Tag: Montessori method

I’m not certain when the “right” time is for having baby join family dinner time – if you know any guidelines, I’d love to hear them!  We decided that now is the right time for our family.  Our daughter is just shy of 2 years old and while she has been sitting at the table in her highchair (my post about that learning curve is HERE), it seems like the right time to eat family style.

Until now Sophie has eaten dinner at 5:30 or 6 and then we continued with our nightly routine before putting her to bed.  Now, it seems like she’s happier eating later and closer to her bed time.  We’re happier with this arrangement for her too as it allows her to sleep a little longer in the morning – even a few minutes can make a big difference!  Unfortunately, that puts our grown up dinner later and later – sometimes we’re not even done by 10pm and that is just way too late.  Again, it has to do with maximizing sleep time.

So, we’re in the process of deciding if Sophie joins us for nightly dinners or if we suck it up and eat late.  I’ve always known I’d have family dinners (I did as a child and even when times got really rough we ate together every night and it seemed to hel get us through).  But when to start?  This week we decided to give it a try.

In keeping with Maria Montessori’s adage: not words but virtues, we are attempting to teach table manners to our (almost) 2 year old by modeling the correct behavior.  Teaching through example. Now that we’ve pretty much mastered the “not throwing food on the floor,” it’s time to tackle nutrition, grace and courtesy, and manners.  Whew – that’s a mouthful.  Montessori and much to say about each of these topics and yet I only have the mental ability to begin with these as they relate to the nightly dinner.

Nutrition:  This is a life long lesson I realize, but giving a solid foundation is a parent’s responsibility in my opinion.  By showing Sophie that not only is she served a balanced meal (protein, veggie and starch) but also Mommy and Daddy eat that way every night, I hope to instill in her a “need” for good food.  We don’t praise her for eating what she’s served (well, we try not to) and we don’t offer her food as a reward or withhold it as a punishment.  This creates associations with food that lead to overindulging, stress eating and other bad habits.  If we have dessert, she gets dessert (smaller portion!).  In the interest of full disclose, our daughter will pick out most every veggie and put it aside unless it is a pea or a carrot.  Those she’ll eat.  But, hey, we’ve got to start somewhere.

Grace, courtesy and manners: Since putting a napkin in a 2 year old’s lap is not an option, we do more modeling of grace and courtesy at the dinner table, which fits in nicely with Montessori’s teaching that the sensitive period for grace,  courtesy and manners is 3-6 years old and before that modeling is key.  Still, we use napkins and put then in our laps.  We wait to eat until we are all seated and served, though we don’t say grace or a blessing.  When we have a conversation, we (try to) listen to each other before speaking.  (Note: my husband and I are both talkers, so this one takes practice!)  When it is clear that Sophie is finished, we ask her if she is all done – we’ve taught her the sign language for this, so she can communicate it easily when she feels like it.  This part, truth be told, is hard as she doesn’t always want to communicate clearly and prefers to wiggle and squiggle in her chair.  We try to reinforce the “all done” before we take her out.  “Excuse me”, “thank you”, and “please” will all have to wait until she can actually speak.  Feet and elbows are not allowed though chewing with her mouth open is (for now) as I’m usually thankful that she is actually eating.

Dinner time, as you may suspect, has become hectic.  It’s not the best situation as I prefer to have a nice relaxing dinner, but, for now it’ll do.  Plus, I like to feel like I am sowing the seeds of future mealtimes.

I have an affection for raising our daughter in the Montessori way and have tried, as you may have figured out, to follow the rules but wind up modifying them to fit our needs. I’m certain Maria Montessori would turn over in her grave if she knew we called what we do “Montessori.”

Regardless, this is how it breaks down in our house. We research what the method is, attempt it, and then retro fit the method to our reality. With eating and feeding, these modifications happened quickly with much mess. I pilfered these rules from my Montessori Guru cousin whose blog has excellent info on all things Montessori.

1. No high chairs or propping up in a seat. We tried lap sitting – i.e., Sophie sat in my lap and either I fed her with my free hand that wasn’t holding the food or my husband fed her. While it does work, this method is exhausting for everyone! What with squirming, head shaking, hand waving and general mayhem, the food made it in our little one’s mouth, and all over us, and the table, and the floor.

I stopped to think about what we were teaching our daughter…what I intended to teach our daughter was family dinner time, and this wasn’t it. So, we opted for a high chair that uses our table as the “tray” and Sophie now eats dinner (and lunch and breakfast) at the table, with her own placemat. Teaching her not to throw food overboard on to the floor is an entirely other matter and deserves it’s own post.

2. The container must be see through so the child can see the food. This teaches a child that the food exists outside of them, then through the act of eating, the food goes inside of them. They are just learning about food, so the clarity allows them to see the food as it actually exists, not as purple oatmeal. Also, with all of this talk of BPA contamination, I opted for clear glass tiny bowls and they work perfectly for freezing, microwaving and washing. Also, same goes for water. We uses a small votive glass and it works amazingly well. It can’t hold too much water, so when the glass goes flying, as it inevitably does, it’s really no biggie. I have taken to holding the water for Sophie and letting her use her hands to guide the water in, just to save time with clean-up…again, not a strict adherence to the rule.

3. You offer the food to the baby and the baby either eats or doesn’t eat. No games or tricks. Generally, with patience, this works well. However, Sophie goes through phases of refusing to eat anything unless we eat it. So I found that a few tricks do in fact work and I resort to these when I worry that Sophie will waste away to nothing after 2 days into a food strike.

5. Food is served solo – no mixing. Oatmeal gets one bowl, peas get another. Mac and cheese is served separately from small bites of chicken. I find this one of the hardest to maintain. Sometimes oatmeal won’t cut it, but oatmeal with apples and some cinnamon goes down easy. Also, how am I supposed to get Sophie to eat anything green besides peas if I just serve it to her plain? I don’t eat like that, why should she? Plus, if she will only eat something I’m eating, well, then, you can guess why we break this rule all the time!

Basically we approach feeding the same as we do most things. We figure out the lesson we want to teach and go from there. Keep things simple.

Almost a year into the floor bed and things are still going strong. I wrote previously on the Montessori floor bed and a little of why we chose to go that route instead of with a crib (see post). Well, the decision was made and we have never looked back.

At first, I was nervous that the floor bed would give our daughter too much freedom in her room. The purpose of the bed is to instill the ability to make decisions and allow the baby to experience independence, albeit independence with limits. Yes, we baby proofed the whole room, but still, it’s a bit nerve racking to think of the baby deciding to get out of bed on her own to explore her room…and we don’t even have a video monitor!

I decided to put some board books and toys on the bottom shelf of the bookshelf in the room, that way, if Sophie wanted to play with something she would have a selection of things that were virtually indestructible. Recently I’ve added a few wooden puzzles within her reach and her favorite stuffed animals. Also, at night, I move the pillows (purely decorational) along with her blanket to the top of the changing table so she can’t get in to trouble with those.

This is how her typical morning goes: she wakes up, starts singing and babbling. She stirs, probably rolling around for a bit until she decides to crawl over to her bookshelf. Sophie is walking now, but she prefers to sleep with her sleep sack on and it’s difficult for her to walk in it – she has figured out that crawling still works fine. So, she’ll crawl over to her bookshelf and throw just about everything on the floor, sifting through each book, puzzle or animal deciding what to play with. I know this because I hear her on the monitor doing this. Then, she plays…and talks to herself. She’s been able to go for almost a whole hour at a stretch while my husband and I slowly wake up and roust ourselves. Now, I’m not sure how babies react to the morning in cribs since I have no experience with one, but our mornings are really good this way. She wakes up on her own time and is learning to amuse herself – no Mommy or Daddy to make her decisions for her. I think that is a valuable lesson, one that may just serve her well throughout her life.

I’d be lying if I said she never cries in the morning, but those seem to be getting fewer and farther between. It’s as if she knows that we’re here for her even if she doesn’t see us.

I should mention that naps are a different story. Sometimes it is the exact same routine as the morning. But, there have been plenty of days where she just won’t go to sleep or stay asleep. She refuses! And, those days she gets herself out of bed and throws a fit by the door. I know this because 1) I can hear her voice get louder and louder as she tries to look under the crack in the door to the hallway and 2) I’ve hit her with the door as I’ve entered the room. (FYI, I open the door very, very slowly now). But, I figure any kid refuses sleep some days and in a crib she’d throw the same tantrum, she just would have less mobility. Good, and bad.

Sophie has now taken to marching herself over to her bookshelf and playing during naps. Ultimately I’m OK with that as she is making her own decisions (within limits) and we stick to her schedule regardless if she gets a nap…if she’s extra sleepy when bed time comes around, then maybe she’ll eventually learn that nap time combats that. One can hope.

Overall, the floor bed is indeed teaching our daughter the lessons we wanted to teach her. Consequences stem from her own actions – not from some arbitrary “rule.”

And lastly, an added benefit I hadn’t realized: the bed is great for us as well. When she’s sick my husband and I have alternately curled up beside our daughter and rubbed her back during the night, comforted her in the wee hours of the morning while laying down, and lounged in her room while we play together. We are on the floor, yes, but not stooping over a bed rail, feeling our backs get increasingly sore. My knees talk to me more now but honestly I’d rather have that then back trouble!

Looking for a modern bassinet or co-sleeper and only finding icky, frilly wedding cakes on stilts? Yeah, I hate most of what I saw out there in the marketplace, too. I thought I’d round up the best of the modern bassinets and co-sleepers I found.

But first, a little bit about co-sleeping.  While doing my research I found so many articles for and against co-sleeping that I nearly gave up on the idea of making a decision, but then realized that no decision was in fact a decision so I trudged on.

The argument that stood out for me in favor co-sleeping was that, by sleeping with your infant you are teaching them how to sleep.  Until they arrive, your body is their body; so connected are mother and baby.  When they come out, you realize they are not still a part of your body (believe me, you realize this) but they don’t.  It takes them a long while to understand that separation…(see separation anxiety).  In keeping with this line of thought, then, by modeling sleep behavior you in essence are teaching your baby how to sleep.  Generations of parents across cultures have done so.  Not until recently (relatively speaking, say within the last 200 years) have parents removed the infant from their own bed and put them into a separate room.  Now, I could go on about the pros of co-sleeping, but this is the one that really felt right to me.  This and the fact that, once my baby joined us, I was so intent on watching her every breath (to make sure she was still taking them) that I felt better with her next to me.

But, to be fair, the argument that putting a baby in his or her own room fosters independence also resonated with me.  I mean, afterall, we are raising little adults and I’d like to think that my child will be independent when she grows – not an emotionally stilted dependent being.  Plus, independence is integral to the Montessori method that we choose to raise our daughter by, so I felt conflicted about the decision.

However, the essence of Montessori, to me, is to teach your child when the child is ready to learn that lesson.  Since an infant is still mentally attached to the mother, I figure that co-sleeping is the appropriate lesson for that age and teaching my child how to sleep by essentially modeling the behavior seemed like the thing to do.  I could be rationalizing here, but it felt right.

Which leads me back to finding a good co-sleeper.  Since we have a queen size bed, the one that fits in-between the parents was out – simply not enough room.  Of course, there is always the time honored practice of laying the baby down on the bed, but I was afraid of smothering and excessive rolling over that that was out as well.

What I found fits into to two categories: the co-sleeper and the bassinet.  One actually attaches to the bed, making a tiny bed for the baby but still next to the mom (or dad).  The other can be placed anywhere, either next to the bed or simply in the room.   I loved the Nest-Bassinet: simple, elegant.  And, expensive!  

Then, I found more moderately priced one, the ninna-nanna basket and the Cariboo Classic:

Not bad, but I was leaning more toward having my baby sleep next to me so that I wouldn’t have to be continually getting out of bed to check on her.  Here are the co-sleepers I liked the best.

My favorite by a mile: Cully Bella co-sleeper from Italy.  Unfortunately, it’s not in production.  But just look at it!

Finally, hiding in the depths of the internet I found the Baby Bunk.  Not too expensive, simple, and elegant.  The perfect combo for me.  Here is my bed with the bunk we bought and one with my baby in it…

All three of us loved it.  We each had our own space to sleep but we were all cozy next to each other.  I didn’t have to get out of bed in the night to check on my baby and we all slept as good as can be expected those first three months.  Really, with just a few hiccups, we slept pretty much right on her feeding schedule: at first every three hours we woke, then every four, then we made it to six (what a night!) and then we were getting through from about 11 pm to 7 am. We used the bunk for roughly 4 months, until our little climber started to sit up and try to pull on the edges to investigate the other side…then, she went straight to the floor bed (see post).

Co-sleeping was the exact right decision for our family and using the baby bunk was perfect.  Hope you find what you’re looking for, too.