Update on "going insane from lack of sleep"

Remember Stacy, who was going insane from lack of sleep? She wrote back in to update us:

"Reading that post now, I can hardly believe I typed that message to you.  I sounded so exhausted, so miserable! Which I was.  But the news today is much better.  My son, who is now coming up on 1 year, is sleeping through the night.  Ahhh!  I still get giddy just THINKING those words!

I took a hodgepodge of advice from you and your commenters. First, I spent a night in a hotel.  It took a long time to wind down in that hotel bed, and I almost rushed back home.  But once I fell asleep there I got 6 solid hours of blessed rest, and I felt like a million bucks the next day.  I don't know what I thought would happen in my absence, but my husband did fine with the baby.

That successful night convinced me that you were totally right about letting Daddy manage the sleep process.  I started nursing the baby before his bath, PJs, or any other element of the bedtime routine.  Then I would hand him off to Daddy and let them do their thing.  Within a week, they had a great routine down.  Removing the nursing from the bedtime routine entirely was huge, but alone it wasn't enough.

So my husband and I would set goals each night.  The first was a very modest goal - we wouldn't let the boy nurse unless two hours had passed.  Once that was accomplished, we kept inching the goalpost a little further away.  Three hour stretches, four hour stretches, and so on.  During this time, I've been sleeping in the guest bedroom with a white noise machine (finally, that thing is worth what we paid for it) and my husband has been in our bed with the boy.  I left my husband alone to do whatever he wanted when the boy woke up between allowed nursing sessions.  As part of my commitment to letting Daddy manage the process, I would not nurse the baby until my husband brought him in to me.  I had to let go and trust my husband to make the right decision, to discern when the baby truly needed to nurse.  It was hard at first, I was waking up frequently and fretting.  But nothing terrible happened, and in time I began sleeping - really, seriously sleeping - between nursing sessions.  Bliss!  We've never left him alone to cry, but he has done a lot of crying in there with Daddy during this process.  I'm not 100% thrilled about that, but he's obviously sleeping better for it, and he always wakes up sunny the next day.

A couple of weeks ago, we were able to get the boy down to one nursing at night, with 4 hours between.  Then, this week, we eliminated even that one nursing session.  We've been aiming for a 9-5 "no nursing" block. He's been giving us 9-6:30.  It's fantastic.

I know everything could change at a moment's notice, because kids will be kids.  But I'm now rested enough to deal with it.  And I now know that he CAN sleep through, so even if he regresses it won't feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I also have to deal with easing myself back into our bed sometime, and I worry about that transition.  Overall, though, things are a thousand times better than they were when you answered my question.  I may not have had the gumption to go through with it without the support from you and the wonderful, sympathetic commenters who have Been There and Done That.  I look back and wonder what took me so long.

So thank you.  Thank you thank you thank you so much :)"

Hooray! You're welcome, Stacy, from me and I'm sure from all the commenters who posted on that question.

I think the moral of the story is that there is no magic cure. Nothing is going to work in three days to make your kid sleep through the night. But if you can get yourself 4-5 hours in a row, you'll have enough presence of mind to be able to formulate a plan that works for your particular family. Then just keep going. A lot of us have been there, and there's nothing sweeter than a long-sleeping baby.

Now, a question from me: My younger son is very clearly left-handed. Can anyone tell me what things a left-hander needs? All I know for sure is different scissors. He's 2 1/2, so is only starting with cutting, but really wants to do it, and our right-handed scissors just aren't doing it for him. I'd also love recommendations of where to buy things for left-handers (online would be great). Thanks!

Comments

[Lemon]

Moxie, as he gets older, a left-handed mouse - although I'm not sure where to buy.

I want to piggy-back onto Moxie's lefty question (I hope that's ok?) My 9yo nephew is lefty, and can't use his right hand at all due to a stroke. So any older kid & adult products would also be cool to read about. (For instance, all camera's have the shutter button on the right side - he can't hold the camera with his left hand AND reach the button on the other side of the camera. Frustrating.)

[Parisienne Mais Presque]

Congratulations, Stacy, it is wonderful to hear that things are going so well! I read your post a while back and my heart went out to you.

I don't have much to add, my son is only just about five months old so I've very little experience. But re: your baby crying with your husband at night, lately my son has decided not to nurse down anymore, and the only way to get him to fall asleep is to pace quietly around the bedroom with him in my arms. He'll usually cry LOUDLY at the beginning, often intermittently for ten to fifteen minutes (and right in my ear, while I'm trying to sing a lullaby that I'm sure he can't hear!). He doesn't seem to be a tension releaser, and my intuition tells me that he really needs me to be there while he's crying. I feel miserable because it seems like there's little I can do, but I'm convinced that crying with a parent trying to comfort, even if that comforting is not readily working, is entirely different than being left alone to cry.

He doesn't seem to be hungry, because once he falls asleep he usually sleeps for a solid seven or eight hours. So I guess falling asleep is just pretty scary for him right now.

I think the message the kid gets when you comfort them while they're crying is that yeah, life is sometimes really hard but you won't be left alone to face it all by yourself. I imagine that's often about the best you can do as a parent...

[Lemon]

Oh, I almost forgot! Great news on the sleeping update! I think it should remind us all that whatever the big problem is that we're dealing with, we aren't alone. Try and enlist the support of spouses/family, we can't do everything ourselves even if we want to, and things actually do get better!!! The biggest lesson I'm learning from this site is that it's OK to ask for help. (That's been a tough one for me for some stupid reason!!)

Thanks for the happy ending Moxie!

[Amy]

Hey Moxie, I am a left-hander too. There is an online store called Anything Left-Handed and it's based in the UK, but they have a website: http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/shop.html. The shipping charges are fairly reasonable considering that it's coming from overseas. They have lots of great stuff. They also have link to other left-hand websites

[sue]

That's a wonderful sleep plan she came up with - I may just steal in (well, in a month. the beast is 9 months now and I feel like I'd just beat my head against a wall for a month if I tried now. last night was particularly bad. I have no idea how much I was awake, but it was more than I was asleep)

As for the lefty stuff, I'd love to hear the answers as well. I'm old enough (29) that I'm lucky that my parents advocated for me to stay left-handed. There were some serious efforts to change my handedness when I was in preschool. As a result, I've come to cope wiht standard products, using them with my own slant, so to speak. That may well be the best solution in the long run. One thing I'd LOVE to see is a left-handed butter knife. Seriously, scissors are the most important difference. You just can't use righty scissors, and good leftie scissors are difficult to find (I sew a lot). Most other things can be accomodaetd, and learning how to do that is important, since most of the time your son will come across right-hand oriented objects (cameras, desks, calculators, keyboards, anything "ergonomic" - those computer mice, argh! etc) and unless he wants to carry an arsenal of supplies everywhere he goes, it will be good to be comfortable with the mainstream versions.

That said, I am pretty bitter about always having to accomodate other people's orientation preferences. But the only things I can't do within the right handed order of things (and I'm very strongly left handed) are cut with scissors and knit (I knit backwards English, not continental).

Good luck with the leftie!

[sue]

Oh yeah

http://www.thelefthand.com/

[paola]

My 2 year 10 month old favours his left hand for almost everything, but still switches to his right hand and then back again a lot. I'm still unsure whether he is a lefty or ambi, or that's it's still too early to tell? I was reading by 3 years old they make a decision, but until then they are still experimenting. How did you know Moxie? I'm pretty sure Noah is still experimental as he has never been really quick with anything ( crawled at 10 months, walked at 15, said No at 18, still 'rides' his tricycle pushing with his feet instead of pedaling) and this may be just another example of him taking his time.

Great News Stacy. Sounds like you have a super hubby there!! My 11 month old never made any serious changes until I sent hubby in either. IN fact we have just improved on her sleep patterns and have extended her wake up time to 7.00. Now she sleeps a whopping 12 hours without her early morning wake up call at 5.00. Hubby nudged things along for us definetly, but I have really noticed that with every Wonder Week, her sleep patterns were that little bit better.

[giddy]

Thanks for putting the lefty question out there. My husband and I are both right-handed, and BOTH our daughters are left-handed. (One grandparent is left-handed, but still, it was a shock when not just one kid but both!)

FWIW, my 7-year-old has no trouble using kid scissors that aren't specifically designed for lefties. She has more trouble with adult scissors, but then, maybe they're just too big for her. We are having some difficulties with handwriting--not having enough knowledge to help her "sit" more comfortably and orient her paper/hand/arm in comfortable ways. The only good thing is that at least at this age, they still write at tables/table-type desks and not those integrated chair/table desks where the surface swoops around so you can rest your right forearm on the desk, but the left side is wide open. I will have to start checking out the websites people suggest--it really never occurred to me to ask or look it up on the web! I've just been asking my father-in-law!!

[rudyinparis]

Stacy, love the update! Thank you! It's great to hear you and your family worked out a system. Isn't sleep a wonderful, blissful thing? My kids have both been sleeping through the night for awhile now, and I swear, I still get into bed almost every night and thank the universe for a full night's sleep. I don't think I will ever stop consciously appreciating it. You will get to the other side! About 6 months ago I realized all in a rush that I was DONE a.) being pregnant b.) nursing (although I loved it) c.)being likely to be roused every several hours to attend to a baby d.) having to monitor everything that I ate and drank with a hyper vigilance--in short, that I was released, released! I became positively lightheaded with this thought. And then I poured myself a glass of wine! (Oh, that said, it is bittersweet, though, to have the baby days and nights gone.)

[Stephanie]

I'm just going to throw this out there as a lefty myself, and I hope it doesn't make me sound like some knuckles-rapping throwback, but I wouldn't necessarily rush out to buy a lot of left-handed specific stuff, for the simple reason that that stuff isn't around much in life. There will be a time in a classroom where there are no left-handed scissors available. I didn't have left-handed scissors as a kid and I'm sure that delayed my scissors-handling ability somewhat, but now I can't even use left-handed scissors.

As a college student, I wanted to learn to play the guitar so I bought one for lefties. And now I regret learning left-handed because I can never borrow or lend anyone else's guitar. It might have taken me slightly longer to learn to play right-handed but I wish I'd taken the time anyway.

It's a hard world out there for lefties, in some respects, but you get to be part of a cool club so it makes the struggle worth it. And there are some things you can't and shouldn't bother to learn right-handed...things like cutting with a knife or certainly handwriting, but I think when it comes to lefty-specific tools, I'd recommend using them judiciously, or not at all.

[heather]

A lefty here.
I'm agreeing with Stephanie here; there will be many times left-handed tools will not be available to you in life. I've learned to use right-handed tools because that's what i usually have access to. I write and do everything with my left hand, except use a mouse, which i use my right hand for.

[JeCaThRe]

I agree with Stephanie. Most kid scissors work on either hand. I've never heard of a left handed mouse, and I wouldn't know what to do with one if I had it. I use the mouse equally well with either hand: on the right side if I'm using someone else's computer, on the left side if I'm using my own. Yes, some knives and other objects are angled for right handers, but unless your kid is going to live on his own island, he has to learn how to deal with those.

The big thing that I tell lefties is to angle their paper properly. Most right handers angle their papers to the left in order to write, and left handed kids mimic this. It is that angle that cause the stereotypical "left handed handwriting", complete with the ink smears all over hand and paper. A lefty should angle the paper to the right, keeping the wrist straight, and below the previously written words. I was never taught this. I learned it from my third grade penmanship book. I bet no teachers know this now, as they're never really taught how to teach penmanship.

[pnuts mama]

yahoo, stacy!! so very happy for you!!

my husband is a lefty, and i know he uses lefty scissors at work, he also has a pair that can be used by either hand (they are spring loaded, which provides the tension, not your hand). a year or two ago i bought him a m*crosoft wireless mouse that can be left or right- the computer automatically has settings that the mouse is lefty for him, righty for me (when i want to venture from mac-land and try and figure that crazy world out). i also found left-handed notebooks for school a few years back but i think they stopped producing them. he tries not to use a pen with wet ink (think gel, etc) but i know he poses his hand so it doesn't rest on the paper when he writes.

i'll ask him, but i do know that he also has had to adapt to using many right-oriented tools, like his drill, the rachets for the car, etc. i mean, righty-tighty lefty-loosey doesn't change depending on which hand is dominant, you know? same with driving, etc. also, many lefties are super-creative in the arts, so you may want to keep an eye out for any potential in that area as elP grows.

other than always sitting on his left side when we eat with a crowd around a table (he can elbow-duel me if necessary) i really don't know-
he *has* always wished that the ned flanders leftorium really did exist at the mall...

[Nutmeg]

Congratulations, Stacy. What you did is very similar to what we did, however, at 8 or so months I think we just cut out all nighttime feedings straight away.

Just a reminder that you reminded yourself about the regressions. We had the bub sleeping from 7:30-5 or so (with one brief wakeup at 10 or 11) for two weeks. I felt like we had bee victorious without resorting to anything drastic. I put daddy in charge of bedtime and all middle of the night stuff.

Now that it's been a lot of months of that, I've tried to add myself back in to help with nighttime wake ups during this regression we've been having. It was a big mistake. A two hour middle of the night constantly screaming nightmare. So be aware that as long as you are nursing, you might not be able to do the nighttime parenting. At least that is how our kid is. The boobs antagonize him if he can't have access... despite not getting nursed after bedtime in many months.

So happy things have settled down for you!

Moxie, you've gotten a lot of good advice, I'll ask my close friend, lefty if she's got any advice. I think it's too early to tell, but the bub clearly favors his left hand and I almost feel bad for him, because the world is not made for lefties!

[Jessica]

I'm a lefty as well, but I naturally mouse and play guitar right-handed. When I was a kid, I preferred left-handed scissors but learned to use righties, and now I cut more precisely with my right hand. I mention this to point out that natural hand preference can fall on spectrum, and other-handed ability can be learned. My baby brother writes with his left but is almost ambidextrious and as a toddler would hold pens, forks, etc. with either hand. I knew someone who was forbidden from using her left hand (ouch) and learned to function as a righty, but not without psychological repercussions. So while I'd recommend supporting the development of your lefty, you may want to wait and see where he naturally falls before investing in accoutrements.

[Jo-Ann]

I am a lefty too. I hate can openers and I received a left hand one as a gift and I love it. (Just to keep in mind as he gets older)

Mousing and guitar I do right handed as well. I think it is hard to be a lefty mouser. You really can't use public computers without a hassle. Also my righty parents had a hard time teaching me to tie my shoes and a neighbor who was lefty taught me.

My 2 1/2 year old is a lefty too!

Congrats Stacy

Jo-Ann

[Allison]

If you use Macs, you don't need a left hand mouse.

(That being said, I'm a PC user and am only forced to use Macs at work!)

[Amy]

The link I gave above has videos to show how left handers need to position themselves for writing. They are very informative.

http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/shop.html

[Lisa]

My 14-year-old is extremely left-handed. In fact, we say he's left-bodied. When he played soccer, he couldn't kick with his right foot, so he could only move the ball to the right. Not good! :)

Because his left side is so dominant (I read somewhere that some experts think that some left-handedness might be caused by a slight birth injury. My son was born early, induced because of pre-eclampia and IUGR, and it's always made me wonder if his tiny brain had been damaged.) we have not made any adjustments for him. He uses a right-handed mouse, and we bought him kids scissors, not left-handed scissors.

He struggled mightily learning how to write, because his school taught the DeLinian (sp?) method and it had no left-handed directions. Finally, the brought in a resource teacher to teach him.

And don't even get me started on trying to teach him how to tie shoes. Good heavens. I think I've blocked that out.

[AmyinMotown]

My hubsand is a lefty, as is my daughter (another sign she and ElP are destined to wed, Moxie!) so I appreciating the sugguetsions. Stephanie, it's interesting you nnotethe left-handed guitar. My husand plays and I want to learn, but his acoustic is left-handed so I can't!

[Lisa]

Let me clarify my second paragraph: We didn't make allowances for him because he would never use his right hand if we didn't. We thought he needed to learn how to use his right hand as much as he could.

We didn't strap his left hand behind his back or anything!

[Maureen]

Pretty much all the women in my family are lefties and all the men are not. I'm one of the lefty women and thought I'd pipe in. I think the scissors are the only thing I'd really want a lefty-version of and I'd agree I think those are only the adult scissors are the little kid scissors finger holes are the same size and not slanted a particular way to make it uncomfortable.

As for the mouse - I don't think I could use a lefty-mouse. Since I learned a computer using a "traditional" mouse, the only thing I do is switch it over to the other side of the computer but otherwise it is the same. I'd keep it that way so I can use anyone's computer easily.

Way down the road, when your kids are adults, the left-handed can openner and the left-handed veggie peeler would be luxury items that would be nice (I don't have those but they would be nice to have I must admit).

By the way, so happy Stacy things are so much more improved. That is so great to hear.

[Jean]

M appears to be left-handed (she just turned 5), and dh and I are right-handed (although a dr told dh long ago that he was supposed to be left-handed based on bone structure). So it's been interesting.

We got her a pair of scissors that were supposed to be either-handed. But she started out cutting more with her right hand. The other weekend, as we were making her Christmas cards for school, she was having a really hard time getting the scissors to cut using her left hand. I got her to try with the other hand, and they worked better. It was construction paper, not sure if that makes a difference.

For shoe-tying, we got her a shoe-tying book/kit from her book order. The book shows you how, but the box it comes in has laces on it, so you can practice. She uses the bunny ears method, and does fine.

And hooray for Stacy! I'm so glad the sleep thing is going better for them all.

[Julie]

Yay Stacy! I am so happy for you that you were able to figure something out. Your husband sounds like he's a wonderful support system for you, you are very lucky. I love my husband VERY much, but he does not have the temperment to deal with a crying baby in the middle of the night. At ALL. In fact one of our biggest post-baby fights was centered on the comment "Can you please make him stop crying??!!!???"

Oh ya, and also the comment "We are SOOOOOO tired". Um...."WE"?????

Anyways.....congratulations. Give your husband a big hug, kiss, and maybe a weekend away himself to thank him for all his hard work and support. But make sure the weekend away is post-dated a year from now so you don't have any regressions. It's probably still too soon for you to take over.

YAY for you!!!!!!!

[hedra]

Just popping in on this (yay for the sleep!), to say 'don't forget mixed-dominants!'

My DH is mixed-dominant. That is, he's rightie for some things, leftie for others. We tend to identify people as rightie or leftie based on WRITING hand, but that's not a full assessment. People who use one hand for one type of task, but the other for other types of tasks (and maybe some tasks equally on both) are mixed dominants (and there are more of thes than there are true lefties, who can't function well at all with the right hand on any task).

G is also mixed dominant, but writes rightie. As a result, people tend to not encourage him to work with the leftie side, but he started out doing most sports (batting, golf, etc.) leftie. He's kind of ambi (completely evenly able to swap) on sports equipment now, due to the 'more practice right than left' at school.

If you hand things to your child completely midline (right in the center of their body, straight on, not at an angle), they'll tend to use their dominant hand for that tool. Usually by 3, if they're stronly dominant you'll know. If they're mixed dominant or tend toward ambi, they may not have 'picked' until 6 or so. And for each task, mixed dominants may have to try it each handed to see which feels right, whenever they try a new task. (It isn't uncommon for school coaches to ask lefties to try the new thing either handed, to see which works, but I never hear of the same question being directed at 'official righties').

Not much help on the leftie tools/stuff, though. Maybe DH will comment...

[Dawn]

I'm so grateful you posted this update - I'm pretty sure I have Stacy's clone here, minus decent napping or his own crib often. I have hope this will suck less someday....

[Lisa]

My 80-something year old grandfather was the one to teach H how to tie his shoes. He was the only one with the patience. We had gotten so frustrated; two righties trying to teach a leftie, that we had just given up and tied them ourselves. I wish I'd known about a book!

We noticed H preferring his left hand when he was about 18 months. He had one of those bang-the-knobs-through-the-wood toys and would always use his left hand. We would take the hammer out and put it in his right hand, and he couldn't even hit the board. But with the left, he could pound each knob (hee) precisely. It was freaky.

[pennifer]

As a lefty, I agree with the others who say that it's important not to overcompensate for leftyness. Scissors, can openers, if you must, but I think the rest should be left to get used to.

We lived in Germany for two years when I was 8-10 years old. I was the ONLY lefty in the German school I attended. Teachers were horrified, students were fascinated. Handwriting was a major subject, and they had us using fountain pens. Other leftys can imagine the nightmare this entailed for me. That and having just learned US cursive only to be switched over to German cursive. But I digress. Eventually they let me use a ballpoint pen, but even then there was a lot of smearing. It was kinda traumatic, given the focus on perfect penmanship in German elementary schools.

I mouse right-handed and have since fifth grade, low these many many years ago.

[Linda]

I'm left-handed and it never occurred to me to buy left-handed products. I will offer this: use a mirror to teach him how to tie his shoes or have him face you and copy your mirror image. That's how my mom taught me.

[epeepunk]

One more lefty here too. I'm actually mixed-dominant, which means that I do some things left-handed, and some things right-handed, and a very few things with either (like hammering). I've really only found scissors to be the most useful left-handed tool, but I do fine with righty at this point in my life. I mouse right-handed (so I can type with my left) so I don't need special mouses (and I use a trackball at work - ambi baby!). Don't bother with the left-handed rulers. The best thing that I ever learned is how to write lefty - that is, like a right-handed person but mirrored. Make sure that he's not trying to get a right-leaning slant to his letters - that's how you get your hand in the ink. That might not make sense, but it's best description I can give at the moment.

A lot of being left-handed is learning when to adapt and when to insist on a better tool. I deal with the fact that most drills have their forward/reverse switches in awkward places for me. And we get to smugly nod when a right-handed person exclaims that it's hard to do something with your other hand. Oh yeah, tell me about it. But that's my pet peeve.

[Christi]

I'm a left-hander who uses most right-handed products. I actually cut right-handed and use the mouse right-handed. I do write with my left hand sideways - so I would say one important thing is to get either left-handed notebooks or top opening notebooks or at the very least non-spiral ones, because it makes writing a bit easier for those of us who do that. Avoiding pens and pencils that smear is another important thing.

Actually, scrolling up and reading the comments, I'm probably mixed-dominant.

[ALG]

I have always thought of myself as right-handed because I've always written and drawn with my right hand, but I may actually be mixed dominant.

For as long as I can recall, when I need to use a knife to eat a meal, I switch my fork to the left hand, cut with my right, and eat with the left. (When I have no need for a knife, I eat with my right hand.) I open jars with my left hand, even though my left hand is weaker. I just can't do it with my right hand at all. (It's very strange.) When my right hand started hurting from using the mouse so much at work, I switched over to my left hand without great difficulty. And, I'm not at all athletic, but when I played intramural field hockey in high school, I held the stick like a lefty. Two of my siblings are also more-able-than-most to use their non-dominant hand for some things.

[Michelle]

Not a lefty (nor is anyone I know well - weird) - so no help there.

Just wanted to congratulate Stacy on surviving the night-time crisis! Isn't it amazing when you know they are capable of sleeping through? I am like you, once you know they can that somehow helps me survive all the regressions, teething episodes, colds, etc.

My 5 month old Princess is finally doing 4 hour stretches at night and I feel like a new person!

[tk_zk]

It's easy to switch the mouse to the other side of the keypad, and if you go into your preferences for mouse controls, you can even change what the left and right click do. I do find it important as a leftie.

Other than than scissors and a baseball mitt, I didn't have any special accommodations as a kid. You might want to teach him early about where to sit at tables so that he's not bumping elbows with his neighbor. That's a skill I'm constantly aware of when I'm going out to eat or sitting at a crowded table.

A left-handed can-opener definitely would have been sweet, although I'm used to the right-handed one now.

I played the violin and guitar the "regular" way with no problem. Both hands are required to do pretty complex work, so I'm not sure it's a huge benefit to have a special left-handed instrument.

[Charisse]

Oh right hedra, the "bats left, throws right" thing. :) Congrats Stacy!!!

& while we're here, anybody know how to get melted crayon out of either polarfleece or velour? can you use Goo Gone on fabric? just askin...

[MotherLawyer]

Another lefty checking in.

I did have lefty scissors as a kid, haven't seen a pair since and probably couldn't use them if I did.

I agree that the most important thing is the paper angle when writing. Lefties slant their paper the "wrong" way b/c it's right (haha write) for them... this simple act will allow him to write in a normal way rather than upside down...that's the biggest thing to guard for him, imo...these days nobody's likely to try to force the wrong way, but it never hurts to be vigilant and teach him to stand up for himself in that regard.

As to other things, I crochet lefty, which is handy, keeps nosey bored right handers out of my projects. Cut with scissors righty, throw like a righty, eat like a lefty, etc. Each activity is different but it makes life fun.

I would let him decided which things he wants to do which way, he may not be 100% lefty, don't think anybody can be in this right handed world:)

[Jill]

While most kids don't establish hand dominance until they're school aged, so you can't be sure until then, there are things to look for. My favorite is the crooked pants during potty training. Kids usually pull up their pants with hands to the sides of the waistband, but as they pull the dominant hand ends up in front (and the pants are twisted). So, if the front of the pants is at the right, they're leading with their left hand. Most right handed kids have the front over on the left. Wacky and unscientific, but noticed over years of preschool teaching. (And then there's just putting a cookie straight in front of them and seeing which hand they use to get it!)

[pnuts mama]

i just asked my husband, and he ties a tie with his left hand as the dominant, so when the time comes, you may want to have a lefty teach him to do that. consider this an open invite in 12 or so years!

he also shoots basketball with his left, which often confuses the defense, which works to his advantage. also, he uses spiral notebooks now, but backwards, from back to front, hebrew-style. which is pretty much what the left-handed specific notebooks were to begin with. just so he doesn't have to rest his arm on the spiral, etc.

i'm thinking of getting him a left handed can opener for his xmas stocking- i often forget that it's the things that require leverage or tension that would be the most difficult for a leftie when it's a right-specific tool.

i'll have to ask him who taught him to tie his shoes...

[Rbelle]

Wow - I'm a lefty and the weirdest thing about this conversation to me is the idea that my parents had to teach me to tie my shoes differently. I don't remember that happening at all, but it might have - or maybe my dad taught me, since he's left-handed too.

My fiance and I are both lefty's, and we almost always take the two end-most seats at a table, for elbow bumping purposes (to avoid it, not to do it - heh). Once we have kids, I imagine that right or left, we'll teach them to tie their shoes the way we do - I think they'll be young enough to adapt no matter which hand is dominant (actually, I think my fiance must tie his right-handed, since it looks funny to me when he does it).

As for special tools, I do find a lot of value in lefty-scissors, especially if I'm trying to do a lot of precision cutting - even using "all-purpose" scissors I get a less even edge than I do with left-handed ones. But otherwise, I've managed to adapt to almost everything else. I do crotchet left handed, which makes patterns confusing sometimes, but I don't think I'd be able to switch my mouse to the left side even if I wanted to ... although maybe I should to help even out the carpal tunnel ;)

[Katy]

I consider myself left-handed, because I write with my left, but in truth I'm a mixed-dominant. (Thanks, Hedra, for giving me a name for this!) I actually do almost everything else with my right hand/side. I think the only other things I do left-sided is hold a fork (but I cut with a knife with my right) and do cartwheels (back when I could do them).

My only memory from kindergarten is of my teacher giving me the left-handed scissors, which I could not use (because I use scissors with my right), so I snuck the lefty scissors back in the special drawer in her desk and got myself some regular scissors. I think she assumed that I was fully left-handed because I wrote with my left hand. (I may have tried to tell her I needed regular scissors, but maybe she didn't believe a 5 year old...)

All that is to say, I'd advise not to assume his sided-ness on any activity, but rather allow him to try things both ways and figure out what works for him.

[Christiana]

On the mouse thing - with the exception of the ergonomic ones that are shaped to better fit your hand, if you get a straight mouse, it can be set up on the computer to switch to a left handed mouse pretty easily by going into the settings section of the mouse. This is only recommended though when the the left-handed person is the primary person using said computer/mouse, as it gets old REALLY fast to switch back and forth and also for a righty to adjust to the settings. When mousing, according to my friends who are lefties, it's actually beneficial to learn to mouse right-handed or to learn to switch back and forth, because on a shared computer, you're sort of screwed.

[Kathy B.]

Just a quick comment on the left-handedness. (No suggestions -- sorry!) I am totally right-handed, and my daughter's dad is totally left-handed.

Daughter -- is truly both! When she was young, we did not encourage one hand over the other. We let her use whatever she wanted. She started writing -- and was right handed. One day (when she was about 11 years old or so) we were shooting pool, and I noticed that she was shooting left-handed. I asked her about it. She didn't even realize it! She said it just felt better that way. She is 27 years old now - and doesn't have a "handedness" -- she uses both, but not interchangeably. (In other words, those things she does left-handed, she cannot do right-handed, and vice versa)

Writing: Right-handed
Shooting Pool: Left Handed
Dialing the phone: Left Handed
Soccer: Right-footed

[Deanna]

I use my left hand for everything except using a mouse, and now I use a Mac as my main machine so it doesn't matter. I guess you could say "left-bodied," I couldn't even learn to drive an American manual transmission because my right hand just couldn't keep up. I had lefty scissors as a kid but I concur with those who say to just let him learn to adapt to "righty" things. My husband is a righty and I can't imagine having two can openers, multiple scissors, etc. I can use right-handed items like can openers "backwards" or use ambi-products. It's a tough old world, it will help him in the long run to get used to it early on. The only time I ever minded was in college--the first time I ran into those righty-writing desks.

[Ann]

I'm left-handed (well, probably mixed-dominant, but with a definite lefty bent), and I agree with the previous commenters -- he'll need to learn how to function in a right-handed world. Some of this will depend on how strongly lefty he is, but I didn't learn how to use left-handed scissors until a couple of years ago (I'm 29). I just didn't see the point - but once I learned, I understood how they are helpful: if you cut with lefty scissors using your left hand, you can actually cut on a line and see where the blades are going! I never knew that it could be that easy to cut accurately.

Anyway, other than that, I use right-handed tools, sometimes in my left hand (most kitchen tools) or in my right (computer mouse). The scissor thing isn't necessary, but it sure is nice!

[S. Marie]

Stacy - thanks for sharing the good news! One question for you: When you return to your bed will all 3 of you be sharing it? As Moxie knows, I am struggling with wanting sleep and where to put my dd to sleep. Gained a lot of useful tips from your update. Thank you.

[Kathy]

Lisa said:
"Because his left side is so dominant (I read somewhere that some experts think that some left-handedness might be caused by a slight birth injury. My son was born early, induced because of pre-eclampia and IUGR, and it's always made me wonder if his tiny brain had been damaged.)"

Left-handedness is much more common in preemies than in full-term babies. There's also some preliminary evidence that too much exposure to ultrasound might cause verbal delays and left-handedness. Since with our pre-e and IUGR, I lost track of how many hours I spent getting ultrasounds, I've tucked that information away for later.

I'm interested to know if Claire (31 weeker) is going to be a lefty, but, unlike so many other preemie things, it doesn't worry me. :-)

[Lisa in Canada]

My Dad is a leftie and he has always "moused" right. He can use any computer and he frees up his left hand to take notes, etc. Now, he probably learned to mouse right b/c he has been a computer geek from the get go and there was litte choice (he is in his mid-50s). My hubby switched to mousing left when he developed some tendonitis in his right hand/wrist. Now he switches back and forth so neither hand/wrist wears too much.

[Amy]

Great update... I'm in the throes of this right now with a 6.5 month old who nurses ALL NIGHT LONG (seriously, every 1.5 hours some nights)! I'm not sure how I get through the day... lots of caffeine early in the day, I guess. I'm hoping to break him of this habit during my Christmas break. I'll definitely use your experience as a model.

[Nutmeg]

Charisse. RE the crayon. I think I would handle it like getting wax out of fabric.

A low iron over a paper bag and then the crayon will melt and get absorbed into the paper bag and just keep moving the bag around to get fresh areas to pick up the crayon.

Might work!

[Cecily T]

Phew...my 5month-old isn't too tough most nights, but those few lousy ones definitely make me feel for you. We'll see how it goes when it's time to give up the BF'ing though.

Hooray for a post that I can advise on! I'm a leftie. I disagree with some folks who would like a leftie mouse...I consider it an advantage that I can use the computer and write at the same time. I do use a trackball mouse instead of a regular one though.

As for scissors, as an adult, I've just learned to use regular scissors right-handed. I really needed leftie-scissors as a kid, and I remember that there were never enough to go around in our classrooms, so when he gets to school, see if you can leave a pair especially for him.

As for writing, the only odd thing I do is write from the back forwards in a spiral-bound notebook to avoid resting my hand on top of the wire. I do write with the 'leftie hook' and hopefully by now there won't be any teachers who try to 'train' him to write other than however he wants to write. Somehow, even when I found a left-handed 'college' desk, I felt like I was going to fall out of it as I was used to leaning on the right-arm side.

Expect that you may need a left-hander to teach him to tie his shoes. My parents are both righties, and I needed my uncle to teach me how to do it. I think my Christmas bows are still 'backwards' to some people!