Why on earth would you prepare for that? It’s less likely than almost anything, and in any case, there is no preparing to do: if something like that happens you deal the best you can and get through it. You can’t stick pile endurance.
This.
My relatives were constantly giving us advice. We ignored them. I remember my aunt was aghast when I told her our children were not going to preschool. “Oh, they must go to preschool!! If they don’t go, they will never learn how to socialize.” :rolleyes: (What’s interesting is that her children have all kinds of social and emotional problems, whereas our children have turned out fine.)
We also never read any “parenting” books or visited parenting message boards. As mentioned, they’ve turned out fine.
Trust your instincts, and raise them the way you think is best.
I’m not a parent either, but I’ll still throw in my $.02. Never, ever, EVER, shake a child no matter how frustrated you get. Their necks are not strong enough to support those big heads and a lot of damage could be done, such as blindness, seizures and death. If you start feeling frustrated, put the baby in the crib and let him/her cry and take a shower and cry right along. Hope this helps.
Nurse a baby if you can. Cheaper and easier than formula.
Get your preschooler into preschool as soon as possible to help get them socialized.
Enjoy the hell out of young kids because they are often incredibly sweet.
Appreciate the teen and be as patient as possible with the stupid things they do.
People don’t really grow up until they’re about twenty-five when the brain reaches full maturity. Until then, even the smartest kid is kind of stupid. You have to be patient with it and love the chance to share what you know with them. They really do listen to you.
Most of all? Don’t pick a stupid name or a spell a name stupidly, damn it. I know a Kaitlynne, a Destini, a Braydee and a ShyAnne. Don’t do that.
The best and most important thing you can do for them:
***Love their mother. ***
The very best thing my husband and I did as parents is sleeping in shifts. For the first 4 months of my daughter’s life my husband slept from 8-2 and I slept from 2-7. We would try to sneak in naps and stuff around that, obviously, but we both got at least 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night and there was always someone awake to take care of the baby. We got a lot of crap about it from people who wanted to know how we thought our relationship was going to survive not sleeping together for months or how we were training our child to have someone at her beck and call every moment of the day but it was all nonsense. We were both sleeping enough to keep us sane, our daughter was never left unattended, and we each had some time to do some cleaning or watch a show or whatever while everyone else in the house was asleep.
Wear machine washable clothes around them at all times. (Forever. I knocked a glass of red wine over onto my sainted mother when I was in my twenties.)
If you must use formula, wear ratty old shirts around them until you stop. (They will still throw up on you, but nothing stains like formula.)
Speak to them at the limit of their comprehension (including baby sounds to infants), until they are teen-agers, then consistently speak to them well above their limit; they will not listen to you anyhow, but their teachers will be impressed by what they pick up.
Do not teach them to drive.
Do not get a dog when they are three; get one now, or wait until they are five.
My other genius tip is practical. Make their bed twice, with protector/sheet/protector/sheet - that way when there is a nighttime accident - vomit, pee, blood etc you can just pull off the dirty ones and plonk the kid back to bed - only needed it once or twice but saves fluffing around with making beds at stupid o’clock.
Get some sleep. Sleep when you can. Forget about trying to keep a regular schedule ogf going to bed at X and waking up at Y. Instead, take a nap, just because you can.
Oh, and get some sleep.
This is BRILLIANT!
Hang loose. No matter what.
Most of the stuff you get at your baby shower you will rarely use. Don’t ask for newborn clothes, they outgrow them in a week. Get 6 month, 9 month, 12 month clothes. Don’t get cute colorful onesies. Get the all white ones. Lots of spit up, drool, poop will stain them, but easy to clean with some hot water and a bit of bleach in the wash.
You WILL make parenting mistakes and feel really guilty. We all mess up. You will turn your back for a second and they will have fallen head first from the couch, wailing like they’re dying. We’ve all done it.
It’s unbelievable how intimate you will become with your babies/ toddler poop.
You will ask, “When will this phase be over?” Every age and phase has pros and cons. As soon as they’re out of the spitting up all the time phase, they are into the crawling phase which means you will never be able to relax comfortably in a seat for about 2 years, since you’ll have to keep an eye on them where ever they go.
Not a good sign when the room is too silent. Go check what the little rugrat has got himself into.
I used to think pre-school was a waste of money. Just glorified playtime and arts & crafts. We found a great school for my son and I’m amazed how much he’s learned.
You will get too many toys. One day you’ll look around and see a mountain of toys and realize most were not worth it.
If you want to steer clear of too many sweets for your child, good luck. People are constantly offering my kid candy/ sweets. Halloween, birthday parties, Grandma gives em a piece of chocolate…etc.
If your kid is preoccupied in the other room and you think you can sneak in a quick episode of South Park, the one time Cartman says, “Son of a bitch!” the child’s swear word radar will ping and your kids will repeat none of the other dialogue except, “Son of a bitch!” for the rest of the day. Then you’ll feel guilty about being a bad parent. You’re not.
When they start becoming mobile (crawling, toddlering, walking, running, climbing,…), they will get bruises, cuts and the occasional broken bone. You can’t avoid that, so you need a handling strategy.
As long as they don’t kill themselves, and there’s no permanent harm, they’re going to be just fine. Getting bruised and bloodied occasionally is a part of growing up, and it’s healthy, too. Just make sure to stock up on band-aids and learn some simple first aid.
Don’t worry about not being a good enough parent for your baby. They have no basis for comparison. Whatever you do and however you do it is the right thing for a parent to do because you did it.
There will come a time when they outgrow it, but that’s much later 
When I heard about that, I asked him why they didn’t take the baby to the ER. He replied that this was normal for that baby, and apparently he and his brother were the same way.
:eek:
When I worked at the hospital (with him, BTW) I did see “baby won’t stop crying” as an ER visit reason more than once. If this is NOT normal for that particular baby, yes, a visit is warranted.
Appreciate these last few months. For now you are the perfect parent who has never made a mistake. You can give advice to others from that perspective. Your days of no mistakes are numbered now.
'Salright though. Mostly they turn out okay despite us.
Thanks (so far) everyone - this has been useful, helpful and interesting
Here’s a completely practical tip that for some reason I don’t see people point out.
Modern diapers have elastic around the leg holes, and the material outside the elastic forms a little “frill.” When you change a diaper, make sure that the “frill” is on the outside, not folded over so it is tucked into the leg. It looks fine tucked in, but it provides a conduit for fluids and god-help-you-semisolids to escape the diaper.
It’s been a long time since I had to get baby supplies but my experience was that the stores were always out of the little T-shirts with cuffs that go over the hands and had tons of the regular ones. Baby’s fingernail grow irregularly and they can easily scratch themselves so you need these things and you should stock up if you find them. Also make sure to get a snot-sucker, we got lots of baby supplies from people, but no one provided one of those. And stock up on disposables like diapers and wipes when they’re on sale, you’ll need a lot of them.
Another thing that worked out well was putting an aquarium in the baby’s room. The small light could be turned on when at night when you have to check up on him or when my wife was nursing, and I think the bubbling from the filter provided some white noise to help relax them and help them sleep better.
15 month old.
Sleep will be your first challenge. Newborns need to eat every 2-3 hours, with each feeding taking 15-45 minutes. Do the math. You will need to do whatever you can (take shifts, use bottles, sleep wherever) to stay even partially functional. Don’t worry if this period is tough. It is. Just focusing on being in survival mode and you’ll get through.
Eventually they learn to sleep, and it quickly gets a lot more fun.
Bonus tip: don’t buy clothes for the baby, especially if it is a girl. We’ve received so many second hand clothes and gifts that she could basically wear a new outfit every day and never recycle them.