But it will be YOUR infant and YOUR teenager. You will learn exactly what your baby wants, what his cry means, how he likes to be held, how tight the diaper should be. You will be a pro at it after a few weeks and you won’t be able to imagine your life without him.
And the teenager? Well, you already know her! She’s your little girl, grown up! I found it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected it to be.
There’s no need for the “cry it out” if you start when they’re newborns, people. I started with my 3rd son right from the hospital, and he has never had any sleep problems. Except for that time I started letting him sleep with me when he had skull surgery at 18 months, but we got that straightened out within reasonable time. Anyway, he is now 10 and still an excellent sleeper, and I’ve never had to lay down with him or let him cry it out.
Lay the baby down when he’s drowsy, and let him fall asleep on his own. Works like a charm, no crying necessary.
And that first night where you wake up in the morning, without interruption? That’s a wierd feeling.
It’s nothing compared to the feeling of holding YOUR kid for the first time. THAT was wierd too.
When they look at you and smile and you know they know it’s you?
When they’re upset and there’s nobody in the whole wide world that can fix it but you (or perhaps your spouse, but lets not ruin the moment).
And when he or she walks? Whoa.
And when they’re unhappy, fidgity, then projectile vomit about 16 gallons of warm formula all over you, the couch, the coffee table, and the carpet? (And your split second thought is: Whelp, I can’t dodge ALL of this.’) And after mom cleans them up, they fall asleep on the floor of the bathroom, while you get out the rug shampooer. You get through it.
That IS a different experience. As I touched on, my daughter had a three week period of colic, but that was all - and it was enough. I feel for you! I know my parents considered my brother a nightmare baby because of his six months of colic, and they’ve often said if he had been the first, there wouldn’t have been a second.
This is really the thing to remember. Trust your own insincts and do what you feel is best. That piece of advice will be needed the rest of your life or at least until the child is 18.
Oh and do not tip toe around the house when the baby is sleeping. TV can be on, a radio can be on, you can flush the toilet, wash dishes and run the washer/dryer. These are normal household noises. I can’t tell you the times I hear new parents complain they did not get the laundry or dishes done because the baby was sleeping. WTH?
Get the baby used to the noises while they are awake so they will ignore these sounds when they are asleep.
One of our kids had pyloric stenosis, he was less than a a week old (4 weeks premature) and I was already signing paperwork as a legal guardian. He was a cryer. We called him grumpyface for the first six weeks of life or so and just thought he was a touchy, cranky, kid. Then one morning we woke up to a transformed baby. The inflamed area of the stomach that had been operated on and the acid reflux that’s a symptom of the disease had finally healed. We didn’t know any better, and so just assumed that his behavior after the surgery was just how he was going to be. (We thought the fact he wasn’t projectile vomiting and was gaining weight were the only results of the surgery.)
And the thread gets its first parenting-debate rolleyes: :rolleyes:
My wife and I did not make our (first) kid “cry it out,” and we also do not spend two hours–or any time at all–in bed with him to get him to go to sleep.
It was an easy transition from co-sleeping to a night time ritual involving reading a book to them every night.
In fact, every kid is different and there is no single most effective way to get every kid sleeping in his own bed. My first kid would not sleep unless someone was there with him. (Until he was about two years old IIRC.) Meanwhile, my next kid would not sleep if there was anyone there with her.
The big problem with parenting advice is that people tend to generalize from one or two anecdotes–namely, the anecdotes consisting of their own experience with their own kids. And people have differing criteria of success.
I join the chorus of people echoing Spock: You know more than you think you do. Seriously, I’m not a natural with kids, but somehow, with my own kids, I am a natural. It’s probably a combination of genetics and spending most of the day with them for most of the days of my life.
Advice for a little later:
With my first kid, time-outs have worked perfectly. He gets the message, and he remembers it.
With my second kid, she could care less if we give her a time out. She just gets up and walks away.
My first kid seemed to think there was a magical invisible cage around him when we put him in time out. My second kid is just like “What the hell? Why would I sit in this chair when I could be playing?”
So with the second kid, we have her sit down, and we also hold one of her dolls hostage. (“If you want your ‘kitty,’ you have to sit in that chair for time out for two minutes.”) It probably sounds horribly cruel!* But it has worked very well. She gains the discipline to sit still in a chair for a couple minutes, and since we’ve started doing this, she has become much better about doing what we ask her to when we ask her to do it.
So again, this is to illustrate that each kid is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
*It’s worse even than that. When we do this, she doesn’t say things like “I want my kitty!” but rather “Put kitty back in bed! Kitty’s cold!” So her concern is not for herself but for her kitty! Which is nice! And which means we the parents are really really mean!
Infants are simple - not easy, simple. Clean one end, feed the other, hug the middle. They let you know when they need something, although sometimes what they need is to cry.
Teenagers work better if you make the effort to secure their good opinion early on, and if you are consistent during the toddler/child phases.
YMMV. In fact, it is practically guaranteed.
Regards,
Shodan
From what I’ve seen for myself and other parents I know, each kid is different and what works for one parent doesn’t work for another. My kid didn’t give up the middle of the night feeding until he was 7 months old. At 8 months, he would still wake up until we let him cry it out over a long weekend. However, this may not work for other kids or the timeline may vary.
My kid will drink his bottle in stages. He’ll take half and then wait 10 to 15 minutes and polish off the rest.
The first time your kid is sick, it will be rough for you, because they aren’t feeling well and there isn’t much you can do. It gets better.
I agree with the schedule. My son eats a jar food around 7:00, gets a bath at 8:00 and has his last bottle at 8:30. We brush his teeth and put him in his crib by 9:00.
When you are in a stage that seems difficult, remember that this will change and what they do at 4 months isn’t the same as at 5 months and so forth.
Just one piece of advice? Okay, here you go: PATIENCE.
Your kid will test your patience in many ways. As an infant, it might take the form of crying for no apparent reason. As a toddler, it may be asking the same question over and over, or throwing a tantrum. If you want to get through it all, you need patience. Recognize that you are an adult, and you can control yourself. Be a bottomless pool of patience. Sing and rock that crying infant as long as it takes, instead of freaking out that “it’s not working, what now?!” Answer your toddler’s question every time, the same way; they get bored of the repetition way sooner than you will, I promise. And ride those tantrums out; if you’re at home it’s easy, in public a bit harder, but just remove the kid from the situation that’s creating the problem and if she’s still throwing the fit, let her carry on. Yes, tantrums are noisy and unpleasant, but hell, you’re an adult, a few minutes of “noisy and unpleasant” is nothing. You have tons of patience, your kid has none, and you can outlast any tantrum. Ride it out, with no talking or anything from you until it’s over; interaction and reaction is what they want. When the kid’s done, talk it out, figure out what’s wrong, correct it. When they learn that the tantrum really doesn’t do anything but delay the conversation at the end, they’ll taper off. Patience. It’s the key.
That last bit is the second piece of advice I’d give, by the way, if I were allowed more than one: don’t talk down. Baby talk isn’t even for babies, it’s made-up crap that grownups think is cute. Use normal words and complete sentences, and talk to your kid like a person, like she has an opinion and she matters. It pays off.
One last thing that isn’t advice, just some information. This’ll be kinda scary. Ready?
As a parent, you are more vulnerable than you have ever been.
It may take a while to realize it, but when you become a parent, you open yourself to a world of things that can go wrong, things you have no control over, and it makes you kinda helpless. A lot of your happiness, a lot of you, is locked up in that little bread-loaf-sized package. It’s scary. You know how you hear about parents who don’t eat so that their kids will get enough? I never understood that until I had a kid. You hear, “Everything changes,” but I don’t think you’ll really get that until it actually happens.
The trade-off for that vulnerability, though, is the little red-haired streak that slams into me when I get home and yells, “Daddy!”
Based on what I saw our friends with singletons doing versus what we were doing with our twins, I have to disagree. Obviously, YMMV.
The secret there was: If one kid’s eating, the other kid’s eating. If one kid’s napping, the other kid’s napping. same with diapers and bathtime.
Now, not having raised singletons, I can’t authoritatively say, but the advice to ‘Do unto the other as you’re doing to the first’ seemed to work well.
What stuck in my craw was the folks saying “Oh, I don’t know HOW you’re doing it. I CERTAINLY couldn’t”.
Hey, thanks a whole F8ckin lot, it’s not like I’ve got a choice here.
You will screw up.
You will do something you regret.
It’s not the end of the world. One thing I’ve learned is not to be afraid to apologize to my children for messing up.
Teach them manners. My children order politely in restaurants, hold doors open for others, and like to help people.
And I agree with Shodan…instill in the little buggers a love of reading, and they will never be bored. Trips to the library are free, and books are cheaper than video games.
And as the tot gets older, learn The Look. You know what I mean. That can go a long way toward getting them to behave.
I will echo the advice that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to kids. Some kids are just more easy going than others. My wife is a school psychologist and she hears all the time from parents that had their first been like the second, there wouldn’t have been a second. Same parents, completely different outcome. So, if your child ends up as strong-willed and stubborn as mine, don’t judge yourself as a parent by contrasting your child to other’s.
Second thing, learn not to take other people’s criticism/comments too seriously. I was relating some of my non-compliant child issues to a coworker and she expressed something along the lines of “don’t worry, she could still turn out smart”. Internally, I was like “wtf? Usually it is the dirt eaters that are happy-go-lucky!”, but I managed to respond with something a little less defensive.
Third thing, read a book or two on caring for a baby before you come home from the hospital. In all likelihood your child will survive even if you don’t, but personally I like having as much information as possible. Plus, you will be less likely to feel stupid at some point like my SIL did when her pediatrician pointed out at a checkup that her daughter’s white tongue was thrush and not just leftover milk. I am not saying become a “book parent” but you may pick up some useful info.
Fourth thing, crib vs co-sleeping, cry it out vs rock to sleep, etc; I bet half this crap that we torture ourselves over makes a difference five years out. Do what feels right to you and then don’t worry about what anybody else says.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed that kids whose parents were super-strict about no junk food or no TV tend to go overboard when they grow up and have access to those things on their own. It seems like a middle way works better here- don’t let them have too much junk food, of course, but don’t try to be super-strict and keep them from ever having it. If you do, they may end up living on it for a while when they get out on their own.
This is also true in the other direction for things you want your kids to do, like studying hard in school and practicing your family’s religion (if any). If you push them too hard to do it, they’ll get sick of it and won’t do it at all when you’re not pressuring them to. If you back off a little, you let them find their own ways and reasons to do things like study, and they’re more likely to do it when you’re not there to watch. Of course, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t encourage them to do well in school, but it’s quite possible to push kids too hard.
There is scientific evidence that giving foods “fun” names (like “X-ray vision carrots”) makes kids more likely to be willing to eat those foods. Not surprising, since this works on adults, too- restaurant menu writers spend a lot of time and effort on coming up with the best ways to describe dishes. It’s also good to make foods fun in other ways- foods with dips are more fun than foods with sauces poured over them, foods cut into fun shapes are fun, foods eaten with your fingers are more fun than foods eaten with utensils, etc. It’s hokey, but it works.
Teach them to cook! They will enjoy helping you cook from an early age. They will be more likely to try a dish if they helped to make it. They will get more comfortable with cooking and being in the kitchen if you start them early, and that will make it easier for them to learn to cook for real later on. Cooking is a very useful skill for the adult they will someday be to have. It’s easier to save money on food and eat healthier food if you have a basic knowledge of cooking than it is if you don’t.
“Do as I say, not as I do” very rarely works. It usually works better if you do what you want them to do. If you smoke and you don’t want them to smoke, quit as soon as you can. If you want them to have good manners, be sure you practice good manners around them.
This is true of everything, not just of getting kids to sleep in their own beds.
I don’t have much to say other than don’t stress. You’ll be fine. Once you get into a routine, don’t forget to spend quality time with your significant other. Don’t be afraid to get a baby sitter. Adapt your life to include alone time for the two of you. You’ll really appreciate it.
And lastly, teach your baby to fall asleep on their own. Try not to share your bed and teach them how to comfort themselves. It helps with confidence as they get older and helps with your sanity.
Enjoy each moment and day. It goes by so fast. 