A common question of couples planning on starting a family is, "How much does it cost to have a baby?" With the media reporting that children can cost hundreds of thousands to raise, cribs retailing at hundreds of dollars and health care expenses soaring, it's no wonder new parents are concerned. While there is no black and white answer on how much you are going to spend, the good news is that you can make child rearing as expensive or as inexpensive as you choose.
As with many things, babies come with fixed expenses and re-occurring expenses. The cost of fixed expenses, like baby gear and nursery d'cor, can easily be reduced down to a minimum.
Decorating a nursery can easily run you thousands of dollars if you buy all new furniture, rugs, curtains, wall decorations, closet organizers etc. However, with a little creativity, resourcefulness and thought, you can easily put together a dream nursery for a few hundred, or even less! Keep your eyes and ears open for hand-me-downs, scour online classified, auctions and make it a regular outing to go to weekend garage sales. Update a well used, but dirt cheap, changing table with a fresh coat of paint and some inexpensive storage baskets. If you can't find a used crib bumper that you love, ask your creative aunt or friend to sew you a custom bumper out of adorable fabric for a fraction of the cost of a new one. Take every opportunity to go to garage sales to find the cute little knick knacks that give a room personality.
Baby gear such as car seats, high chairs, stollers and bouncy chairs can also be found at bargains if you are willing to go with used. Make sure to check for safety recalls on everything you buy second hand.
If you have a good friend or relative who's planning on starting a family soon make a deal with them that you'll share baby gear. You can buy the bouncy chair if they buy the swing and you can let each other borrow them when you need them. Newborn gear is easy to share with others because the items only get used for a few months, hardly enough time to get dirty or wrecked.
The costs that you will need to budget for in your monthly budget are the re-occuring costs. Again, these can be as high or as low as you let them. The usual reoccurring baby costs are: formula/baby food, diapers, clothes, doctors visits, and toys.
Formula and disposable diapers can often be your largest expenses. As a guideline, assume that disposable diapers and wipes will cost you around $80 per month and formula $100 per month. However, both expenses can be virtually eliminated if you breastfeed and use cloth diapers. Breastfeeding is free and you can get a years supply of cloth diapers for less than $150.
When your baby is old enough to start on solids you can spend money on canned baby food or you can choose the most inexpensive option of making your own baby food purees. They are easy to make and taste so much better. The cost will only be an extra portion of fruit, vegetables and grains that you already buy.
Clothes and toys can be found second hand, church thrift stores are great places to look, or from generous family members at gift giving occasions. Luckily babies are so curious about the world around them that toys are easily found in everyday objects.
The web is full of free baby products, so take advantage! If you register at your favorite baby product websites you will soon start receiving generous coupons in the mail.
The bottom line is that babies can be raised on any kind of budget. What babies need more than monetary objects are love, attention, and affection, which are all free. You don't need a trust fund in place in order for you to afford to have a child, if you are emotionally ready to raise baby, then money shouldn't stop you.
baby - Psychoanalysis for a Baby - "Muddled Brains" or Necessity
Average statistical mother thinks that her baby differ from other children only with the quantity of little wrinkles of his wrists, habit not to sleep at night and scream deafeningly in day. Children, who sleep like tops and do not yell, only squeal quietly sometimes, become the object of general jealous envy. However, it is not always good when a baby sleeps a lot, and it is not always bad when he screams boldly. Dear parents, remember: during the first year of life, a base of character and destiny of a future adult person are forming. So, it is very important to observe your baby's development.
Notice!
There is a whole section of psychology and a considerable area of psychoanalysis, which are devoted exceptionally to peculiarities of infantile age. Experts advise to pay attention to the following moments in your baby's behavior.
1. The way he cries
Weeping is a universal method to inform about baby's needs, express his feelings, gain a desired goal and... ventilate his respiratory tract. A strength of crying depends on a baby's character, his psychic state and physical development. The bigger a baby's volume of lungs is, the louder his cry is. Prematurely born babies, for example, do not cry at all, just squeak quietly, like kittens.
2. The way he sleeps
Pay attention at your baby's duration of sleep, the way he falls asleep and behaves while awaking. During day and night sleep, children gain strength and grow. During sleep, neurons of long-term memory fix all day impressions and process received information. Duration and character of sleep show a baby's temperament.
1. Strong and well-balanced sanguine persons sleep little and well.
2. Strong, irrepressible choleric subjects sleep little and bad.
3. Calm and sluggish phlegmatic persons sleep much and well.
4. Sensitive and delicate children with a weak type of nervous system sleep much and uneasily.
3. What or who he prefers to look at
This can be some animate object: mother, father, some strange person; or inanimate object: magazine cover, toy, play of light and shadow on a wall. TV set, showing some movie, is an equivalent of a human being. Sociable or very emotional children prefer to look at people. Secluded from birth ones fix their look at some objects and nature.
4. What he likes to play with
The one who likes toys usually thinks in a more standard way, than the one who is reaching for forbidden spectacles or mobile phone.
Typology of babies
"Leader"
He cries emphatically and loudly. He falls silent as soon as he receives the desired. He always strives for his goal: if he is hungry, you will not be able to distract him with a rattle, and if he wants to be taken in hands, he will be shouting till he is taken in hands. He falls asleep late, sleeps well, but little. He has an in-born talent to train his parents: as soon as he receives the desired, he becomes sweet like an angel, blinks sweetly, and mother with father are just ready to do everything to see this mildest expression on their baby's chubby little face. A future leader begins smiling early and fixes his sight not on some objects, but on his relatives, on which his well-being depends. He likes company, but hates being holding for a long.
What he needs
He needs a careful and firm attitude. On no account break his individuality. Parents should encourage a baby's good behavior, but not letting him push himself around or letting him tearing a book to pieces or throwing a toy away.
And who he will become then
Purposeful, decisive, persistent and active.
If everything goes wrong way
Strict and severe parents, suppressing independence of a future leader, will form a lonely wolf-cub or a broken and passive unlucky person. Too tender and permitting everything parents will receive a high-quality home tyrant.
"A closed book"
He is quiet and comfortable in exploitation. He seldom cries, only in case of real physical need of hunger, thirst or pains in stomach. He is sleeping almost always. Sleep for him is often an equivalent of heart-rending crying: not receiving the desired, he gets away from, hoping that while he is sleeping, the situation will change. After awaking, he is lying quietly for a long, he is interested in himself. He does not require from parents to stay with him all the time. Since birth, a world of objects attracts him more, than a world of people. He can smile to a bright vase or a swinging branch, looking through the window. He treats all people with equal indifference, is not afraid of anybody, sits like a sack of flour in all adults' hands, obedient and inert. He early chooses one person from his people, as his emotional canal of connection with the world, and often this person is not his mother.
What he needs
You should treat him respectfully, not intruding into his inner world with kisses and loud games. A mother should observe his peace, a father should explain things to him and protect him. It is good to introduce him many different people for communication, so that he could choose a friend to his liking. Mother should not be jealous of him because of a nanny or granny. He loves mother more, but feels easier with someone else.
And who he will become then
Original and deep thinker, engineer or mathematician, chemist or programmer. While having troubles, he will always shrink into his shell.
If everything goes wrong way
An importunate mother-sitting hen, taking care of his each step, will turn him into a secluded paranoiac. An indifferent one will grow a dullish loser or misanthrope of him. A strict and "birching" mother will receive a cruel egoist, not able to compassionate others' distress. A callous and emotionless one will grow a queer fish.
"Fragile like glass"
He often cries, calms down slowly, hiccups, sighs and whimpers. Sleeps long, but always bad, awakes routinely and requires being hold and lulled. He cannot stay alone even for a moment, he is glad to company. Physical closeness to mother and father calms him down. Sometimes he cannot bear bright light, loud sounds, what shows his especially delicate nervous system. He carefully selects his people, some he may ask to hold him, others he can push away. What is interesting, very often it turns out that he does not like people who conceal some hostile intentions towards his relatives.
What he needs
He requires double care, than other children. Adults always should respond to his crying. It is impossible to spoil or pet him: the more warmth he receives from people, the more stable and strong-willed he will become in future.
And who he will become then
A boy will turn into a dream of all women - a strong and tender man. A girl will charm everybody with her amenable, kind and stable character.
If everything goes wrong way
If you start showing tenacity, thinking that a baby will cry and stop, you will grow a nervous, always offended and malicious adult person. If you start scolding and punishing a child, you will form a shy and passive person of him. And you will have to patronize him during his whole life.
"A creative personality"
He hates sleeping, as sleep stops his activity on learning and creative transformation of the world. He does not cry, groan or coo after awakening, in order to attract adults' attention and make them come. He smiles to parents gladly, likes different odd objects more than plain toys. He begins to take to pieces objects surrounding him earlier, than he starts talking. He prefers communication at distance: tale, singing or presence near him to physical caress. He calms down because of words, not touches. He laughs and gesticulates to attract other people's attention to some object to his liking. By the age of 1, he starts showing monstrous obstinacy - give or show this to him.
What he needs
You need to talk and explain everything to him, not thinking whether he understands a lot.
And who he will become then
Gifted, curious, life-loving, quick-tempered and passionate.
If everything goes wrong way
If you suppress sharply his attempts to reach and learn, try to slap, then depressed inquisitiveness will turn into aggressiveness. By school age, a child will turn into an uncontrollable hooligan with poor progress.
"Delicate like mimosa"
He cries with a thin, whining voice and falls silent quickly. Such baby has no powers to have his will, shout until he is heard, and, after 10 minutes of groaning, he disappears in nonentity because of hopeless despair and sleeps round the clock, as if he is under anaesthetic, while his mother is boasting of her wonderful quiet child to her friends. He begins smiling late, freezes in mother's or father's hugs in perfect bliss, and often his parents take him for a "closed book" and leave him alone. However, a "delicate" baby is not interested in objects, nature and his own ideas of world. Instead of playing with a rattle or pyramid, he examines his hands, reaches for a mirror and TV set. He needs people. He is shy and does not have persevering seduction of a "leader" or hysterical obstinacy of a creative personality, does not shrink into his shell till better times, like a "closed book" does, and does not win over adults displaying them boisterous love, like a "fragile" baby does. He is more helpless, than other children, incredibly sensitive, shy; he suffers and stops in development without adults' attention.
What he needs
He needs a lot of external manifestation of love, touches, constant presence in his field of vision. A mother should think well about who will stay with a baby, if she decides to go back working.
And who he will become then
They can become extremely talented musicians, designers, teachers, brave defenders of all weak and miserable.
If everything goes wrong way
Even loving parents, but not realizing the whole degree of delicacy of a child's nature, can suppress a baby's talents and contribute to his change into sickly hypochondriac or a clumsy with zero self-appraisal.
Your baby is afraid of nobody and agrees to go to all strange people's hands
The first variant, age one: probably, your baby is still too little. Children start reacting to their and strange people since 6-8 months. The second variant: a baby is so used to bathe in kindness and attention of other people, that he loves everybody. However, he loves more his people all the same, and, being in strange people's hands, he fidgets and searches for parents. The third variant, sad one: he has so little love and attention of adults that he is ready to reach for everyone who will smile to him. A baby does not distinguish his people from strange ones. This is a state, typical for babies from boarding school.
The way to understand that a baby feels stress, not just plays up
1. He is crying all the time, round the clock.
2. His character of sleep has changed suddenly, he sleeps either less, or much more, or worse now.
3. He stops doing what he could, does not smile anymore, does not want to hold head, sit or seize rattle, play hide-and-seek or stand on feet.
4. He does not smile and laugh.
5. He refuses eating.
6. Disposition appears on his body.
If your baby has although one of these suspicious symptoms, show him to podiatrist.
No comments:
Post a Comment