ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

Awwww congratulations!!!! He is soooooooo adorable!!!!

Anyone else on here living in a 1BR with a kid (I'm guessing not unless there are other NYC ILPers)?

we live in a small 2-bedroom - 2 bedrooms but no dining room/den/much in the way of hallways.

our downstairs neighbors live w 2 kids in a 1BR! they fold out the couch every night to sleep. it's not ideal obviously but the rent is reallly cheap (relatively) and they've gotten pretty used to it.

circumcision successful!

mom says it looks "horrifying"

fyi

I live in Texas so the smallest housing available is 1000000 sq ft with 42BR

(3BR/2bath townhome tbrr)

we spent a couple of months with THREE kids in a one bedroom (in Paris)

among those was a 10 month old

it worked out!

lived in a one bedroom with wife & kid for a couple years,my brother-in-law has been in those circumstances in nyc for about 8 years

Yeah K is 11 months now and a 2BR opened in our building but we don't like it that much and we're trying to save money. Debating whether we can make it to approximately 2.5 yrs with her in the room.

We have lived in a motel room for several months with baby and an efficiency. We got lucky and found a clean, newly remodeled duplex just as August started to walk. It is 690 sqft. Wondering how we'll manage once we leave this place for the next job. I just want clean, no mold, no carpeting, no 40 years of grime.

Debating whether we can make it to approximately 2.5 yrs with her in the room.

to each his own but i don't even want to think about how my relationship wd suffer without being able to be alone w/my wife

2nd kid got kicked out of our room at 3 months

Our kids stay in our bedroom a lot. Our 8-year-old has his own room, and we encourage him to sleep in there as much as possible, but sometimes if he falls asleep watching tv in our room, we'll just leave him there (he's getting too heavy to carry). He had gotten into the habit of sleeping in the same bed with his mother when she was single, before I came along.

Our two-year-old had problems with sleep apnea when she was younger, so we definitely keep her close. Our house is pretty small and the room that we have designated as her "bedroom" isn't really a room at all, more like a hallway. Not sure what we'll do about that when she gets bigger.

If my wife and I need time together, we'll mosey on down to the living room or whatever. I like having my family close to me when I
sleep though. It's cosey.

we've never consistently slept with our kids (lol at that wording obv). even in the 1br we put all three kids on the sofa bed each night

to each his own but i don't even want to think about how my relationship wd suffer without being able to be alone w/my wife

^^^this

Yeah, that's definitely an issue. I think we decided we will ultimately look for a two bedroom before then but that we don't really like the 2BR that opened up (second BR is tiny with no closets, weird layout where kitchen isn't directly adjacent to dining area, windows are 90 degree angle to neighbor's windows a few feet away, etc.), so we may just move again in August.

I like having my family close to me when I sleep though. It's cosey.
^^^so awesome waking up in the middle of the night to find both babbies curled up in between pp and i. best sleep those nights unless one of those babbies starts kicking me in their sleep then its the worst sleep and not awesome at all.

evie's been getting in our bed almost every night and it is not cozy, she likes to jam her head right against mine or sarah's and then yell "move over! i need SPACE!"

at which point i go sleep on the couch

something about children's feet and their angle of repose means they connect unfailingly with my balls when in the same bed

K's feet are like balls homing missiles it's amazing

lol
man, i can't imagine co-sleeping, like, ever (though i'm sure the coziness is nice at times). maybe if we had a huge bed, but ours is pretty small.

yeah we don't, but it happens pretty much every time we bring her onto the bed to chill with us

we're still co-sleeping with Molly at 19 months. I'm happy with it, Chris less so I think, but the thought of trying to get her out right now sends cold shivers down both our spines so it's fine for now. Aidan went into his own room at 8 months but I was still going through to feed him in the night at 14 months which was hard work, and he was still coming into our bed in the middle of the night when he was three

something about children's feet and their angle of repose means they connect unfailingly with my balls when in the same bed
K's feet are like balls homing missiles it's amazing

Damn straight.

I got woken up by a sick punch to the face once.

I've had it all - shoulders on my skull, elbows in the throat, the usual relentless attack on the gonads, trying to sleep in a four-inch strip at the edge of the bed, being deprived of duvet, pillows, etc. Marvellous.

trying to sleep in a four-inch strip at the edge of the bed,
haha YES

yeah, we've got a superking but I still end up with just a strip at the edge! God help us on the rare occasions when Aidan's come into bed too, he ends up sleeping horizontal and kicks us in the head or just knees us in the kidneys

lol yeah (kinda there at the moment - altho new babby has taken to his bassinet much quicker than I remember old babby doing). with any luck this guy will be in his own room at 6 mos or so like his big sister was.

We can't for a king through our bedroom door. I'm stuck with a queen size.

and yeah my daughter will NOT share a bed with any of us - instant pushing/shoving/headkicking ensues

xp

which is fine with me! that's why we bought you your own bed sweetie

on top of this we now have a cat that thinks the height of late night fun is to walk back and forth on top of our heads for a good 15-20 minutes at a time

oh and if I didn't mention it before shakey and m bison yr babies are truely beautiful

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/good-night-and-tough-luck/

Sideways child and child on top of blanket drawings are dead on.

A little "you have no clue" parenting annecdote --

Our upstairs neighbor has a penchant for rolling a large ball to her dog in her living room and bedroom until pretty late in the evening, and it makes a lot of noise. At some point we realized that this was waking K up, so I went upstairs, and very timidly (I really hate these kinds of confrontations) pointed out the issue and that we have a baby who is trying to sleep.

The woman, who it turned out was pregnant, launched into this tirade about how she works long hours and its her only time to play with the dog and by the way, she KNOWS we have a baby, because she hears it crying in the middle of the night. And I'm like "Oh, um, well, yes, uh, that's true"

But then she says "So I guess you guys are SLEEP TRAINING HER huh" in this moralizing tone -- now, we did "sleep train" K, but that was several months ago. I realized that this person who is about to have a baby literally has no idea that babies STILL WAKE UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND CRY SOMETIMES NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO OR DON'T DO. It's like the woman who told me, when K was crying in the stroller in the post office "why don't you pick her up?" apparently not realizing that I had just been holding her for the last few minutes and she was crying the whole time anyway. But I guess I was equally ignorant back then.

Like, sometimes they need their nap and you are not in their napping place. Sometimes they have teeth come in. Sometimes they just freak out because of a noise. I think we all fall victim to the idea, before becoming parents, that if we parent right, kids will not cry, and that crying means we've done something wrong.

unsolicited parental advice is so awesome

"thank you for informing that my baby appears to be unhappy" etc

she likes to jam her head right against mine or sarah's and then yell "move over! i need SPACE!"

Same here, except it's me saying this.

It's great though. We've got this deal where if Beeps is in her own bed in the morning, I go in and softly say, "beeps.... beeps. It's morning time." And then I leave the room and let her sleep in another 15 mins.

But when she's in my bed in the morning, it's no holds barred. Tickling, jabbing, clapping my hands so the sound echoes off the walls, mimicking spiders crawling across her as I yell WAKE UP.

She's been staying in her bed much more lately.

irl lols

Today K stuck her thumb in my eye. I was able to close it in time, but it was apparently just a ploy to distract me so she could rip out a small piece of the inside of my nose. I bled and she thought it was hilarious. Babies are fucked up.

That reminds me of the time I woke up next to my baby and her finger was up my nose.

yeah she almost clawed my eye out once in the dark too but that was when she was younger and more spazzy

pp you are WILY. I'm a little afraid tbh.

August has wrecked my face before with her razor sharp baby nails. I have trimmed them, even filed them until smooth but they sharpen up within hours. My chest is covered with tiny, little weird scars all the time. They heal but she makes new ones. I look like I have been clawed by rats.

parents who are trolls