ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

Another great article on over-protective parenting. Any UK folks have anything like "The Land" near them? I'd love one of those places here, but I'm picturing a ridiculous waiver that I'd have to sign in order to let my kids play there...

Hurting, are you the parent who was trying to put K in her own room and shut the door and be super quiet to try to get her to sleep and it turned out what was bothering was your absence and it helped to have the door open and be able to hear you? That's always seemed like kind of a profound moment to me. Pre-verbal humans are a mystery.

I was kind of biased from the outset because it was written by Hannah Rosin, but I didn't think that article was so great. The Etan Patz thing is a total strawman -- there are lots of things short of ABDUCTION BY STRANGER that you might want to protect your child from in a large city.

Re that article: tl; sounds like growing up in the country.

schwantz, no (we used to have a 'dump' we played in, with a rusted old car), but google Playing Out to see something vaguely similar (you could start one yourself!). Admittedly nowhere near as cool as 'the land' sounds...

L, I think that was me. But it is the nature of human development that children continually confound you as they grow, such that every time you think you have "solved" them, something new arises. It's no longer acceptable for her to just hear us, we have to actually be there. In fact, even if I stay until she falls asleep and then leave, she gets EXTREMELY mad that I'm not there if she wakes up again.

I'm all for letting kids do all sorts of crazy shit by themselves, but I certainly do not trust drivers in this city not to hit them. I almost get hit on a daily basis, I wouldn't want to put a smaller, less aware human up against them.

Tracer...She seems independent enough in many ways but when it comes to sleeping and napping she becomes a baby-baby again and cries until nursing commences then drifts off. We have watched her wake up in the hopes that she will just put herself back to sleep. Instead she just becomes more and more awake if she doesn't see me then cries, nurses, back to sleep in seconds. I escape, it happens again and again until I just stay in bed. I have many projects I'd love to get too at night but I pretty much sleep when she does.

I'm remembering my childhood, where I just rode my bike all over town with my friends and no parental supervision, and wishing my kids could have some of that. I plan on letting them walk over to the park near my house by themselves pretty soon, I think.

Yeah I have projects I want to get to too. Like eating dinner. It's 9:20 and I'm still on the floor of k's room, haven't eaten yet.

Tera that sounds rough. At what age do you plan to stop feeding at night? August is waking up because he's used to waking up to feed, but he's also old enough that he can go the whole night without feeding. The problem is that you have to make the painful transition at some point.

sorry I feel like both those posts came off wrong, probably because I was hungry and lying on a floor in a dark room

(August is a she)

I just spent a stupid amount of time on a marketing survey, seduced by the promise of free diapers. Stupid free diaper promise.

anya yall use cloth diapers? cool thing: once they're bought, theyre bought. not cool thing: WASHING THEM PISSY DIAPERS

Xp oh ok I thought August was a she to begin with but then I had this weird vague memory where I thought I saw a pic with a boy. I think it must have been another ilper

Btw back on the floor again, although tonight she fell back asleep much faster. I think her cold made things much worse.

No cloth diapers. I thought about it. Wanted to want to do it really badly. Ultimately decided it would just be too much extra work. Sorry environment. :(

I'm 10000% OK with disposables.

i am too, but it has saved us some money tbh. esp if/when we have child #2

I wish I could go back and do cloth diapers. I've definitely spent a couple thousand on the disposable ones. Can't wait to get her potty trained.

we do cloth diapers. we've never looked back, they are awesome, and will save us shit loads of money.

washing them isn't a huge deal imo. it helps though that we have our own washer and dryer in the basement, we live in a two-family home but we don't have to share the machines. i don't think we'd do cloth diapers if we had to go to a laundrymat, or even if we had to use a coin-operated machine in an apartment building. we'd either use disposables or a cloth diaper laundry service.

i love thinking too that for any additional kids we might have, we already have all the diapers we'll need

We do disposables. I think we spend like $40-50/mo on them via Amazon?

As far as the environmental aspect, I justified it to myself by thinking that probably all the washing with cloth uses a lot of water and electricity. I don't know whether anyone has actually done a good analysis of which is "worse" for the environment.

From what I read, it comes out about even. But really, hard to tell with such things. Do what you want!

a lot of comes down to what water level and temperature you use, dryer temperature or whether you are air-drying them. i also just felt weird about creating all that trash, and in any case the money aspect is no brainer

type of detergent matters too, biodegradable detergents are obviously better

Get a bucket and a washboard. Air dry.

And use the poop water to fertilize your organic garden.

lol "poop water"

fuck this doomed earth, dont wanna pay for diapers no more

i do an extra rinse cycle on cold first then a long hot water wash cycle after and then let the machine dry it because rly, my energy and water bill aint that hit

Welp, last night things were just getting more and more out of hand and we finally did the ferber thing again. I have this thing I came up with about "crying" vs "whining" -- where "crying" is "I am upset beyond my ability to regulate my emotions" and "whining" is "I am just going to make this crying-like noise until I get the result I want." It's not a perfect dichotomy, but point being, at some point last night I realized "K is not really crying right now, she's just whining until (she thinks) we will give in and take her to our bed." We have already made the decision that she's not sleeping in our bed, that that is not going to work for us. So by around 1am I just decided that we had to do the interval thing with her -- coming in every x y or z minutes to tell her "K I love you but you are going to sleep in your crib and we're going to sleep in our bed." etc. Tonight went a little smoother (I think) as a result. I stayed in the room with her for a while but when she wasn't quite asleep I said "I'm going to go now sweetie, goodnight." And she was fine.

that's great. we had really great success w/ ferber. last night + tnite we had big breakthrough - both girls are now sleeping in the same room!!! our room is baby-free once more!

Maybe we should consider Ferber. I am still of the faith that at completing 24 months August will unlatch for good and want her own space. She is slowly changing the habit. It is slow though. It's easy to get her interested in something else or a solid snack during the day. I manage to sleep through feedings some nights. I use to sleep through nursing every night but that hasn't been the case for a year.

I love using cloth diapers, but I also use disposables, alternate depending on the collective mood around here. We've been without a washer and dryer in a few places for a short time and had to use disposables. Has anyone tried Elimination Communication? It sounds crazy to me.

Potty training, goodbye nursing, own bed...we have a lot to do.

Grrr, we just got told off by a woman in the street in Brixton for not having a hat on Fox. He was in the sling and boiling hot in the sunshine, not that we need to justify our hat decisions to some interfering randomer.

Some people think babies need hats 100% of the time.

I got scolded by an elderly grandmother for having Ivy out in the chilly wind last weekend. TBF Ivy was not enjoying the cold shade at the bus stop but it's not like I wasn't aware of that what with the crying.

"Aren't you too old to be out in this anyway? STFU"

Yeah I'd probably say that.

My second is 2.5 and shows absolutely zero interest in the potty/toilet :/

And I have zero interest in doing anything about it, so :D

U and me both tracer.

my oldest took to the toilet by about 2.5 but we were still wiping ass at 4, uggh. mighta preferred diapers to that. will be good fodder for prospective partners in the future

Legend has it that I potty trained myself when I was about 2 by going into the bathroom with my grandfather and reading books on the potty chair while he read books on the throne. Hoping Ivy is similarly inclined, although I think my stepdad would rather die of a ruptured colon than have company in the bathroom while pooping.

Mine is three and a half and we try to put her on her little potty chair as often as we can, but sometimes she actively resists and is completely averse to pooping on the potty. Today my wife realized "oh, you're half as tall as me and we can have in-depth conversations. I really shouldn't have to deal with your poop!"

Some people think babies need hats 100% of the time.

I got scolded by an elderly grandmother for having Ivy out in the chilly wind last weekend. TBF Ivy was not enjoying the cold shade at the bus stop but it's not like I wasn't aware of that what with the crying.

― carl agatha, Saturday, March 22, 2014 12:18 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

We had an old Russian lady scold us for not having a scarf on Keren recently. But the thing is she was wearing one of those super warm, cover-everything down parkas with a down hood and everything, and her neck was completely covered. Sorry, wrapping a little scarf around that does not actually add any warmth.

I know people who think you shouldn't put scarves on babies and young children.

jeez louise, fucking ppl & their ~opinions~ on other ppl's babies... you all deserve medals for not punching everyone in the face

Never got scolded by anyone in public. Guess I was just the perfect parent, no other explanation.

obv