ExpectingWords.com - Helping expecting couples find the right words at the right times

Moms can be meanies. It’s no surprise that when I wrote about this sad fact on my blog, I had nearly a dozen responses of women sharing their experience of being attacked by other moms.

Jen, who has a 5 year old son with Autism explained that when he was younger she would keep him on a baby harness so he wouldn’t run off on her outside, which he had done many times. She had one mother telling her she was treating her son like a dog. Another told her she was cruel.

Georgia wrote that she was attacked during her pregnancy for gaining too much weight and deciding to induce labor. But everyone has their reasons.

For Georgia, she induced because Continue reading »

You find out you’re pregnant.  You start shopping, or at least thinking about it.  When is it reasonable to buy maternity clothes?  8 weeks? 12 weeks? Second trimester?  Do you have to be showing before you start looking at cribs and paint colors?  Is it ridiculous to stop moms in the street to ask them about their stroller?

One of my closest friends just entered second trimester.  After nearly 10 weeks of waiting, she has released herself from the hold of “no shopping until…” and off she went to buy and buy and buy.  Her husband thinks the shopping is a coping mechanism to deal with the pregnancy.  I don’t.

I think it’s Continue reading »

My friend, Robin Saks Frankel, who is a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) and founder of Crib Notes, an e-newsletter for parents of kids ages zero to three, told me that she loves her husband, but she can’t stand him when he offers opinions on raising their young children.  “When my husband has parenting suggestions I get annoyed, even though he certainly has the right as the daddy to be a part of the decision-making process.”

Despite her admission of his fatherly rights, the emotional tug of “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” is too much of a draw and they get into unnecessary fights.  After all, she doesn’t tell her husband what to do at work, so why should he interfere with her job at home?  I can imagine her rolling her eyes at her partner’s naïve parenting suggestion like “just ignore him” when their toddler throws his vegetables on the floor.  Her response: Ignore him?  When I do that he just continues throwing the rest of the food on the floor and he eats nothing for dinner.

My advice for her and for any loving mother and wife is Continue reading »

There’s a reason why new moms can’t wait to get out of the hospital after they give birth.

Here are the top ten post-delivery surprises my friends and I faced.  If you’re preparing for birth, then reading this list just might help you smile instead of grimace when…

1) At least four nurses will squeeze your boobs. Sometimes, one will squeeze while another watches.

2) Your pulse and blood pressure will be taken every four hours to make sure you’re alive.              Continue reading »

I read a book.  It changed everything I thought about parenting.  Raising a Child With Soul: How Time-Tested Jewish Wisdom Can Shape Your Child’s Character by Slovie Jungreis-Wolff is heavy on lessons and heavy on Bible stories.  But don’t let that scare you.  Even if you’re not Jewish or Christian, there are insights from Jungreis-Wolff that will change the way you parent forever.

I feel desperate to share one of many remarkable insights I gained from this book.  I want to SHOUT this idea to all parents from the top of the Empire State Building.

Jungreis-Wolff writes that one key to building good character in young children is to avoid false praise.  She says that when a child displays a special interest or talent (baking cookies, drawing a picture, finger-painting, etc.) do not give false praise that they are amazing painters, superb chefs or the best artists. Do not hang every picture on the fridge.  Doing that will only make their knees buckle when the real world shows them that they are not as talented as they thought they were.  Continue reading »