Ohh I need to watch this before we move on from Hulu
1 Like
How are you deciding which toys to keep and which to sell/give away as your kids outgrow them? My parents kept very little, basically just a few special stuffed animals and Legos. My husband’s parents kept SO MANY. And now the grandkids play with them which is nice I guess, but also seems silly to save so many bits of plastic for so long in the hopes that a grandkid will come along.
The wide gulf between how our respective parents handled it is a source of some mild tension for us so I’m wondering how other people do it? We have room to store some toys, but I’d like to keep it to only the special ones.
7 Likes
I using the container system for now… one gift bag for special “baby” things. As more gets grown out of … who knows?
3 Likes
So far I throw out the trash toys and am keeping everything buuuut we also aren’t done having kids so nothing has been outgrown yet. Duplicates are about to find themselves disposed of, and toys that are way too noisy. Um. My parents kept a good assortment of stuff, my MIL kept EVERYTHING and I would say my FIL kept nothing but thats really because I suspect it all ended up with MIL… My folks let US keep our most special items, and then kept the stuff that was handy when other peoples kids/ their nieces & nephews came over, so a few good puzzles, the books they didnt mind re-reading to us, and a box of duplo & mini animal figurines.
4 Likes
Does anyone have a reputable source acetominophen/paracetemol infant dosing with kid formula chart?
What concentrations are sold in Canada? Is it the same as the US? I know at least one other country I’m aware of (I want to say UK?) sells different concentrations. Particularly infant versus child.
1 Like
160/5ml, UK is 120/5ml so I have found theirs and can math it but math is hard on no sleep
1 Like
Also why I am solving now during sleep
1 Like
Seattle Children’s only starts at 24lbs, I’ll take a picture of what my ped provided me once I get Latte downstairs.
2 Likes
This week I’m freaking out about sleep.
I read a sleep training book which talked about self soothing and all that. I’m like ok yeah, for us sleep training seems like a good idea for everyone’s sanity. Maybe with our ability to stagger our sleep schedules we could avoid it, but I think this will be better.
Then I saw a TikTok
shamey TikTok details
Where basically they were like babies cannot developmentally self soothe, sleep training will give them trauma and attachment issues, it’s abuse.
Now I’m freaked out and don’t know what to believe. Does anyone have resources/links to research that can help me figure out what to believe here?
6 Likes
How do you feel about Emily Oster? She says in Cribsheet that there is no evidence it’s harmful.
I HATE those shamey people. They are just trying to justify why they’re exhausted all the time!
Obvs. newborns can’t self soothe but I think it’s an important skill for older babies. They need to sleep!
9 Likes
I have read that! I’ve just read so much I forgot that section. Information overload.
6 Likes
Part of the issue when it comes to research is terms are super undefined. And ages can vary a ton. There’s a world of difference between locking a door on an 8 week old for 6 hours at a time and 100% ignoring them, and various gradual extinction type approaches on older babies (the less controvertial age cutoffs tend to be 4+ months). The former is NOT what 99.9% of people mean when they’re talking about sleep training BUT some of those people exist and so it serves as a big conflating factor to the whole discussion. So a huge thing here is… what’s being defined as the method? What age is the baby? So on. I hope that makes sense.
9 Likes
I have been using the Taking Cara Babies newborn course and it is so helpful!!!
She talks about soothing techniques and laying the foundation for a good sleep routine later. Basically practice putting the baby down for naps 1x/day. For nighttime- at 4 weeks a baby can go a 4 hour stretch, so if they wake up at 3.5 hours you can work on soothing them for 10-15 minutes to get closer to the 4 hour mark, then feed. At 5 weeks, 5 hours. She also says that every baby and every day are different. So if you’re trying for 15-20 minutes to put the baby down for a nap in their crib/bassinet and it’s not working, then try wearing or holding the baby or move on and skip the nap.
Sleep training also isn’t recommended before 4 months.
Don’t let a shamey internet post sway your opinion. Anytime someone says “this is abuse and you’re ruining your baby forever” should be a red flag. Maybe there is something to learn from that content, but ultimately you’ll have a very good intuition on what works for your family. Sometimes those posts scream to me “I need validation for my opinion/choice so I’m going to make everyone else who does it differently from me feel bad”.
Unless you’re actively putting your child in unsafe conditions or completely ignoring their needs, you’re going to be a great parent. There are so many choices we get to make as parents, and everyone will have an opinion on them. But they can shove their opinions where they belong, someplace dark and can be found in their panties.
Not that I’m perfect at this, I still let the inflammatory language impact me and feel like a bad person/mom. But I’m trying to get better.
7 Likes
Sleep/soothing TW hippy attachment perspective but not shamey
Summary all kids are different
All kids are different. My first I realky doubt could have been safely sleep trained, my second I have no doubt could be, without trauma. At just past 3, big has less soothing skills than the baby did at 6 months. And now the baby has just super eclipsed him.
You are smart and not dogmatic and I have no doubt you will be able to tell if you start sleep training a kid and it is wrong for that kid
Summary
A v hippy perspective, I was just listening to a Gabor Mate interview and some of the stuff he says about how much we aren’t meeting our kids needs/ causing future trauma is rough. But this interviewer was great and pushed him in more practical directions and he was able to clarify that the system is broken, the i dividual stressed parents are each doing their best. And an example of how to combine attachment theory and sleep training (and I did this with night weaning my firsy and I do it before vaccines etc) is to talk through what will happen with the kid, desired outcomes, and that it might be easy or hard and that we love them however they react … or whatever feels authentic for your kid. Like I talk through the newborn footpricks for my kids. Because what we know about baby cognition is that they understand more than we think they do.
But if you don’t do this that is okay to. Do what feels right as long as it isn’t objectively bad
12 Likes
Looking at my pathways.org app, it seems like so many milestones are coming up between months 6-9: Discovering feet, sitting up, maybe crawling!! Do you recommend any toys or resources for this age and up?
2 Likes
What a fun age! A few ideas to consider:
- Weather is perfect for picnic/park time! Being on their tummies or walking around with you reaching plants, flowers, leaves, rocks is free and awesome. Plus they can finally see well enough to get excited about these things and play with textures.
- Spore loved the Ikea Leka baby gym (especially sitting in his rocker and kicking all the dangling bits with his feet) and it continued to be a favorite toy until at least 18 months since you can take it apart, make noises, use it to pull to standing, etc.
- We tried to limit his time in “contraptions” that constrain mobility like bumbo seats/jumpers.(but not dogmatic about it) and bring him on hikes/bike rides to stimulate vestibular movement. This could be anything from babywearing as you walk around a local store or plaza to a forest hike or something like that.
- I stumbled across this book in a Little Free Library and it’s a fascinating roadmap to early childhood development. It’s WAY too long to read straight through if you’re busy with a baby but I enjoyed just opening to whatever chapter/topic caught my eye or was imminent. https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Going-There-Brain-Develop/dp/0553378252
3 Likes
Ooooh yes this is such an important age for free movement time. And a hilarious time to watch.
Decide now what you’re find with him mouthing outside haha. For us it was like… if it isn’t choking hazard size, poop, or trash, I felt very “eh whatever” about it. But he’ll start to scoot and roll before he crawls and it’s good to plan ahead so you don’t freak out the first time he has a handful of grass or something (or, you do have a plan for how you’ll address it if you’re not comfortable with any nature going in the mouth).
2 Likes
Ha! I’m pretty sure I also found that one at a LFL one day, and stated reading the “birth/newborn” chapter the night before my water broke. Oops. It’s around here, still unread.
At that age we were in full winter, but we managed a few stroller walks with a jogging stroller.
Mostly she had the regular baby toys that were just used in different ways. The play mat with arch was enjoyed from a sitting position, little rattles and balls were crawling enticements, etc. I think that’s when we got the xylophone (closet to the 9m mark), as well as the toy “piano” and the Borg cube “the cube is fun for everyone!”
Other hits were stacking cups (never actually stacked) and stacking rings (occasionally actually stacked). Jumparoo was clutch for making dinnner.
3 Likes