ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

have at it

"because I'M the parent!" is a thing *I* say now.

I find myself saying giving the weirdest instructions sometimes

completely frivolous post but: ex-coworker pregnant w second baby. she's naming it "Macyn" and I am pretty IA about it tbh

ugh. just call the fuckin kid mason jeeeeeeezus christ almighty

boy or girl? I'm guessing girl.

just intentionally mispronounce it from now on

"makin? like yr makin a baby?"

we've moved beyond the "why" stage to the "no" or simply ignoring stage which is slowly sapping my will to live and/or self-image as a nice guy

Hey all. Haven't been around for a while but K now has a baby sister, E. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧

Good job.

Oh yay! I was just thinking about you, man alive, and hoping you'd come back and say hello. Congratulations!

Aw! Nice to not be forgotten by ILXORs, at least a few nice ones.

yes you were missed dude

we even posted in the ilx milk carton thread a while back iirc

anyways good to have a new thread

J is starting to ask "what is ____" about everything, it is really cool, like he is really trying to get at the deeper meaning of it, e.g. he has been eating oatmeal for a good two years now but now he wants to really know "what is oatmeal???"

haha also xp man alive i misread your post to say "K now has a babysitter, E" so i did not comment b/c that seemed unremarkable, but yea congratulations!

So yeah, two kids is pretty crazy. OTOH in the final months before the birth I hustled hard and found a better job -- better pay AND more flexible with time, and that's been making things a lot easier.

Oh awesome! Congratulations on the new job AND the new baby!

yeah two kids is nuts. fwiw three is not as nuts as two is, in case you're inclined in that way

we just flew back to the usa for a couple of weeks and my kids did well, but then my youngest is 8 so why would it be bad. tons of movies on demand with the little screens, they keep bringing you food and drinks, you get to snuggle, what's not to like.

fwiw three is not as nuts as two

this needs explaination

two is fucking crazy

I assume when you have three you let the oldest child be in charge of the other two. Parenting over!

im dying here w/ 2, it is intense

my mom had 5 and i just can't even comprehend that

i think maybe people who say the jump to 3 is not a big deal is maybe because at that point the older ones are a little more manageable since they are older?

also some of you may recall i mentioned J's autism diagnosis on the previous thread, things were super stressful for a long while especially after F's birth but things do seem to be falling into place a little w/ his services and planning for preschool next year. we found some really incredible home-based therapists and b/c of his diagnosis J also got offered a spot at one of our city's best public schools allowing us to bypass some of the anxiety-inducing byzantine lottery process. one benefit i guess to having a kid with special needs. also J is just doing amazingly well right now and we've seen so much growth and progress, it is really hopeful.

Oh good! That's good to hear.

Thanks for the update Marcos, that's good to hear.
My friend with 3 kids says the jump to 3 is the craziest ever. You only have 2 hands for a start!

Yeah I've heard that 3 is the hardest - harder than two, harder than four.

LOL survey says - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/three-children-is-most-st_n_3229032.html

I think we'll stick with one to be on the safe side.

http://adequateman.deadspin.com/14-things-you-will-say-to-your-kids-a-million-goddamn-t-1717985943

I would add "Put on your shoes" to this list.

Ivy's only 19 months so some of those don't apply but we're already well on our way with "Careful," "You're fine," and "Don't eat that."

yeah I dunno with #3, #1 was already 6 years old, so didn't need the kind of management that newborns do, and got along well with #2 so our lives were fine. plus we knew what we were doing by that point, at least as well as we ever were going to. but when #2 was born...I don't know how we survived tbh

Oh god, "careful!" is getting a lot of use now, as well as the related "gentle hands!" F's top three words are "no", "nono" and "nonononononono".

"Did you take another bite of your dinner yet?"

Ivy's daycare teachers use the Spanish "linda" to mean "nicely," which Ivy picked up on early so we say that instead of "gentle hands." And we say that a lot... Also my mom's old favorite: People are not for hitting. People are for loving. Usually said through gritted teeth after Ivy smacks my glasses off my face.

our perfect granddaughter, who always slept through the night even from birth and has never been the slightest bit difficult during year one, has FINALLY has her first tantrum, tried to scratch her mom with her little fingernails. we breathed a sigh of relief tbh, thank god she's not some pod person experiment and is actually human.

I have a couple of new Isolde pics as well, will post later

Damn straight.

"gentle hands" wtf does that mean, like what is the situation

pets?

ime it is another way of saying "don't scratch my fucking face, boy"

Yeah like "don't hit scratch slap pinch me/your dad/this other child/the cat."

"What did I just say?" is another thing I say a lot.

I've been trying to get a little more real about "rules" lately, especially with eating, e.g. I keep repeating "we don't get something else until we finish what we have," because she has a really annoying habit of asking for something, taking a few bites and then asking for another thing. Also trying to stop snacks in the stroller and carseat so she'll actually eat her goddamn meals instead of snacking all the time, but that one is challenging (because on the morning where she DOESN'T eat her goddamn breakfast, you feel guilty sending her to school hungry).

Also we have a grandparent who sees her every week and undermines all this

gah, that thing when your newborn is finally asleep and completely quiet and then you keep checking every twenty minutes to make sure they're alive.

:)

double congratulations, man alive!

small man still alive

So I may have missed something, but I think Nora only woke at midnight and 3am last night. It's 7am now and she's still asleep. And it's Em's birthday.

Ha, I slept straight through a 5am waking..,

Happy birthday Em. I was just thinking I hadn't seen her over at the other place for a while. If it's any consolation, our sleep has gone back into a bad pattern after having a really good thing going for a couple of months. Hoping we find that groove again.

We are in a good patch - a whole fortnight of sleeping right through. Oh please, please, please let that be it.

One day Molly will start sleeping through. Maybe when she starts school in September, maybe that will tire her out so much that if she stirs she'll just drop off again, rather than padding through to our room.

My sister-in-law is in the hospital giving birth to twins right now, and my sister's water just broke. I could have three nieces/nephews born on the same day.

Woah!!! That's so awesome, NA

Big birthday parties in your future

Babbies everywhere!

Yay babies!!!

So our least favorite daycare teacher let Ivy play outside in the hot hot heat while wearing a dirty dirty diaper (Ivy, not the teacher) and then let her hang out in her hot dirty diaper for who knows how long because her "coworker forgot to remind her to change diapers," which you know what, fuck you, lady, (we're changing daycare in August so I opted not to make a big deal just in case this asshole decided to make Ivy's last weeks difficult) but point being Ivy has some wiiiiicked diaper rash rn.

The best cure for diaper rash being to air out the booty, she was spending some time going commando around the living room. I was keeping an eye on her because the last time we indulged in post-bath naked baby time she peed on the floor a little yet I somehow missed the immanent Number Two until I spied an actual turd creeping out from between her cheeks (I yelled "Oh shit! Literally!" of which I am inordinately proud). Luckily I was folding laundry at the time and had the presence of mind to grab a pair of underpants to catch the turd before it fell onto the white chair Ivy was standing on so it could have been worse.

Anyway toddler parenting achievement unlocked: I caught a fresh turd.

Congratulations?

lol thank you

I remember pulling out a fresh hot turd from the ass of one of our kids when s/he was constipated

Hehe, giggling aloud, thanks Ivy.

now there's a girl scout badge

Huzzah!

my baby poops yellow dippin' dots. i gather this is normal and good.

time to rent a mall kiosk, i guess

New baby poop is a wonderland of weirdness.

Also congratulations!

When we started trying solid food we had a couple episodes where Cecil wouldn't poop for three days then produce what looked like solid perfectly round golf ball made of feces and lawn clippings. One of these rolled out of the diaper and onto the changing table which was gross but fascinating.

haha

cornstarch is amaaaazing for nappy rash

tonight we hung out with other parents of young kids and ate dinner and drank awesome beer and wine and that is like the best fucking thing in the universe, thank fucking god for other parents, just felt like I needed that so badly. they were so chill, we ate back porch and everything was a fucking mess and there was food everywhere but nobody gave a shit. after they left I got to wash the dishes drunk and feeling great and very satisfied with the state of things. thank you to all ILPM folks you all rule and i would get drunk and cook food with all your families anytime

There seems to be this incredible effect where four drunk parents are better at making sure two kids don't kill themselves than two drunk parents (who are married to each other) are at watching one child.

And yeah, those friends are essential. We have a semi-regular friday night thing with a neighbor family where we basically just eat takeout and drink and bitch, it's very cathartic.

We're staying with some friends who we haven't seen in two years and we both had babies since we last hung out and it's pretty great. A bunch of other friends we haven't seen in an equally long time came over last night and we ate a shitload of tacos and drank beers and talked about ridiculous things like we always did but now there are an 8 month old and a 20 month old around and it felt totally normal despite being unprecedented.

aw that sounds great. I'm getting a bit pissed off with my group of mums (in the UK there are a bunch of pre-natal courses you can pay to go on that lots of people do just to meet other couples having their first babies at the same time). Since the babies hit 6 months we're all a bit more lax about meeting up but we have a WhatsApp group which I never seem to get a response on. I get that ppl are busy/on holiday but I want to know about specific things that they're usually really helpful about but they all seem a bit flaky atm.

also Scik Mouthy, I think we are hitting something similar to you guys. It's not as bad as that but I'm still struggling to get more than 3 hours of sleep in a row. His daytime naps are fine and he doesn't have a problem going to sleep (if anything he's overtired when he finally goes down, which I'm going to try and address). He just wakes up a ton in the night - I'm guessing a mixture of teething, starting to roll over and doing that a lot in his sleep, being in his own room, getting over a cold. I thought it was temporary but if anything he's getting worse, actually waking and staying awake for an hour at night. Apparently there is a 'late sleep regression' around 8-10 months but this has been since at least 7mo.

The good thing is he's fairly chill about it and I'm doing my best to get as many chunks of sleep as possible but we had a REALLY good thing going not long ago.

Kinder, we found the same with our NCT group and it's really been falling apart since the mums went back to work. A quarterly pubnic is the best we can do, usually somewhere convenient for the four families who live near each other (which doesn't include us). Fortunately the other family near us are lovely - though our parenting styles are completely different we get on pretty well.

Did you know NCT also run 'tea groups'? I've heard they're good for meeting people if you're not getting on so well with the people from your class. Keep meaning to check the website for our nearest one.

In our group we've had a stillbirth and a suicide, so as well as the unimaginable awfulness for those directly affected, it has affected the group dynamic as well.

Luckily I was folding laundry at the time and had the presence of mind to grab a pair of underpants to catch the turd before it fell onto the white chair Ivy was standing on so it could have been worse.

― from batman to balloon dog (carl agatha), Saturday, July 18, 2015 5:50 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao that is amazing

I think there's a certain zen to having two kids, if you allow it to wash over you. Like, there is just going to be something demanding your attention at all times, so you learn to accept that and maybe it can even quiet some of your self-obsession and anxiety.

Also K is just at such a fun age now in certain ways -- 3.5, and she's a total daddy's girl. We have great conversations, I take her swimming, to museums, we play music together, she makes me do dialogue from movies with her, I know it's bad to be too much your kid's "friend" but she's kind of my best friend lately, other than H of course.

something demanding your attention at all times

You mean like this? "Hey dad look over here. Hey dad. Hey dad, turn around and look. Hey dad, check this out. Hey dad. Dad, turn around. Hey dad Hey dad Hey dad!"

Yeah, like "Honey, can you pick up E--" "Dad, look at what Winnie the Pooh is do--" "--WAAAAAAHHH!!!"

Does hearing bad news about babies/children ever get any easier, as your own kids grow up? I've lost count of the number of times I've been sitting at my desk at work, catching up on the news with tears welling up reading about a freak accident/insert other bad thing here, because I can't help but put myself in that child's parent's place.

and finally, after dad has managed to turn the burner off under the skillet and deposited the kid in his left arm safely to the floor and pushed a tall, full glass of lemonade out of harm's way, all in one motion, he turns to see what the hell the other kid has been HAMMERING him to pay attention to: "look, i balanced this pencil on this other pencil!!!"

xpost i don't think so

xp, I can't read stories about bad stuff happening to kids, I cannot even get through them. Even "heartwarming videos" about someone entertaining a child with cancer in the hospital or something, I just can't fucking watch. Hard to even type this.

^^^

stupid fucking empathy

empathy but also just sheer terror at the thought of anything ever happening to my kids

^^^see Nick Cave thread currently, for example

7:30pm. 12:30am. 4am. 6:30am.

King of the world! Now if only we weren't awake waiting for her to wake. And if only she'd nap in the day.

i think i have weighed in before on how U&K the daytime naps are

Indeed; Em's at the end of her tether today re: daytime naps. Today it's especially humid and unpleasant, but basically Nora only sleeps in the buggy or on Em during the day. wtf can we do to get her to nap during the day?

hey if the buggy works use it

That's kind of my attitude but Em's against it'; I think she sees it as failing. Also, she'd like to be able to get an hour in the house to do stuff during the day.

yeah totally. pushing a buggy aimlessly waiting for a baby to maybe or maybe not fall asleep is really no fun at all

back carry?

^^^see Nick Cave thread currently, for example

― as verbose and purple as a Peter Ustinov made of plums (James Morrison), Tuesday, 21 July 2015 07:26 (6 hours ago) Permalink

perfect example of a story that came up in my feed and I did not read

J recently became able to sleep for longer times in his cot, it's a total gamechanger now that I don't HAVE to push him around in the buggy come rain or shine.

I cannot deal with any bad sad stories about kids - my brain goes no no no no no no no and I cry a bit or a lot. Bad news about moms gets me too. A mom of two very young kids here was recently killed and I had to stop listening to the radio in the morning yet fb told me more anyway. My heart.

my heart feels like it's expanding and enveloping those kids and moms while exploding and seizing at the same time

Awww. Yeah, that sounds about right. <3

Woke at 1am and 4am last night, and then for the morning at 6:45. I'll take that.

And yes, sad stories about parents or kids are pretty much unbearable to me now.

snap Scik! I fed him at 1am but he seems to only need settling (ie giving him his dummy) regularly at 4am ish and 6am ish.
Really wish it was practical to have him sleep next to me again so I could just do it semi-asleep.

Four days of travel to a timezone 3 hours earlier where the sun sets at 10pm and an onslaught of grandparents, great grandparents, cousins, second cousins, and great aunts and uncles really messes with an 8 month old's bedtime.

Shitty thing is that the fuckery of all that tends to last after the trip ime

2am and 4am last night. That first stretch is stretching nicely by an hour each night.... will it last????

So the trick to getting Ivy ready without screaming seems to be:

1. Let her brush her own teeth. (aka eat toothpaste. Her baby teeth are going to rot out of her head by the time she's 2.5.) (jk I get in there and brush 'em good once she's done.)
2. Let her take off her diaper.
3. Let her try to put on a new diaper then run around naked (risky business) carrying the new diaper until she acquiesces to being laid on the floor so I can strap the thing on her.
4. Let her pick out her own shirt which requires me holding up all of her shirts for either a "Nonononono" or a "Yeah."
5. Let her try to put her shirt on until she acquiesces to my help.
6. Same with pants.
7. Let her comb my hair so I can comb her hair.
8. Count all of her toes.
9. Let her try to put one sock on while I sneak in and put one on her other foot. Switch for shoes.

It takes approximately 1.5 hours and we have to get up at 3 am now.

All this to look forward to.

Not to get all Facebook sappy or anything but she also is learning her ABCs and can count to five in Spanish (not English, though) and is able to communicate now so this whole exercising autonomy when getting dressed thing is just a (frustrating) part of of something that is truly amazing to witness and be a part of. So while I'm tired and using all of my remaining energy to be patient with her while she's running around naked, carrying a diaper and grinning like a fool, the larger part of me is in utter awe of her.

Cool.

Sorry if that came across lecturing or condescending. I'm just having a lot of

http://38.media.tumblr.com/a54dbf9cc90e5066d506318f117e3606/tumblr_nliz88lOLn1rvzbdgo1_500.gif

moments these days.

Also I don't want to be like this woman I used to work with who was always like "You think it's bad now, you just wait, your life is ruined, having children the hardest thing ever done, you'll cry yourself to sleep every night and wake up depressed, children are a blessing from god."

So you know just trying to balancing out the challenges by pointing out the parts that are amazing.

lol I think about that Holly Hunter bit quite often

Things Tilda says:
dadadadadadada - this is her default speech so I try not to think of it as her talking about me but who knows
eh-VA! eh-VA! - this could be her talking about Evie but who knows
tatatatata - she just whispers this to herself, who knows?
bluh bluh bluh bluh - talking while rolling her fist around in her mouth
mama - she FINALLY said mama the other day, Sarah is relieved

I bet she is talking about Evie!

I was very relieved when Ivy first said "mama," too, although now she only says "mama" when she wants a drink of whatever I'm drinking. So her name for Jeff is "dad!" her name for me is "*high pitched shriek*" and "mama" is her name for cans of Lacroix.

Judah's finally expanding his vocabulary, his pronunciation is predictably shit but he is repeating words and coming out w new ones all the time so that's gratifying (he's 2 1/2). My wife tried to make me promise not to teach him to say "poop on balls" but I was like, "what, he poops on his balls all the time, I can't help it"

loool

Things Tilda says:
dadadadadadada - this is her default speech so I try not to think of it as her talking about me but who knows
eh-VA! eh-VA! - this could be her talking about Evie but who knows
tatatatata - she just whispers this to herself, who knows?
bluh bluh bluh bluh - talking while rolling her fist around in her mouth
mama - she FINALLY said mama the other day, Sarah is relieved

― Immediate Follower (NA), Thursday, July 23, 2015 4:10 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Aw weird this is similar to us (7.5 months) - everything is dadada or perhaps gagaga (I think he's tonguing where his top teeth are coming in - not the middle ones but the ones either side)
brrrbbluubbrruuubbuu is also a new one
He did puh! puh! puh! for a while
Still waitin' on mama

cmoooon mama

Nora just grunts like the girl from the exorcist.

She said Angela Merkel once at about three months. Training her to say Corbyn now.

Apparently she is waving at EVERYTHING today, which is super awesome.

Tale of two kids, or more likely, to ways of approaching injections. I was late getting both Aidan and Molly their pre-school boosters (MMR and Tetanus) With Aidan I decided to prep him, so he'd know what to expect. we watched youtube videos and talked about it. getting him to the surgery was a bloody nightmare and he was cowering under the chair in the nurses room, howling, and I had to manhandle him so she could do them. He was so upset that he wouldn't even eat his chocolate afterwards. Fast forward four years, phone up to make an appointment yesterday for Molly's and was offered that afternoon. Decided to go for it, just told her she was going to the nurse for some medicine to stop her getting sick. She was all excited, no problem going in, sat there as the nurse prepped the needles etc. was a little bit nervous looking, but sat on my lap and didn't move at all, sat still and quiet as the first went in, and helpfully shuffled round to get the other one in the other arm. No tears, no howling, no nothing, just a 'my arms hurt a bit mummy' as we scooted away.

I'm still a bit dumbstruck, and feel bad for how I handled it for Aidan, poor boy.

At my four-year-old's last well-visit, she was due for a round of four shots. The nurse and I quietly colluded to just spring them on her. Got her to lay down on the table, pulled down her shorts and I gently held her down while she was injected in her thighs. This was much more preferable to the way it had gone down when my older kid was her age, which was a typical squirming screaming kid on your lap scenario. She definitely felt betrayed about it though.

We've been going a little more disciplinarian lately because she's 3.5 and is so defiant at times that it's impossible to do anything, and all of the soft approach "reason with them" "get down to their level" stuff just doesn't work with her -- I think she actually sees through it. Last night after, among other things, throwing her food, insisting her dinner was yucky (although she ate the same thing last night), and deliberately banging, stomping, kicking and hitting just because she knows it annoys us, and screaming next to the baby, we did a kind of extreme time-out therapy where she had to stay on the bed until she could be quiet and stop tantruming for 15 seconds and then promise that when she came back to the table she'd eat her dinner and not throw a tantrum. And if she started to act up again after leaving the room (and "promising" to cooperate) we'd go back and do it over again. It probably took twenty minutes of repeatedly taking her back to her room and doing time-outs on the bed, but eventually she agreed to behave, came back to the table and ate her chicken. Of course I feel sort of bad every time I do something like this, but I hope it was effective.

feeling that post

f'real. Having a long conversation with a toddler = attention = what they want more than anything.

I saw my friend's 8-week-old today and had genuinely forgotten how tiny and squirmy little creatures they are!

It's so weird because I think partly because of her personality and intelligence and partly because of our largely liberal parenting style (although we do use the occasional time-out/punishment), authority is just so like ALIEN to her sometimes that she looks at us in complete disbelief when we try to give her consequences. And she totally imitates us too, like she'll tell us that our PUNISHMENT is "not nice" and that what WE are doing is "against the rules," because in her mind it's almost like we're equals. And I have to sort of admire this radically democratic, anti-tyrannical tendency in her mind, even as I hope to mercilessly squash it until she's older.

Oh I get that all the time. "You are NOT BEING NICE" when I make the asshole move of washing her hair or making her get dressed.

Actually most common these days is "THIS IS THE WORST"

lol

My coworker's youngest always tells her that she's hurting his feelings when he tries to make him brush his teeth or not punch his brother or whatever.

This is making me feel so much saner, I thought I had somehow managed to raise a committed 3-year-old anarchist

My coworker's youngest always tells her that she's hurting his feelings when he tries to make him brush his teeth or not punch his brother or whatever.

haha yeah we get this all the time too. "Eat your salad!" "You're hurting my feelings!"

lol

We get a lot of "No! Don't do that!" "You don't talk like that!" etc

yeah I get this too, even with my not-so-youngest : I discipline, she cries and tries to make me apologize

Only after she had pulled my pancake from my plate, taken a bite, and then dropped it on the floor, did she decide to put her pancake in her mouth.

But I am a GROWN MAN and I can OUTWIT a DAMN BABY so I will make you another pancake and put it on MY plate and then you will take it and eat it.

Judging by the EAT SHIT, DAD, I GOT YOUR PANCAKE look on her face, she thinks she is the victor here. LITTLE DOES SHE KNOW.

Eight months old.

Now she's waving it in front of me like a taunt. I'm gonna get summoned to the headmasters office often.

Much truth is found here - http://www.thehonesttoddler.com/2015/06/how-toddlers-see-their-food-vs-your-food.htm

Much truth is found here - http://www.thehonesttoddler.com/2015/06/how-toddlers-see-their-food-vs-your-food.htm

So much truth I had to post it twice.

Page not found.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4hxDrFEdCkM/VZCNVYbKQVI/AAAAAAAAB_Q/nbqaCtYMeNA/s1600/how%2Btoddlers%2Bsee%2Byour%2Bfood.png

:D

ty ty

4. Let her pick out her own shirt which requires me holding up all of her shirts for either a "Nonononono" or a "Yeah

Oh we put a stop to this real quick because it got to the point where she was clearly saying 'no' just to say 'no'.

She dressed herself from that day forward.

Ivy has started trying to get out of her crib, but rather than climb out, she just pushes herself up onto the rail and attempts to launch herself headfirst out of the crib and onto the floor.

We're lowering the mattress tonight.

ph jeez

oh even

Does anyone/did anyone use pacifiers with their babies? We were given the advice that it's "better than having them suck their thumb" but we're having the exact same experience with #2 we had with #1: first couple nights they don't really want it, then they start to want it in order to fall asleep, then it starts falling out of their mouths and waking them up, and pretty soon they become unable to fall asleep because every time the pacifier falls out of their mouths they wake up. GAH!

Ivy used a pacifier for awhile, with the same issue that you're having. So when she switched to her thumb, we celebrated! And now she's a total thumbsucker. That only bothers me when 1) strangers comment on it and 2) she puts her hands all over the filthy bus and then sticks them in her mouth.

we attempted pacifiers for both boys when other soothing techniques weren't working but they never really caught on so we ditched them

also fuck everybody "FOUR MONTH SLEEP REGRESSION"

"FOUR MONTH SLEEP REGRESSION"

fuck this bullshit

F was up from like 12am to 4am last night

and my toddler is all of a sudden getting night terrors? so weird

fuck everything about babies/toddlers not being able to just learn how to sleep and stay knowing how to sleep

we used pacifiers (Judah still wants his to go to sleep) - they grow out of it. I don't recall Veronica causing much of a stink when we told her they were all gone and she was about the age Judah is now (2 1/2)

fuck everything about babies/toddlers not being able to just learn how to sleep and stay knowing how to sleep

otm.

otm yes

even as someone w a history of sleep problems I'm like come on you lil bastards it isn't THAT complicated

my oldest used a pacifier until she was like 5 & we had to hide them, cut the tips off, but she'd grab one from a secret stash she'd put together, jonesing for the good suck, she's clean now but it was tough

haha we are nearing the cutting the tips off stage - at this point we're insisting he only have it when he's sleeping (of course mostly it's just to go to sleep, once he's asleep it falls out of his mouth)

xp: I'm glad to hear that. My littlest is almost 5 and still addicted to her pacifier. I've been very good about keeping her off during the daytime, but mrs. life is more lenient. She had problems with sleep apnea when she was littler and some doctor told my wife "oh yeah, just keep her on the pacifier..."

I was anti-dummy for some vague reason but used one from 1 month. It's great at settling him but now like you say he needs it to go back to sleep when he stirs. Or does he? Maybe I'll try turning the monitor down tonight and see if he can re settle.
It was nbd when he was next to me but now he's in his own room.

I'm determined to wean him off it after 1 year or so but in absence of dummy he tries to stuff his top/sleeping bag into his mouth rather than just suck his thumb.

He only has it in his cot so hoping that'll help.

doctor had to reassure my wife today that Super Sweaty Toddler Syndrome is *not* a thing... our son is just sweaty

Time for mesh tank tops!

Ella requires 2 dummies, one to suck and one to hold, and beware her wrath if the holding one drops out of her hand and onto the floor as she goes to sleep

Visiting family, thought we could leave the kid with grandparents but both times we tried (once with my mom and dad, yesterday with wife's mom and her husband) he seemed fine for half an hour then utterly lost his shit, just inconsolable crying, refusing to eat, etc. Which sucks cause travel sucks and we thought we'd at least get some time alone with six grandparents around.

He's totally fine with people - he met dozens of new ones this trip and is super happy and open to all of them, being held by them, whatever. We just can't leave him alone.

Any way to overcome this? He's basically always with one of us at home, and was fine when my MIL came to help when my wife was out of town in April. I left him with her while I was at work all day and it was fine. But he's 8 months now and totally different about it. I'm worried cause he starts daycare in a couple weeks and it seems like it'll be a shitshow.

No advice but I'm a little anxious about this too. He hasn't yet been left with anyone - we've done it a couple of times but he slept the whole time!
Nursery will be a big change but most children adapt pretty quickly afaik. Also they'll have seen it all before.

Sometimes you just have to leave and let them get upset, eventually they'll get over it. Evie is weird about babysitters, sometimes she's fine but other times she gets really clingy and whiny and upset. Last time I basically had to peel her off my leg and slam the door shut quickly with her crying inside so we could leave. Ten minutes later the sitter sent a photo of her smiling happily.

I guess it's pretty different for an eight-month-old. I am by nature a pretty impatient person so I usually go for "dive right into the cold pool" solutions over "gradually inch your way into the cold pool" solutions, for better or for worse.

Yeah, Ivy is fine at daycare but gets weird about being left alone with adults sometimes, including family members. Sometimes including one of her parents (ie Ivy standing at the back door and wailing because Jeff took the trash out). But she generally settles down and adjusts pretty well once she gets over her initial unhappiness. We're in the process of switching her to a new daycare and we went last night to hang out during free play time just to get her familiar with it and in the span of ten minutes, she went from grinding her face into my neck and sobbing to gleefully screaming and playing with the other kids.

Also there was a little dude there in a red onesie that said "HOLA LADIES" on it, which continues to crack me up.

But I don't think there's really a way to overcome it. Babies getting separation anxiety is normal development while they figure out object permanence and work out the fact that they and their parents are actually separate entities. Also in our experience, when there's other kids around, Ivy handles being separated from us much better, mostly because other kids are fascinating. So while I'm sure Cecil will cry a lot when he first goes to daycare, hopefully he'll adjust quickly with all of the other kids and interesting toys around.

tbh I get weird being left alone with adults still

god we had 4 other babies/mums come over today and literally every time someone new walked into the room his face crumpled up and he got upset. Then he perked up a bit and didn't go too mental when someone started shaking his favourite jingle bell thing even more enthusiastically than he does.

Here's a secret about daycare. The first couple of years I would take Beeps in she would cry and beg to come with me to the point where her carers had to pull her off me. I'd drive to work in tears most days. Finally on of her teachers pulled me aside and said 'you know, she stops crying 30 seconds after you leave'. I tested out her theory the next day by walking down the hall then turning back and peeking in classroom window. There was Beeps happy as a lark playing with her classmates.

yeah it's a ritual

Oh and here's another little story but this time about pacifiers. Beeps never took to a pacifier. Hank, the king of chill, loved them from day one. He was one of those kids that had hidden stashes and multiple binkies in his crib should he wake at night. We let him use them until he was 3. Well, I should say I let him. PP and his dad were strongly suggesting getting rid of them long before we actually did. The breaking point was Henry's 3y/o well check up. We already knew his speech wasn't great but never associated it with the pacifier. The paediatrician asked Henry some questions which he understood and tried to answer. At the end of the visit, the doctor said he couldn't understand anything Henry had said. It was, you guessed it, the result of using a pacifier for too long. We cut him off straight away and to be honest his speech only caught up to his peers very recently. He turns 6 in October. The more you know.

Blimey--I didn't know about that. Did he use them only at night, or while awake as well?

ymmv my pacifist had no speech troubles. my other two did, but they never took up the paci, go figure

I thought this was interesting, although it leaves some things out (e.g. research showing that young dads are spending significantly more time with their kids than previous generations):
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/upshot/millennial-men-find-work-and-family-hard-to-balance.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

I took paternity leave (6 weeks) everyone should do it, going to encourage my coworker who just told me his first child is due in Nov to do it too. But yeah it's gonna take years for policy to catch up w generational shift. Good article although I was a little frustrated that it didn't explicitly spell out what "traditional" roles meant. My wife has stayed home to care for our children because she a) didn't care about her job/career all that much (or, at least, didn't enjoy it the way I do mine) and b) we were pretty easily convinced that she would provide better care for the kids than any option we might end up paying for and it would be easier for her to breastfeed, deal w infant schedules etc. if she stayed home. So I've been the "breadwinner" since our kids were born - at the same time I cook 99% of our meals, do the dishes etc. and she does all the household accounting/bookkeeping so are our roles "traditiona"? idk

I've never had paternity leave. But that's the thing, we're all just individual couples making rational choices, but our choices are impacted by ideology and economic structures.

I didn't have paternity leave, but I saved up a month of vacation time and used that.

I also have never had vacation time that rolled over. I took approximately 2 weeks with each baby.

California state law allows up to 6 weeks at something like 65% pay (comes out of your state payroll taxes)

"Paid Family Leave" under the "California Family Rights Act"

which you are allowed to take up to a year after the baby's born. So I used my vacation time (2 wks) when the kids were born, then waited until they were like 5-6 months and took another 6 weeks off. Oddly, you are not allowed to just take a day off here or there - you have to take it in chunks that align with your pay periods.

There's a larger issue that a dad can only be primary caregiver if you're bottle feeding, and bottle feeding is for better or for worse very much out of favor right now.

But of course, real paternity leave, like in Europe, would enable dads to play a much bigger role.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jul/18/do-it-all-dads-men-career-family-friends

Our 'real' paternity leave is still pretty crap. You do get a standard pay for two weeks (139 GBP per week) but your company can pay more if they want. My o/h got 90% pay for the first week then 50% for the second. He saved up vacation time and took over a month.
It's not so much the money, but the shortness of the time off. I mean we get plenty of vacation time so it's not too bad overall.
We also have 'shared parental leave' which has just come in but I have no idea who does/doesn't qualify.

I think I took a week off. Then worked at home some for a couple of weeks.

I had just started a job when we had the baby so I had minimal leave time available, but it was right before a week break for thanksgiving with two weeks left in the semester before a month off at Christmas so I still had a decent amount of time off in the first two months. My wife is tenured with years of accumulated personal leave time so it made much more sense to use that and a course release to take a whole semester off.

There was no difference in policy (we're in the same department, though I'm not tenure track so lower status/clout/money) it's just her length of time at the job allowed for her to be the one to take more time off, and our chair laid out the best way for us to game the system for the best deal.

Man, in socialist australia, i got 2 weeks of paternity leave from the govt, another 8 weeks from my job (an unusually high amount, admittedly) and tacked on another 4 weeks of long service leave so i could have a whole 3 months with ella before i had to go back. American systems suuuuuuuck.

Though i know people, mostly self employed, who gave themselves maybe 1 or 2 weeks max

Does Australia still give peeps $$$ for having kids?

And many xps to you - Henry was with pacifier most waking moments.

No, they stopped the cash for babies thing. instead the govt made a huge thing about how they were going to make maternity leave brilliant for everybody, then they actually cut it, while insulting mothers who got a bit of maternity leave from their employers as "double-dippers"

We did that repeated time-out thing this morning again because K refused to eat her fruit (and she has bad constipation so it's actually a slight medical issue for her to eat fruits and vegetables), and it seemed to actually work wonders. For the rest of the day she was cooperative in totally unexpected ways, e.g. when I didn't have a snack she wanted she said "that's ok, I'll wait til lunch" instead of throwing a tantrum. Although maybe she's just aging out of it and it has nothing to do with our disciplinary style.

Guys I'm having my first beer in a while and I just need to say I'm having a tough time right now with K.

Every time I think I've mastered the calm but firm, measured consequences, discipline thing, there's some weird blowback shit I don't understand later. She's been hitting/kicking/biting us for a while now, and timeouts just weren't working, nor was a more gentle talky approach, and we finally decided every time she does it she loses a toy, but permanently, no getting it back just by saying "sorry" which she has already figured out how to use against us. I've done it twice (one of which was this morning before I took her to preschool) I thought it was working. But then today she got completely out of control with H at home, didn't listen to anything. I got home, tried to use my fresh energy to lay down the law a little bit, thought it was working, then at bedtime she has this complete weird freakout over wanting a different blanket that doesn't exist, then wanting me to change the sheets, then I was supposed to tuck her in but no matter how I did it it wasn't apparently right.

She's also been waking up a ridiculous number of times every night, e.g. any minute now, on the clock almost, she'll wake up yelling, then it will take her like 20 mins to fall back asleep for good, then later several more times she'll get out of bed and try to get into our bed (btw it's a full so it doesn't fit the three of us very well), and I will take her back each time. She also pretty much refuses to nap now, which definitely adds to the behavior problems.

I feel tired and sad, I hate being a hardass with my daughter, I hate seeing the betrayed look in her eyes when I do it (probably partly my fault because I was too much her "friend" as a dad in the beginning) but some shit is just unacceptable.

She also has this endearing to a point but completely mentally exhausting demand that I do these role play/character games with her at all times when I'm there. Tonight I kind of put my foot down about it that I wasn't going to be "prince alexander" during dinner while I was also trying to have a normal conversation with H, and that was a whole big thing too. IDK, maybe it's all anxiety over having a new sibling and getting less attention and it will pass.

that's all, just needed to vent

Ugh sounds rough, my sympathies. How old is she i forget

3.5

I know it's not that helpful to say, but hang in there! it sounds like what you say, a combination of new sibling and being very close to her, so the somewhat reduced time with her is taking her some getting used to

aaand she's up

can't post all that much right now but yea I get it, toddlers are really intense dude, there have been so many moments lately where I just don't like the person I become when I'm mad at my toddler (or at my infant when he literally wakes up every 30 to 60 minutes like he's been doing the past couple days), it blows and I try different approaches but end up exasperated no matter what

Yeah that sucks, seems like a new sibling is a plausible trigger for boundary pushing, maybe not much you can do but roll with it? I remember the time when #2 was newish was the hardest time

I have no experience of this but my friend went through similar when their son got a new baby sister...

Feel like a deluded fool for posting here as I don't have kids, but have seen situations with a nephew where just ignoring him worked. He would kick off, keep going for maybe 30-45 mins. During that time he wasn't removed from the room or put on time out, just ignored (unless he took a break from the performance and asked a normal question or something, in which case he would be answered normally). He would taper off and go back to normal very slowly, adults would start interacting with him again, and usually try to have a little giggle with him to reassure him that he wasn't cast out. But I have no idea whether you've already tried something similar or feel that it doesn't fit what's happening with you guys.

I just don't like the person I become when I'm mad at my toddler (or at my infant when he literally wakes up every 30 to 60 minutes like he's been doing the past couple days)

Yeah this really bums me out too, I hate when I get mad at an almost 9 month old for things that are done without malice or planning on his part because he's a baby.

We made dinner for a friend last night as his wife is in Japan and he's home alone for almost a week with a 6 year old, a 3 year old, and a 3 month old baby. The middle kid was not doing well - just overtired and out of sorts and a toddler and was repeatedly going off on the 6 year old who wasn't really doing anything wrong, but wasn't really trying to stay out of it either. I'm really humbled and impressed at how my friend handled the repeated screaming time outs without losing his shit - he's definitely mellower than I am in general but I thought this might have broken him.

In other news, my kid went to bed at 8:45 or so and is still asleep almost 11 hours later, and didn't wake up during the night - I don't believe this has ever happened before and I've had to confirm he's still breathing several times now.

http://gifsec.com/wp-content/uploads/GIF/2015/06/Surprise-Dance.gif

I've had two decent nights (and a nap of my own omg) but he's been NOT NAPPING when he usually is like clockwork. I might go back to work early if this becomes permanent...

6, 3, and 3 months man I can't even comprehend what that must be like

dammit try again
http://gifsec.com/wp-content/uploads/GIF/2015/06/Surprise-Dance.gif?gs=a

Matilda's new thing is waving hello/goodbye, if you wave at her she will wave back, or sometimes if you just say hi she'll wave. The cutest was when we were in a hotel room the other night and Sarah was holding her in front of the mirror and she was waving at herself for like five minutes and grinning really big. Then later Sarah was trying to nurse her down and Tilda would pop off and turn around so she could wave at herself in the mirror more.

we have six teeth now, really hope that's it for teething for a little bit. He's actually a sweet little thing when the teeth aren't terrorising him.

One of mr veg's cousins had their teething toddler at a family gathering - that kid was made of drool, but it was so damn cute

*grin* *drool*

Whoa where did this "MINE" thing come from???

"I'm a tiger slug. You have to pick me up and throw me into the garden."

starting Ferber method tonight please pray for me and my family thank you very much lol

trying to do things differently this time around, the boy is 5 months almost, with his older brother we did a prolonged and agonizing series of mistakes until he was 15 months and then did launched a gradual process of encouraging self soothing over a three week period. this time we want to get this bullshit out of the way early

he finally fell asleep on his own eventually tonight which was exhilarating but I am scared to fucking death about having to deal wi another episode in the middle of the night with him in our room

marcos how did it go?

Did/do any of your kids pinch as part of their self-soothing? Ivy is relentless with this, and sometimes pinches really, really hard, kind of a pinch and roll move. She prefers the skin on hands, but I've woken up in the middle of the night to find little toddler fingers pinching my elbow skin (unpleasant) and earlier today when I was trying to hide my hands from her she had a go at my face. She's not doing it to be mean, and if we say "No pinching!" and pull our hands away she'll stop for a second, or pet us or tap her fingers on us but inevitably, the pinching starts again. It's maddening. Absolutely maddening, and we have no idea how to get her to stop. I've looked online and the only takeaway from everything I've ready is that I should just be happy she doesn't like to pinch nipples.

Not to discourage you at all Marcos, but we just decided to let K be in our room for a while on a little travel bed -- she's been in her own room for like 2 years and never goes a night without wakings, but the wakings have dramatically increased since the baby was born and we finally got to the point where we realized no one was getting enough sleep and it was harming everyone. It's a little demoralizing to bring her into our room but I at least hope we'll all get some rest!

However I do sometimes wonder if my own past inconsistency is partly to blame -- OOH insisting she sleep the night in her own bed but OTOH going and giving her water/comforting her when she woke up, which maybe prevented her from really learning to go back to sleep on her own? I just was never able to do the "shut the door for the night" concept because it seemed so counter-instinctual.

CA My 8-month old constantly pinches our faces, grabs flesh, pulls my hair and absent-mindedly bats/scrabbles at me - it is indeed maddening. He's too young to do much about it afaik and he's often looking at his hands and opening/closing them/scrabbling at the table so I guess that bit is a developmental thing.

The places that kills me is that she'll pinch the flesh between my thumb and my index finger. Just grab it with her little claws and pinch and roll, pinch and roll. I've tried wearing gloves, drove her insane that she couldn't find any skin to pinch. So it's really just a constant game of moving my hands, moving her hands, etc, which makes the going to bed process quite lengthy at times.

Shout out to grandparents for being awesome and majorly sucking at the same time.

Tilda pinches too but I think it's just part of her figuring out her hands. It hurts though.

I actually told my MIL this weekend "You know she throws those tantrums because she knows she'll get what she wants." Pretty sure it just bounced off her.

My pleas for "gentle hands" at bedtime haven't really worked, because now F just tenderly strokes my eyelids for a moment before prodding my eyeballs hard and digging his nails into my cheeks.

LOL for real at "tenderly strokes my eyelids"

You can totally tell when the tender stroking is about to turn into painful jabbing.

There was one amazing ten minute period when Ivy stroked my hair as part of her quiet time routine and I was so excited because that's way better than pinching and also felt really nice. But it didn't last and never happened again.

I was carrying both boys to the nursery to change them and J was happily chattering away and then he turned his head and BIT THE FUCK OUT OF MY NIPPLE THROUGH MY SHIRT

lol

Usually the signal that my kid is about to fall asleep is that she'll wrap both arms around my head, but last week at bedtime she tried to add "grinding her foot into my crotch" as part of the routine.

D's current signal that he's about to fall asleep is to scream like someone it currently digging a knife into the back of his knee

J's signal OTOH is "haha fuck sleep, I'm in it for the long haul; brew some coffee, chumps"

Ivy bit Jeff on the shoulder yesterday when they were horsing around, but I think she was just overstimulated. We had a talk ("talk") about how important it is not to bite our friends or people we love, and she gave Jeff a hug and kiss, then ran over to give me a hug and kiss, so I think maybe on some level she heard us? (That's the kind of hubris that almost guarantees I'll get a note about her biting a kid at daycare today...)

We only bite our enemies.

we ESPECIALLY bite our enemies.

That's the way they put it at her old daycare - "We don't bite our friends" - so I went with it for consistency's sake.

http://youtu.be/U6UWNA-WQgI

I have no idea if that will embed, but it's a Yo Gabba Gabba classic.

Ahhhhhh I see!

YGG is the best

he's often looking at his hands and opening/closing them

C did this a lot a couple weeks ago, we referred to it as "stoner hands", like "oh man have you ever REALLY looked at your hands before?"

Also he was pinching the backs of my arm quite a bit when feeding but it only lasted for a couple weeks and it's been a while since he's done it.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BKkHWhaCMAAPET9.jpg

lol yeah that's exactly it! He went through a phase a few months ago where he'd practice moving one hand around and the other hand opening and closing, but hadn't realised they could both do both.

carl/jeff i dont have anything to bring to the table except OMG THE PINCHING WOULD DRIVE ME INSAAAAANE

wtf ivy, cmon girl

my niece is an armpit pincher, i've just discovered. but she also giggles all day and has cutest little face in the entire history of the universe, so it's ok.

As I told my mom after she declared Ivy's pinching wasn't too bad: talk to me around minute 45.

stevie there are two sisters on this bus about age 2 and 4 who could seriously be older versions of Marin.

Anybody else have routine diaper changes turn into full-on epic wrestling matches? Like he's not angry or sad, just squirmy and trying to get away. It takes like three times as long and routinely ends with half-applied diapers.

Yes, although Ivy is often angry and sad about it, too. Distraction works for the wiggles - giving him a toy or something particularly enticing (a clean diaper, a pack of wipes, matches, I don't know) - and to avoid angry/sad especially in the morning, I've taken to changing her diaper while she's watching Daniel Tiger or whatever.

Mine always uses it as an opportunity to flip onto his front then turn round and grin at us. He looks so proud I can't be too cross (until the 5th, 6th, 7th time...)

diaper changes are like a baby's version of Jazzercize AFAICT

Lol yes. The diaper comes off and it's like "wait, whoa, LEGS, I have LEGS"

Most nappy changes, once they'd mastered coasting round the furniture, were done standing up. Couldn't face the endless wrestling

Are any of your kids facetiming relatives/friends yet? Our kids are huge fans of it but it is getting a little out of control. Just the other night I busted Hank facetiming his grandfather with the camera pointed in full close up of his balls that were, thankfully, covered in Avenger underwear. He looked so pleased with himself. Like a broken record i said once again 'Henry, please try to remember, FACEtime is for FACES.'

We've been doing Facetime/Skype since Evie was little since our families live elsewhere. The biggest problem is Evie always gets super hyper and crazy and starts yelling and wants to grab the iPad and run around with it instead of talking. She often wants to Facetime with her friends from school too, we've only let her do that a few times.

Kindergarten orientation yesterday was making me emo. I think Evie will be fine once she gets into it but she was being shy at the orientation and sitting by herself reading instead of talking with other kids. It's a big change from a small day care to a big school with 65+ kids in kindergarten alone (split into three classrooms).

My local public school I think has 25+ kids in K classrooms and 30+ in first grade. It's been the subject of a lot of handwringing for us, private school not really being an option so it's sort of this or the suburbs. And I hate to be all special snowflake about my child, but she is pretty sensitive wrt noise/large groups and does tend to shut down a little. So I totally feel you on that NA.

This is supposed to be a really good school, so I'm not worried about that so much. I'm not even really worried about her because I know she's generally very social. I'm just eager for the transition period to be over.

I'm sure she's just absorbing things for now, which is great, because that means when her normal outgoing personality kicks in, she'll already understand how it all works. I'm excited for her! Go Evs!!! <3

Ivy and I Skype with my parents every Sunday and have more or less since she was born. If you say, "Where's Pop Pop?" she looks at the computer. Or if I'm sitting at the desk, she'll hop up in my lap and say "Pop Pop" or "Mom Mom" or "Coco" (that's their dog). She doesn't have much patience for sitting for long periods, but the desk is set up so that my parents can see into her room, too, so I'll let her play on the floor and get out of the way so they can just basically watch her do stuff for about a half hour. Sometimes they feign interest in my well being but mostly they just watch the kid.

I really wish that we could do a similar video call with her other grandparents since it really does help her stay familiar with her far away family but they can't get internet access where they live.

"Facetime is for FACES" is cracking me up. Oh Henry...

I've been facetiming with my parents pretty regularly, and my wife started to somewhat with her mom since all our families live 2,000 miles away. Cecil seems to really dig it, and I swear he was more familiar with my parents when we went to visit in July, especially compared to my wife's father who he'd never seen before, even on a phone screen.

Also ball time is the greatest thing

I'm pretty sure the only time Jesse and I tried FaceTime he put the phone in his pants so I'd like to say Henry will outgrow it but ...

Hahaha I don't doubt it

I can just picture Hank pitching silicon valley VCs: "It's Facetime for balls"

I call it Ballstime

I'm imagining that going like GOB's "Fuck City" pitch from Arrested development.

A friend's kid choked on a hot dog friday night and had to spend the weekend in the hospital with tubes in his throat and getting MRIs. His mom found him unconscious and not breathing and had to resuscitate him. They are very fortunate that she was able to revive him. God knows how close he was to death or brain damage.

If feeding hot dogs to little children, do not feed it to them in sandwich form. Instead chop it into little pieces. We use one of these to get hot dogs down into child-friendly pieces: http://www.amazon.com/Dachshund-Shaped-Hot-Dog-Cutter/dp/B0088OJB5U

My little girl is the same age and I've been known to leave her with a snack while I go take the trash out or flip the laundry or whatever. This has been a huge wake-up call.

I have extreme choking paranoia so we avoid hot dogs completely.

I always quarter lengthwise and then cut into sections. She doesn't like the bun anyway.

Worst thing about choking is that it can be totally silent so you could even be in the same room with your back turned. Sorry about your friend, hl.

marcos how did it go?

― carl agatha, Sunday, August 23, 2015 10:33 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ferber is going pretty well tbh!!! we made a lot of improvements. F is still only 5 months and nurses every 3 hours or so each night but the best thing we've accomplished is F can now fall asleep on his own so long as he has a full stomach. so that is cool. before, my wife would nurse him and one of us would have to dance him around for a long time, upwards of 45 minutes sometimes, before he could finally get to sleep and stay asleep. now he'll nurse and we place him in the crib awake and he might cry for a few seconds but then he's out. so huge huge huge improvement.

eventually we will try to space out the night feedings but it is so cool that he just goes to sleep on his own after them.

and we've been pretty lucky with our older kid, he's almost 3 now and has been a great sleeper since about 15 months or so (when we had to do some pretty intense and torturous sleep training stuff, which is why we're trying to get this over with earlier with F)

Ferber method is underrated imo

FWIW K showed incredible resistance to the Ferber method. There were a few times when it seemed to work, temporarily, but then some event would upset it. Also it took many more nights of crying than advertised, each time. As noted above, we're pretty much back to square one with her recent anxiety and the new baby.

Meanwhile E @ <3 months is a natural great sleeper. Sometimes goes 8-9 hour stretches at night, yet clearly is eating very well based on growth/weight and just sheer chubbiness.

xp yea i agree, also it is extremely different imo than the actual "shut the door & see you in the morning cry-it-out" method, the intervals and frequent checking in make ferber pretty humane imo. though the longer intervals can be pretty hard, we kind of set a cap that we won't go longer than 10 minutes of crying.

We did Ferber with K around age 7 months and I think it took almost a month to work. Then we had to move to a 1BR for a while and that kind of threw everything.

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/daniel-tiger-becomes-a-boy-with-autisms-guide-to-social-life/?smid=tw-share

Daniel Tiger is very popular in our home. This morning, Jeff asked her what she wanted to watch* and she said "TIGER."

*We use TV to hypnotize her into compliance while I get her dressed in the mornings.

We noticed K's behavior is better when she watches no TV than when she watches TV, but short of that we also noticed that there's a huge difference between the days she watches Daniel Tiger vs almost anything else. We completely stopped with Disney.

Any of you guys end up with a kid who likes Billy Joel? Because FUCK this phase.

That would be tough.

I assume you have only yourself to blame. I mean where they exposed to BJ in the first place?

^ILP quoted out of context

btw, in re that disciplinarian thing upthread, we kind of had a come to jesus moment about it and realized it wasn't exactly working, or rather, we were right to be more disciplinarian but wrong to be more harsh and negative, so now we're all about trying to set limits in a more positive way, and I finally feel like this is paying off.

I got a really simple but very effective tip from a parenting magazine, for example: instead of saying "If you don't finish dinner, you can't have dessert," you say, "first we finish dinner, then we eat dessert."

I was a kid who liked Billy Joel, I used to listen to The Stranger all the time when I was a kid and think I still have my dad's copy in my vinyl collection

We are going to check out highschools. She's in fifth grade now. Seems early but the open school days are all on the same day. So we're doing a few now and the rest next year. Omg high school.
Prob going with Latin.

I assume you have only yourself to blame. I mean where they exposed to BJ in the first place?

― Οὖτις, Friday, September 18, 2015 10:01 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I would never knowingly expose a kid to Billy Joel. He started liking it after a few long car rides with my mother-in-law, the same place he learned to like the Eagles. But apparently all the kids on his bus like Billy Joel too and they had a big sing-along to Piano Man the other day.

my eldest loves Billy Joel thanks to car-based indoctrination from his grandad. i got no problem with this, Billy Joel is okay.

there's a french parenting expert named Dolto who says they can have dessert first, it doesn't matter

we tried that for about 5 minutes before centuries of habit rebelled

"I don't care if you get mad at me because I won't let you eat Oxyclean" is a thing I say now.

If she eats dessert "first" there is no second

xpost i lol'ed

Relating directly to this thread title, PP busted Henry out in the backyard in his skivvies yelling at the daughters of our super christian neighbours right after church last Sunday.

Nice!

Last week the kid had a fever and couldn't go to day care for a couple of days and was sleeping terribly so we were sleeping terribly and it was pretty awful all around. Fever subsided as of Thursday morning but he was still sleeping pretty shitty.

I have no idea what happened but starting this Saturday he just started going to bed and sleeping all night - he's gotten up to eat just once in the last five nights, and we've actually had to wake him up in the morning lest he sleep too late and screw up his nap / daycare schedule. He also falls asleep a lot faster, though only after screaming for five minutes and then just passing out mid-scream. This is vastly better than the half hour of quieter fussing and babbling that he was doing prior to that.

Toofahs?

Words are still spordadic but the boys have definitely started making identifying sounds that mean something specific; J in particular has started going "NUMANUMANUMANUMANUMA" if he wants you to do something for him IMMEDIATELY and it's the cutest thing

Awwwww he's like a more adorable drunk grown-up!

Basically! It's really funny watching him go "...Book? Book? NUMANUMANUMANUMANUMANUMA"

I only wish my kids liked Billy Joel.

My poor son says he's been plagued by nightmares since he's been old enough to say he's plagued by nightmares. He hates going to bed, he says things as he gets under the covers "Welp, may has well get ready for the monsters," etc. It's hard to tell how much he's -- I wouldn't say "kidding", but I would some more serious version of the word. He doesn't scream at night. He's never woke up in tears. If he wakes up in a different place, it's with one of us and not in the closet from sleepwalking or anything.

But all that said, the other night he's messing around with an old PSP handheld game, looking through the camera just before bed. "See, Dad, look at this," and he hands me the console. We've got just the one lamp on, so there isn't much to see, especially on that low-res display.

"What, what do you want me to see?" I ask.

"You see all that dark stuff coming out of the walls? THAT'S the stuff that comes to me in my nightmares."

And he's talking about the lousy artifacts you get on a bad camera. This pic doesn't do it justice, but you know what I mean.

http://i.imgur.com/0Rz0VN9.jpg

And I say, "Son, that's not real. It's what the camera 'sees', but that's just because it's trying to hard to show you something."

Which I admit would be confusing to even some adults I know.

He just nods, says ok, and takes the camera back from me. Again, I try to explain how there's not really a roller coaster on the PhotoBooth app, etc., but clearly, I'm just a sheeple who's not ready to hear THE TRUTH, according to him.

"You see all that dark stuff coming out of the walls? THAT'S the stuff that comes to me in my nightmares."

Oh poor kid.

Even though we have foam bolsters on our bed to prevent this from happening, Ivy either fish flopped out of our bed onto the floor or tried to climb out of bed in her sleep and fell last night. Being woken up from a sound sleep to a loud THUMP and then a BLOOD CURDLING SCREAM emanating from the tiny human you love more than life itself is jolting to say the least. I gave out this weird series of high pitched hooting screams that I seriously think were some kind of primate brain stem "MY BABY MONKEY FELL OUT OF THE TREE" danger sound that my monkey-adrenaline-soaked, sleep fuzzled brain spewed forth instinctively.

Luckily she was unbruised and no jaguars ate her, but it took me a long ass time to calm down and go back to sleep, and the spent the rest of the night on high alert, jerking awake every time she moved.

poor ivy! i remember those screams, my brother used to fall out of bed all the time when he was little, it's so scary!!

and poor henry, those nightmares sound O_O

As recently as a year ago, my son was reporting only having ever had nightmares. And it was pretty regular to hear him moaning in the dark or jerking bolt awake.

My daughter reports that she doesn't dream most of the time, but when she does tell me about a dream, they are pretty dark. "We had to fight bears and they were evil and had red eyes." But she's never seemed distressed in telling me about them.

^^ very similar. I'm not saying he's completely chill about it all, but he is certainly very matter-of-fact about his demons.

http://www.citydadsgroup.com/nyc/2015/09/daddy-i-want-makeup-so-i-can-look-pretty/

I'm having a dumb facebook argument about this article right now. Tell me if you agree or if I'm being obtuse -- I think this dad is just being overly anxious about something his three year old doesn't really get yet and projecting his own fears about self esteem. I don't think a three year old girl saying "I want make up so I can look pretty" means that the three year old thinks she's not pretty without makeup, that just doesn't sound to me like how a three year old mind works.

As we walk into the bathroom to brush her teeth, I hear something I was not prepared for:

“Daddy, I want makeup so I can look pretty.”

I instantly recoil at what has just been thrown at me, then my mind races to determine where our toddler got this idea. Who told our child that in order to look pretty she needed lipstick, blush and mascara? Was it one of her friends at daycare who maybe has an older sister that said this in passing? Did one of the cartoon princesses she adores take a trip to beauty school in an episode she watched? Or was it in an article from one of the Toddler Cosmopolitan magazines that I see lying about in her room. I’ve been meaning to cancel that subscription, and perhaps this was a sign to do so. Then I remembered: my wife let her put on makeup to calm her down and give her something to do while they were both getting ready for a recent weekend getaway. I doubt my wife actually said something this absurd to our child, but now it appears the seed has been planted and we needed to do something about it.

I feel you on this - she's probably just made the (perfectly unconscious) observation that some women that look pretty also wear make-up and she is curious what that involves. Even so I wouldn't put makeup on a three year old. I think Veronica's aunts did this with her once when she was around 4 or 5 as a fun rainy day activity, which I was not really into, but it does not seem to have had any lasting effect. She does like getting her nails done, but that's something she does with her mom, which is what makes it "special" for her I'm sure.

I don't think I'd go out of my way to do it, but K has just been overwhelmingly fascinated by makeup and dresses since she was old enough to notice, even though her mom is more or less tomboyish. So at some point I let go and said to myself "if this stuff gives her so much joy, why should I inject any negative feelings into it?" We never tried to put makeup on her but she kept asking for it, so she has a little lip gloss thingy. And dressing up is one of her favorite things to do. It's a tough line to walk, but it seems like in trying too hard to avoid traditionally feminine stuff you can actually wind up stigmatizing traditionally feminine stuff.

Like to me if your three year old says "I want makeup so I can look pretty" and your reaction is horror, that kind of sends the message that there's something inherently bad about makeup.

yeah at 3 yrs old i think that equation is more like, "mommy's pretty & wears makeup, i want to do that too"

I've been pretty surprised at how gender identities assert themselves with little to no guidance from parents/peers, it's kind of crazy. Both our kids, with zero prompting from us or concentrated exposure to gender norms, gravitated almost instantly to trad boy/girl stuff. Judah is way into trains and cars and construction and shit like that, and it sure isn't because of me or anything I keep around the house, and this presented itself well before he had spent any serious amount of time socializing with other little boys.

xp

You really think that's happening without "concentrated exposure to gender norms"? Are you suggesting that interest in trains is an inherent genetic trait of masculinity?

I can't explain it tbh

literally the first time he saw a train it was like "THAT'S FOR ME!"

It's probably more in line with autism being more prevalent in males than females.

I can - you're underestimating how pervasive and impactful gender norms are in our society.
xpost

I see N/A's point.. there's no Teresa The Train Engine show.

Yeah I definitely think that is part of it. And I actually feel like we've regressed a good deal in that regard since I was a kid in the 80s -- everything only seems more gendered to me now in terms of toys, clothes etc.

Anyways it's near-impossible to avoid gendering of interests in the U.S. no matter how hard you try, and I don't think it's bad per se to let your daughter play with make up or your son play with trucks bc like you say who wants to be the sourpuss who's discouraging their interests, but I also think it's ok to be honest and sad about how these interests are pushed on them by everything around us.

*sigh* well I predict this thread is going to go in a fun direction thx for being patronizing

xp

I think there are probably subtle ways we do it in our parenting without realizing it too, e.g. there are studies on how parents are more likely to ask very small boys questions like "how many ___ do you see in the picture?"

Nonetheless, my daughter is enthralled by certain kinds of "girly" stuff, and I'm not going to discourage her. She also loves banging on drums fwiw.

Anyways it's near-impossible to avoid gendering of interests in the U.S. no matter how hard you try, and I don't think it's bad per se to let your daughter play with make up or your son play with trucks bc like you say who wants to be the sourpuss who's discouraging their interests, but I also think it's ok to be honest and sad about how these interests are pushed on them by everything around us.

― Immediate Follower (NA), Tuesday, September 29, 2015 3:28 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this is p much what I think. "constructs" are real, and you can wage a one-family war against them but you'll never completely win.

She likes pretty dresses, so I'd rather teach her that you can like pretty dresses and still be a lawyer or doctor or scientist (or ballet dancer or fashion designer or w/e) rather than discourage what she likes.

like your formulation assumes a) a child identifies with a certain gender and then b) associates various characteristics or products or whatever with that gender and then c) adopts (b) because they see it as being consistent with (a). Now, in the case of my son I'm talking about when he was between 1 and 2 years old. Pretty much any child development expert will tell you that children at this age do not really have any concept of gender, they don't understand what it is, they don't readily differentiate between what is for boys and what is for girls. This happens a bit later, and is driven very much by socialization, exposure to peers etc.

I can't explain why my 1 1/2 yo boy would like trains. I didn't have trains around the house. He'd never seen or been on a train. He'd never watched television. There were probably trains in some of the books we had, but I'm sure they were just one of the many other random objects that typically fill up toddler books. He hadn't been around older boys with trains. And yet he was *instantly* super-excited about a toy train. I remember it pretty clearly, it was baffling.

xp

That doesn't really square with all of the times I've seen you and G yelling "BE A GODDAMN MAN FOR ONCE" to the boy, but whatev...

lol

I do find myself yelling "act like a PERSON" more than I would like

lol

J has been fascinated by anything w/ wheels since i can remember - cars, trucks, trains, rolling garbage bins, it doesn't matter

Maybe the explanation is that as a KID, your son was excited by trains. Like this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvpCmKUo1Aw

omg I could watch that 1,000 times.

I feel ya, Madeline. That is basically what I looked like commuting via NJT in 1998.

i fkn LOVED trains as a little tyke

my dad bought me a trainset & everything

that little girl = little veg

yeah obviously part of the problem here is using trains as a code for boys, which was not really my intention. That was just the first trad-boy thing Judah latched onto (which has been followed by other trad-boy things like construction vehicles and um the Incredible Hulk, among others - "HULK MASH!" as Judah says)

cuet

Ella's met a couple of transgender people, and she asked why these women sounded like men, so we explained that they were born with boy's bodies, but changed to girls when they were older, and now she's completely convinced everybody can and probably will swap genders at some point. like, if there's something I can't or won't do (eat peanuts, drive a car), it's because I'm a boy, but "when daddy turns into a girl, he'll be able to drive!"

My boy takes it a step further and says things like, "When I'm the daddy, and you're the son..." which haha, how could that happen? Oh yeah, gonna get Alzheimer's when I'm 50.

Ha, my blokes youngest still makes confusions like that too.

He's also recently discovered Fathers Day (long story but theyd never celebrated it til this year) and now hes decided this is a bargaining chip when being asked to do anything. ie "why should I? Its not FATHERS day. Why isnt it ever KIDS DAY mutter mutter"

haha when's international MEN'S day

In any case, whether or not we can solve big questions surrounding gender conditioning, I just feel like I see a lot of parenting blog articles where parents put SO much emphasis on something like this with such a small child, and inject so much anxiety into it, that it can't be good. "WHAT WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU NEED MAKEUP TO BE PRETTY YOU'RE FINE JUST THE WAY YOU ARE I'M HIDING THE MAKEUP DON'T TOUCH IT"

I've probably posted this here before but: http://usvsth3m.com/post/21-struggles-faced-by-a-dad-raising-a-daughter-in-a-sexist-world

yea it is an overreaction xp

J sometimes asks to put his hair in a ponytail or pigtails "like mama" it is v cute

at J's birthday party last weekend some friends of ours brought their 5-month old boy and dressed him in this really cute pink wool sweater and my wife's parents kept making jokes about it like "don't show him the photos when he's older!!!" thinking they were so hilarious and goddamn it was so embarrassing.

my son had pretty long hair for a while, like a rocker, and we'd often get told "she's so pretty", & what could you really say but "thanks"

he also wore his sister's dresses for a while when really little b/c he wanted to be big like her. again, whatever.

otoh I had an acquaintance who once said to me that he hoped his son would be gay because gay people are better than straight people. kinda didn't know what to make of that.

I did freak out a little (internally) when K said she wanted to be a "woman lawyer." Also for a while she always wanted me to be the doctor and she was the nurse when we did checkups on her stuffed animals, but I think doc mcstuffins has put an end to that.

I really wanted to bring her to my office to meet all the "woman lawyers." Having mom home for a while and me continuing to work may be a bigger factor than any outside cultural influence.

otoh I had an acquaintance who once said to me that he hoped his son would be gay because gay people are better than straight people. kinda didn't know what to make of that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyjEAvIKD5c

otoh I had an acquaintance who once said to me that he hoped his son would be gay because gay people are better than straight people. kinda didn't know what to make of that.

"well they're certainly better than YOU" would've worked as a rejoinder imo

Apologies in advance for waxing philosophical and being pretentious, but I had this realization today about parenting, about something that makes it simultaneously so amazing and so fucking difficult for me: parenting frustrates nihilism. When I was childless, and even moreso when I was single, it was so easy to retreat into meaninglessness, even take comfort in it. But having this small, developing person there all the time, constantly observing you, listening to you, watching you for cues, asking you questions that have to do with what the world is and how to live in it, and it creates this weighty and almost burdensome feeling of responsibility in me. Changing diapers and packing snacks and dressing toddlers feels like the easy part compared to this, it can be done by rote. But never feeling like you can just have a true fuck everything moment, because this little person is watching you and feeding off of you and needs you to provide some kind of ballast in the turbulence of being so small and fragile and limited in understanding. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by this.

Hadnt thought of it in those terms, but that is very true

Time to get a sitter!

yeah I forgot to mention that the other one is only 4 months and won't take a bottle right now, so that kind of precludes sitters for a little while.

feeling that October 3 post a lot, man alive

Apologies in advance for waxing philosophical and being pretentious, but I had this realization today about parenting, about something that makes it simultaneously so amazing and so fucking difficult for me: parenting frustrates nihilism. When I was childless, and even moreso when I was single, it was so easy to retreat into meaninglessness, even take comfort in it. But having this small, developing person there all the time, constantly observing you, listening to you, watching you for cues, asking you questions that have to do with what the world is and how to live in it, and it creates this weighty and almost burdensome feeling of responsibility in me. Changing diapers and packing snacks and dressing toddlers feels like the easy part compared to this, it can be done by rote. But never feeling like you can just have a true fuck everything moment, because this little person is watching you and feeding off of you and needs you to provide some kind of ballast in the turbulence of being so small and fragile and limited in understanding. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by this.

We suddenly have a lot of garish plastic around that plays music and the 'hail to the bus driver' song is on everything so I constantly have in my head Ralph Wiggum going 'he steps on the clutch and the toilet goes flush'

SHUT UP!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55EoLTC0SdY

I hear "la cucaracha" from all our noise making plastic shit but it makes Cecil dance so I'm into no matter how annoying it is.

Also the gendered playing is so weird - my mother in law is visiting and bought him some Legos which are too tiny now but we put together a car like wheeled contraption for him. He immediately started pushing it around and making vrooming noises which blew my mind.

I assume this comes from the older kids at his day care but it's still weird to me how quickly he picked this up.

K loves playing with dinosaurs but mostly lines them up and has conversations with them, none of the roaring or stomping stuff.

Are there any other NYC or NYC area parents on ILP? This school shit is so complicated and daunting and we're still a year out from Pre-K. First of all, K's preschool doesn't have a Universal Pre-K (i.e. free pre-K), and apparently (we did not know), you get preference at a UPK if you're already enrolled there (same is not true for the UPK's at public schools).

Then it also turns out the neighborhood school, which we moved here for, is ridiculously overcrowded. They are running EIGHT 25-student kindergartens now and probably don't have the space for all of those kids to move through the rest of the school without cutting K in the future. And it's apparently very test-driven and "factory" like according to parents we've talked to, even though it's rated well. So then there's G&T application -- a whole other clusterfuck -- or certain special application-only public schools that are way out of our neighborhood and would mean insane mornings. Or there's moving to the suburbs, or IDK, finding some private school that gives financial aid? But I doubt we'd qualify and I doubt there's much in the way of "merit scholarship" out there at her age. IDK, fuck.

sympathies to you dude, i am not in NYC but our 3yr-old just started preschool in a large urban school system (boston) and shit is very very overwhelming, we happened to get SUPER lucky (ironically) due to J's special needs/autism diagnosis/IEP which got us a spot in a great school and allowed us to avoid the daunting lottery system. best of luck to you and your kid, this is like the main topic all of our friends are talking about right now and it is the main reason a good number of people in our neighborhood move out of the city. it can work well for some though.

Yeah not NYC but Chicago, which as you may have heard, has some issues with its public schools so while I have no advice, I can definitely sympathize.

We don't live in a place near as big as you all, but I hope you find comfort in that this shit happens all over.

here in the ring around Paris school shit is also complicated, further complicated by our being fairly recent arrivals, and my son's middle school has been off/on strike for the last three weeks, which is both hilariously French as well as a mix of shitty and awesome for/from the perspective of my son.

It's so fucking crazy. We had one parent suddenly pull his kid out of our daughter's class and we had no idea why. Then we ran into him and asked what happened, and he said his son was now at ____ instead, but he wouldn't really give us any detail on why. Then we found out that place does have a UPK, and I have a feeling he did it just to get the preference next year. Suddenly we're wondering if we should do the same, but the thing is last year we pulled K out of ____ because we didn't like their twos class, and she's basically happy where she is now. So IDK.

Another parent reportedly got upset with H for even suggesting we were going to try to send K there for UPK, like "DON"T YOU KNOW THERE'S A PREFERENCE!" as though we were trying to take her spot.

DC's universal PK is a godsend

I did not know that a toddler's feet could get so stinky.

For those who don't know me on Facebook, this happened:

*awful noise*
Me: Do we need to change your pants?
Michael: *knowing smile* no
Me: didn't you just poop?
Michael: It's not my problem.

True story

looool

oh god. sorry dude. XD

my son had pretty long hair for a while, like a rocker, and we'd often get told "she's so pretty", & what could you really say but "thanks"

― droit au butt (Euler), Wednesday, 30 September 2015 16:38 (1 week ago) Permalink

have a similar problem where people keep mistaking our one-year old daughter as a boy. contributing factors mainly her hair has never grown out/we've always used a shorthand/male-centric version of her proper name. and the one time she wore overalls.

GO TO FUCKING BED ALREADY
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRIsCy9UcAAe1sm.jpg

Another night climbing the walls, eh?

dude just will not stay in his room/bed

I guess the conventional wisdom would be just make sure he doesn't get rewarded for getting out, and consistently bring him back every night until he learns to stay? (e.g. no extra story, no snack, no tv, no fun time with dad, etc.) Of course I know the conventional wisdom is always easier to espouse than to follow.

it's just been like this ever since we got him his toddler bed (6 mos ago I think?). And yeah we follow the conventional wisdom consistently, it's always us just carting him back upstairs and putting him in his bed and that's it, but he persists. It's more annoying than anything else, and I'm sure it's a phase that will end, but you know the sooner the better.

i wouldn't want to sleep in that hamper either.

well usually we line it with hay and give him a dead apple doll

I mean we pretty much gave up when the baby was born -- K's sleep habits in her new bed were just not well-established and went to crap when the baby slept with us, so for the first few months we just let her sleep on a mat in our room, and now we've moved both kids to the second bedroom and H sleeps on the trundle in there with them (still feeding the baby at night so this was easiest). The hope is to then transition back to H sleeping in the room with me again in a few months when the baby (hopefully) mostly sleeps through the night.

For those who don't know me on Facebook, this happened:

*awful noise*
Me: Do we need to change your pants?
Michael: *knowing smile* no
Me: didn't you just poop?
Michael: It's not my problem.

True story

― a strawman stuffed with their collection of 12 cds (jjjusten), Sunday, October 11, 2015 6:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought about this today and LOLed.

should've ended with

Me: It is now.

One sure fire way to tell that Ivy's got a boom boom diaper going on is that I'll say, "Do you need a new diaper?" and she'll say "Noooooo!!!!!!" and run away and hide behind the curtain.

But I guess that's a classic example of not asking a question when you only want a specific answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LQRmxPqSEQ

<3

haha. my four-year-old just managed to turn on adventure time the other day. she was TRANSFIXED and baffled.

Our first experience dealing with race issues, yay. K (3.5) pulled her eyes slanted and said "I'm a Chinese girl," which she must have heard on the playground or something. I told her as gently as I could that she shouldn't do this, because it could hurt someone's feelings. But she obviously picked up on my underlying discomfort because she looked more ashamed than I have ever seen her. And she is also confused by the whole thing -- I don't think she even gets what it means to hurt someone's feelings, and I'm not even sure if she knows what "a Chinese girl" means. For context, our neighborhood is heavily Chinese and she will be going to a public school that is like 40% Asian, but right now she's in a Jewish preschool that has no Chinese kids. However, our next-door neighbor is Chinese and has a girl her age and there are many Asian kids on the playground.

Anyway, since then she has brought it up a few times and said "If someone does like this (slants eyes) it will hurt my feelings." And any explanation I try to give her just seems to make it worse, even if I assure her she didn't do anything wrong.

guess I just have to not talk about it for a while and let it blow over?

I would say no. I would continue talking about it because not talking about it makes it more likely that she will internalize a fucked-up societal view that you don't espouse.

The next time she does it, tell her she must have hurt her own feelings by doing that and see where that leads you.

(This is what I'm referencing btw: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/18/doll.study.parents/)

I...think not talking about how people look different from each other is something that happens a lot and makes those differences seem secret or shameful to kids? As you are already seeing, our discomfort with talking about race is v transmissable but kids don't have all the context so it makes the whole topic seem like A Problem. Idk what the solution is but I just think that avoiding discussion will only drive it further underground and make it seem like something forbidden.

xxp bingo

I hear you and agree with you in theory, but iirc your little ones are younger and you haven't gotten to toddler psychology yet, and every time I try to talk to her about it it's just this weird rabbit hole where she feels guilty but doesn't actually understand what I'm telling her.

Like I think it would be easier if she were 5, or even 4 maybe. I do tell her things like "people have all different kinds of eyes, all different colors of skin" etc. I don't mean generally never talk about race, tbc.

I...think not talking about how people look different from each other is something that happens a lot and makes those differences seem secret or shameful to kids

yes. don't do this. talk about it.

yea it is good to talk about it.

my son started preschool a couple weeks ago and there are two teachers in the room, a white woman and a black woman he was not saying their names at all but referring to them as the "white skin lady" and the "brown skin lady", he has been asking why some people have white skin and others have brown skin a lot lately. we talked to him and said that people like to be referred to by their names and not how they look (something we said again when he would talk about one of our bald friends as "the no-hair man")

agree though that the toddler "why" questions are very intense and it is easier than not to just confuse them more, but yea still obviously worth talking about

and to clarify even though we said he should refer to his teachers by their names instead of their skin color we are still talking about why some people have different skin colors, hair texture, etc. it does help that we live in a fairly diverse area and he's had a ton of people in his life of various races

My kids (who go to a mostly-non-white school) asked "why do brown people litter more?"

because no white people will pick up after them

Double parent teacher conferences today. That'll knock the wind out of you for a good 8-10 hours

I have relatives who talk like these people because they're teachers themselves: "Beeps excels greatly on the DRA 2.8-4.1, but her lab results skew lower on the ACFAL because she doesn't apply herself."

ME: ...

TEACHER: "Dedicated Reading Acceleration. Arkansas Criteria for Accelerated Learning."

ME: "OK, that fills in some of the gaps, I think..."

So Em's gone back to work as of last week (Weds-Fri until Xmas, then Tues-Thurs thereafter), but, obviously, she'd rather not be at work, and not have N in nursery. I think we've both been surprised by how much she's taken to being a mum. So I'm vaguely looking at houses and thinking 'could we downsize and exist just on my wage for a couple of years?' but realistically it's just not practical.

So, stories about going back to work, or managing not to, please, I guess.

I went back, both times, full time the first time, and dropped 3 hours the second time. I actually found the second time harder, maybe because after 12 months of maternity leave I was leaving them both, rather than just a one year old, also I found returning to work a lot harder second time round - the attitude seemed different, I was (and still am) seen as part time, even though I've only dropped three hours, because I leave at 1.45pm two days a week and leave early the other days, even though I'm in ridiculously early - out of sight out of mind.

Three days a week sounds good, so long as she doesn't end up doing more than three days of work a week... Was she part-time before, or is that new? Can you afford a cleaner? that made a HUGE difference to everyone when we finally got one, not arguing/brooding over who was going to hoover etc.was massive.

I think the shock of going back after I had Aidan was what made me more attachment based with Molly, compensating for the time in childcare, if that makes sense?

Part-time is new; she was full-time before this.

We're investigating a cleaner now, actually!

Hey, good to hear you guys are doing ok. Did N's sleep improve?
I'm not going back for another few weeks, and I have really mixed feelings about it. Baby still has quite bad random bouts of stranger anxiety.
I'll be going back 3 days/week after being full-time until now. It's a job-share, so that'll be interesting. I think one of the weirdest things for me is that my OH will be dropping off the baby at nursery, rather than me, and I feel like I'm the 'expert' atm, OH has only had the baby on his own for one day so far.

I have already started with a cleaner! But tbh it's slightly a pain in the arse while I'm at home, trying to work out where to be. But lovely to have a clean house and will be awesome when they'll just come in while I'm at work.
My OH has also had similar thoughts of downsizing but it's not at all realistic for us.

H took a year off the first time around and had a really hard time with it. For the first year after that K split time between a nanny and her grandmother, and then the year after that she did preschool. H is a teacher so she can pick up K. H is planning to take a minimum of a little over a year this time, but if we can financially swing it we may do longer.

I do strongly recommend a cleaner, laundry service, or whatever household help you can swing. In re "where to be" ours comes on Saturday every other week and we just use the time for family outings.

I've also heard it said that the quality of the time you spend with kids is more important than the quantity. Make rules for yourself about being completely present during certain times, e.g. put away the smart phone from home through bed other than for urgent uses.

I went back to work after the barbaric US standard of three months of unpaid leave and it was pretty devastating. I didn't and don't particularly want to be a stay at home mom, but three months was not enough. I was able to go back part-ish time, and to only take Ivy to day care three days/week and work the other two days with her strapped to my chest for another month or so. Then she started going to daycare four days per week and I tried to fit all of my work into four days and take Fridays off, but ended up getting in trouble at work for not having my head in the game, so she started five days and has been going five days since.

My employer was right - my head wasn't in the game. I was exhausted and missed my baby and resentful. I'm still resentful, even though Ivy and I are both happy that she's in daycare full time now. I wish I could leave work early to get her because I hate that we barely have two hours together in the evenings before she goes to bed but god forbid I not work as much as humanly possible.

That's not very helpful, I would imagine, but the truth is that it can be really fucking hard and I'm still really tired all the time.

Oh, it was definitely easier after Ivy weened and I didn't have to pump any more.

i'm also slightly doubting my decision to choose nursery over childminder as it'll be so much bigger and less like a home environment. I mean it looks awesome, loads to do, but if he's showing signs of shyness already I hope it won't be overwhelming at the age of 1. How the hell are you meant to decide these things :/ (here you have to sign up to nursery like months in advance and some even have waiting lists of 18 months)

xp yeah 3 months is crazy, you have my sympathy. I think any time after 6 months I could have just about dealt with but before that, ugh.
My baby has self-weaned around 10 months, much to my kind of dismay

I think daycare/nursery really helped Ivy turn into a very outgoing kid, and since she is and will be an only child, it's giving her a lot of life skills as far as sharing and interacting with other kids. We almost got a nanny early on because getting her to daycare was such a massive undertaking but I'm glad we were too tired/busy to every follow through. Plus she loves her teachers and will randomly mention them by name now and then.

Oh, race issue update: after not talking about it for a couple weeks, K asked me "Will it hurt feelings if I say I am a French girl?"

YES YES IT WILL

I didn't make a big deal of it, just a 30-minute lecture on the historical context of racism against Chinese immigrants, and concepts relating to whiteness, power and privilege, and a few assigned readings after. I think it went well.

"thank you father. i appreciate your willingness to teach me. namaste"

that link DJP posted is fucking chilling. this seems like the nut of it:

white parents "want to give their kids this sort of post-racial future when they're very young and they're under the wrong conclusion that their kids are colorblind. ... It's in the absence of messages of tolerance that they will naturally ... develop these skin preferences."

yeah I think that's right, it's just that I feel like she's not QUITE at the age where she can comprehend this stuff. I mean I think it's good for her to see and be around people of different races as much as possible and I think it's good to talk about the fact that people have different skin colors, features, etc., I just couldn't find a way to convey "don't make fun of the way other people look" when she doesn't even really understand what making fun of someone is.

But... she does seem to understand what making fun of someone is? Maybe I'm misunderstanding how you're presenting what she is saying.

What they say and what they actually understand at this age can be a big gulf. I think when she initially did "I am a Chinese girl" I don't think she comprehended the idea of imitating someone in a mean way, she just comprehended imitating, like being "a Chinese girl" wasn't distinct from pretending to be a character from TV or a family member or something. When I tried to convey that it could be hurtful it seemed to lead to a lot of misplaced shame that didn't accompany understanding, like she understood that she had done something bad without realizing it but didn't understand why. Again, I think what I'm saying will seem clearer when your kids get to the 3 age range.

So Henry seems be reaching the peak of his pushing mortality to the limits phase (please please let it be a phase). A couple of weeks ago he tripped over nothing, busting his lip open and knocking his two front teeth clear out. Yesterday, he rammed his wombat body full tilt through a window screen, bounced off a bush, then bounced off the side of the house before landing 10 feet below and scraping his foot up pretty good. I'm starting to freak out.

agh Sunny that sounds terrifying! I'm already worried about mine knocking out the few teeth he has!

my wife went back to work about a month after #1's birth, but we're both uni teachers so our schedules were super flexible. still, those days were hilarious.

well the dentist said his pacifier usage was fucking up his teeth so that finally convinced my wife to take 'em away cold turkey and that went about as well as could be expected.

time to man up and learn how to go to sleep, little dude

how old? I am dreading doing this. He only has it in his cot but that's going to be bad enough.

approaching 3

We told the boys that we were "giving the pacifiers to babies who need them," and they were cool with it.

that's what we did, we put them all in an envelope, let him put it in the mailbox (sorry US postal service)

he was cool with it at the time. Less so upon going to bed.

like she understood that she had done something bad without realizing it but didn't understand why.

tbf this is what adults feel when they get called out on unthinking racism too

not saying your daughter is racist btw!! just that these little memes and received wisdoms can creep in from all angles and we rarely know how they got there or why - it is a confusing feeling

I have clear memories of a few times as a kid where my parents explained/scolded me on some social fauxpas or other and I remember not even remotely understanding WHY what I did was wrong, and no one ever really explaining it in a way I could comprehend.

^ heh, that happens now except it's one of my parents who's not quite getting it.

"OK, so you're telling me that Chinamen don't live in the Orient. How am I being racist then."

oh man my parents live in that can of worms, ugh

Keren today asked me if I "Daven to Hashem" (pray to god, basically, but in a formal, ritualistic way). Really getting sick of this Jewish preschool thing.

Haha well u kinda asked for it no?

yeah but idk I went to a preschool run by a conservative synagogue and it was not quite to this degree

Did N's sleep improve? Pah! She is still rubbish, by and large. We've had some improvements but she's wildly inconsistent. Last night was a good night, and she slept from 8pm to 2am, woke at 4am, and then 6am, when we brought her in with us. Last week, when Em went back to work, it was every two hours from 10pm, mostly. The week or so before that had been poor too as she'd had a cold; prior to that, we'd had a few occasions where she'd only woken twice.

Currently using 'The little rabbit who wanted to fall asleep' to try and neuro-linguistic programme her to sleep; semi-successful so far, though last night I got all the way to the end and she was laughing at me so Em then had to read it to her again from the start.

Last week we pretty-much co-slept, actually, by the end of the week. Path of least resistance.

The US maternity set-up is just insane. I can't comprehend it.

Also Nora has no teef yet, at all, and no sign of them. Em took her to a dentist (when she had an appointment, not especially!) and they said N would be at least a year. Crazy! All her baby contemporaries have teef.

God, that sounds hard. Literally the only thing that has helped me feel 'normal' and vaguely sane again has been his sleeping getting more consistent (sorry, no bragging). Nursery seems to be a massive upheaval with my friends' kids too, what with viruses and general unsettledness. I'm assured it gets easier once they settle in, although also told it can take at least a month.

xp at least a year old? Mine has 6 teeth and I'm sure the next 2 have been moving around in there for 2 months on and off. I'm glad the first ones are out of the way but I guess one good thing is that when they're older you can tell more easily that something's up, with mine he was kind of temperamental generally when really little so I had no idea what was going on.

Turns out that after a course of antibiotics a mild nappy rash can turn into the most unbelievably painful-looking thrush virtually overnight. Poor little guy was totally miserable at 3am.

Slathering on the canestan helped quite quickly, incredibly glad we had a tube handy.

I know for a fact I would have cried all day and lost my mind a little bit if I'd gone back to full time work 3 months after giving birth. The word "barbaric"is not hyperbole re: US maternity leave. It's not only anti-woman but anti-health! Ah I know these things have been said many times before - I just have to register my outrage again...

I think I could've gone back to work full time around 9 months, but still would've felt not quite right. Now that Alden's a year old it feels different though. He started daycare at 11.5 months old, so about a month and a half ago, and it's AMAZING. They do a slow integration there, where I went with him for a week for a couple of hours a day (so weirdly exhausting though!) and then he went by himself for a hour or two at a time with that time increasing over a week and then half days for a few days and then pretty much 9-4 every day - and he loves it. (He still nurses when he wakes up and before bed, and sometimes after daycare.) I miss him by afternoon but know he's having a good time playing and eating and napping etc. I think if I had a job i didn't like (which is most jobs to me haha, prob why I'm freelance) I might feel differently, but mostly I feel a modicum of freedom that has really helped clear the postpartum cobwebs from my head.

My wife took 9 months off from work, attempted to negotiate a part-time schedule for 6 months while working full-time, then flipped her boss the double-bird and quit to be a stay-at-home mother. One really nice side-effect of this is that she has been able to take the boys on extended trips to her parents'/sister's houses that would not have been possible had she been working. The down side is that we lost half our income and doubled the size of our family so we've effectively lost the ability to save money. I had joked about getting the boys modeling gigs when they were infants but am now about to broach it again with a full execution plan because I see no way for us to be able to move into a bigger place, do the upkeep we need on our current place in order to sell it, pay off our existing debts and save for both retirement and the boys' education costs (which might start as soon as 3 years from now) without increasing our income stream somehow and I really, really like the idea of the boys doing things now to give themselves seed money that can pay for higher education later.

We've vaguely thought about modelling N, mainly prompted by a friend who constantly goes on about how she could be a model (her own daughter has done some modelling), but we have no idea how to go about it.

God, the ability to save money would be nice.

Cecil had a stretch of sleeping fully 12 - 13 hours every night without waking up, then went to a week of waking up 3 or 4 times a night and throwing fits for 45 minutes before falling back asleep. We realized he had a low-grade ear infection and some teeth coming in and once the antibiotics were done and the top teeth finally poked through (five months after his bottom ones) he's back to waking up once, eating, and immediately falling back asleep. Which is pretty great all things considered.

I'm still amazed at how fast he changes, how much he can do now, how he's turned from an animal to a human and can communicate and all that. He points at trees now and says "truh", says "uh-oh" at times where it actually sort of makes sense, signals for milk or food and tells us when he's done, is much more open to other people now (thanks to being in daycare), is almost walking, and is just constantly yelling and babbling and furrowing his brow and crawling over excitedly to see me when I get home or pick him up at daycare. It's so great.

Have I mentioned that J is obsessed with animals? When we took them to the apple farm, every animal he saw got a delighted "OOOOOOOOOOOH!" followed by machine-gun giggles. He also tried to touch everything, including some loose geese; we obv didn't let that happen.

D was kind of over it but enjoyed being carried around.

N is obsessed with our two cats. Luckily they are the most placid, cuddly cats in the world, or she'd have been shredded months ago. She has, at least, stopped shrieking when she sees them.

there is some photo studio down the street from us that has open casting calls on the weekends and I'll just say that the gaggle of parents that haul their babies/toddlers to those things are p blech

cool story

I think I could've gone back to work full time around 9 months, but still would've felt not quite right. Now that Alden's a year old it feels different though. He started daycare at 11.5 months old, so about a month and a half ago, and it's AMAZING.

I'm so glad you said that! At 9 months my friends were beginning to start going back, and I was like 'no way nooooo what about when he wants his mummy and I'M NOT THERE waaah'. He would have started at 11.5 months but I've actually pushed it back so it's just after his first birthday, (!) so psychologically that seems way better, and already in the past few weeks I've seen how much he enjoys being independent (crawling around etc) and getting bored here, so in loads of ways it'll be brilliant for both of us.

our ideal situation at this age would be me and OH both being part-time with maybe a couple of afternoons somewhere like nursery, but that won't happen either. I love weekends so much when we're both around.

and yeah, the communicating! I find it amazing. He obviously can't say anything but he understand so many words and tries to tell me what he wants in his own funny little way.

When we put the boys into daycare at 9 months, they didn't care one little bit; there was no crying or concern that we were leaving them somewhere. We've scaled back to one day a week when my wife left work in July (primarily so she has the opportunity to do other stuff she wants/needs to do without going insane) and they've only just started showing some separation anxiety in the past month.

IMO the best thing is to do some legwork/research and find a place you really feel good about, even if it means a little more money or taking them a little further. The peace of mind you get will be worth it.

"loose geese"

i just like those two words together - "loose geese"

What if I wanted to rent just one of those birds?

ugh, school problems.... S is in first grade, is generally ahead of the curve w/ academic stuff BUT is having trouble socially. she hasn't really bonded with any of the kids in her class except one of them, and today that kid's mom told us that S is being "smothering." she's always been more the type to focus on one friend, rather than be a part of a group. not sure exactly how to deal w/ it. typing it out, it doesn't sound like that big a deal, i guess. but sort of stressful! i don't know, first grade has been kind of a bummer so far.

That is totally a big deal. What are you supposed to do? Tell S not to talk to her friend so much? Did it sound like the request came from the kid or the parent? Beatrice is the same with focusing on one person instead of a group.

I was very much like that as a kid. For most of my childhood, I'd have one friend per year. Interesting phenomenon. Seems strange for the other parent to bring it up instead of just letting the kids work it out on their own and develop their own senses of boundaries.

i think this particular friend is having adjustment issues of her own, so I don't really blame the mom for bringing it up. i think we just need to tell Sylvie to try to mix it up a little with some other kids.

K has a tendency to kind of be in her own world at preschool, we've heard.

She also has some issues asserting herself. The other day the teacher let us know that she was happy that K had told another girl not to tell her what to do. We told K we were proud of her, and she got weirdly ashamed and ran into the other room. Again, 3-yr-old psychology is so weird.

My wife and I don't want our kid (11) to play pickup games of tackle football in the neighborhood. To me, this seems like a lofty ideal and our dreams are bound to be shattered. "Sounds great on paper - it just doesn't work in reality!" When all (and I mean all) the other neighborhood kids are playing tackle football, do we just give up and feed our kid into the maw? We don't even let him play organized football, with pads and stuff, because we know enough other kids who have had concussions, etc. Are we over-reacting?

i'd bet any amount of money that pickup football with no pads is miles safer than organized football with helmets etc

You think? I was a non-sports kid. I rode bikes. I got no idea about this football stuff or my strange quasi-jock child.

the danger of organized football is almost certainly greater -- (1) organized football players are bigger, stronger, faster, and trained to hit very hard (2) the helmet itself causes risk of injury to the tackled person (3) the pads and helmets plus the stress/competitiveness/training will also encourage kids to hit much harder than they would in a pick-up game.

You could think of it a little like the difference between 11 year old kids in a playground fistfight and pro boxers in the ring.

into the maw he goes

I read a study a couple of years back that claimed high school football is the most dangerous sport in america

So I recently introduced my baby to the swings in the park and it's his absolute favourite thing (apart from swimming but way easier to take him to) and now it's pissing down with rain every single miserable day

Nora loves a swing!

20 steps last night!

I was reaching out my hands to her and she was trying to get them, but I kept moving backwards until she'd gone practically the length of the livingroom. Exciting!

woo! on the move. this is when things get really exciting.

ps, hide/bolt down/remove everything you don't want thrown or eaten

^^^

http://www.kidsafeinc.com/xtra-guard-dual-action-multi-use-safety-latches-2-pack/

We have these on every drawer and cabinet in our house.

Yeah highly recommend safety latches and burner knob covers.

Of course she knows how they work but she lacks the finger strength to push the buttons at the same time.

Yeah, we have one of those on the oven, plus burner knob covers, a toilet lock, those things you put on top of a door to keep the door from closing on tiny fingers, a different kind of cabinet lock on the TV cabinet (which she nearly tore off the other day because she thought the DVD cases were books, so she's pulling on the lock with all of her weight screaming "ABCs!!!! ABCs!!!!") and nothing that we care about 40 inches or less from the ground.

We keep the bathroom door closed, but have duct tape over the inside knob lock in case we forget to close the door because she loves to run into the bathroom and close the door (and then shout "KNOCK KNOCK" from inside).

We're trying to figure out what to do about our nice, high pile shag rugs now (they disguise little tiny coins and beads and parts REALLY well). We're thinking just cover with some playmats and vacuum frequently.

We put padding on our TV stand to protect the boys from its sharper edges. It lasted all of 36 hours before it was all pulled off and chewed upon.

Of course, the reality is, whatever childproofing you have or don't have, NEVER TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THEM, so the childproofing stuff is secondary backup.

I do think the padding around the sharp edges/corners of our coffee table was worth it though, K has run into it a lot of times.

also get some kind of playpen and/or gated area that you can leave them in for rare times that you do have to take your eyes off.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the corner bumpers and the TV strap - http://www.diapers.com/p/kidco-anti-tip-tv-strap-black-2-ct-25138?noappbanner=true&utm_source=Diapers_SG&utm_medium=PDP_SG&utm_campaign=di-sg-to-mobile&utm_term=tv%20child%20safety%20strap

If you don't do anything else, lock the cabinets with poison in them and secure your TV to the wall with one of those TV straps.

Yeah those tv straps are gold. We have a newish tv in a spare bedroom that we havent strapped down and i watched it almost topple over the other day.

We wanted to mount the TV anyway so we just went ahead and did it once the boys (really D) chewed all the padding off of the TV stand

We also inherited a giant play yard from friends that has been a GODSEND, also we got one of these which has been a portable GODSEND: http://www.summerinfant.com/popnplayportableplayard

my wife and kids are currently at my in-laws' house in OH where the kids have:

- received new All-Stars
- learned how to say "crab cake"

we already have to watch everything J does as he can crawl like lightning. We have one room we set up as pretty 'safe' for him to be in if I need to go downstairs (plus we have a playpen next to the kitchen which I could not live without). Anyway he was in the safe room (oh yeah, we now have nowhere to hang laundry on racks) and I thought I'd closed the door well enough to keep him contained but lo and behold about 10 seconds later I checked on him and he'd escaped to the bathroom and had his hands in the toilet OF COURSE

- received new All-Stars

YESSSSSS

- learned how to say "crab cake"

YYYYYESSSSSSSSSS

I have more or less mastered the classic dad move of napping through kids' movies.
I am also bizarrely proud of this milestone!

Crucial skill imo

Dont ask me what happens in those harry potter movies all i remember is ian brown cameo

ohio crab cakes?

To hear my mother tell it, she once took her eyes off my then-a-toddler little sister for five minutes and the next thing she knew the kid had scaled the antique upright grand piano using the music rack and wooden carvings as footholds, pushed all the piles of sheet music onto the floor 5 feet below, and was wailing because now she's bored and wants down.

I of course never did anything of the sort.

Ok, you guys know the one about stepping on a lego (or any other toy really) in the dark? This morning I was blithely bounding down the steps, ready to greet the new day, when I came down hard on the edge of a rolled up slap bracelet.

http://www.partypalooza.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/HalloweenSlapBracelet.jpg

You guys remember slap bracelets? Flexible stainless steel covered by a thin plastic sheath. Last seen in the wild circa 1989, getting confiscated in class by my fifth grade teacher. Well, those are back apparently. It was like stomping on a cookie cutter.

yow

:(

shit ow ow ow ow