I see what you mean. Maybe next time I’ll toss it across the room to make her get it while I take off running. It’s a lot cheaper and easier than finding something shiny.
She has such weird eating habits (though I guess weird is typical for her age). Breakfast apparently isn’t breakfast unless string cheese is involved. And she will not eat pancakes at home unless they’re accompanied by mixed vegetables. She hates syrup, but pancakes covered in carrots, peas, corn and lima beans are manna from the gods.
Apparently some crunchy Mom sites tell you that if you speaks softly and quietly to your over six-month baby, they will lie still while having their diapers changed, so they can hear you speak.
This is a damned lie. It’s a pretty funny lie, too. Changing kids over 6 months generally involves handcuffs and restraining straps. Especially toddlers. They act like you’re trying to brand them.
Our kid doesn’t mind most of the diaper-changing process; it’s the putting-back-on of clothes that brings out the tortured squeals and the anguished writhing. Babies like to be NAKED.
Even if they are not mad or upset about it, they don’t want to hold still, either. They squirm and wriggle and forget it if they can already walk - you need a hand just to hold them down.
Lying is so harsh…I always prefer to think that these people have different children than I do and they are simply TOO STUPID to realize that children are individuals.
Which is really what a lot of parenting advice comes down to. Really, I hope potty training is a breeze at 20 months for you - easily accomplished by taking away pullups and running around naked for the afternoon (the child, not you, but whatever floats your boat). But if one more person tells me that “always” works I will scream - I raised two and all I had at the end of the ever popular “nakky butt” advice was a bill to clean shit out of the couch. But hey, give it a try. Whisper to your baby. Try letting them run around diaperless when you think they might be ready to toilet train. It might work - but don’t be overly smug when it does - parenting karma is a bitch.
Yeah, I will have judgmental thoughts about other parents I see in public and then my mind immediately says, “…and people are going to think that about you one day too, you know!”
And this brings me to the best piece of parenting advice - be the first in your social/family group to have children and finish first too. Not only does this allow you to have payback on everyone who gave your child loud toys, you can eyeroll and sneer with impunity. You’re done!
Yes, but your expectations didn’t involve what would (s)he study, what kind of clothes would (s)he wear, what kind of music would (s)he like… which I have seen… and while blonde and blue-eyed would be unreasonable expectations for the Obamas, well, they may be just baseline for you
So, um, this is a morbid question involving Bad Things happening to babies. But my friend encountered it in a family she babysat for, and thinking about it, I wonder why we don’t hear about it happening more often, and it goes into the ‘does this happen enough to be warned for?’ category. I’m also not a parent, so I don’t know if it’s a secret of Parent Fight Club. Put in spoiler tags in case someone want to avoid it.
So this family brings their newborn home from the hospital. Dad is caring for it and he lies on the couch holding the baby on his stomach. Dad accidentally fell asleep, and the baby got out of his arms, fell, and died.
Most people say babies are made of rubber and tell anecdotes about baby falling off the bed and being fine. But now that I think about it, it seems like such an easy thing to do. I cringe every time I think of someone just hanging out on the couch with their young babies.
Is this a freak accident or does it happen more often and people just call it SIDS or whatever to avoid the negative connotations of such an accident?
kushiel, yes they do warn you about that; soon-to-be and new parents hear about it all the time. And there’s a shit-ton of controversy about exactly how prevalent it is and how it is or is not intertwined with SIDS.
My Oatmeal Hippie sister in law used to tell me that kids hate the feeling of peeing/pooping into nothing, so if you take their diaper off, you can teach them to use a potty chair easily. A couple of weeks ago, my almost three year old’s diaper fell off, and before I could get the new one ready and on him… There was a puddle of “peepee” on the carpet. So, yeah. So much for that. She also had many, many other ideas about babies that didn’t work for me, and she managed to make me feel terrible at every turn.
If you don’t listen to anything else at all, ever, listen to this. Your child is going to ADORE you. I am not, and will never be a stay at home mom. I would be a TERRIBLE stay at home mom. I know some women are great at it, but I would be terrible. I never made my own baby food. I only breast fed for five months. According to some people, I do a job that is inappropriate for women, especially mothers. And for a while, I allowed some people to make me feel super guilty about all these things. But when my son races towards me with a huge grin and says “Mommy! I love you, right! Kiss power!”
Jarred baby food totally didn’t make him love me less! It didn’t make me a bad mommy! Who would have thought?!?
Something else you should know… The first time your sweet, beautiful, adorable little one ever says “I want that”, you will practically fall all over yourself racing to the nearest store to buy whatever in the world it is that the sweetheart asked for. Mine did this with a pillow pet on tv. It was all I could do to stop myself from walking out of the door at seven in the evening to race to Walmart and buy him ten pillow pets, simply because he had never asked for anything in his whole two years before and it melted my heart.
That was only a few months ago. Now, I’m ready to duct tape his mouth when I walk into a store to keep him from wanting everything!
Two hands. My son is 10 months old and it is a real trial to change him without help. As soon as the diaper comes off, the first thing he does is reach down to grab his dick. If we aren’t holding him really securely, he will succeed and will spread his feces over anything he touches.
If he can’t grab it with his hands, he pulls his legs in to give his man parts a good rub with the inside of one of his heels. If we’re really unlucky, he gets shit all over one of his hands and one of his feet and promptly tries to roll over.
Maybe I’ll try whispering his hands off his crap-covered penis. That’s me; the Penis Whisperer.
I almost did that a few times, and the daughter did actually fall out of our bed at an early age. The floor is carpeted and apart from a bumped nose and some tears she was none the worse for wear.
The bigger concern - and I think the one you’re thinking of which could be labelled SIDS - is parents sleeping in the bed with the baby and rolling onto it while asleep. This is more an issue if you’re a heavy sleeper or have been drinking or taking sleeping pills, but it’s a risk nonetheless (and I say that as someone who did have the baby in the bed on occasion, although not until she was at least six months old).
Oh, just wait until he figures how to remove his diaper. I have a picture of my daughter with the clean diaper on her head, like a hat, and jumping in a puddle of pee. Which she did in the 1 minute it took me to go answer the phone.
My husband taught our older kid Buddhist hand muddras (hand and finger positions) to give him something to do while having his diaper changed. Worked pretty well. Not for everyone, I grant you.
