Ana

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I'm a psychologist undergoing metamorphosis into a cognitive neuroscientist. I also indulge in parenting, cooking and photography.

	1,018 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	1 year, 3 months
47 badges		location	Utrecht, Netherlands		seen	36 mins ago

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23 Comments

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May 2	comment	When should little one stop needing milk through night "The average six month old should only need 1-2 feedings according to many guidelines I have seen." Interesting, the 'no feeding necessary' might be a guideline specific to my part of the world (The Netherlands). I never thought to question it. I also know that guidelines on introducing solid food vary, with European countries lately advising it to begin as early as four months. I can imagine that adding a solid food meal to the bottle before bed makes a difference.
Apr 19	comment	Preschooler can't sing, but sings anyway - loudly! Torben, when my little sister was little she used to sing all day long with no sense of tune whatsoever. She grew into a remarkably good singer later on, and her guitar teacher thought she was talented as well. The fact that your kid isn't good at singing at 3.5 doesn't necessarily mean he'll stay bad at it! Be careful with the messages you send him when trying to quiet him down. As for my sister, she learned to hum :)
Apr 8	comment	Pre-teen always sneaking junk food @KarlBielefeldt, I think I've seen this article, perhaps you posted it before? I also saw some news from the UK that the number of malnourished babies is on the rise, because adults mistakenly think that kids' nutritional needs are like an adult's needs but scaled down. Both of these pieces of information were inspiration for my post... as well as the fact that the main question is how to teach the girl to control her binge eating behavior.
Apr 8	comment	Pre-teen always sneaking junk food @bobobobo - I'm assuming that, unlike adults, all kids grow taller. This process uses a lot of energy.
Apr 4	comment	Should an infant be washed with turmeric powder? Are you sure it's not talcum powder?
Mar 27	comment	Have studies shown whether toys that feature guns or other weapons prominently promote violent behavior? Just to clarify: do you mean violent behavior outside the context of playing with these particular toys?
Mar 3	comment	One year old is restless and scared after an injection My first guess would be tummy trouble. She is sick, isn't she?
Oct 22	comment	Does teaching your child sign language improve his emotional health? It's wise of you to question the research from this link. I am surrounded by researchers on linguistics, and they tell me that there is no hard data that shows developmental benefits of using sign language. But they do agree that a child can communicate earlier using sign language, which might be nice for the family. So it boils down to what works best for everybody.
Sep 26	comment	I suspect my teenager is using illegal drugs; what should I do? A friend of mine had a similar situation with his daughter. It turned out that she had begun to date a girl, and was a bit confused about the whole situation, and was therefore hiding it for the timebeing even though the parents are completely open-minded about those things. The moral here is, you have no idea if it's drugs, really, so be careful not to accuse in advance. That could backfire badly.
Aug 28	comment	Good resource for what is safe to eat and when We've been advised to wait with milk until 1 year. Formula is considered OK before that. Drinking milk too early can possibly lead to some allergies and in rare cases autoimmune conditions... Or at least that's the prevailing wisdom at the moment.
Aug 27	comment	Is it ok to be on diet while pregnant? @bobobobo - of course. But her question was whether it's ok to go hungry sometimes. I'm saying it's not ok, not even sometimes.
Aug 13	comment	How can i make sure my kids are not annoying? I have to admit that I let my kid (16 months) be more annoying than I thought I would. Keeping him occupied full time is not something I'm always able to do. He is too small to be reasonable, and is normally very nice, but he can't stand it if his motion is restrained. My tolerance threshold for his crying has also shifted: while I know that he will stop crying if I ignore him in certain situations, people around me don't, and it probably looks bad to the outside observer. Anyway, my options are either to entertain full time or allow for some crying, so sometimes there's crying.
Jul 19	comment	Why is my baby suddenly screaming in the bath? @morahhochman - I live in the Netherlands where showers are the norm, and kids typically stop using the baby tub around two years old. The advice we got is to pour some drops of water over our son's face whenever bathing him, from day 1. And to start taking him into the shower with us as well, as soon as we felt ready, but essentially from day 1 would have been fine. Otherwise, kids have a hard time adjusting and are normally afraid of the shower. The Dutch would know :)
May 30	comment	Do dummies (“pacifiers”) hinder speech development? Dummy just means 'not the real thing', just like a crash test dummy or a ventriloquist's doll. As for your question, colic will pass, and when it does, you can begin to give your baby the dummy only during nap/sleep times. There's plenty of time until speech begins.
May 27	comment	What are the objective arguments against immunizations for infants and children? @DA01 I'm aware of that... I'm just trying to figure out whether the not-before-18-months diagnosis involves deterioration of already acquired social skills, or playing on the safe side on the part of the diagnosticians.
May 26	comment	What are the objective arguments against immunizations for infants and children? I'm very curious about the sudden development of autism (regardless of the cause). Did the kids point to objects before? Make eye contact? Cry when their parents left the room? Understand a few words, respond to commands like: "Bring me the ball"? I read that autism can be diagnosed only about 18 months into someone's life, but I find that strange as my kid was smiling and blabbering to toys with a face (eyes) already when he was three months old. He would also look directly into your eyes (not your hand) if you would suddenly grab his foot. Does all of this suddenly disappear with autism?
Mar 29	comment	breaking my rejection of christianity to my parents You say you don't self-identify as Christian. Could you please let us know if you still self-identify as a believer? I think it would make a world of a difference to your parents whether you believe in something but don't agree with the formal Christian aspects of expressing your belief, or you do not believe at all... And it would give people here a better idea how to answer you. Finding some common ground with your parents is important.
Feb 28	comment	Should you talk your toddler only in one language when you are multilingual yourself? @TorbenGundtofte-Bruun - An interesting thing this friend told me is that 4-day-old infants can make a difference between the melody of different languages, if these melodies are very different. If they are similar, it takes a few months.
Feb 25	comment	Should you talk your toddler only in one language when you are multilingual yourself? @PéterTörök - Here are a few papers that I could find with a quick search (I only read the abstracts). If I hear of a nice review I will post it as well. The essence is that kids do mix languages, but the mixing is not related to parental mixing - but rather to how parents react to the child mixing them. 1 2 3
Feb 23	comment	Should you talk your toddler only in one language when you are multilingual yourself? @PéterTörök - Yes, I think that my linguist friend exactly means that random switching by a parent will not confuse the child (i.e. not impair the child in learning either language, or distinguishing between the two). This goes against common knowledge/advice, but seems to be backed by research. I was surprised to hear it.