mquintella20ahs-blog

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Parenting Reflection

What surprised me most about being a parent was, not only the amount of time that is spent feeding the child, but also, how difficult it is to remember feeding it. Some things that I realized now about the responsibilities of parenting that I didn’t comprehend before was how much of your life is compromised for the baby, such as taking it everywhere, and never having time to yourself really. Furthermore, the stares and comments as a teenager even with a fake baby are so annoying and unnecessary, I can’t imagine being a real teen mom. I definitely reflected on my own upbringing during this project, just hearing on the techniques and seeing how they applied to my parents choices on raising me. I really appreciated hw much thought they put into their parenting style to raise me to be  good person and to continue bettering myself. 

The most important things, I believe, I learned during this project was, the different parenting styles, the development of the infants brain, an the benefits of bilingualism. I think gaining a true understanding of different parenting styles will be really beneficial to me when I chose to have children, because I can consciously make the decision to raise them in a caring stable way, and know what I’m doing a little bit more than before. The idea that babies can’t understand and think the same way adults do, due to the way their brains are developing made so much sense to me, and I thought it was kind of mind blowing. This concept just explained so much for me, especially having a sister with Down Syndrome. I think it will benefit me so much in the future whenever I am interacting with children, whether it be my own of someone else’s. Lastly, learning that neurons that help are brain to develop a second language are pruned if not exercised early enough enlightened me to see the true benefits of raising your children bilingually even if I am not really bilingual. This knowledge will allow me to let my future children reap the benefits of bilingualism as babies.

Some ways raising the flour baby was like having my own child, was the amount of time I had to commit to it in terms of taking it almost everywhere I went and also finding babysitters for Stella when I was unable to watch her. Also, it felt like a true baby experience when I needed to feed it on the first day because I was needing to take a picture feeding he baby every three hours and it was really hard remembering to do that. One way it did not feel like a real experience was the fact that it wasn’t a real baby. I wasn’t really able to form any sentimental feelings towards the flour baby and it made it a lot harder for me to enjoy the project, because I felt like i was being forced to carry around an unnecessary inanimate object everywhere. I feel like the most difficult part of being a teen parent would be the amount of time raising the baby would take. One would have to give up all social time and extracurriculars to take care of the baby, and juggling the baby with school work and graduating would be almost impossible as well without proper support.

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Preschool Years (ages 3-4)

As a 4 year old Stella can do a lot more things than she could as a two year old. It has been so fun for me to watch her really mature into a little kid these past two years. Now that Stella is 4 she really understands the difference between right and wrong and is much better a cooperating due to this understanding. Stella is so social and loves going on playdates and meeting new people. She is also, so open to so many new things, unlike when she was 2, Stella wants to explore and branch out, rather than stuck in a routine. It’s been a little bit difficult because I have caught her in a lie a coupe times, and I don’t really know how to show her that lying is not good, because sometimes she doesn’t even understand that she is lying. 

Me and Stella’s relationship has really grown now that she has gotten older. Due to her strong language development her and I can have much better conversations and I can help her with whatever she needs much easier. Some things I have been having to discipline Stella on is the lying. I understand that these actions are not of mal intent but in the future her being truthful will be much more beneficial to the both of us. To address this issue, I decided that every time I caught her in a lie, I would tell her I knew she was lying and then I would explain why we shouldn’t lie. Hopefully this helps her to establish better habits in telling me the truth. I have also, tried to develop her self-control as much as possible to hopefully better her future with this good characteristic, although I know that a lot of it has to do with the nature of Stella. Now that Stella is a 4 year old, I have tried really hard to be clear and establish understandable rule for Stella so she can figure out what is right and wrong and not get confused with inconsistent discipline. I like to consider my parenting style as authoritative because I really try to show Stella that I care and when I do discipline her I explain why she is being disciplines and that is coming from a place of love ad concern for her safety and making Stella a better person. I am also, always open to discussing whatever she would like, although I think Stella is still a little bit too young for that. One example of when Stella misbehaved is when she was poking me and I asked her to stop, but she continued to do it and found the action amusing. When she ignored my requests I grabbed her and sate her down in front of me, to show that I was serious. Then I told her what her consequence was for disobeying me and I explained to Stella why I was mad and why she was going in timeout. While Stella was upset, she recovered quickly and doesn’t really poke me anymore.

https://www.parentingscience.com/authoritative-parenting-style.html

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This is Stella’s favorite food right now and I am so happy she enjoys it so much because it contains so many good foods for er. I am vegan and despite her nut allergy I am really trying to keep her as close to my diet as possible. Yay!

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This is Stella celebrating her Second Birthday! it was a very fun day for us full of cake and spending time with friends who were also celebrating their second birthday!

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Me and my friend at Track practice together enjoying the sunny day with our babies Stella and Beyonce. It was a great day to be outside enjoying each other’s company. The kids also got along very well

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Toddler Years (ages 1-2)

Stella and I have greatly enjoyed the next two years of her life, while also enduring some difficult milestones as well. Some things that were hard for the two us was her teething. Stella’s gums were so swollen and she was uncomfortable and cranky. Theses actions in turn made me have a difficult time being patient with her and remembering the pain that she was going through during this time. It was really exciting when Stella finally slept through the night. I started sleep training her pretty early because I needed to get back on a regular schedule so I could continue to work and support our family. It was so exciting when she started walking, but I had to by some much stuff to baby proof the house. I had no idea how many things were hazardous. It also became stressful because she started crawling out of her crib and I could not keep her in there. Stella’s favorite toy is a giraffe she loves to cuddle with, she takes it everywhere. She also loves this blanket that I have had since I was a baby. Stella’s first word was dada which kinda upset me because he is not in the picture, but thats ok because she started saying mama and when she turned two she became really good at telegraphic speech. Me and Stella have definitely had some yelling exchanged between us due to her excessive need for routine. That girl could not have things done not her way. Stella and I went on a lot of playdates so that i could socialize her as much as possible. At first I was somewhat concerned because she wasn’t really playing with the other toddlers. but then I did some research and I found that that is normal for children her age, it is called parallel play. 

I had to make a lot of decisions as a parent during this time in Stella’s life because she was just growing so much and developing into such an individual. One thing I had to decide upon was how to help her develop her motor skills and just help her to get smarter. I did some research on what helps to stimulate her brain which included puzzles and coloring. One thing that worried me was how early to start stimulating her and doing activities that were geared towards learning. I learned that it was not beneficial to use technology and that I shouldn’t start until she could really retain information instead of just learning and forgetting. I also struggled with staying patient with her when she threw tantrums. At first I became really frustrated because they were so aggressive and I didn’t understand why she did that. After I finally hit a wall with her tantrums, I learned that it was because she lacked the words to express herself. Learning this information really helped me to stay patient with her and work with Stella to figure out what she was trying to tell me. I really tried to understand that her tantrums were just her working to express herself. Lastly, I had a hard time figuring out how to parent her about cleaning up messes and not necessarily being responsible, but just following rules I guess. I wasn’t sure if I should find a way to teach her to pick up after herself or just accept that Stella’s brain didn’t really have the capacity for that yet and just clean up after her. I decided in the end that I would do a mixture, where sometimes I would ask Stella to help me clean up and praise her when she did, and other times I would just let her do her thing and play and be a toddler. 

https://www.ahaparenting.com/ages-stages/toddlers/toddler-tantrums

When I learned that Stella had a sever nut allergy, I was terrified and it gave me a lot of anxiety because she became so vulnerable to the world and I couldn’t control it all the time, especially when she was at daycare and soon preschool. The first thing I did was get her epinephrine pens to always have on hand and provide the daycare with some in case she did have an allergic reaction when I wasn’t there. I also, did some research on what to do with the daycare to prepare for her allergy. The research I did told me that the daycare should be trained to handle things like this and prevent from having the offending food present in the daycare. On the other hand it was my job to develop a health care plan with the staff such as informing them of the foods Stella is allergic too and letting them know how severe the allergy is so they can take proper precautions when she is present at the daycare.

http://asthmaandallergies.org/food-allergies/food-allergies-in-childcare/

This is me and Stella reading her favorite book at the moment, You Are my Sunshine. She makes me read it to her every day. While I am sick of it she continues to love it and I love that her brain is being stimulated so I put up with the torture.

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Infancy (age 0-1)

The first year of Stella’s life has been a crazy one. I was not ready for the time commitment a baby is, especially carrying her around everywhere, but the milestones that Stella has reached and surpassed has made it all worth it. When Stella was first born I could tell she recognized me and I fell instantly in love with her, we already had a bond and I found that amazing. Ever since then I have been working to grow Stella’s sense of a secure attachment to me so she can grow up in a supported environment. After about two months Stella really started showing a personality and smiling and laughing. It is so cute when she giggles, our favorite game is peek-a-boo, it makes her laugh the hardest. The most difficult thing adjusting to this year has been the sleep schedule, and the feeding. It is really hard to function on such little sleep having to feed Stella every 3 hours. I was so, sleep deprived for about 8 months and I am not a person who can function well on a small amount of sleep. When Stella started crawling and really being mobile, it became really stressful because I had to baby proof the whole house and I really had to have one eye on her at all times. There were moments when I couldn’t see her for took seconds and I thought she had hit her head on a corner or something else that hurt her. Nothing has concerned me yet in Stella’s development, she has met all her milestones and her and I are working towards her walking by her first birthday.

I had to make a lot of parenting decisions this first year due to Stella’s rapid development. Some of the hardest ones was how to enforce an authoritative parenting style on such a small baby and at what point I should start training her to be on a sleep schedule because I really needed to be getting sleep again. So I started giving her some discipline in a sense that if she was crying at night, I would let her cry it our just so she could learn that she needed to sleep through the night. I began to do this around eight months and that kind of leads into the sleep schedule, by this point she has developed enough that I could train her to sleep on a day and night schedule with obvious naps during the day, because wow would she get cranky.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933137/

This is Stella spending time with her grandma during her first year while mommy was at work.

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Pregnancy and Prenatal Development

Hi my name is Maren Quintella and I am a first time mommy. I am in my third trimester of pregnancy with my daughter, Stella. I named my daughter Stella because one of my favorite bands as well as my mother’s is the Grateful Dead. One song we both really love is Stella Blue, so in honor of Jerry Garcia and My mom I have decided to name my daughter Stella. Furthermore, one of my really good friends and I bonded over music and our mutual enjoyment of the Grateful dead and our due date is the same day! So while I named my daughter Stella she named her son Blue. 

During my first trimester of pregnancy with Stella, I was always tired and my mood swings were off the charts. The foods that I craved all the time were brownies, honey nut cheerios, and popcorn, so I definitely gained a couple ponds. During this trimester Stella had developed all of her major organs but they were not functioning yet, and all of her fingers, toes, baby teeth were growing. It was really important to me and my doctor that I took my prenatal vitamins at this time because it was such a critical growing period for my baby, especially in terms of her heart and central nervous systems.

weeks 14-17 were difficult for me because I started feeling movement in my belly, and it was a little bit uncomfortable. I found out the gender the gender of my baby during this trimester because her sex organs became visible to the doctor on the ultrasound. The doctor told me that Stella could recognize my voice around this time so I began talking to her a lot more, and while I am a bad singer, I sang to her as well. I was relieved when she reached viability at 24 weeks. It was comforting just to know that if something did go wrong she still had a chance of survival outside of the womb.

I got very busy during my third trimester because I had to go see the doctor every two weeks and I had to do kick counts to make sure Stella was doing ok. My belly was really big by this point because the fetus’s main job is to grow during this point in the pregnancy. I am just ready and excited for her to be born now.

My pregnancy has been great, but it has been a little hard going through it alone. I plan to raise Stella by myself, but me and her will have a huge support system to lean on. I hope that growing with just a mom will be good enough for her, but I do know that she will suffer form this parenting arrangement a little bit. Not having two parents means a little bit less support and I will be more busy trying to make money to keep the family running but I won’t spend too much time that I can’t establish a relationship with her. I think the biggest challenge raising Stella will be keeping an authoritative role for her and having respect when there is only one of me. Also, i think it will be hard because I won’t have someone to keep me in check really if I get out of hand on either side of the pendulum.

https://ifstudies.org/blog/effects-becoming-single-mother/