ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

I don't think we know exactly what is in store for us. I read the books but it is all theoretical. I do not know what it will be like at all, I haven't a clue what the impact of this tiny person will be on our lives. It is overwhelming and I go back and forth between wanting another six months and just wanting her to be here already. It changes minute to minute.

god i am so dumb when it comes to car seats, even 2 1/2 years later.
and yeah, tera/jacob, in my experience, no matter how much planning/reading/thinking you do, it's impossible to imagine how you'll feel about this little kid before he/she pops out. at least for me, it was pretty abstract until the actual birth. but you'll love him/her, don't worry.

btw y'all i'm a dad now. her name is keren

― simulation and similac (Hurting 2), Monday, February 20, 2012 9:43 PM (3 days ago)

sometimes it's abstract for a while after birth too, don't necessarily expect things to click on day one but they will eventually

sometimes it's abstract for a while after birth too, don't necessarily expect things to click on day one by the time they're five, but they will eventually

Normally, we are a happy little family, but our daily biggest argument occurs every morning regarding who gets to press the button that opens the garage door.

lol. tbh i remember being suuuuper jealous of friends who had automatic garage door openers.

I was jealous of people who had garages!

We had "carports".

We have what is classified on assessment documents as a "lean-to". This is what happens when you buy a home from someone who essentially built it themselves. You have to throw a bolt to open it.

Braved the elements today and went to our first Williamsburg parent meetup. The whole thing is kind of surreal -- like being in a parallel universe Williamsburg. One woman told us how we should look into something called a "Tibetan Nanny," saying it like it was a brand of childcare rather than a nationality and occupation. (fwiw H is staying home for now anyway).

I find the proportion of parents I know with nannies kind of unsettling. I didn't know anyone - ANYONE - that had a nanny growing up. I dunno what this says about our economy (everyone has to work and nobody can afford to stay home and raise their kids?)

When I lived in Austin and was on my neighborhood list I was surprised at how many households employed full time live-in nannies. I was pretty shocked, actually. This was not exactly a posh area and I always thought those were the households that had nannies (Nanny Fine). The area had a ton of daycare centers, nurseries and Montessori schools.

What do nannies do exactly? Because a majority of my neighbors worked at home or were stay at home mothers so I just didn't understand the need for live-in nannies as opposed to an hourly caretaker. Then again, I didn't have facts or stats, just judging from posts on the hood list.

I don't think all these people are necessarily talking about live-in nannies so much as daytime nannies. But the nanny basically plays mom while mom is at work.

I get daytime nannies.

Still, we decided that (1) having mom at home was way more important than money, and (2) the additional money left over from her salary after paying for expensive daycare probably wouldn't make it worth while anyway. I do understand that it's pretty hard to make it in NYC on one income, even a good one, but at the same time I think there's a certain amount of attachment to lifestyle, to living in the right neighborhood, etc.

So does anyone have any thoughts on sleep/feeding/diaper routines in the newborn days? I feel like we're running to some problems. Typical patterns go like this:

Variation 1: Keren falls asleep on dad - dad eventually decides to put her down in the cosleeper so he doesn't roll over on her - Keren immediately starts to wake up and asks for food

Variation 2: Keren feeds - Keren falls asleep next to mom - Keren poops - diaper change gets Keren extremely upset - Keren wants to immediately feed again, possibly because she's upset - Keren poops again - Keren gets changed again - Keren is awake

Variation 3: Keren feeds - Dad puts down Keren in crib - Keren wants to feed again - Keren feeds - Dad puts down Keren in crib - Keren wants to feed again - Keren feeds - Keren falls asleep on mom - now what?

i've no answers to feeding & pooping but i think i missed keren's nativity? anyway, congrats, hurtings <3

thanks!

Hurting:It is always a sacrifice to have a stay at home parent these days. It is the only way I'd have a child though. I worked at a daycare that operated under the guise of a Montessori school. There was very little about it that was really Montessori and all the children were unhappy. I just didn't like what I saw and it wasn't considered a bad place at all, had a waiting list, good ratings. Maybe I was too sensitive. I had a stay at home mom for six years and have so many lovely memories and that is what I want for my little girl.

What do nannies do exactly? Because a majority of my neighbors worked at home or were stay at home mothers so I just didn't understand the need for live-in nannies as opposed to an hourly caretaker.

live in nannies are practically free, as you're already giving them a place to live. so it's actually much cheaper than an hourly childminder (who can cost like $10 an hour). that said, you have to have a house big enough to have a spare bedroom (and probably second bathroom) and not mind the fact that they're living with you, both of which seem completely unimaginable to me.

Hurting, needing food all the time is just part of being a newborn. their bellies are like the size of walnuts. after a week or two you'll probably be able to differentiate between "i'm grumpy" and "i'm hungry" and "there is a massive fart bubble moving through my gastrointestinal system" and then you can start getting her used to the idea of not eating every time she cries. but for the first couple of weeks it's really feed on demand, i don't know if there's much you can do about it.

Yeah, our approach so far has mostly been to err on the side of feeding. Sometimes it seems like she just asks to eat so she can be on mommy, but even if so, nothing bad about that exactly.

having a really weird struggle getting the kid to say "please." she'll say "thank you," says "bless you" after someone sneezes, but won't say please, even though she knows the word. this is the usual discussion:
k: "cracker?"
p: "you want a cracker?"
k: "yeah."
p: "can you say please?"
k: "NO" (either goes back to what she was doing or starts getting mad that we won't just give her the cracker)
alternately, when we ask her if she can say please, she just says "yeah" but won't say please.
anyway, it's a relatively unimportant thing to turn into a big struggle so i think we're going to back off of it for a couple of weeks and then try again.

she also loves this terrible song, but it contributed nothing to her actually saying "please":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaZ26-noUEc

i'd say keep at the please and thank you thing -- our kid was similarly resistant for a while, but seems to have gotten it in the last couple weeks. now everything is "may i please have a snack, my daddy?" she sort of sounds like she's mocking me, but i'll take it, whatever.

yeah it's just weird how pissed off she gets when we try to get her to say it. i guess because it's just an arbitrary thing and so there's no logic to why we won't just give her what she wants? but we try to make a big deal out of praising her when she says it, which usually works.

p: "can you say please?"
k: "NO"

LOL

This is up there with the angry crib babbling for things that I am finding v. amusing that are probably not as amusing to you.

p: "can you say please?"
k: "NO"

reminds me of that Jimmy Fallon credit card commercial

I relish my status as asshole dad when this comes up.

BEEPS: I want some popcorn.
ME: Yeah? I want a beer.

*pause*

BEEPS: May I have some popcorn?
ME: … … ... Anything else you'd like to add to that?
BEEPS: PLEASE?
ME: Why certainly, my favorite daughter….

You're teaching her to be cunning and duplicitous, is that what you're trying to say? Kudos, that will serve her well in the coming apocalyptic future where street urchins rule the world.

pp, when you're ready to level up your asshole dad status, you can respond to statements like "I want some popcorn" the way my dad did: "People in hell want icewater." Or if he were feeling playful, "And if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his ass a'hoppin'."

it also reminds me of a great lesson a friend's mom gave me about being a parent: tell, don't ask

it's harder than it sounds - i always find myself going like, "ready for some dinner now?" and that opens the window juuuuust enough to get into a big negotiation. there is actually no option. dinner is happening now. there isn't another time to have it. so why do i ASK my own THREE YEAR OLD if it's OK with HIM to have dinner?? it is ridiculous. i think it comes from wanting to give him agency, or make him feel like he has a part in what's going on, but at this point..... he has plenty of agency. more than enough.

the other lesson she gave me was: say yes as much as you can

in ref: "can you say please?", i mean

i think with the please thing i was just a hard ass and was like "IF you say please THEN you can have the fucking cookie." it's like a computer program, almost! and if he refused he didn't get it. then if he cried i have to admit i sometimes thought to myself "good, it's working"

You are so mean. I am so mean too so I know what I'm talking about.

!!!

Coulda sworn he was teaching her to phrase her requests straightforwardly ("may I have" instead of "I want"), in a way that respects and acknowledges parental authority, and uses language standards of good etiquette. Duplicity, really?!

He's teaching her to butter him up, is what I think, in a knowing way! I'm not saying this a societal evil; just the opposite.

tell, don't ask -- yeah, i am constantly like "should we put our shoes on? do you want to go for a walk? will you take another bite?" which is just wrong and rarely gets the right response, but i can't stop! need to work on it.

I don't think I was ever asked to say please. It was always "what's the magic word?" followed by a cold, meaningful look. Of course, eventually we learned to respond by saying "abracadabra" in a really sarky way, but it took a good few years to reach that point.

Has anyone used one of those co-sleepers in their bed and if so which one? Pros/cons?

we got a cosleeper but the baby never really slept in it much, she usually ended up in bed with us. but it probably depends on the baby. the only real con aside from that was that i had a hell of a time getting it to stay flush with the bed, so there was often a little gap between the bed and the cosleeper, which made me a little nervous.

we went from having her sleep in our bed, to her sleeping in the co-sleeper next to our bed, to sleeping in her crib in her own room.

I think I am confused...what do you call a small, bed like item that can fit between to people in bed? We want one of those so she can sleep between us. Having a hard time picking one since parents say they get hot, don't fit in a queen size bed etc....

I don't know, but we used to have this thing that was like basically two wedges of foam rubber covered in white cloth and it created two little "walls" that kept the baby from rolling over (and more to the point, kept us from rolling on him). Though with baby #1 we didn't have anything and we never rolled over on him. I think it's highly unlikely unless you're a heavy drinker or something. But the little wedges helped us sleep because we weren't worried about it. I have no idea what it's called.

And that said, he moved to a basket next to our bed after like... two weeks probably?

yeah our daughter was in the cosleeper next to the bed within a few weeks iirc. even in our tiny bed we never rolled over onto her (she slept in the middle), I think that the odds of that are pretty low tbh - unless parents are really huge and/or drunk I guess. part of it was that we were only sleeping for a few hours at a time (at the most) so it's not like we ever got into a deep sleep, and the other thing is that subconsciously our bodies seemed to register DO NOT CRUSH BABY even in our sleep.

We've been kind of going back and forth btw bed and co-sleeper. Pediatrician suggested that it's not too early to at least get her somewhat used to the idea that you sleep in the cosleeper, not in mom and dad's bed. Obviously she still winds up sleeping on us for at least part of the night. But I am terrified of the crushing thing -- I have already woken up multiple times with the sensation that the baby is inside my pillow and I am suffocating her, like I really think this for about 30 seconds and am horrified.

My wife has also been on painkillers so that's an added crushing concern.

btw Ken L I've been meaning to ask you -- why would you have guessed that Keren would be the name?

Just that it is a really common name for Israelis- maybe the most common name for girls these days?- and it is the name of the wife of a friend of mine who my aging brain sometimes confuses you with.