ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

*tera i imagine your local midwife will know what the options are if you need to be moved to the hospital?

Ask about motel policy on birthing pools.

Tracer-Plan on chatting with the mid-wife tomorrow about all concerns.Three birthing centers two hours away...

Laurel-I mentioned a motel but in these small towns...my husband and I laughed at what could possibly happen if housekeeping entered during the birth or after before we got things cleaned up. It would make front page news in the papers: Bloody Baby Pool Found in Motel Room

That's what those little Do Not Disturb door handle things are for!

"We are entering our third trimester and with each day I realize I know almost nothing about babies."

I'm pretty much convinced most of the people who have had babies and who write books about babies know nothing about babies so join the club!

the funniest thing to me about the whole baby-book industry is when you realize how made-up it is. people have been having babies/raising children for thousands of years, and yet somehow every 5 years there's a NEW/BEST way to do it. yeah right.

We got our first package of Bummies today. Has anyone used natural diapers? I can't imagine using disposables but everyone I've told that we're using cloth thinks I'm crazy and that it won't last.

we used disposables with kids #1 & 2 & cloth with kid #3. cloth wasn't a big deal! granted we weren't particularly mobile at that point, mostly at or in orbit around home, but we just did a lot of laundry.

I used cloth with wool soakers through 2 kids (approx. 5 years total). It was fine. Using the occasional disposable wasn't a deal breaker and saved my sanity a few times. The worst thing was when kid #1 pried the diaper pail lid apart and tried to eat the deodorizing disc. Borax is your friend, btw - you can usually find it at the hardware store.

We are planning to buy those wool diaper holders, Kissa's is the brand T. wants. They are neat looking too. How many diapers do you need in order to not feel overrun, I mean where you can have as many clean as ones you are cleaning? How much does baby go?

Maybe 5 dozen and a dozen covers? How much they go varies so so much. And cloth diapers are great as burp towels, plus handy.

We tried cloth and it drove us crazy. We switched to disposable within a couple of weeks.

Hopefully we can stick to it.

The only baby diapering experience I have had was back in 1979 at the age of 8 when my sister was born. It was my job to take care of the diaper pail and empty it, wash diapers etc... I was so pissed and threw a fit when my mom gave me that job but did it anyway and it turned out to be no big deal. Never forgot the smell of a dirty diaper though and I can sniff them out anywhere.

Ever noticed how the kids in "training nappies" are wayy too young in the adverts?

we used a cloth diaper service for quite awhile, it was no problem. used disposables when out and about/on trips though cuz they can be a pain to change at, say, the playground

Oh shit I just put my 5 y/o's pretty parka in the dryer and the silky fake fur fringe has like, melted into clumpy black felt :( she'll be so sad.

just tell her: "Shit happens, honey. Shit happens."

when i touch anyone else's laundry it def does--

5 dozen???? we use maybe 10 total, which seems plenty. yes we do the laundry almost every day. thirsties brand wraps are the best, fuiud

by the way, WE DON'T OWN A DRYER. no one is harder than us.

Any ILPers have thoughts on this?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577196931457473816.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

When American families visited our home, the parents usually spent much of the visit refereeing their kids' spats, helping their toddlers do laps around the kitchen island, or getting down on the floor to build Lego villages. When French friends visited, by contrast, the grownups had coffee and the children played happily by themselves.

stopped reading. building lego villages is fun!

the article seems right to me, & accords with our "model of parenting" (aside from sleep "training", uggh what a horrible word). We lived in Paris a couple of years ago with our three kids < 10 & experienced daily this difference in behaviors, though a bit different as we lived in an immigrant-heavy suburb so the behaviors were shifted with a few other norms.

fuckin hate it when I spent time with other parents w/ the kids all together & the parents can't stop "dealing" with kid bullshit

didn't read most of it because that shit pisses me off but they really REALLY underplay this bit:

Of course, the French have all kinds of public services that help to make having kids more appealing and less stressful. Parents don't have to pay for preschool, worry about health insurance or save for college. Many get monthly cash allotments—wired directly into their bank accounts—just for having kids.

I hung out w someone's kid last night. He's adorable and smart and appealing, but he has to have something--a person to pay attention to him, or a video game, or something--to engage him all the time.

I've been thinking about this kind of parenting stuff b/c my sister is firm w my nephew, too, and my family kind of gets on her for it, but it WORKS.

the weirdest thing to me is when people act like there's one right way to parent.

(re: the article, not the comments on this thread)

Well, there are probably "better" ways to parent in order to achieve a desired outcome, if that outcome is "being able to visit with an adult for 30 minutes in the company of your child."

My Italian-Australian friend commented on this many years ago, years before she had kids of her own, that her parents acted like their 3 offspring were additions to an adult household, not the center of everyone's world. It seemed intriguing and potentially very effective to me at the time; she definitely thought it had been a good choice for her own family.

I tend to think / worry / etc. that parents who act like their offspring are "the center of everyone's world" don't really know how to enjoy adult company, or else have been accustomed to adult company that's not worth enjoying.

there are probably "better" ways to parent in order to achieve a desired outcome

this is basically saying the same thing i said? different parents are going to have different desired outcomes, which is ok. what's weird is acting like there's one desired outcome.

ME: "Turn off the TV and go use the bathroom NOW!"
…
Later,

BEEPS: "You hurt my feelings."
ME: "Well you keep peeing in your pants. Looks like we're even."

Feel like I've got it down until this morning when I take her to her pre-K classroom. She wants me to unbutton her coat and I instinctively go down on a knee to do so. Her teacher stops and says to her, "No, you open your coat. Show your daddy what you do when he's not around."

And I'm thinking the whole time, that little sneak.

let's be clear here, this article's main argument hinges on which style of parenting for the PARENT, not which style of parenting is better for the child.

that being said duh yes be firm with your child, teach them to entertain themselves, my daughter generally has no problem drawing/coloring/playing legos/pretending to cook/whatever for a little while while adults do something else

argh "is better for the PARENT"

And LOL at the headline and cover art for that WSJ story H2 posted.

interesting article, though obv filled w/ generalizations. I'm sure not every french parent is like that. but we are struggling w/ our 2 1/2 year old being able to do *anything* on her own. if she's off playing by herself for like 2 minutes, we're amazed and excited. just not very independent at all. if she's playing with something, she wants us to be playing with it too. if we don't go play with her, she wants us to hold her.

she's got a weird situation, though -- my wife stays at home with her and I work at home 90% of the time now. so we're *always* around. i can't really blame her for thinking we should just be there at all times. but the "no" thing is useful, we're trying to be more tough about not just dropping everything for the smallest thing she wants.

Yeah I think for me the trick would be feeling tender and affectionate toward my kid/s and yet saying "No" lovingly and not in irritation at all. You say it because you believe hearing "No" and being self-entertaining and uh more patient (although I don't know if I think it's that simple) is beneficial for your kid, not because they're getting on Mommy's nerves and she's trying not to open the bottle of wine until at least 4pm.

haha my 3-y-o is playing by himself more, talking to his toys, etc but virtually every time i listen in he's bossing them around parent-style! "now YOU sit THERE. for FIVE MINUTES. STOP IT." :/

basically between that WSJ article and the "tiger mother" book it seems clear that if you really want to coin it, write a big book telling parents they should be more selfish about their time and less sensitive toward their children

lol yeah. don't treat your kids like kids! you will ruin their childhood!

the funniest thing to me about the whole history of parenting-how-to guides is that overall, at any given point in time, large chunks of the populace have been convinced that children are being raised incorrectly.

like, it doesn't matter what you do, in 10 years it will have been the absolute wrong thing

tbh my sister-in-law is married to a french guy and they just had a baby and hearing her talk (second-hand from my wife) about their child-rearing philosophy is pretty depressing, it's very 1950s USA patriarchy where the SIL is constantly worried about "disturbing" her husband with the baby (who's like 6 months old) crying, etc., so i have trouble romanticizing the french parenting philosophy. but some of that is probably just their relationship, he's kind of a creep in general.

Why didn't French children throw food?

xp That sounds kind of awful. :(

I guess one reason the "french parenting" article appealed to me in part was that I feel like I see a lot of parents around Brooklyn who act a little too much like kids around their kids, like as though they see their primary role as being especially manic and entertaining playmates. I still think a parent probably ought to be modeling aspirational behaviors for their kids, although obviously parents should also have fun with their kids and be silly sometimes. I get the impression sometimes that the parents I'm talking about are not only confusing their kids but getting them kind of hyped up and anxious.

At the same time, the image the article projects onto French parents seems awfully conveniently suited to the parent who wants to avoid being bothered too much by this whole parenting thing.

I have a suspicion that you become the kind of parent you can handle being. I know it makes you be better than you are, every day that you can, because that's the kind of love you feel for yr children, but I also know my brain breaks down from too much noise and chaos and interruption--I have so much sympathy for my dad, in my own adulthood.

I get the impression sometimes that the parents I'm talking about are not only confusing their kids but getting them kind of hyped up and anxious.

Yes, I've seen this, saw it last night from the other guests, too. I get mad when people don't take children seriously and answer them seriously--that 4-yo isn't on this earth to be a joke for you, you know. If you want him to be polite and learn about social interaction, you should maybe stop LAUGHING AT HIM.

"While some American toddlers are getting Mandarin tutors and preliteracy training, French kids are—by design—toddling around by themselves."

This doesn't seem particularly middle-class to me...

it's the wall street journal

My daughter has a Mandarin tutor:

http://www.nihao-kailan.com/img/kailan.gif

I agree with the lack of "no"-ing and the inability of parents to allow children their own space. I don't know how peculiarly American or middle-class they are, but I've definitely observed both pretty frequently even in my short parenting career.

this article is my first exposure to the term "kindergarchy". not sure what it means, but it makes me feel a little sick to my stomach.

Obviously not a parent of an older kid, but I was about Evie's age when I got my first real bike and my dad was philosophically opposed to training wheels so I didn't get them and I really hated riding a bike as a result and didn't really ride one regularly until I was in college, at which point I more or less had to learn all over again. I think that's less a matter of training wheels being universally good and more a matter of my father putting adherence his child-rearing ideology above what would work for his actual child.

So I guess my half-assed advice is that if Evie is a generally physically cautious kid, go with training wheels but if she's more gung-ho and less likely to be swayed by falling off a bike, try it without.

Also, though, you can always take the training wheels off if it turns out she doesn't need them.

She's had a balance bike since she was three but she never got the hang of it and hates it. She loves her scooter, but has asked for a bike for this birthday. I think she wants training wheels so we'll probably start off with them I guess.

She can be really brave about some things and really cautious about other things. I really don't want to buy her a bike and then have her not use it because she's too scared to learn to ride without training wheels.

I think we took my big kid's training wheels off at 6. I had mine taken off at six, and after about 10 minutes had an accident that kept me afraid of bikes for a whole year.

We told her day care to stop making her sleep at nap time because there won't be naps when she starts kindergarten in September. So after several days of no naps, she got so overtired, especially in the afternoon. She threw a huge fit on Saturday because we were going to go to Dairy Queen and she wanted to try Dairy Queen but also wanted to get ice cream from the ice cream truck, and it didn't matter that the ice cream truck wouldn't be coming because it was a holiday, because we could go to the store where the ice cream truck gets its ice cream because she really wants to try the Sour Patch Kids ice cream that the ice cream truck has etc etc. She had another fit this morning about getting dressed so I had to eventually physically restrain her so I could dress her. Really hope she gets used to the lack of naps soon.

Seems cruel that there's no naps in kindergarten. Or high school. Or work.

I feel like if Evie wants training wheels, there's no harm in using them. Contrary to Papa Agatha's opinion, I don't think training wheels will make her inherently weak.

Fun fact: my dad actually did that thing where he threw me in the deep end of the pool because while I could hold my own in the shallow end, I was scared to go over my head. That one ended up okay. I swam back out and I still love the water to this day but I haven't spoke to my father in 15 years so.

V learned how to ride without training wheels at 6 1/2 iirc. getting her to even try it was a total nightmare but she got it within a day or two.

I learned to ride on training wheels but the famous story in my family is that a few years later my little sister decided she wanted to ride, so she just got on my bike, tried to ride, and kept trying & falling off in the front yard until she figured it out

which was rad!

but it had the added effect of bumping my sister up to John Wayne status and made me feel like a lame for learning on training wheels lol

I had your little sister's experience. I got a bike for xmas when I was 5 and spent the entire day banging myself up out in the street until I finally got it right. No John Wayne status though. That shit was just expected. Not the funnest way to spend xmas.

the same balance bike was used by boy 1 & boy 2 and they both graduated to a pedal bike at age 3

i am philosophically opposed to scooters which is kind of absurd

Haha I feel the same about scooters.

I'm def pro balance bike for under 5s

Haha I feel the same about scooters.

I'm def pro balance bike for under 5s

Aidan went the balance bike, riding pedal bike at 4, Molly totally prefers the scooter, goes painfully slow on the balance bike and is rapidly reaching the point where she's too big for it (she's 4) so I'm starting to wonder whether she'll want to go down the stabiliser route

my kiddo has had a pretty horrible day, 2-hour each way car journey that he was mostly awake for and fed up. Tetchy all day. Now keeps rolling back to front in bed! First time he's done it and a bit unsettling for me... been turning him back each time but it's weird how he's suddenly doing it.

is it time to start a new thread yet? this one's over 5000 posts...

in other news, as much as I love Kraftwerk, I am really sick of listening to Man-Machine twice a day, need to get my son obsessed w some other album

Has he gone through a Kings of the Wild Frontier phase yet?

ha I should try that. I seriously have no idea why he glommed onto Man-Machine, it feels totally random. He flails his little arms like he's doing the robot when he wants to listen to it.

I second the call for a new thread.

:/

I had a hunch and tried to get my littlest one into Bow Wow Wow one day, but she didn't go for it.

I thought Shonen Knife would be a little kid's dream band, was wrong about that

worked for us, my daughter loves Shonen Knife

am attempting to wean son off of Man-Machine and onto Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, so far so good

The first time Stet played Oxygène to F it blew his mind.

This one's also popular.

So... anybody have any tips on how to ameliorate the total shit show that brushing teeth/putting on clothes has now become? I basically have to put the poor child in a leg lock, then hold her arms down with my forearm to brush her teeth, and putting shirts is clearly torture as she has become screamingly ideologically opposed to clothing in general.

She had another fit this morning about getting dressed so I had to eventually physically restrain her so I could dress her.

― Immediate Follower (NA), Monday, July 6, 2015 12:56 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So no.

Get her dressed while she's still sleeping.

Charts have worked to help us encourage some behavior. A list of things she needs to do (brush teeth, get dressed, etc.) and if she does a good job on all those things for a week or two, she gets a reward. I don't know if this is "good parenting" though because the desired behavior often tapers off once the reward is given and the chart is no longer being updated.

Ivy's too young for charts, or reasoning such as, "You can't go to daycare without a shirt on. We are not hillbillies."

F was totally refusing to have his teeth brushed until I changed up how we did it. Now I take him through to the bathroom and hold him in my arms while we do it at the sink like grown-ups. Now he comes toddling over to me at bedtime doing the "brush teeth" sign and looking excited.

He also went through a phase of hating getting dressed; I think a big part of that is because apparently when teething lying on your back makes it much worse. Trying to keep him upright as much as possible during dressing definitely seemed to help.

Now that you mention it, Ivy does better at teeth brushing when we do it in the bathroom. Although she has screaming shit fits whenever I try to wash her hands and face so I don't know.

huh dunno Judah loves gettin his teeth brushed. have yet to use actual toothpaste but it's clear he just wants to do what his big sister/parents do which is stand in front of the sink, look in the mirror, etc.

P-q

how do i make it sleep for 3 consecutive hours

Still not entirely sure you do.

Nora did 7:30 to 11:30 last night, then until 1:30, then approx 4am, then 6:45. That's a good night. She's in her own room now.

my sympathies.

both my boys have discovered headphones. much hilarity at the broken acapella singalongs. "but the chair is not my son!!"

that's how that song goes, though

...what?

F has done one of those sudden physical and mental leaps that leaves you looking at him going "who has taken my baby and left this broadly similar kid in his place?".

Pro: he seems to be sleeping massively better. Con: I can see the terrible twos brewing.

http://www.tomheroes.com/images5/COMIC%20flaming%20carrot%205.jpg

Yesterday when I was FaceTiming with my wife and kids, J started saying "book" and began crying when my wife gave him the wrong one. Meanwhile, D gave the phone a fist bump when I asked him for one. These are astonishing little dudes IMO.

Oh man, that's adorable.

outis made a new parenting thread btw. ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now