A Parent = A Child’s Most Important Teacher

The children being born each day in 2018 will be the decision makers, leaders and the conscience of our society tomorrow. As a parent, I have long known just how critical it is to spend time investing in your children’s most impactful environment – that of his or her earliest developmental years, 0-5. Today it has become universally recognized that it is beneficial for a parent to consistently exercise the very young mind of their child…as early and as often as possible. In addition to the genetics passed along, it is the absolute best means for a child to reach full developmental potential as an adult. The toughest aspect of such diligence, if you will, is that after a certain time frame…you can’t return to the most important window of opportunity. The more we know as parents, the more we’re called to do as we foster the best in our children and for our children. This isn’t a forceful missive but one that encourages proactive attention and nurturing along the way.

Early Days of Parenthood

Most parents remember the early days of parenthood as one of the most exciting points in life but that is typically years later once they have caught up on missed sleep.  Everyone knows being a new parent can be exhausting and in general, things do get better when it comes to parental sleep deprivation. But don’t underestimate the dangers, especially in those early days. Studies have shown that sleepy driving can be as dangerous as or worse than drunk driving. Plus, plenty of research links insufficient sleep to various health problems and problems at work.

Loss of Productivity

According to a recent Harvard research study, insomnia leads to the loss of 11.3 days’ worth of productivity each calendar year for the average worker. That’s the equivalent of $2,280.

This may be a bigger issue than many of us ever thought. For even a small business with 15 employees, that would equal nearly 170 days of lost productivity … or the equivalent of $34,300. Nationally, insomnia may be responsible for an estimated loss in productivity worth $63.2 billion.

Physiological and Psychological Consequences

A recent study conducted by researchers at non-profit organization RAND Europe, titled ‘Why sleep matters – the economic costs of insufficient sleep’, is the first of its kind to quantify the economic impact of sleep deprivation. Researchers found that a person who sleeps on average less than six hours a night has a 13 percent higher mortality risk than someone sleeping between seven and nine hours.

Research leader, Marco Hafner, at RAND Europe is the report’s main author, explains “Our study shows that the effects from a lack of sleep are massive. Sleep deprivation not only influences an individual’s health and wellbeing but has a significant impact on a nation’s economy, with lower productivity levels and a higher mortality risk among workers.”

Although life with a newborn is a round-the-clock endeavor, don’t lose hope. By ages 3 to 4 months, many babies can sleep at least five hours at a time. At some point during your baby’s first year, nighttime stretches of 10 hours are possible.  Proactive parents can give their baby the benefit of a progressive developmental tool like the BabyPlus Prenatal Education System®.  Although nothing guarantees your baby will sleep through the night quickly, a 3rd party survey reported 80% of moms who wore BabyPlus during pregnancy considered their children good sleepers.

BabyPlus® is a developmentally appropriate curriculum that introduces patterns of sound to the prenatal child in the only language he or she understands-the language of the maternal heartbeat.  As a baby discriminates the simple rhythmic sounds of BabyPlus® from those of the mother, auditory learning begins.

Learn more at www.babyplus.com