom wigs you out and the tea tree oil doesn’t do the job, you may need to scrap this stash of wipes and start over. Personally, I don’t think bleaching them once will hurt anything — most of the warnings about bleaching cloth diapers are more related to concerns about fabric damage, which isn’t such a big deal for wipes.

If it is mildew, I’m sorry, but the warmer is your likely culprit. You can certainly try again post-bleach, being more careful about swapping the wipes out each day and adding a drop or two of tea tree oil in there as a preventative measure. I’ve tried a bunch of different cloth wipes set-ups — the warmer, pre-moistened with wipes solution in a regular non-warming container, moistening with a spray bottle as-needed — and I would hesitate to recommend any one specific approach as “best.” Everybody has their own idea about what’s the most convenient and easy and what’s a giant pain in the ass. And everybody’s water and laundry situation (hard/soft, top loading/HE) is another wild card that can mean One Person’s Awesome is Another Person’s Oh My Hell THIS STINKS.

Right now, I keep a stack of dry cotton wipes — some terry, some flannel — in an old disposable wipes container. Once a day or so (whenever I think of it), I fill up a spray bottle with hot tap water. I spritz the wipes as I need them for poop changes only, and at the worst the wipe temperature ends up kind of tepid. To make clean-up more efficient (so I’m not standing there spraying wipe after wipe), I also keep a spray-on wipes solution/bottom cleaner handy that I can spray directly on the butt. I’ve used a bunch of different ones and think they’re all pretty good , EXCEPT for the bumGenius Bottom Cleaner which seems to sting a little, if Ezra is to believed. (NOTE: Ezra is not necessarily to be believed.)

Mostly it comes down to what scents and ingredients you like or dislike. Kissluvs, Homestead, some brand I randomly found at Whole Foods but cannot remember anymore, etc. You can also buy many of these in concentrate form and add them to your wipes container (if you pre-moisten) or to your regular water bottle (just watch out for oil build-up in the fabric). Or you can buy individual oils and make a solution yourself. I’m just kind of lazy, I guess, and like the ready-to-use spray versions best.

For really big messes, I sometimes take a few dry wipes with me to the bathroom when I go to flush solids (making sure baby is buckled to the table!) and run them under the tap for a few seconds. Or I do this before starting the diaper change, since usually I know whether or not I’m dealing with a Bad One. But usually one or two cloth wipes easily handle jobs that used to require five or six disposable wipes, so the spray bottle solution really isn’t as big of a pain as I once imagined. (Which is why I bought the stupid warmer in the first place — I was always about the convenience of ready-to-go wipes, not so much about the TEMPERATURE of said wipes.)

Commenters? Any stinky wipes experiences and solutions to add to the pile?