Random Questions, Parenting Edition

…possibly.

It happened on my watch once, and it took a while to figure out. A few weeks later, my poor SIL was babysitting and called us in tears because she couldn’t fit baby’s leg back through. She was afraid they’d be stuck forever.

Funny in retrospect, at least :slight_smile:

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She is in a sleep sack, I didn’t think about that when I actually lay her down I zip her up and that should help a lot since she has zero grip with her feet. I just went straight to PANIC

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Give yourself some of the credit you would extend to friends, you are doing great.(This is not meant to be condescending!! Tone is hard, I really mean you are doing great)

I was similarly focused on getting allergens exposed early because the research was already pointing that direction a couple years ago, but there’s still a big difference between giving peanuts for the first time between 6-12 months (“earlier is better”) and recommending that no one see a peanut before 2 years old (increased peanut allergies abound in the US).

Also, some kids really are allergic to things! We had a voracious solids ready kid and she had an egg allergy at 6 months up on introduction (and probably before that because I cut eggs and other things out of my diet when breastfeeding due to baby tummy issues). We have friends who have a kid with peanut allergies that introduced it super early (and good news! It was treated and now their kiddo goes to a preschool that serves peanuts…he doesn’t eat them at school but inadvertent exposure is no longer a life-threatening risk for him).

So much of parenting is a grey area that we can only do our best and usually that’s not “by the book”. Because, the book changes and parenting insta accounts make everything sound black and white but its not. Kids are resilient.

(… I’ll keep preaching this, somewhat to remind myself too. We’re still going in circles on the easiest+safest way to get a car seat to Denver in a couple weeks…what works best for us is not the by by the books safest option and I’m still having trouble reconciling that fact to be able to commit to a plan…)

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Is she under 10 months? 10 months was when cribs became useless to us

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She’s 9 months :grimacing:

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Yes, our became useless at a very young age for both girls too. I read all of these articles about how children aren’t emotionally ready to be out of the crib until they are 3, and the crib is a source of comfort and you will hurt your children if you remove them at too young of an age, etc. So I used sleep sacks and put the crib tent on to prolong things as long as possible. Then on D1’s 3rd birthday D2 proudly showed her aunt and grandma how she could climb into the crib all by herself, and then climb out again. She was 1.5.

I was able to prolong things for about 6-9 months before that using the crib tent, but after that demonstration we had to move her out.

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I am very big on crib safety. My sister and I BOTH separately know or know of different children who suffered permanent, life-changing brain damage from crib accidents. I moved BB to a bed at 15 months because I couldn’t safely put him in the crib anymore, between my tyrannosaur arms and my giant belly. LB I moved out right at 2 because we were moving cross-country and bringing a crib seemed a little silly- he slept on a mattress on the floor.

BB does not seem emotionally damaged but it is an interesting factoid that he sleeps on a high loft bed with a side wall and it is FULL of stuffies and pillows, so maybe having his tiny little body moved to a giant bed (it was actually a double!) did create a desire to sleep in a small space? But a harmless quirk IMO.

@Greyweld if baby is only 9 months I bet the sack will buy you time. The cuckoo can unzip her feet and often does, but the fine motor involved in zippering is probably a ways off for Mo!

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This is good to know. I will definitely keep an eye on her climbing skills, maybe investigate a tent. I wonder if tent+crib and then transition to tent on floor will help with her feeling secure. Like I’m thinking hmmm, I could put some brown felt stripes on the outside of the tent even to make it feel like a crib?

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My eldest is a MAJOR climber and way early on pretty much all gross motor skills. We moved her out of her bed early(though she honestly should have been moved earlier) and she was fine. We did always sit in her room until she fell asleep. We still do now even at almost 6.

If baby is early on gross motor skills my best advice is teach them to do things safely instead of stopping them. Eldest could climb to the top of literally anything by the time she was a year old and we made sure that she knew how to get down. Saying things like where are your feet going? What is your plan to get down? Watch where your hands are? Really helped her be aware and keep her safe. She did manage to give her kindergarten teacher multiple heart attacks though from her antics until the teacher figured out she was totally fine. We’ve only gotten one call from the nurses office this year which I call a major win.

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This is great advice for a lot of things, tbh

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I found that tent + crib made the transition to tent + toddler bed MUCH easier. The ones that I have seen won’t work without the structure of the bed around it. It really helped D2 feel more comfortable to have the tent around her in the toddler bed, just like she had it in the crib. We completely skipped the whole bedtime fiasco of transitioning where the child cries at the door or runs out of their room, etc.

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18!

I am the opposite of systematic with food introduction because it’s too much effort. We focused on peanuts, tree nuts, and dairy (both had milk protein intolerance). I don’t even know what the others are?

We worked with an allergist at Kaiser with both of the kids, and they had us do slow introductions of peanut butter and tree nut butter (Trader Joe’s used to have a mixed nut butter but unfortunately I think they no longer do, but I think Whole Foods still does). Allergist emphasized cashews if you want to focus on a tree nut. Cashew allergies are apparently rising but almond allergies are more rare. Slow introduction because both of my kids reacted to peanut butter after the 2nd or 3rd exposure - so 1/4 tsp to start and then increase by the week.

Our allergist said that the only real peer-reviewed randomized study for early food introduction was on peanuts. They think it would apply to other foods but nobody really knows and the recommendations are all over the place.

I bought the feeding Littles course but never watched them. Also bought the cookbook but never used it. :woman_shrugging:t2: at this point I’m banking on the kids inheriting their dad’s lack of pickiness (he will eat or try anything).

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Oh no. Pediatrician just called to say TR’s lead levels were slightly elevated (4.6), target is under 3 and 5 is the threshold for more concern. So far they’ve told us iron supplements, wash hands all the time, beware older buildings.

We’re supposed to be moving in 2 weeks and currently live near a major (like federally funded) highway cap project which is kicking off tons of dust. So many variables and not sure what is actually causing it, of course. Spore tested much lower (around 1, I believe) so I think the biggest variables are our temporary home and not taking iron supplement drops (which we’d been skipping since his actual ferritin levels were fine). In 3 months they will test again, using a blood draw instead of fingerprick since the former is supposed to be more accurate.

Has anyone else had a baby/kid test high for lead and then brought it back down over time? What did you do?

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When did your kids stop napping?

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It was a gradual transition. She started skipping the nap here and there starting at probably 3 to 3 1/2 years old, and we just transitioned to quiet time on the non-nap days. I would say she pretty much entirely dropped naps somewhere right around four? She’s now 4 1/2 and once every month or two will nap a couple times in one week and otherwise doesn’t.

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Around 3 and a half but it was gradual. He went from seven naps a week to six, then down to five, etc. I want to say he was better at napping at home than at daycare (so much to see and think about playing with!) but it was still a crap shoot. And of course in the days he didn’t nap he was very tired at the end of the day which was fun for everyone.

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We hard-stopped napping at home on his third birthday. He had been fighting the nap for probably six months at that point and I was over it. He continued napping at day care for another year.

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I think our first stopped napping around 3.5 or 4. We were at home because of Covid, and there wasn’t any peer pressure to nap during quiet time.

Our second might still take naps at daycare? She just turned 5 and is unfortunately an unreliable narrator, so I’m not sure. I think she naps occasionally there, and not at all at home. If we’re out all day on a weekend, or have a few days in a row of no daycare, she tends to crash pretty early, so I think she still needs a nap like every other day, even if she doesn’t want to.

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Three years, one month. They’d stopped at home sooner, but that’s when she changed daycares and dropped nap entirely.

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18 months for number one - pushed it to 2.5 most days withvehicles. 23mo still naps thank goodness

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