You know how when you first have a baby and all your older relatives — your parents, your aunts and uncles, your grandparents if they’re still living — start rolling their eyes at your instructions to put them “back to sleep” and to not slip rice cereal in their bottles at two weeks old and to fasten them carefully into car seats and to not put blankets on them or stuffed animals in their cribs and they begin saying things like, “Well, I don’t know how all my kids survived then” and “Oh, what do those doctors know anyway?” And you know how you get super annoyed and respond with stuff like, “Yeah, it’s crazy how they don’t let you just throw kids in the trunk and hope for the best these days” and “Well, they probably know a lot since they’re, you know, DOCTORS”?
You know how that happens when you first have a baby?
Well, if you’ve had more than one anytime within the last decade or so, you’ve probably realized exactly where these older relatives are coming from.
I have three kids. And each of them has come with a different set of instructions. I mean, Christ in a crock pot, I seriously can’t keep this shit straight anymore.
When Alister was born nearly seven years ago, there was the “back to sleep” movement, of course, but things were a lot more relaxed. They practically drowned us in formula samples at the hospital and stocked us up on diapers and wipes for his entire first year of life. They told us we could make his car seat forward facing whenever we felt that his legs might be too long to remain rear facing and were pretty laissez-faire when it came to transitioning him into the next car seat. We were encouraged to let him self soothe and cry it out a little bit and to start feeding him solids at four to six months, starting with rice cereal and progressing to whatever we thought he might like. As far as discipline was concerned, Time Out was the way to go. One minute for each year of age, I believe it was. We were told to read to him and write with him and play games with him and love him. Perhaps most importantly, we were told to let him be a kid.
When Ewing was born two years later, I was pretty sure I had this shit down. I was wrong.
First, there was the hospital loot. And by that I mean the lack thereof. Less formula, fewer diapers and wipes, and no freebies. Then there was this car seat nonsense. Not only did we have to have the car seat “approved” by a certified, specialized, master car seat special agent inspector detective before they’d let us leave the hospital with him, but we were also told that now he had to be rear facing until he was two, and no transitioning to the next car seat too early. We had to leave him in that baby car seat until the kid was damn near carrying it out to the car and buckling into it himself.
Food became this big thing. Feed him rice cereal first. Then oatmeal. Then this vegetable for a week followed by this next one followed by this other one until we had gone down the strictly regimented line, and NONE OF THIS OR THAT. For the love of Mary, did we want to kill him or something?
We were told to let him cry it out but not to really let him cry it out. Co-sleep, but not, like, with us or anything. Swaddle, but not too tight. Dress him in warm clothes, but not too warm. Time Out was out. It was now Time In. Or Time’s Up. No, that wasn’t it. Freeze Time? Natural Consequences Time? I Don’t Have Time For This Shit Time? I’m pretty sure that’s what it was called.
Now that Baby Sammich has arrived, I positively have no idea what we’re supposed to be doing. No fucking clue.
[/nextpage] [nextpage title=”Page 2″ ]We got zero hospital goodies. Like, none. Barely enough formula to cover his hospital stay. Three diapers and dry wipes. DRY WIPES. (I legit asked the nurse if she could please bring me some wipes, after which she pointed to what I had been using as napkins during my week-long stay … NAPKINS. I thought they were napkins. Or maybe tissues. They could have been tissues.)
Don’t feed him solids until he’s 5.312487652 months old exactly. Rice cereal’s bad now. It’s oatmeal. Or barley. Unless you ask the other doctor. Then it’s something else entirely.
No Time Out, Time In, or Time Anything.
No tap water.
Organic only.
Gluten-free.
Cage-free.
Preservative-free.
(Not to be confused with free-range. Don’t do that.)
Install an oxygen bar.
With wheat grass smoothies.
And a personal baby massage therapist to do baby yoga and baby pilates with him before detoxing him in his baby sauna.
On a misty mountainside with Buddhist monks who will baptize him with the blood of a virgin.
While keeping him rear facing until he’s accepted to college.
…..
I don’t know how my first kid survived.
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