Am I too old to have a baby?

Am I too old to have a baby? - The running, the jumping, the skipping and the cleaning, the homework and the school plays – it’s no news that children are tiring and although it’s a difficult job for anyone, looking after young children is even harder when you are older. Your energy levels deplete as you age and although you can improve your diet and take energy-boosting supplements you may never feel like you have enough oomph to give your child everything they need. Also, although you may feel full of beans now, what will you feel like in 10 or 15 years when your child is older?

Longevity

One of the biggest worries that concerns older parents is whether they will be able to see their child grow up into an adult, or get the chance to see their grandchildren come into the world. You have to ask yourself whether it is better to bring someone into the world even if they may experience great pain in losing you, or whether it is best never to have tried at all. It is a difficult question to answer and there is no right or wrong answer.

Are you prepared?

In recent studies most parents who have their first child after their 40th birthday say that the best time to have children is in fact in their thirties, but there are also lots of benefits to having a child later in life. Parents past the age of 40 often feel more emotionally able to cope with the demands a child brings. Mature parents also believe they are more self-aware and have a greater understanding of what a child needs to grow up into a successful adult than they did when they were younger. Plus, older parents are usually more stable, both financially and in their relationships. Your child will be spending many years at school, rooting you to one spot, so stability in your career, a willingness to stay put for a bit and the maturity to accept that will count for a lot. So, although there are some medical risks and health factors to consider, having a baby when you are older does have its benefits.

Health risks for your baby

The biggest consideration when thinking about having a child as an older parent is the health implications for both the mother and the baby. Mothers over the age of 35 are more likely to have premature babies, have miscarriages and have a child with Down’s syndrome. Mothers who conceive over the age of 40 are at higher risk of pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure and diabetes (also known as gestational diabetes) during pregnancy. Also, fathers and mothers who are forty plus are more likely to have children with autism.

Outdated values

Another cause for concern for older parents is that they worry their values will be outdated and inconsistent with the world their child will grow up in. We all know how quickly things change and the values and morals our grandparents tried to instil in our parents are quite different to the lessons we may want to teach our children. If this is a concern you have, you should ask yourself if you will be able to be flexible and understanding when you are faced with these generation gaps. Can you accommodate new ideals and lifestyles in your parenting plan?

Infertility

Doctors recommend that people should have children between the age of 20 and 35, suggesting that fertility rates decline past the age of 35 for both men and women. Researchers have found that in men, the quality of sperm reduces as the cells in the testicles age. For women, a similar deterioration occurs, but in the woman’s eggs. This natural ageing makes it more difficult to become pregnant over the age of 35, but it does not make it impossible. If you are over the age of 35 and want to get pregnant then you should improve your overall health by eating a balanced diet and exercise regularly. Caffeine, alcohol and fatty foods are said to affect fertility, so should be reduced or avoided. Guys should try to up their intake of zinc as this helps sperm production.

Make sure you see a doctor if you have been trying to conceive for over six months and are aged 35 or above so that you can receive further help and advice. ( offspringthing.com )

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Professional Parents

Professional Parents - Her face is always bright. Her words were loud and vibrant. On the other side, her smile never missed to hover. Yes, staring at the friendly lady whom kids liked and loved to be with always brought joy. Really suited to her profession as a kindergarten teacher, I assumed. But, her husband’s complaint one day directed me to a new horizon.

“I could not understand why she is easily got mad. I feel so sorry for our kids who often stressed out because of their mother’s temper.” Until one day when the couple had a big row, this statement came out of his lips, “How much is your salary as a kindergarten teacher? How big it is, I can pay you the same as long as you can cheerfully play with the children and being loved by them!”

The last line really hit her and took her to a long dialogue when we finally met. Many problems and life burden, fatigue and many thing else have drained this lady’s energy, which made “comfort” to evaporate when facing her children.

Similar phenomenon happened to many people in our society. I was not clean from such mistake -parents who were able to be professional in their profession but failed on dealing with their own children. A customer service seemed to never run out of smile. Even when facing the most annoying customer, she would fight to mind her words and attitude as a professional should be.

A true entertainer (singer, musician, comedian, etc) although had a depressing problem, would still give the best performance to the audience or fans. Being professional was not just about performing duties. Currently, the term professional often related to money.

Actually, what made it differ did not lie on the material matters, but more to did this matter being realized into actions and also with heart. Then, how to bring this professionalism to our duty as parents? Have we become a parent who even though never received any salary but could act professional?

Secretly, I started to count, how many times I had been angry in a day or a week. Professional parents were not the ones who never got angry but more to understand when they must be firm. Not solely because of emotional pressure, but being angry – with the right proportion – merely needed as a learning process.

Professional parents would not be angry because they have been burdened by piles of office tasks and got upset because of thinking family in the house acted intolerant, then easily find a reason to wreak. On the contrary, a professional mother-father would firmly act and as necessary as they could when their children involved in criminality or violent the social norms. Because, any criminal action as little as it, could clearly had a legal consequences. Becoming professional parents meant to act and respond as the children need. Even though the father or mother had a passive character, but when facing their toddlers who need expressions then parents would find a way to be expressive.

Professional as parents also meant always there to listen, give comments, and appreciate as well as give positive respond to build children’s confidence -likewise, when our children showed their own simple drawings. No matter how tired, professional father-mother would change their expression completely from fatigue to enthusiast, not to forget the children also showed excitedly their own drawings.

Parents are shelter for their children. Therefore, spread the umbrella, so children can play quietly and comfortable. Of course, it took a long and winding road and not easily giving up being a more professional parent. I still fight for it and far from perfect. But, the sparks in their eyes, smiles and hugs on the neck they gave us hopefully could be encouragement for each of us to present love and appreciation so our children felt important and loved. ( republika.co.id )

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9 Causes of Sleeplessness (And What to Do About Them)

9 Causes of Sleeplessness (And What to Do About Them) - Americans are so sleep-starved that in a recent survey, 67% said they’d trade a vacation day for better night's sleep. And there's good reason: Recent research has linked sleep deprivation to everything from obesity to diabetes to heart disease to cancer. Find out what you can do, before it starts hurting your health.

1. SLEEP KILLER: TOO MUCH COFFEE: 

Caffeine blocks the sleep-inducing action of the brain chemical adenosine. It can also reduce the amount you make of the sleep hormone melatonin. Not only will it lead to trouble dropping off, but also you’ll sleep restlessly. In an Israeli study, subjects given caffeinated coffee had about half as much melatonin in their systems as those who were given decaf. They also took twice as long to fall asleep and slumbered an average of 79 minutes less.

Solution: Drink early, but not often. Limit caffeine consumption to 250 milligrams a day (about 16 ounces of coffee), the amount most of us can handle without its causing bedtime troubles. It takes about six to eight hours for your body to clear enough caffeine to avoid its interfering with your sleep, so put your cup down by 2 P.M.

2. SLEEP KILLER:TOO MUCH LIGHT: 

While playing a few rounds of Words With Friends on your iPad or spending two hours in front of the tube may help you wind down, your body’s response to the short-wave blue light emitted by these devices’ backlit screens is, "Hey, more daylight! Let’s stay up and play." (This is true for compact-fluorescent, LED, and incandescent lights, too.) Sleep hormones kick in at about 9 or 10 P.M., but if the bedroom never gets dark, your body holds off on melatonin production, making it harder for you to fall asleep.

Solution: Say “Ta-Ta” to your tech toys. It may be hard to sacrifice your post-dinner Facebook activity but try to pull yourself away an hour before bed and dim the lights in your house.

3. SLEEP KILLER: YOUR BIOLOGY: 

Though we’ve been trained to believe that we need an uninterrupted seven to eight hours of sleep, research by historian A. Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech found that in the past, people in many cultures traditionally had two distinct sleep periods per night, separated by an hour or so of wakefulness. In other words, it was normal to sleep in split shifts. Today, we toss and turn because we’re worried we’re never going to get back to sleep, which can make doing so impossible.

Solution: Take it instride “Don’t lie awake fretting and telling yourself you need to go to sleep,” advises Fiona Baker, Ph.D., a sleep researcher at SRI International in Menlo Park, CA. “Shift your thoughts. Immediately turn to a relaxation technique like deep breathing.” Or, you could look at your midnight wake-up as a gift of time—get something done, then go back to bed when you’re sleepy.

4. SLEEP KILLER: TOO MUCH ALCOHOL: 

While drinking wine, beer, or spirits can help you conk out, alcohol disrupts sleep patterns: You’ll wake more often during the night, and you’ll get more deep sleep at the start of the night and not so much in the second half, thus ending up with less of the kind that’s important for feeling rested. This effect is more pronounced in women, researchers found in a 2011 multi-university study, probably because we metabolize alcohol differently.

Solution: 

Make it an “evening-cap” Or, have it with dinner. While studies show that the effect on sleep lingers even after alcohol is out of your system, a cocktail or a glass of wine with supper is not as disruptive as a nightcap. And since the reaction is dosedependent—the more you drink, the worse your sleep—limit your sips to a glass or two.

5. SLEEP KILLER: 

WORRY Your emotional life is like a set of invisible arms that shake you out of a sound sleep so you can fret a little while longer. “About 75% of the people I see with sleep problems have anxiety or depression,” says Breus.

Solution: Count your blessings In a study conducted by Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., of the University of California, Davis, people who listed five things they were grateful for each day in a gratitude journal fell asleep faster, slept for longer periods of time, and also woke up feeling more refreshed than those who didn’t use such a journal.

6. SLEEP KILLER: 

THE CALENDAR As people get older, they’re more likely to have long periods of wakefulness, often early in the morning. That’s because in your 20s and 30s, you start getting less and less of the deepest stages of sleep—“the kind that allows a sleeping child to be lifted out of the car, carried upstairs, and undressed and tucked into bed without waking up,” explains Harvard sleep researcher Jeanne Duffy, Ph.D. “That’s one reason that even healthy older people have sleep disruptions—if you’re not as deeply asleep, anything is likely to wake you,” like a truck outside or even birds chirping. Aging, it turns out, may have a smaller impact on sleep than many have thought. A 2010 British study found that older folks slept only about 20 minutes less a night than middle-aged men and women, who in turn slept only 23 minutes less than young adults. What’s more, says Duffy, in her research she has found that healthy older people can miss sleep—even stay up all night—and not be as exhausted the following day as someone younger might be.

Get an early start to the day It’s what many tightly scheduled (and successful) business leaders do. They may use the early morning hours to work out, catch up on e-mail, and read the news before heading out to the office. Remember the old saying “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”? It goes for women, too.

7. SLEEP KILLER: 

PAIN OR DISCOMFORT Two major sleep disrupters are back pain and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a condition in which the ring of muscle fibers (or sphincter) in the esophagus can’t prevent a backup of stomach contents into the throat. It occurs during the day, but there’s also a nighttime version.

Solution: If you have back pain When sleeping on your back, use a small pillow for your head; place another under your knees to take pressure off your lower back. When on your side, put a pillow between your knees and thighs.

If you have GERD Raise the head of your bed—or your own torso—with pillows, so you’re not lying flat. It may also help to lose weight if you are overweight. In one study, a loss of just 10 to 15 pounds reduced heartburn in women by 40%. (As for back pain, there’s surprisingly little research on the topic, but in studies of people who’d had weight-loss surgery, losing weight helped.)

8. SLEEP KILLER: 

OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA (OSA) When you have this serious, widespread condition—it’s as common as type 2 diabetes—your breathing stops periodically (sometimes for a minute of times to restart it. OSA is caused by a blockage of the airway, usually when the soft tissue in the back of the throat collapses. Why this cause of your daytime sleepiness can be such a surprise: You’ve been waking up all night, but with no awareness of its even happening. OSA’s major symptom is loud snoring—ask your partner (if he hasn’t complained already), or run a tape recorder one night.

Solution: Start that diet you’ve been talking about About 65% of people who have OSA are overweight or obese. The condition can contribute to—or be a consequence of—extra pounds. Slimming down often improves symptoms and may even cure your obstructed breathing. If you have mild apnea that occurs only when you lie on your back—the case for many people—try sleeping on your side. One way to keep from rolling back again: Place a tennis ball in a sock, then pin the sock to the back of your PJs.

Check in with a pro Even if your bedmate hasn’t said you’ve been snoring, see your doctor about unexplained and profound daytime sleepiness. If you have OSA, you may need a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine. It works by not allowing the soft tissue in your throat to collapse and stop your breathing.

9. SLEEP KILLER: 

RESTLESS LEGS SYNDROME (RLS) If you wake up because you have the irresistible urge to move your legs to stop them from tingling, you may have this nerve disorder, which occurs in about 5% of the population. It can also lead to difficulty falling asleep and frequent waking. RLS often runs in families, and like so many other things, it tends to be worsened by stress. Some people with RLS have an additional condition called periodic limb movements in sleep, in which their legs jerk every 20 to 40 seconds in clusters throughout the night.

Solution: Get an RX for RLS While massages, relaxation exercises, regular workouts, and elimination of caffeine and alcohol can help, your doctor may suggest one of several FDA-approved drugs to treat RLS. Or she might prescribe medications that have been approved to treat other conditions (such as Parkinson’s disease), but which also ease RLS symptoms. You might ask your doctor to check your iron levels; anemia can cause RLS. ( goodhousekeeping.com )

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Seven Things You Didn’t Know About Sleep

Seven Things You Didn’t Know About Sleep - We spend roughly a third of our lives sleeping (or at least trying to), yet we don't know much about what goes on while we snooze. Here, sleep experts dish — what they know will amaze you!

You sleep in cycles.

A full sleep cycle takes about 90 to 120 minutes, says psychologist Lisa Medalie, a behavioral sleep specialist at the University of Chicago. You go through four stages, starting with the lightest one and ending with rapid-eye movement (REM). “Usually people wake up for a couple minutes after each complete sleep cycle,” she says.

You become a cold-blooded animal during REM sleep.

During dream-filled, REM sleep, your body isn’t its own furnace. “We lose the ability to thermo-regulate ourselves,” says Mark Mahowald, professor of neurology at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a visiting professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at Stanford University. But that’s fine because REM periods typically last only 20 minutes or so, though they can be as short as two minutes or as long as 45, says sleep researcher Ursula Voss, a psychology professor at the University of Frankfurt. “You become a cold-blooded animal. You don’t sweat in REM sleep.”

You get less REM sleep when you feel uncomfortable or in danger.

“When you feel unsafe or cold in your sleeping quarters, you don’t enter REM sleep or get as much of it,” says Voss. “Your body automatically adjusts so you don’t go into that stage. REM is a deeper sleep, and it’s more dangerous.” That explains why kids living on the streets get very little REM sleep, she notes.

Alcohol reduces REM sleep.

Booze is a sleep-inducing depressant that interferes with shut-eye. “The alcohol puts you to sleep, but it lightens your sleep and suppresses your REM sleep,” says pharmacist Keith T. Veltri, clinical pharmacy manager of Montefiore Medical Center. You may still remember dreams, though, since the alcohol causes increased arousals — and you can only recall a dream when you awake during it. When alcoholics stop drinking, they experience a “tremendous increase of REM sleep, and therefore, more vivid dreaming,” says Mahowald.

Some medicines interfere with sleep habits.

Benadryl (or diphenhydramine), the active “PM” ingredient in over-the-counter drugs, may result in shortened REM and fewer dreams, says Veltri. Prescription drugs that can cause nightmares include beta-blockers, which are usually prescribed for high blood pressure; the Parkinson’s disease drug, Sinemet; and the smoking-cessation medication, Chantix. Some drugs, such as antidepressants and barbituates, also reduce REM sleep.

Babies in the womb are almost exclusively in REM sleep.

In the womb, fetuses are almost exclusively in REM, which may be very “important for brain development,” says Mahowald. However, they presumably lack memories to consolidate into nighttime visions. “They can’t be dreaming because they have no experience to generate dreams,” he says. Babies spend 50 percent of their shut-eye time in REM. Toddlers are down to 25 percent, and seniors are down to about 15 percent.

Not all animals experience REM sleep.

Dolphins and whales don’t. “It has something to do with their aquatic environment,” says Jerry Siegel, professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Sleep Research at UCLA. Fur seals experience REM and non-REM sleep when they’re on land but next to no REM sleep when they’re in the water, he says. REM sleep may play no role in intelligence. “The platypus has spectacular REM sleep,” says Siegel. “This is an animal that has a tiny little brain.” If REM sleep were cognitive, he says, “humans wouldn’t fall in the middle.” ( goodhousekeeping.com )

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The most popular baby names of 2012

The most popular baby names of 2012 - US parenting website BabyCenter released it's most popular baby names of 2012 this month. Let's take a look at the top ten for boys and girls.

Girls

1. Sophia2. Emma3. Olivia4. Isabella5. Ava6. Lily7. Zoe8. Chloe9. Mia10. Madison

Boys

1. Aiden2. Jackson3. Ethan4. Liam5. Mason6. Noah7. Lucas8. Jacob9. Jayden10. Jack

Trends:

50 Shades of Grey: Anastasia and Ana both increased in popularity, as did the name Grey. However, Christian declined significantly. One third of mums-to-be told BabyCenter that they were looking to characters from books for baby name inspiration.

Brit Invasion: Royals, Olympians and teenage boy bands leading the trend. Harry and Pippa both increased, as did four out of the five names of One Direction band members.

Funny Ladies: The rising popularity of comediennes Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Chelsea Handler, and Kristen Wiig was evident this year, with all of these first names jumping up the charts. Interestingly, the biggest climber was Betty with a gain of 54 percent. It seems US mums can't get enough of comedy legend Betty White.

The iBabies: Apple increased 15 percent for girls, while Mac was on the move for boys - climbing 12 percent this year. It also seems mums and dads like the sound of Siri!

The silver screen: In what BabyCenter describes as a fairy-tale frenzy, movie and TV characters and movie stars were on the move in a big way. The animated film Brave

along with Snow White and the Huntsman were especially big influencers. Hamish, Angus and Finn all climbed the chart for boys. For girls, it was Regina, Charlize, Belle and Ruby.

POTUS: Politics was popular in this election year, but only presidents from the past it seems. Reagan, Carter, Kennedy, Lincoln and Nixon all jumped. Not surprisingly, Mitt and Barack showed no increases.

The Final Frontier: Mums and dads looked to the heavens and beyond for inspiration this year. Sky, Star, Luna, Skylar, Heaven, Stella, and Mars all jumped dramatically. ( Yahoo!7 )

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