Has anyone realized that there were more babies born in the United States last year (2007) than ever before?

About 4,315,000 children were born in 2007, which is about 15,000 more births than at the peak of the baby boom in 1957. Although during that time, the “baby boom” was influenced by a fewer number of woman having more than one baby. So why the drastic increase? Well, as far as I’m concerned, there are two reasons:

The first being the overall increase in population. Each year the U.S. population grows, and in turn its only natural that the number of newborns increase as well. You gotta love science!

But secondly, and in my (humble) opinion, the REAL root of this growth: plain, good old fashioned boredom. I’ll explain – the rapid (and disappointing) increase in the number of reality shows, the writer strike in Hollywood, the mindless movie plots being released every week has left us nothing to do with our spare time. (Although there are a handful of exceptions, such as Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog. If you haven’t seen it, watch it!)

Not to mention the economic factors that come into play. With everyone trying to save money, fewer people are going out for entertainment (movies, dinner, etc.) so we stay in and get comfortable, and with that leads to, eh hem, other “entertaining” things.

So if we really want to point the finger, lets aim it towards Hollywood…or the economy…or Deal or No Deal – that Howie Mandel has got to answer to someone!

Given my work schedule and the obvious benefits of interaction with other children, I felt it was time to put my son in daycare. But I had no idea that it would be so painful…for me!

Now I’ve gone round and round in discussions with friends and family members who tell me that putting your [first] child in the care of someone else is always hard, and that the first few weeks will be hard on both me and my child, but mostly on me. And I think their right – just bringing him into the building starts the water works and I can still hear him crying as I leave. I know that he is just getting used to me not being there with him and adjusting to being around new people and other children in a new environment, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m having a hard time adjusting to leaving him there crying because I know he’s upset.

All of this gets me thinking of at-home nannies or services like Nannies for Hire. I’ve heard good things about these services, and a friend of mine recently used Nannies for Hire to find someone to come to her house and watch her two little girls three days a week and says it was a great find. But I don’t want my child to miss out the interacting with other children his own age and in turn develop the social skills needed in the future.

So I suppose right now it’s just a waiting game – will my son be the one to adjust and start making a swarm of baby friends or will mommy be the one to break first? Well since I’ve decided that I will give this whole “daycare thing” 6 weeks to work itself out, I guess we’ll all find out in the new couple of weeks…

I found an interesting article today with tips that are sure to create a lot of fun for your kids as well extra noise and headaches for you. MSN, Family & Parenting has an article about household objects that can be great toys (noise makers) for your little one. This makes a lot sense, as I’ve noticed babies usually ignore their bright and colorful toys and go after things we parents wouldn’t consider toys at all.

Baby bottle caps & straws seem to keep our baby occupied for several minutes. The straws aren’t so bad but the noisy bottle cap hitting and spinning on the floor can get to you. I sometimes ask myself, “why do I keep buying toys”? If my kid can be entertained by empty shoe boxes, cardboard boxes, wooden spoons, and other regular everyday items then Fisher-Price is going to start losing some business.

A few of the household items featured can also provide some fun educational benefits. With the different sounds, shapes, textures, etc. your child is sure to pickup a thing or two.

“Providing a variety of shapes and sizes will encourage your child to invent new ways to balance and build that a set of traditional square blocks might not. Plus, it gives him a chance to understand size relationships.“

Read the full article here: Terrific Toys from Around the House

As much as we love to hear ourselves talk here - we’re interested in hearing some of your own parenting stories (both good and bad), parenting tips or anything else you feel like sharing!

You can simply comment on something you’ve heard or read or if you’re feeling really ambitious (and a bit crazy,) you can go here and become a FEATURED AUTHOR for the Parents Overnight Blog. You’re posts will be shown on the front page and shared with all of our great readers.

So what are you waiting for?!

I can’t tell you how excited I am that I can finally stop paying $25 every few days on a can of formula! It’s like this stuff is a drug that my little boy has been addicted to since birth. I would almost be more comfortable buying it from a guy in a dark alley every week, seeing that it wold justify the feeling of “feeding an addict!”

But it’s over now - or is it? Whats the next progressive step? I’ve heard a lot of people say that once they’ve moved away from breast milk or formula they start giving the children regular milk. Which at about $4, sounds like a sweet idea to me. But do I give him whole milk, low-fat, organic or soy?

According to a (newly) revised guideline issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics, it’s better “…that some babies as young as 12 months of age should be given reduced-fat (2 percent) milk instead of whole milk.”

“Specifically, for children between 12 months and 2 years who are at higher-than-normal risk of becoming overweight, or have a family history of high cholesterol, obesity, or heart disease.”

All of this has got me thinking, when we were growing up we were given regular whole milk and we grew up big and strong (with the exception of my sister who grew a tale and rabbit ears - but I hardly blame the milk.) So is this recommendation just another attempt to point the finger at the declining health status of the kids in our country or is this something we our parents just weren’t aware of years ago and we’re now learning the benefit of?

Which would really be a shame for my “rabbit-esque” sister, but that’s life folks!

For those of you “cool” enough (and by cool I mean unfortunate) to hang around some of the contributors for Parents Overnight, it’s probably very apparent that most of us are extremely sarcastic and borderline crazy at times. As if our children didn’t cause enough problems for us, I honestly feel that someday we act just as silly. So when someone mentioned that they read a few posts from Fiddledeedee and ended up laughing out loud - I felt that I needed to check it out.

And now that I have, let me be the first to tell you…it’s hilarious! Not because DeeDee is trying to be funny in the “stand-up” comedy sense, but because we so often forget that people (and kids) are just weird and not at their best all the time, and she seems to remind people of that with each one of her posts.

DeeDee has a very realistic, yet sarcastic outlook on the day to day happenings involving her, “Fiddledaddy” and her 3 kids. The best part is that by reading one post you automatically see that everything shes writing is being told exactly as she sees it - for better or for worse. Which adds a level of authenticity to her posts that I thought was great!

If you’re tired of reading stories of how “every child is a little angel” and how “children can do no wrong” then check out Fiddledeedee. It will give you a dose of reality and a few laughs in the process.

While we like to think of Parents Overnight as a complete resource for new and expectant parents, there is still no replacing the value of life experience. So when one the people here at PON bring up another blog and/or site that they find useful, humorous or simply just enjoy reading - we always take a look.

We came across the blog entitled SINCERELY ANNA, and everyone here immediately loved the open tone of the stories and posts being shared. I don’t want to give away the entire back story (you can go to the blog and read that for yourself) but the idea behind the site is Anna’s story of adopting two children, the process from start to finish and the day to day life of being a mom of two beautiful children.

One of the most compelling pieces on the site is the entry in which Anna describes how the birth parents chose them to be the new parents of their unborn baby. Truly a great entry!

The writing style is very open and honest, to the point where you feel as if you were to sit down and speak with Anna in person, the tone and emotion in her voice would be identical to that in each of her posts.

So, after you’ve read the FANTASTIC stuff here at Parents Overnight, hop on over to Sincerely Anna and check it out - it’s certainly found some new fans over here!

**UPDATE** How silly can we be? In all the excitement of reviewing this site we forgot to mention all of the great readers that visit and comment on Anna’s site. Which as far as I’m concerned only adds to the value of each post. (Sorry Jim, blame my forgetful nature on a teething baby and lack of sleep )

These books have been “TOP 5’s” for as long as I can remember. I think we should just categorize these books as “classics” for the baby genre and make them a staple for any household with a newborn baby and/or toddler:

1. The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

The Rainbow Fish is a beautiful book, in terms of story and illustrations. Babies will enjoy the lovely drawings in calming colors and the fish’s sparkling scales. Parents will love the message this book teaches about sharing. The Rainbow Fish is an excellent bed-time story book, too, thanks to the restful colors and soothing text. The sparkling scales also look great by night-light.

2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

5. Ten Little Ladybugs by Melanie Gerth

Touchable, three-dimensional ladybugs and bright, bold illustrations make this a wonderful book for infants, who will enjoy the rhyming story of ten ladybugs who disappear one by one. Toddlers can practice their numbers and colors, as well as identify familiar creatures in the illustrations. Ten Little Ladybugs provides hands-on learning and fun for babies of all ages.

List published by About.com

Its no surprise that in most cases, having a baby can be stressful at times. Both on us, as parents and on our bank accounts in the process. But for people having twins, triplets or more - does this “stress” just compound with each child?

I read something recently regarding a study that claimed parents of twins are more likely to have mental health problems than those of single-born babies. (You can read about the study here)

It was a small study and it tracked about 100 twins and around 700 single-born babies, with an outcome that showed the parents of twins having more depression, anxiety and other problems than parents of the single-born babies.

But that got me thinking… were they really suffering from depression and anxiety? Or was it more caused by the idea of the lack of sleep, double feedings and double diaper changes that made it seem as if these new parents were having issues?

Of course the medical concerns when having multiples can play a part in this as well. As it”’s known, women pregnant with multiples are more susceptible to medical complications — such as premature birth, diabetes and high blood pressure, but I would think these concerns (somewhat) go away once the children have been born and given a clean bill of health.

I suppose this is more relevant now than ever with the rise in twin births due to artificial reproduction techniques. Since many in-vitro fertilization procedures implant more than one embryo, there is obviously a greater chance (1-in-4) of having twins.

So with all this to consider, maybe having twins isn’t exactly like getting two for the price of one!

Any woman who’s had gestational diabetes can tell you all the ways it can affect your pregnancy. From small things like changes in your diet to the more “annoying” aspects such as checking your blood sugar every few hours - not to mention the potential affects the disease can have on your baby.

Being as there is no history of diabetes in my family, I can pretty much blame myself and my sweet tooth. And although I tried to change my eating habits (as in not eating as much “sweet” stuff) to more fruits and veggies, the natural sugars in fruit just added to the problem I already had.

Luckily I didn’t have a sever case, and it did not carry over after my son was born. Although the increase in sugar did speed up his growth and in turn I ended up with a 10lb baby!

Read more about Could it be? A Pill that works against gestational diabetes?