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Growth spurts can start as early as 10 days after your baby’s birth.  Growth spurts usually are preceded by a sleepy, lethargic day and a big jump in appetite.  Growth spurts may happen again at 3, 6, and 12 weeks and again at 4 and 6 months.  If you begin to notice that your child is not as satisfied with the amount that you have been feeding her previously, then she may be beginning a growth spurt period.  If you are breastfeeding, you may want to add a feeding or two to satiate your baby’s appetite and to help increase milk production.

Power Tools : Nontraditional Families

A Nontraditional Families Recipe for Failure

by Ron Huxley, LMFT

Donated by http://www.jollyart.com

How do you cook up a failure for your nontraditional family? It's simple. Start off with a grinding bowl for all the special ingredients. Mix a cup (one cup for each member of the family) of grief and loss with your choice of artificial sweetener. This sweetener can be any expectation you have of have an instantaneous "warm, loving family." Stir it vigorously with your good intentions of making-it-all-work out. Now sprinkle in a pinch of denial with a dash of rationalized thinking, such as "everything will go back to normal in just a few weeks."

Okay, perhaps that was a little too tongue-n-cheek. But it is also too true for nontraditional families. We come to the family, filled with expectations about how it should or could be, only to find out that it is not. That leaves us feeling angry and hurt. This may be one reason that second marriages have a higher likelihood of divorce than first marriages.

To avoid cooking up a recipe for failure, nontraditional parents must leave out the bitter ingredient of false expectations. Here are few false expectations that spoil the soup:

1. Expecting to make up or undo the hurt felt by children from the death or divorce of the "original" family.

2. Expecting to create a warm, close-knit family similar to or better than a nuclear, traditional family.

3. Expecting to make members of the family happy and content by personal effort.

4. Expecting to love biological and nonbiological children instantly and to the same degree.

5. Expecting to gain the respect and cooperation of nonbiological children and your new partner's relatives.

Even in a traditional family, these expectations, would be extreme. They are even more unrealistic for nontraditional families and can sabotage the process of "blending" family members. Blending itself may be an unrealistic expectation. Professionals regularly use blending to describe the act of nonbiological members of a family forming an attachment together.

It is a concept applied mainly to step or remarried families. The reality is that families do not blend in the true sense of the word. It is true that nonbiological members of a family can bond with one another, but to blend would imply rewriting history and making nonbiological ties as close as or closer than biological one's. Obviously impossible and a sure way to destroy a nontraditional family. Statistics report that remarried or blended families "blend" at six months although some state up to two to three years. In my personal experience, after 6 years in a blended family, we are still working at it. The process may begin and positive signs of bonding may reveal themselves at six months or two years, but the act of blending is as likely as mixing vinegar with water. The faster you go, the more it appears to have blended, but with time it re-separates into its original forms.

It is understandable if parents feel empathy for a child who has suffered the loss of a parent, either through divorce or death. Helping children cope with this loss is a healthy response for a parent and often requires the aid of a mental health professional, preferably one trained as a child therapist. Trying to undo or make up for this loss is as impossible a task as truly blending a family. The child may need to go through the stages of grief before he or she is able to attach to a new family member.


Attempts to undo the pain of a child may occur more with mothers than fathers. One reason may be due to society expectations that mothers be the nurturing figure in families. It is their job; society expounds, to maintain the emotional functioning in the home. For many mom's, that can prove to be a difficult job. It may also be why you never hear about a "wicked stepfather." Nurturing another person requires a level of vulnerability that is too often rewarded with the pain of rejection.

Another unrealistic expectation is that nontraditional families can be the same as a traditional family or that they will be instantaneously warm and close-knit. This expectation comes from society view of the traditional family as the "ideal" family type, even though the nontraditional family is fast becoming the traditional type of family in America. It implies that there is a family structure that is inherently superior to other family structures. While I doubt too many parents would argue with the fact that having a biological mom and dad present in the home would be "idea", it shouldn't imply that that is the only successful family type.

Another reason for this "warm, close-knit" expectation may come from the deceptive honeymoon period in the nontraditional family's life cycle. A family life cycle is the developmental transitions that families go through over time. These cycles might include courtship, marriage, first baby, second baby, school years, teen years, and the empty nest. Nontraditional families go through these stages as well. They are more difficult and confusing for nontraditional families as they often repeat stages or experience more than one simultaneously as they remarry, adopt, or take on a foster child. A grandparent may end up being parent to their grandchildren. Pregnant teenagers simultaneously become parents while still being parented.

Fortunately, these stages begin with a brief period of honeymoon bliss. This bliss is designed to numb the individual family member from the pain of transition. When the numbness wears off, the painful reality hits home to all members of the family. Without the honeymoon period many nontraditional families wouldn't survive. Who would want to experience the pain of blending a family from the very moment new family member's meet? Without the honeymoon period, families may never go through the act of adopting a child, accepting a foster child, or marrying another person with children. The honeymoon period prevents the family from falling apart in the early stages of the family life cycle. Unfortunately, many nontraditional families expect the honeymoon period to be the way they will always be: "happy, warm, and close knit."

The third expectation in the recipe for failure is attempting to make members of the family happy and content by personal effort. The problem with this expectation is not the personal effort but the belief that one can make others feel happy and content. While you can make their favorite meal, bring them slippers, and even let them stay up and watch all their favorite shows, you can not make another person feel anything, let alone happy and content. This must come from the within the person. For example, I can feel happy and cozy wearing the slippers someone brings me or I can be annoyed or depressed by the color, size, texture, or smell. It is my attitude about someone bringing me my slippers, not the act itself that makes me feel happy or sad.

It is easy to see how someone could feel that events or other people control our emotions. Especially when you consider how much failure nontraditional families have experienced relationally. Bad marriages appear to create bad feelings. Abandonment appears to leave behind hurt and anxiety. Traumatic events appear to result in anger and depression. Members of nontraditional families often express feeling out of control of their lives as others have hurt or even abused them. So, if someone can hurt you, can't someone make you happy? No. I have seen numerous children who were abused by parents, go to live with loving and nurturing parents and they still feel angry. I have witnessed abusive marriages end in divorce and members move on to new relationships with caring people and they still feel depressed. A warm and caring environment or relationship is helpful but it still requires that one work on oneself to achieve lasting happiness.

Another expectation that is closely related to making people feel happy and content is the belief that parents will love biological and nonbiological children instantly and to the same degree. In the nontraditional family's recipe for failure, you might call this "instant love" like having "instant cereal" or "instant coffee." The destructive ingredient of this expectation is the pressure on family members to quickly accept one another. Relationships must form over time and go through ups and downs. Instant love does not allow this process to occur. It wants it now! Taken to the extreme, this expectation will result in "not wanting it ever" as families break up under the pressure.

Take for example the case of a father who recently won custody of his son. Up to this point, the dad and son had very little time together and much of this was spent with the mother and father fighting with one another. How quickly can this father and son re-learn how to live with one another? Or take the example of the adoptive parents who adopt an abused child. What is the time frame for this child to trust and love her new parents? Or take the example of a stepfamily where both parents already have children and these children still have contact with the other parent. When will everyone come to love each other equally and not be affected by divided loyalties?

Parenting has various roles and functions. Some of these functions include protection, education, socialization, economy, and affection. Notice that affection is just one of these functions. Parents need various roles to administer these functions. At times, the stepparent will be the nurturer and at other times, she will be a supervisor. At times, an adoptive parent will be a protector and at times, he will be a social skill instructor. The means to changing this expectation of "instant love" is to broaden the roles and functions of parenting. All of these roles and functions are necessary to make a family successful.

Finally, if it is unrealistic to expect nonbiological members of a family to have "instant love" for one another, it is also unrealistic to expect instant respect and cooperation. Some parents are not looking for affection from their step or foster child. They want respect and cooperation. This is usually the case with parents who have an authoritarian parenting style. Authoritarian parenting styles emphasize limits over love and affection. They use external control to discipline children. They rarely negotiate or reason with a child. That would indicate disrespect or be a threat to their authority.

The authoritarian parenting style has strengths and weaknesses. It is high on the balance of limits but low on the side of love and affection. It doesn't mean that the parent doesn't care for the child. It simply means that the strength of their parenting is based on rules and order. Affection is a separate issue from discipline for the authoritarian parent. The style does provide children with structure and consistency -- key elements in a child's sense of security. For many nontraditional families, security has been a missing element in their lives, making this style of parenting very appealing. At least, at first.

Later, this style of parenting will show its weaknesses. These weaknesses include not being attuned to the developmental and emotional needs of children, creating revengeful behaviors from children, and alienating children from parents when in times of trouble. For example, a child under a strict authoritarian parenting style may not feel understand or accepted by the parent. This may result in a reluctance to confide in the parent when in trouble or having emotional problems. It may also result in taking feelings of anger out on other family members, creating a negative family cycle.

The solution to this last expectation is to adopt a more balanced parenting style, with high love and limits. Too many parents reject their authoritarian parenting style as abusive or wrong. This is not true. They only need to learn some new ways to parent to balance their existing strengths with new strengths. Of course, this won't be easy. But if parents learned one style of parenting, from their own parents, they can learn some new ways to parent from other parents and educators.

Being in a nontraditional family is tough. Being in any family is tough. But it is not hopeless. With some understanding on how expectations can create a recipe for failure, nontraditional families can improve the flavor of their relationships. While family life may not be a piece of cake, It can be more healthy and satisfying.


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