Uhm, this kind of broke me from trying to have real adult conversations with Mr. Meer when Kiddo was awake and around, however we both worked out of the house and were able to do lunches together and text during the day a lot while our offspring could go be loud with other kids at day care. Your opportunities to have conversations with complete sentences are obviously more limited. I don’t think Kiddo would scream at me but he just wouldn’t wait, or he’d wait for a half second and consider that to be him having waited and now he didn’t need to wait any more so anyway let’s continue the stream of consciousness about Sesame Street or whatever now…
If it’s any comfort, part of Kiddo’s kindergarten materials was a sheet about taking turns in conversation or if someone was reading a story, so they just assumed it would still be a problem at that age so you’re definitely not alone.
Well. At least I’m not missing something obvious it sounds like. Further work will need to be more around me not being triggered AF then, rather than tactics with her.k
Wait you actually try to have a conversation with other grown-ups with your child around? How dare you! /kidding
I have no answers either - whenever my husband and I talk to each other he screams and demands that we tell him a story instead. Same when I try to talk to another mom at the park. Each time I try to redirect the screaming into getting him to say “excuse me” but we’re making little progress so far. The other problem is that while I can try and ignore the screaming and keep talking, my husband says his brain completely shuts down and he cannot process.
Feeling overwhelmed and “all” I have to do is feed this baby when he asks for food and keep trying to get him to sleep and even that is so much pressure somehow
I guess I don’t really have a question but can someone tell me I won’t mess up my kid permanently if I don’t have the food and sleeping parts figured out yet
You absolutely will not. Everything that feels so Massive and Vital when they’re little has a way of fading in importance as they age. It’s very weird looking back on choices I KNOW I agonized over and fixated on and not even remembering what I did or how it turned out. Everything feels very very big and significant when they’re tiny. But “there’s no way to be a perfect parent, but there’s a lot of ways to be a great one”.
It gets easier! Eventually they can sign “more”, “milk” and “water”. Then spoken words usually comes and it gets even better!
Everyone I know (including myself) panic read Precious Little Sleep sometime between 4-6 weeks. The book says there’s nothing you can do to fix sleep yet. BB ut eventually there are more things you can try.
my dark/cynical humor about parenting skills
I always joke that I don’t know exactly how I’m messing up my kid, but I’m sure she’ll tell me in 10-30 years!"
Haha yes husband and I will sometimes look at each other and say “well hopefully this means she’ll be just messed up enough to have a good sense of humor”
I mean, its a lot. He’s still very new to the skills of eating and sleeping. You’re just there to help facilitate and coach. You’re doing it great, by the way.
It always helped me to remember that “the fourth trimester” isn’t just a thought exercise about self care. Like, evolutionarily speaking humans are born premature compared to other mammals (and apes specifically). Trade offs for bipedalism and big brains, but even term humans are like… not really ready for life on the outside particularly. Aka tiny babies are bad at babying, and we can blame evolution for that, and it’s not all in our heads.
