Bad Baby Advice: A History

[AmyP]

If i had a quarter for every time I said "I will never" or "my child will NEVER" I'd have a college fund I could send my child to Harvard with.

I was a much better mother before I had children...

I was a much better mother when all my kids were under 5. They were all sweet and cute and I made sure everything was just so. Then they get older, and well, you still love them but they aren't as cute and they aren't as sweet and then the hormones come- far earlier then you expect- and they stand there screaming at you, they throw fits over electronics, they burp and fart at the table, your toddler is under the table barking like a dog while your six year old feeds her and calls her a good puppy, the oldest rolls her eyes at you when you ask her not to chomp like a horse, and then bursts into tears and informs you that you love her sister better anyway so it doesn't really matter how she chews. I still have my opinions about parenting, and I don't agree with everything I see, but its hard to be a judgy bitch from where I'm standing.

[patsymae]

From some episode of "rosemary and Thyme" when Rosemary says something about regretting not having children:

"You spend the first three years ankle deep in pee and poop" and then 10 years feeding and educating them until they're old enough to slam the bedroom door and scream over the music that they hate you."

[hoipolloi]

I fucking LOVED my detachable infant carseat. I don't care if people think I am a bad mother or pity my child, but she would go to sleep the second I put her in that thing and if I tried to get her out and put her in the baby sling she would scream and scream and scream. So, when I went grocery shopping, I would pop it out, stick it in the cart part of the buggy and then put all my groceries around or below. She would sleep through the whole trip and usually the trip back home.

When I was pregnant I was all "There is no way I will ever do that! I will hold my baby. Those poor babies whose parents just leave them in that device!" Yeah, that attitude didn't last long. LOL

These are so great - would have loved them.

[jaynie]

If i had a quarter for every time I said "I will never" or "my child will NEVER" I'd have a college fund I could send my child to Harvard with.

I was a much better mother before I had children...

Reading all sorts of different parenting perspectives online, and especially on freejinger, has whittled my pre-child parenting ideas list down quite extensively. There are definitely things that I strongly disagree with, but they're all things I can back up with extensive science. The only other rule I hope to keep if I ever procreate is this: I will be a conscientious objector to the mommy wars.

(Seriously, strollers giving a child RAD? I'd love for someone to try and tell me that! Acronyms have meaning, you know. :roll: )

[dawbs]

seriously. this. I carried my kids around all the time (the old fashioned way- in my arms), but only one of my kids would tolerate a sling. The other two screamed bloody murder any time I tried to put them in. In the store I used the stroller basket for my items and wheeled the child around in her little car seat. I have to wonder how many of these militant "attachment parent" types have kids over the age of 9. Cause let me tell you, the landscape of what is important and what is not looks really different from where I'm sitting these days.

I loved mine too.

I didn't ever get the hang of the slings--I tried but, eh, it didn't ever work well for us. (the fact that she spent a great deal of time w/ her daddy who hated the slings and grandmas who also wouldn't use them may have been a factor. Since Mr. Dawbs is one of those pesky men who stays home part-time and usurps my role in the home ;) .)

My child did. not. sleep. She's a happy kid. She's a well adjusted kid. She's healthy and she's relatively easy to parent. But she has sleep issues--she comes by them naturally--both of her parents have sleep issues.

Rule #1 in our house, until 22 months, when she FINALLY started sleeping through the night, was "do NOT wake the baby"

I carried a damn heavy baby carrier all over tarnation because I would call down hailstones of fire and plauges of frogs on anyone who woke the child when she'd finally gotten to sleep for more than 15 min at a stretch, the first time in 22 hours.

(of course, if I had a time-machine, I'd go back in time 15 years and give myself a bonk on the head for thinking I'd not breast-feed in public too :lol: )

I'm trying to help her become a well-adjusted grown-up...there's no real rule for how to do that, other than to do what works for my family best at the time.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Yeah, i'm a personae non grata because I vaccinate.

That reminds me of my favorite "mommy wars" story.

We were at the airport with the family. I had my 2 mo old in a Baby Trekker, and noticed another mom their with her baby in a sling. We made eye contact and started talking. I confirmed to her that we were indeed breastfeeding and babywearing. She then asked, "do you vax?" I paused, but hubby - who had not been spending hours on Babycenter and who was therefore oblivious - jumped right in and said, "Oh yes! We made sure to get the latest chicken pox and meningitis ones too, even though they aren't part of the regular schedule yet, just to be on the safe side". The conversation pretty much ended there, but hubby was shocked when I told him that anyone asking "do you vax" probably doesn't.

My least favorite vax story comes from my cousin, who was told at a La Leche League meeting that her child was obviously autistic because she got the MMR vaccine. She delayed vaccinating her next child, but he ended up with the same issues. Some people really need to be told to STFU.

[No Cure for Stupid]

I've never heard of attachment parenting involving letting kids stay up until they are dingy with fatigue. Maybe that's the Indigo Children thing, or Taking Children Seriously? AP is about assuming that the tendency of babies and little kids to cling and cuddle is a feature, not a bug.

My cousin and his wife did that with all three of their kids, not because they were into Indigo Children or Taking Children Seriously. They were just too lazy to put them on a schedule. She put her oldest to bed with chocolate milk for the first three years or so of her life, and there were times when I would go over to visit at 2:00 in the afternoon only to find that my cousin and his wife were still asleep in bed, and the four-year-old, who was up watching television, let me in. Their youngest they didn't even bother to potty train until he was five and because there was no way they could stick him in kindergarten while he was still wearing diapers.

They never inforced bedtime or bathtime. The kids would go maybe a week without baths because the oldest just took too long in the shower. I'd sometimes visit on school nights to find out the oldest got to bed a few hours before she was to go to class. It is a very sad situation indeed.

[docmom]

I, too, was a much better parent before I actually had children. I was pretty insufferable about my sister's children, who I thought were undisciplined and out of control. Now I see her truly lovely, outgoing, engaging teens and pray to whatever deity might be listening that mine turn out half as well. I've found most of my child rearing plans went out the window when faced with actual children, who are, surprisingly, fully formed individuals with their own ideas and needs. Sure I could beat them into submission, but the one childrearing mantra I haven't deviated from is "no hitting".

My own "mommy wars" episode also occurred at an airport. My son has a condition that requires him to receive IV infusions of medication every other day which he refers to as "sticks". He was jumping off the seats at an airport during a long delay when he was little (about 2) and I told him to stop because he could fall and need a "stick". The woman sitting next to me smiled at me as she heard this and pointed to her own son who was sitting silently in his stroller and said "He understands about the stick, too. He gets it when he doesn't behave." I said that I didn't hit my child and we moved to a different area. I couldn't believe people still hit children with sticks! Definitely one area I will never change in.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Ah yeah, that's it! Had a total mental block on that one.

I took 72 hours to show up and eventually had to be removed. My mum is fairly sure that this has contributed to my learning difficulties. I feel "such is life". And kind of don't really care.

I'm sorry it wasn't much fun for her, but for myself, nobody comes out of here alive ;) And nobody comes into the world perfect. I stumble over words sometimes and I'm shit at maths. There are worse fates.

That's complete BS. Forceps badly used can cause facial damage, and oxygen deprivation at birth can cause cerebral palsy, but it's impossible to link learning disabilities to one factor like method of birth.

FWIW, tell your mother that my sister, who was a very quick and natural birth, has a learning disability, and her son, who arrived even faster and with a midwife, has a mild form of autism. No interventions to blame here.

While you're at it, you can mention that her learning disabilities didn't stop my sister from graduating university or getting a good job. She just doesn't do math, and her spelling isn't really an issue since she uses a computer.