Which is fine, but they didnt have much say in it, whereas in my case it prevented us getting timely appropriate care (on the tongue tie). My GP delayed our care on the dairy issue as well since I can’t diagnose that on my own and it could have been something else.
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True, this is worth repeating for this and so many baby things. If you find the One True Ped, awesome. But if you don’t and decide later you need/want to switch, that’s fine.
Oh also in our case we absolutely adored our ped and she had the gall to be a fully formed human with a life outside of us so she became a specialist, and we were assigned a different doctor within the same practice who is also fine and the only negative is that she is not our prior person so I try not to hold that against her too much. This was when Kiddo was like 5 or 6 so we were only doing annual visits at that point anyway.
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Once we moved to Ohio - youngest was 2yo - we all went to the GP across the street. I think the little boy’s doctor is the same family practice that dd goes to - it’s a clinic set up.
So to some degree it depends on your area and insurance.
You definitely can change if your first choice doesn’t feel right. We went in so rarely that it didn’t matter much to me.
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Probably flying too close to the sun here, but I’d like to move towards having my toddler fall fully asleep by himself. From 4-10 months or so he actually fell asleep on a bottle on his own, but once we started stories he wanted us to stick around a little longer. Now he is not only used to falling asleep with a parent on his floor bed, but he insists on resting his head in the crook of parent’s shoulder (“mom, don’t move your arm”). All this is so so sweet, and he doesn’t fight it, but means shower + bedtime run over 1h 30m sometimes and with the coming baby it would be great to shorten that time.
Current routine:
- Shower
- Brush teeth
- Diaper and PJs
- A bit of playing, sometimes a lot of playing
- 2-3 books, with a warning before last book
- Lights out at 8:20-8:30 (he gladly turns off the switch on his own) (I would like to be able to leave the room here)
- Cuddle, fidget, cuddle, fidget, fidget
- We can only leave once he falls fully asleep
I’m kinda thinking the gradual route (first get him to fall asleep with hand on belly rather than full on spooning, then move to off the bed but in the room)… but maybe there are other ways to do it now that he can sort of understand words and plans?
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Old Navy and Wonder Nation are both good brands for long and lean kids.
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I have the same issue, and have gotten as far as hold hand instead of lying on my arm, but something always pushes us back to lying on arm.
I have seen a graduated leaving and coming back plan, probably for after you get to the holding hand/lying on floor stage, where you practice leaving for longer periods of time and coming back.
So first step is “I need to use the bathroom, I’ll be right back” and you have them wait a minute or so before you come back. Next step is “I need to change the laundry” and you’re gone for a few more minutes. Then “I need to do the dishes” and so on before they are okay with you leaving for long enough that they fall asleep in the mean time. The critical thing for that method is that you come back when you say you will if they are not asleep and build up the comfort of waiting for longer times.
And this is spread out over many nights, so you still have a while with staying until asleep, but with a far enough out goal/deadline you can plan ahead.
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I had to set a timer for myself because I’d get caught up in doing other stuff and suddenly it was 20 minutes later.
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Right now he’s very invested in “helping” me wipe, change the laundry, and other tasks like that so I’ll have to think of some boring chores to use as excuses. Nonetheless this feels like a doable way to reach the light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks for sharing @frogger!
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We do a slightly more simple routine: bath (sometimes), brush teeth and diapers, PJs while getting some wiggles out but no actual playtime (just jumping x times before pants and then wiggling before a shirt etc ). Then 2 books, sing a lullaby and into bed.
We read books and do snuggles/lullabies on the nugget couch or in the rocking chair so once she’s in bed she’s on her own. Of course, she’s the same age as Spore so we get lots of delay tactics and negotiating once she’s in bed most nights.
What has worked best for Pipsqueak is giving her something specific to think about after we leave the room while she drifts into sleep.
Examples:
- we talk about the fun things we’re going to do tomorrow and say “you need to go to sleep before tomorrow can get here, why don’t you think about those fun things while you rest your eyes”
- the last few days we’ve been telling her a very simple story in the crib just barely longer than “once upon a time, Pipsqueak rode her bike to the clock store and got a special clock for her bike, the end”. Then we invite her to tell her stuffed animals a story until she gets tired and we leave the room to let her tell stories.
-we have a sunset clock that slowly dims, we sometimes set it to dim over 5 minutes and tell her she can watch the birds on her mobile get “darker and darker” (this is usually a naptime strategy on the weekends) - we sometimes do the “check ins” after going to the bathroom like frogger suggested
ETA that even when we don’t use the dimmer setting, we turn out lights before lullabies and before getting into the crib so there’s no abrupt lights out coupled with a parent leaving.
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Should I serve alcohol at a kid’s birthday party? For the adults, of course.
More info: Kid 1 is turning 6 and we’re throwing her a little birthday party at our house in the early afternoon on a Saturday. By the way people are RSVPing many of the parents intend to stay for the whole thing.
Through a combination of events including Covid, relocating, etc, I’ve never attended or hosted a kid’s birthday party as an adult. I know how to host an adult party and would serve alcohol at such an event, but I don’t know what to do for this party! People who have experience with kids’ parties, is there alcohol?
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I was at an eight year old birthday party yesterday and there was beer. Come to think of it the beer was probably illegal due to open container laws and us being at a public park, but whatever. The host parents were Latinx and were defaulting to Spanish a lot at the beginning, one other mom said “I don’t know Spanish but you said beer, yes please.”
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Yeah there’s usually some floating 6packs but not like, wine or cocktails. Pretty low key. I’d have some beer and some sparkling water the end
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I’ve been to the gamut. Cocktail table versus a few beers in a cooler, and nothing. Unfortunately it’ll depend a ton on the other parents and it’s so hard to know without already knowing what the norm is in a community.
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I think either way is fine. The only people who will think it is weird (either to have it or NOT to have it), are people on the extreme at either end. The average parent may be pleased to grab a beer, or may opt not to. I’ve been to both and not thought anything of it either way. I don’t expect it at all, but if I’m in the mood it can be welcome.
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It is not something I’d expect, but it wouldn’t be weird for me either
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I was the only one not drinking beer at my first birthday party 
but yeah I’d find it fairly normal either way
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Thanks all! I wouldn’t mind having a drink at a little kid party and our state has a pretty strong beer culture, so I hope they will think it’s ok. Overthinking things is my forté.
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Ooh, thanks for sharing. I like the idea of giving them something to think about while drifting off.
I’m making progress switching from on-top-of-arm to hand-on-belly. Next step, sitting next to the bed instead of being in it.
Of course, tonight when he’d sweetly said goodnight to everything in his room, and we’d done some lion breaths together, and I said it was time to be quiet now, HE STARTED BEATBOXING. Tok tok tok pbbft pbbft pbbft tok tok followed by “Mom, you like that noise?”
!!
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Haha that sounds about right. That’s one of the things that’s working for us with telling stories. We can leave the room while she tells Bear and Bunny a story and she doesn’t actually have to be quiet!
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Did you “decide” on a parenting style explicitly, and if so have you followed it?
I’ve seen a lot about gentle parenting and it seems a lot like how my mom raised me, not sure if intentionally or just due to being the world’s most patient person? With general disruptions of that with my dad’s lower patience and because I said so tendencies.
But basically is it worth reading up on or getting familiar with a parenting style you philosophically jive with, or is that pre-emptive and does it make more sense to just parent according to your personalities and find tactics for individual issues as they come up (which I assume you would have to do even if you picked a parenting style and followed it closely).
PS not looking for a discussion about specific parenting styles, at least not in this thread, because I could see that becoming extensive and messy.
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