If you can’t see shades of grey, I can’t help you. There’s a difference between disinfecting EVERYTHING, and having a very specific, very contagious virus go through a localized population of people. Highly contagious explosive shits that have a tendency to break out in childcare facilities are not what I’d consider fun.
That Very Specific occurrence aside, let the kid build up a tolerance.
As far as crying is concerned, do whatcha like, but if the choice is between doing something violent you may regret later, and letting the kid cry for 15 or 20 minutes, what would you choose?
Agreed. No one thing you do or decision you make is going to Ruin! Your! Child!, and anyone who tells you otherwise should be given all the consideration you’d give any other random crazy person.
Ultimately, you do what works for you and your family.
I just found it amusing, and still do, that you went on about how people are overly afraid of too many things, and then offered a specific example of something that people should be afraid of. I am certainly not suggesting that people should not wash their hands or be wary of norovirus. I just found the juxtaposition amusing. That’s all. And I am not really asking for your help, so it is OK with me that you are unable to help me.
ETA: This was in response to Unintentionally Blank, of course.
This reminds me - it’s amazing how much disregard for your feelings the people closest to you tend to have in childrearing. The only person who made me feel like a truly decent parent (other than my husband) was our pediatrician. She was the one person who told me to do what felt right. When my son wasn’t responding to crying it out, all my friends and family told me I was doing it wrong or not trying hard enough while the pediatrician said, “What are you trying to prove? If it doesn’t work, stop. You think your baby read ‘What to Expect the First Year’?” Same for breastfeeding exclusively and a few other things. God, I love that woman.
Teach your kid the difference between yelling and screaming when they’re playing outside, and enforce it. **Yelling **is good and fun–kids should be allowed to make noise. **Screaming **should be reserved for actual emergency situations: someone’s injured, someone’s being dragged into an unmarked white van, etc.
**You **will be able to tell when there’s a problem that needs your attention versus when the kids are just having fun. **Your neighbors **will love you for preventing your kid from bugging them with ear-piercing shrieks.
You’re just not dribbling him hard enough.
At my mom’s parents’ house, there is still a doorjamb by the basement staircase that has marks with names and dates for all four of us grandkids. I always stop to look at it when I’m visiting.
You don’t have to know it all at once, and nothing works for every child or family. (Or even every child within a family.) You’ll learn your child, and you’ll learn what works for you as a parent. Take it a little at a time.
Babies don’t need much. Warm, dry, fed, cuddled. They’re good with that.
If you’re looking for specifics, I’d say don’t give a young child more than two choices, and make those choices specific. “What do you want to wear today?” is usually not helpful. “Do you want the red shirt or the blue one?” will get kid dressed and ready for breakfast.
Just remember, this kid is not that kid. You’ll learn it as you go, and so will kid.
Enjoy it. The six months my daughter has been alive seems simultaneously like six years and six minutes. You will see a newborn baby six months after your kid is born and wonder if yours was ever that small. He was. Take lots of pictures, because it’s easy to forget even though you think you never will. Get a video camera and use it as much as you can. Just the other day my husband was watching the video of Josie’s first bath, and he was amazed at how tiny she was.
All the rest? You’ll figure it out as you go. Oh, and help your wife with the baby book–it’s harder to keep up with than you’d think, and your child will REALLY appreciate that you took the time to write down stuff like that. I ask my in-laws when my husband got his first tooth and they can’t remember. They can’t remember how old he was when any of his firsts occurred. My mom is better, but not by much. I’d love to compare her to how we were, but I don’t have any of the info. Keep up on it–it’ll be a wonderful heirloom for your child when he or she has children.
You don’t get control over the outcome. Even if you do everything right, your kid may grow up to have serious problems, or just to have very different values than you do. There’s nothing you can do to guarantee that that won’t happen. Kids come from the factory with a fair bit of their personality pre-programmed, and you can’t just change that pre-set personality to anything you’d like. For example, some kids are just going to be pickier eaters than others, even if you do everything right when you introduce them to food. You might be staunch Republicans and end up raising liberal Democrats (like my parents), or vice versa. Your kids are individuals with personalities, not pieces of clay you can mold into anything you’d like.
OTOH, there’s not much you can do, aside from actual physical or mental abuse or severe neglect, that will definitely screw up your kid for life (and some kids even manage to overcome that). Every parent who has ever existed, from the beginning of humanity, has made mistakes, and every human who ever will be a parent will also make mistakes. But most of the kids turned out OK, despite the mistakes. You will make mistakes, too, and your kids will probably be OK despite it.
For the talk about marking a special door jamb or something with growth measurements, just make sure to make the marks directly on the wood itself. Don’t make the mistake my mother did.
In order to protect the precious inner jamb of the pantry doorway, she marked the growth of myself and my three older brothers with little labels of masking tape. There was 20-odd years of markings there when the day came that I decided they would look better on the other side of the doorway.
There is lots of good advice here, but my one piece is to remember that all kids are different. Any book you read may or probably won’t apply to your kid. If you have two, what worked for the first may not work for the second.
Our first was a slow eater. When she still got a night time bottle, we had a music stand set up to let us read while feeding her, since it could take half an hour. The second slurped it down in about five seconds. The first used to wake up in the night. When we were frantic, we checked with our doctor, who said to let her cry it out. Two days, problem gone. The second never had a problem. So, all the contradictory advice you are getting is right.
But a few more general rules. First, I agree with the advice to be consistent. Second, don’t let the child train you. We did a better job with our second because we were too busy to dote as much as we did on the first. Definitely play with them and read to them, and sing to them, and talk to them. Don’t have a preconceived idea of what the child should be doing, but give opportunities based on what they like and want to do. Follow where they lead, and you will wind up in wonderful places. Have a sense of humor. If your child is being perfectly horrible, sometimes it better to just laugh at them then get mad.
Give them opportunities, not things. They are going to remember a trip to the museum or zoo far longer than yet another American Girls doll.
Finally, open a college savings account NOW. You’ll be surprised how short a time you have with them.
By the way, when the newbie come home, see if you can determine WHAT is wrong, rather than just throwing food/diaper/burping/naptime. You’ll find a hungry cry is different than a wet cry…unless you ignore the signals, then they learn one cry takes care of everything.
The wife and I would be in the grocery store, hear a cry from the other end, and say ‘sounds like somebody needs a nap!’
And don’t worry if it all seems scary, something happens to the parents too. 2am feedings sucked, but they didn’t seem quite as bad as they should, I think you’re biochemically prepared for a baby…lord knows I couldn’t do it now.
Also, don’t stand in the doorway when putting your kid in the Baby Bjorn. They don’t like it, you’ll feel like shit, and nine (nearly 10) years later you’ll still be hearing about it.
I won’t offer any pithy advice, just a warning to future parents:
Whatever you’re SURE you’ll never do as a parent, you probably WILL do at some point!
If you’re sure you’ll NEVER use the television as a babysitter, guess what? At least occasionally, you probably will.
If you’re SURE you’ll never yell at your kids the way your Mom or Dad yelled at you, well… sorry, but you probably will. And they’ll probably deserve it, at least some of the time.
If you’re sure you’ll never let your kids eat junk food, or… well, you get the idea.
I’m not saying there’s no hope. Just that you’ll be far more fallible than you expect. And in the end, your kids will probably turn out okay anyhow.
Baby does not rule the world. When your spouse is first and the husband-wife relationship is secure, baby has a secure world and baby learns how to create a secure world when she grows up.
When baby comes first, and the marriage weakens, everything falls apart, and the harmful effects that baby then deals with far outweighs any putative value from putting baby first.
Your baby will, naturally enough, get plenty of attention and love. Such attention and love should not supplant the parental bond with one another.
IANAP but I wish more of them would teach the child that “No means no.” E.g. kid is running wild at Wal-Mart and the parent says, “Come here right now,” but the kid ignores the parent and does as (s)he pleases ad nauseum.
Schedule - Your life for the first few months…years…will revolve around establishing a schedule. The earliest for us that things started falling into place was around 4-6 months as far as regular naps, bedtimes etc. (Eat or sleep every 2ish hours). Both kids were pretty much sleeping through the night regularly around 3 months.
If the baby is fed, changed and crying - and appears normal otherwise, and has been up for a bit, probably tired. Put them down in the crib and let them go for a bit. Generally they will fall asleep.
Read to them before bed. Even if it’s just a super short book, it helps in establishing a schedule and realizing, ‘hey we do this before bedtime!’
It’s kind of hard at first to put your life aside for this child just to fall into a schedule, but once you start figuring out what makes them happy, you’ll be happier too, because your kid isn’t screaming all the time because they’re tired or hungry.
We also follow the ‘conscience discipline’ route in terms of getting our toddler to ‘use her words’ and telling her what we want her to do.
I cheated and didn’t read all the responses so I don’t know if this has been covered, but…
Don’t fight at the dinner table. Offer healthy foods, perhaps make the child try everything just a little bit, but NEVER FIGHT ABOUT FOOD. When your child is full, LET HIM OR HER BE THE JUDGE OF IT. That way, when she is older she will stop eating when she is full instead of eating everything in sight on the table.
Do not use food as a reward.
And, I guess in general, I hate it when families fight at the dinner table. It should be a place where you share and enjoy being together.
Make sure mom is getting great prenatal care.
Keep the kid away from junk food as long as you can. no fries, no coke.
The second day of daycare will be the worst.
Do not pay for grades.
When you drop him/her off at school, say “do your best.” Every day.
Be involved with school, that’s how they know it’s important.
When they start solid food, just make dinner and grind stuff up for them.
Get 'em a dog!
Explain why, don’t just say “no.”
Start a college fund right now, yesterday. (check out Upromise.com too)
And realize that you WILL change to become a really great parent. You may give up some things, but you will have way too much time to take up golf/fishing/whatever again in 15 years when they don’t want to hang around with you and your wife is tired of you. Finally, listen to “There Goes My Life” by Kenny Chesney and “It Won’t Be Like This For Long” by Darius Rucker. These songs make me, the father of a girl, weep.
