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

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.