10 things I learned from other parents

They may ignore your words, but they will ALWAYS mimic your behavior – both good and bad.

When faced with a tough quesion, always ask them what they think first so you can answer the question they’re really asking. If they ask about where babies come from, they might just want to know which state they were born in.

Whitney, I love your pediatrician’s advice! I have a habit of trying to make my happy baby happier. I’ll try to keep my busy-bee mothering tendancies in check with this advice

I’ve learned from others: Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. So I definitely subscribe to #5: “say yes more often.” My husband and I both have theatre backgrounds and in improv the “yes, and” approach is the way we work through our marriage and parenting. Tina Fey (my hero) recently brought it to the light. And it’s so true. So we like to say, “yes, you may have some ice cream after you eat your growing food.” Saying yes is so much more fun to say than no. Every time I say no I feel like evil mommy.

I was obsessed with babywearing from day one, and I completely agree with #2. I had a maya ring sling, mei tai babyhawk and hubby rocked the “mama back-breaker” aka bjorn.

#9 – And your parents are so right on the box. Bubble wrap is good too (thanks Amazon). My friend’s kids use a cardboard box as their “tv” since they have no physical tv in their home: http://familysponge.com/parenting/inspired-parenting/tv-free-family/ Cardboard boxes rock!

#1 evolves to “Don’t play with your children all the time.” Let them leave how to entertain themselves.

This post and Item #1 in partiuclar is very timely for me — can I ask for an opinion on something? We have a sitter that we truly love, but in the last several days, her notes to us indicate that our 7 month old son’s afternoon naps are, like, 3.5 hours “off and on”. So he’s playing in there by himself if he isn’t sleeping. He isn’t fussy, he just isn’t asleep the whole time. I asked her about it yesterday and said that my concern was that he is partially swaddled, so that’s a lot of time for him to be in there and not have access to one of his arms, when he could otherwise be rolling over, strengthening his arms to learn to sit up, etc. She said he rolls over, and plays with the curtains, etc. I’m projecting, I know, that it seems sad for him to have only one arm free and to have to play with the darn curtains, when he could be in his gym or bouncer. Or being read to. Does this fall under your #1, or is this still weird? Is my son an introvert already? He’s my first child, so what the heck do I know?! He sleeps well at night — he wakes up once or twice to eat (between 8pm and 7 am), and that’s fine with us — so the time in the crib doesn’t appear to be impacting his nighttime sleep. Thanks so much!

Anne

P.S. I’m still breastfeeding at 7 months, which is seriously about 8 times longer than I thought I could survive it when the little dude was first born. And it was painful and stressful, getting started. Now we’re fine. I think it’s better to acknowledge that, so that new moms don’t think something’s wrong with them when it’s tough in the beginning.

P.P.S. Sorry for the long post here, but the Rookie Moms book was wonderful for me when I was feeling overwhelmed after our guy was born, and I wanted to GO BACK TO WORK, because I knew how to be a lawyer but not a mom. Of course, now I treasure the afternoons and weekends with him. But thank you for that.

In response to Anne, I had a couple of reactions. First, I think 7 months is quite old to still be partially swaddled…but that might just be my squirmy babies making me think that.

Second, I think it’s great to have kids who are content to lie quietly and rest – even if it’s not continuous proper sleeping. My 11 mo has always been a good daytime sleeper – often taking 3-4 hour naps. We have learned that he actually wakes up during his naps and looks around…then goes back to sleep. It could be for 10 seconds or 10 minutes – we don’t know. But if we check on him randomly, he’s often laying there with his eyes open. If he sees us, it’s like, “Yay! Get me up!!” but if we don’t check on him, he stays quiet and (we think) asleep for sometimes hours more. He is a very happy and well rested baby overall.

But about your question ‘wouldn’t his time be spent better working on rolling over, in his bouncer etc.’ my personal feeling is NO. In order to learn to roll over, walk, read, etc. our kids need to be well-rested to be able to focus. Some baby activities are very stimulating and can make a tired baby overtired really fast, which then is a terrible spiral and forms bad habits for kids and parents.

Lastly, my father tells the story of how, back in the early 50s when he was in first and second grade, his school teacher would have the whole class, every day, put their heads down on their desks after lunch for a 10-minute rest. My dad usually fell fast asleep, and when the rest of the class went back to their lessons, he kept sleeping – and the teacher let him sleep as long as he wanted. He’d wake up sometimes hours later, but never had a problem keeping up with classwork or his peers. I can only imagine how much easier he found his homework at the end of the day, having had that nice nap in the afternoon.

Sorry everyone for the super long post!

Totally agree with point no. 4! Some people might say “if breastfeeding hurts, you’re doing it wrongly.” But they’re so wrong.. breastfeeding is never easy or pain-free, nevertheless it’s totally worth it

“Do what works for you and don’t worry about what anyone else thinks, and trust your instincts” (one sister-in-law who is the mother of three, after another, child-free sister-in-law prompted her to give me advice)