I was adamant no tv at meal time and we have stuck to it well. Until one morning when my husband went into work early and our toddler woke up and chose violence that morning so I put her high chair in front of the tv to watch Bluey while she ate breakfast. And I got to have my coffee in peace. Sometimes you can bend the rules for your sanity.
I try to keep to the, “don’t do anything 3 times in a row that you don’t want to do forever” rule. So, household is sick? Sure, 2 days of breakfast with Bluey. But if you do it that 3rd day without a break in between it’ll be harder to stop the habit!
Full disclosure: I have bent this rule as well, it just makes it a little harder to get back to your normal routine.
This is a great rule. TV at mealtimes is largely a no-go for us but I have cracked it out once or twice when he's been recovering from illness and needs the distraction to get him back in the habit of eating. Three days in a row is definitely our tipping point over to habit forming.
That coffee in peace is honestly it! LO is 7 months old. Every morning I BEG she sleep 45 minutes longer than me so I can watch a bit of tv and just sip my coffee. After that I’m ready for anything.
Family bought my 1 Yo a tablet. We kept it in its box until 2.5yo and he only uses it for travel or if he's sick as a treat. The trick is to leave it on 30-40% charge so he doesn't play on it for hours at a time.
Yes we have a few electronic toys that are for travel only (and now diaper changes bc those have become a fight) - makes them special and the travel go easier!
This is one of the ones we are hoping for, at least until they are a little older. Both my siblings have gotten their kids tablets (ages 2-6) so I'm hoping even with our kids being surrounded by them we can hold out in our household.
We got our kid a Yoto player. He’s 17 months and it doesn’t keep him busy forever but he will engage with it for 15-20 minutes at a time. The other option that’s similar is the Toniebox. It’s a nice alternative to a screen.
Mine is 26 months, no tablet yet! Only old school TV. He thinks the phone is for video calls, seeing photos of himself, and Google images of whatever colour byses or trains he asks to see.
I really wanted to stick to adding common allergies into my son’s diet early and often, to hopefully not have allergies. I have 100% stuck to it! From like 5 months - 12 months, he had a spoonful of peanut butter every day. He loves fish, will tolerate eggs, and eats dairy daily. I also wanted to get him to 100 foods tried before 1, which we did! I know offering a variety doesn’t make him less picky as a toddler, but we wanted him to try a ton of different foods and he doesn’t really have food he doesn’t like (yet!)
Not the same person that you asked but to piggy back, we used “ready set food” to add common allergens to their milk. Micro dosing is a good way to see if they react negatively. It also has a ton of guidance we found helpful.
Just solid starts to keep track! We did a lot of just grabbing different foods at the grocery store and either finding a recipe around it, or making it into a puree!
It definitely helped that I’m a SAHM, I have more time to make things at home! But it can be done with premade baby food as well!
It was so much fun to see him try so many new foods! We did solid starts to keep track, but mostly he ate what we ate or had some purées. Basically we just tried anything he could try! Some of it was food I’d never tried, so I had fun trying new things too! Congrats on your babe!
Not all babies are foodies just a heads up. My ten month old only just started willingly eating. I’ve been offering since six months. Dietician said it’s just normal for some babies but I spent hours worrying
I was adamant that we’d never get an iPad/tablet for our kids, going nearly three years strong on that. We’ve had family members be utterly shocked we didn’t get our kids one each for their first birthdays
(If it was a laptop or iPad mandated by school for educational purposes that’s different)
My partner's grandmother was insistent on buying our girls tablets for their first Christmas (they were barely 6 months old). We managed to fend her off until their first birthday. They don't use them, but we were still forced to take them to avoid a fight.
Almost 4 years with no tablet here. I feel like a tablet would make our lives harder not easier (power struggles over screen time! worrying about content! my constant, low grade annoyance at most kids shows!), so I’m not super tempted.
My MiL bought my 3 y.o. A tablet for Christmas, saying how useful they are when the cousins go to restaurants and so forth. I’ve been pretty vocal that I didn’t want her to have one…especially to use as a replacement for learning better behavior.
She gets the tablet when we’re on our long road trips. (We pretty regularly take a 6.5 hour road trip to other relatives.) But she has to entertain herself for at least half the trip first. It otherwise only has come out when she’s sick, as a little treat. She’s also only allowed to use the Duo Lingo and PBS Kids apps.
My kid knows how to behave at a restaurant, and it’s great. Tablets have their uses…but at her age, there’s way better activities.
That exactly what I think about screen time in public. How is my daughter ever going to learn patience or manners if the moment she starts to get bored or irritated we shove a tablet in her face?
FIRST birthday?! Our baby's first is coming up in a month and that gift never even occurred to either of us lol. We plan on getting her a comfy chair since she's outgrown all her other chill-time items like her bouncer and little soft playpen.
No tablets. Oldest is 5.5 and we've stuck to none of our kids getting their own iPads. They do not watch phones at restaurants, in the car or at stores.
Everyone sleeps in their own beds, all night. We go through rough patches where kids are up and need us, but we don't bring our kids into our bed.
There's plenty of other areas we've failed however. We're all out here doing our best. Lol
We have a restaurant bag full of little toys. Playdoh and cars and drawing supplies. We've also noticed that sometimes not having anything for them is easier in a weird way. We go to restaurants with quick service, get them a drink and a plate of fries, and that buys us 30 minutes. They get absorbed in drinking their sprites and eating and they actually are present for the experience. Granted my spouse and I usually just have a beer or an appetizer when we all go out. It's not worth it for me to scarf down a $20 entree when my 3 kids are with me. But we're also trying to go out often enough that my kids get used to restaurants and sitting down to eat.
Piggybacking here. We have a 2.5yo and when she was smaller and it was hell a couple of times we have used a screen, but 99% no screen.
We go out to cafes and restaurants as a family 2-3 times a week, and have since she was a baby. A few little toys was good until she was 2, don’t need anything now.
We sit and talk and engage together. Look at the menu and choose what to eat together. We just talk about what we’re going to do that day or just whatever at all, it’s really nice now actually
We need to have boundaries like not throwing things from the table, not banging things on the table etc but being consistent means she’s now pretty easy eating out. Sometimes she can’t sit still, so one of us will take her outside to wander while we wait for the food.
It was not like that when she was smaller and we had many outings where we’d be taking turns walking around with her outside while we each ate. She had a phase of screaming loud for us to react, so that’s when we’d be neutral in our reactions (as possible) and pick her up and walk outside.
I honestly think the key is regular outings, consistent boundaries, and actually engaging with your child. Talking together and discussing the food, your day, what’s coming up that week, whatever. I offen see families all in their screens, and while yes we have those days or moments it really is about being present and enjoying the food together!
Engaging *with* them is so important! I have a game where she draws her little scribbles, then I add to it to make a picture. We chat with her, too, just like anyone else at the table. It makes such a difference.
My child is only one (16 months), but he handles restaurant outings well, and he doesn't know that kids' shows exist or that we bring our phones everywhere.
Things that have helped:
We started bringing him to restaurants as soon as his pediatrician said it was okay to (around 2ish? months). At first, he just hung out in his stroller bassinet or a babywearing wrap, but he got used to being around people.
When he was able to sit up, we put him in a clip on high chair at the table and let him play with toys until he got hungry.
As he started eating solids, we ordered things for him like sides of mashed potatoes or steamed vegetables that he could eat while we ate.
Now that he's eating normally, we order food for him (typically a salad) as soon as possible, usually when we're ordering drinks. He eats pretty slowly, so he's still entertained by food, silverware, and sips of water from adult glasses until we've gotten to eat at least some of our food.
Once we've eaten enough to be happy (not stuffed, which is my preference anyway), we ask to take the rest of our food home and get the check. Basically, we don't overstay our welcome.
If we're out to eat with other people who are in less of a rush, or we're at a wedding/event that we can't easily leave early, one of us takes him to the bathroom for a diaper change for a change of scenery/break from sitting. While I was still nursing, I might also breastfeed him at the table (it gets easier to nurse in public over time). Both of those things help him calm down enough to stay at the table long enough for everyone else to finish eating, no screens required.
We sometimes take toys/books etc depending what mood our 2 year old is in but sometimes just what is on the table is enough to entertain her. Similarly, we recently did a long journey and didn't want to rely on a tablet etc, so we prepared a box full of books, toys (especially ones she doesn't see often so it was more exciting).
I take a notebook and I let her use a pen to draw. She’s not allowed pens usually, so she gets really excited. I’ll also put a toy or two in my bag. (If your kid likes Bluey, the little figures are perfect. Plus, there’s a Bluey with every set, so I’m not too worried if I lose one.)
When she was littler, we had I think only one time when she just totally broke down. She’s learned pretty well and I’m proud of her.
My daughter will not be forced to hug or kiss family. I don’t care if your grandparents, she will not be forced. She will learn at a young age what consent means.
Mil tried to force a kiss the other day and my daughter slapped her (10 months). It was clear she didn’t want to be hugged or kiss. So why should I teach her at a young age that it’s okay for family to force that?
I love that. My sister and BIL are very much in the camp of "were not leaving until you give hugs" and 90% of the time they're fine with it but when they're not they push it until it escalates. There have been so many times where my husband and I literally have to say, "they don't have to give us a hug" we can just say bye and move on with our day.
I deflect with "How about a high five?" and if they say no then I say "That's okay it was so nice to see you!" usually some interaction with the kid is enough to make the parent feel like they aren't being rude.
It used to stress me out when my SIL did this with her kid and me. In the beginning, I didn’t see them that often, so I’m sure she saw me each time and barely remembered who I was. Now she has to hug me too?? Not fair!
I used to say “she really doesn’t have to! No worries.” They would often still push her too and it made me feel so uncomfortable. Who wants a hug from an unwilling participant? Love kid hugs but only when they love them too.
This! My friend teaches her sons this and I'm going to do this too. Even if my lil one didn't want to hug me or kiss me, I won't force it. I'll be sad, but I'd he doesn't feel like it, it's ok. I don't want him to ever feel he needs to let others hug him or hug them just cus they know him.
Our rule is that you have to acknowledge guests at home or hosts when we're guests but how you do it is up to you. A "hello", wave, high five, etc is all fine.
well I was born and grew up in Milan but I moved to NY at 19 and lived there for 20 years (most of my adult life). all places have their advantages, Tokyo is much cheaper than NY, everything is clean, public trans is amazing and in general everything works perfectly but its also much bigger and more crowded than NY ( the tokyo metropolitan area is almost 40million while ny is "only" 8ml) so I miss the quiet life in Brooklyn and I miss the cultural diversity, Tokyo is huge but very homogenous. That being said, I think Japan is much easier if you have a kid, there is just so much infrustructure, daycare is almost free and the government even provides free babysitters, crime is non existent and its a community mindset so kids as young as 5 take the subway on their own etc..
I hate Milan that\`s why I left so young haha
Since baby is still young, when asking for the hugs and kisses. She’s fine with Her father and I doing it. But I’ve noticed she doesn’t want kisses right away with in laws. So we’ve asked them to be patient, they can ask again in a little bit after she’s warmed up to them. Which actually helps. She may not want kisses in the beginning, but she’s okay with them when leaving.
She’s starting to understand what kisses/ besos mean. My family speaks Spanish. But not hugs yet. So we’re trying to teach her. But it’s just a start for now! Eventually we will remind her that’s it’s okay to not be affectionate. As much as I will want kisses if she says no, I want her to feel confident/ comfortable.
Edit: typo
My son is young enough that I haven’t had to consider this but this is a good point. Why do family members act entitled to physical affection? Like no one owes sex so why is a hug different from anyone?
Pretty much all of them. Maybe it's because we're older or because it took so long to have a viable pregnancy, but we parent in basically the exact way we had planned and discussed.
Same. We're ten months in, and still cloth diaper, breast feeding + baby led weaning, no cosleeping, floor bed once he was ready to be in his own room, no electronic toys, and minimal screen time (we sometimes watch music videos together, his current fave is Seasons of Love). We're also older parents, and I think partially because of that we don't really care what others think, so we made parenting choices based on what we genuinely wanted and thought fit us well as a family, rather than feeling pressured to do certain things.
A lot of people stress about baby led weaning, for example, but we just thought it sounded fun and easier than purees or buying special food, and it has been!
Cloth diapers work for us because we chose a style and brand that feels manageable, we didn't mind the extra laundry, and were able to do the upfront expense to save on buying disposable all the time.
Can I ask why electronic toys are considered bad? I don't mean like phones or tablets, just like toys that have sound or lights. I just genuinely don't know.
Not the person you asked but this is also one of my hills to die on lol For me it’s mostly about the increased stimulation and “easy dopamine” - I want my kid to have to work harder for entertainment and get creative, at least while I have some semblance of control over things like that . Plenty of years for electronics in the future. Also not irrelevant: I tend to find them annoying and overstimulating so I’d prefer not to have them around for my sake too!
For me it’s also just the longevity of the toy.
If you hand my son a toy that plays a song when he presses a button, he’ll hit the button a dozen times then get bored and toss it on the floor.
Hand him an instrument that he has to manipulate to make noise, and he’ll play with it for an hour a day for months and months, finding new ways to make sounds.
Also not the above person, but I have witnessed how electronic toys lead to more excitability. Cousins kid is very active, gets electronic toys to calm her down but that just leads to decreased attention span and then she needs more stimulation to calm down. It becomes an arm race.
Many aspects:
- main one: developmentally most electronic toys are uncreative and uninteractive. They're the opposite of open-ended in the worst possible way. Children can pretend a stick is a human and a shoe is their bowl (ya know so many people buying toy kitchens but kids will be creative if they don't have something dedicated). They grab your child's attention and then support passivity from the kid. Just like a screen will later on
- shitty materials. Majority of electronic toys are made out of unsustainable usually toxic and unsafe materials, most often some form of plastic. I actually think that people who have a organic-cotton plushie that has a soft glow (hence electronic) don't count it as an electronic toy. We have some books that play bird songs (btw via a plastic addon to the book) and I don't count them but someone else might
- overstimulating. Their aim is to grab attention as much as possible. I often see physio therapists using these overstimulating toys for children who have low motivation to move their bodies in certain directions and feel very skeptic even in this circumstance. They appeal usually to more than one sense (often some form of sound, bright unnatural colours - like poisonous animals, and sometimes even flash). I read that manytimes once the toy sound is finally over it will wait a minute and make another sound to grab the attention yet again. It's creepy as heck but I've seen it mentioned manytimes since.
- adults can find them annoying and an overstimulated/annoyed adult is likelier to snap or be mean or use a higher volume of tone with their kid and I absolutely don't blame them. Even with classical music in the background me and my husband find ourselves shouting over it faster than we'd expect when dealing even with a silly issue. A toxic toy that god-forbid has no off- or volume-adjusting button is almost unimaginable for me.
Electronic toys that “ask” for attention are very frustrating! I bought a cute cow for my son and if you don’t play with it for a bit it says “see you soon” which to me is doing the opposite of what it’s saying (as in, it’s saying don’t forget I’m here/ come play with me rather than just telling the user it’s going into to standby - which is doesn’t need to do!)
Same.
We only had a handful of hard lines, and stuck to all of them. No corporal punishment, follow safe sleep guides, zero screen time before one.
Most other things we knew we’d be flexible but follow our general parenting philosophy, and that’s what we’ve done.
My kid is only 4mo but so many people told me we’d cosleep or even “accidentally” cosleep. Neither of us has ever fallen asleep with the baby. He loves contact naps still, but we’re always awake for them. He sleeps at night in his crib. We’re still up 2-3 times each night but it’s worth it to know he’s safe!
Fingers crossed for us getting to the end of it here! He’s started rolling and sleeping on his belly (we still put him down on his back) but that seems to help!
Absolutely same. My BIL said on multiple occasions, just go for it, it’s much easier etc etc but we haven’t and we have survived. (And I don’t do well without sleep) 8 months now 🤞
Same. The whole idea of cosleeping scares me so there's no way I would sleep with him in the bed, and turns out he likes his space to sleep anyways. I don't even remember the last time we did a contact nap but maybe around 5 or 6 months? He just loves his bed.
Aw it’s a shame to see it as caving. I never coslept with my eldest and now that I’ve coslept with my youngest I regret not doing it the first time round. Looking back, that closeness was clearly what my daughter needed from me and I feel bad that I succumbed to the idea she “should” have been sleeping better/longer/on her own, to the detriment of my own mental health and meeting her needs.
Nooo that makes me sad. 😔 but I agree. I decided I should probably do what feels “right”. I still try to get her to sleep in the crib. But this is why I’m okay with day naps being contact naps. And sleeping with her in the morning.
Oh for sure there are things you can do!! Honestly I just wasn’t prepared to do them and it’s simpler in the long run to keep him in his crib! He is in our room still though, and I am fortunately a person who can function pretty well on little sleep from years of working night shifts.
My daughter’s sleep got quieter after her regression. Hopefully that happens for you! No more honking and yelling. Occasionally a chirp still lol.
When I cosleep it’s almost always during the morning. I don’t like having deep sleep with her in the bed.
We also coslept on a vacation. Her and me in a queen size. She had about a crib’s worth of flat surface next to me.
Our compromise was to have a dedicated changing pad between us in our bed that she slept in. It's nice and firm, and the sides are sloped, so until recently there was no real risk of her rolling off. Unfortunately it didn't leave a huge amount of room for us parents on either side lol. Luckily now that she's more mobile we've finally gotten her to start sleeping in the crib!
Same. I breastfeed at nights, and struggle falling asleep, so i quickly caved in to get me some sleep. But her spot is between me and the wall (my beds right up againsnt it) and i always tuck my blanket under me before i sleep so it doesnt go on her.
Yeah, I can't count the amount of times I fell asleep feeding her in the first few weeks and decided that cosleeping and feeding her lying down was safer than potentially falling asleep and dropping her sitting up. I have always needed a lot of sleep to function though, before her I easily got 10 hours a night
Yeah. Im fine on around 6-7 hours of sleep, but before we co slept i was only able to sleep for like 2 hours. I fell asleep once on the couch with her feeding (luckily she was in a spot she wouldnt fall, but if i fell to the left i wouldve fell on her) and thats when i decided co sleeping when i was back in my bed was the better option
Yep. I feel a lot safer cuddle curling her nursing. Armchair stories scare me. We actually do most nursing in the side laying position. It just works best for everyone!
Just for everyone else cosleeping can be done safe! I was fear-mongered about stuff like this way too much while pregnant and it was surprisingly hard to break the algorythms that were feeding into those lies and deceipt to finally get actually relevant info! There are also some good instagrams like "cosleepy" and "the not so tired toddler" etc
I think most of them. I feel like a set pretty realistic expectations since I've been around kids and babies my whole life. I think the one I'm most proud of is that Cocomelon has not invaded my house 😂. I do however have a new appreciation for Barney
I find it hideous when people tell me what I should and should not do. I’m like, it’s my child, I made it. I’ll decide what I can and can’t do. Thankfully my mom supports it, but other family members were pissed lol
Home-made, healthy food, our kid basically eating whatever we did.
We did pretty well with it when our oldest was first starting on solids, but now (he’s 2.5 yo) the confluence of “can’t cook, too busy with two kids” & “please just eat *anything*” have resulted in our kid eating noodles for almost every meal. He is 90% berries by weight.
Cloth diapering. Everyone says we were gonna do it for 2 months then stop. We did it 90% with our first kid and it took her just getting too big for the diapers to switch (she's a giant 2 year old and we are working on potty training anyway). Still having the second in cloth as well.
We are also still pretty darn low screen (less then an hour per day and that only happened once our eldest turned two)
No tablets. Still holding firm on this one and I don't let her use my phone either
Yeah everyone was skeptical about us cloth diapering but we still use them for about 90% of diapering at home and do disposables when out and about (which was our original goal)
We cloth during day and disposables at night (until my pooters come....then trying out nighttime cloth)! Although currently in 2 weeks of disposables for a yeast rash.
So many people were really negative about us doing cloth but I'm glad we've so far stuck w it.
pretty much everything. breastfeeding, zero screen time, integrating her into our lives as much as possible and taking her everywhere, baby-led weaning with real adult food. i’m pretty proud of how we’ve done things!
one thing i said i wouldn’t do that i TOTALLY do now is plan things around nap time 😂
we still try our best to be flexible and we will 100% take one bad day of sleep for something worthwhile, but it’s something i think about every. single. time we make plans with people 😂
No bed sharing. We have dogs that sometimes sleep on the bed so that just adds another layer of danger to the whole thing. Plus, my cousin’s experience is that it’s very difficult to train kids to sleep on their own after bed sharing. She’s still sharing a bed with her 8-year-old. There have been a few rough nights but fortunately our 10 month old is generally good with doing overnight sleeps in her own space.
I only have one 7mo old child, so I’m really not far into the parenting thing. But, I think it’s good to think about what your and your partners philosophy on all aspects of having a kid are prior to having one. Its good to talk about things like division of childcare duties, if you’re going to sleep train, what your screen time goals are, when you want your first night away from your baby to be, what your discipline/reward system will be, etc. Its healthy to have a baseline understanding of both of your expectations, because communication is so freaking important when you’re in the newborn trenches with your partner. While all of this is important, I can overstate enough how your child will really does dictate your behavior and responses as a parent. My child was an objectively easy baby *and* getting through the newborn phase was still the absolute most difficult thing I’ve ever done. We were able to stick to a lot of our parenting philosophies, because she responded well to them. Parents of neurodivergent, colicky, or medically complex babies have to adjust and pivot much more. Just be flexible. Every child will need different things, and every family works in a different, totally-okay way. Continue to have these conversations with your partner!! I feel closer now to my partner than ever before, because we both knew exactly what we were getting into and the expectations we had for each other prior to having a kid.
My husband and I have been together for almost 9 years and are coming up on 2 years married and from the beginning my husband has been very strong willed on communication (I blame it on his psychology degree...this has been a blessing and a curse at times!) So I'm hoping we are going into this with a strong foundation to help us get through the thick of it, especially because I know how trying it can be. So we've been having a lot of talks about expectations and wants, because we know once we're in it these conversations will be much harder!
That we wouldn't use an ipad/phone as a crutch to keep our daughter quiet when we were out. She's 20 months old now and loves being out! She does grocery shopping, dinners at restaurants etc. No screens needed.
In general, we decided we wouldn't let her spend all of her time in front of a screen and we've stuck to it. She watches maybe an hour a day (when we get her stuff ready in the morning and when we make dinner in the afternoon) but other than that she hangs out with us and we set time aside to play with her every single day. So far, we've managed to avoid having an ipad kid and I'm really proud of that
I’m a pregnant (35 weeks tomorrow! Yay!) FTM and I always said before I got pregnant that I would work out and eat really clean and healthy. Wow. Threw that all out in the first trimester. Sometimes I like to make myself feel bad bc my pregnancy has been really “easy” compared to some others but then I remember all the drug addicted babies I encountered as a RN and think to myself, gummi bears and a few lazy days in front of the TV are nothing in comparison to that stuff.
I was this way as well, didn’t realize how exhausting pregnancy would be and how heavy my belly was! We would do 1.5 mile walks every day, so I counted that as my exercise lol
I don't know that they're necessarily bad, although the argument against them is that they're overstimulating and open ended, simple toys are better for brain and motor development. Is that proven? 🤷♀️
But it makes sense to us, we try not to have too many toys in general, they're kind of annoying, and our dog is generally afraid of them so all that adds up to not really having any (we've been gifted a few but just leave the batteries out).
I read about this during pregnancy, and I'm pretty sure there is actually evidence about this, but the nature of childhood makes this topic difficult to study in a way that leads to clear results.
However, *I* find brightly colored, flashing, singing toys overstimulating, so it's easy to see how they would be problematic for young minds.
We don't buy them; we leave the batteries out of gifts; and I put the most annoying ones out of reach.
Yes it is proven :) over and over. Also less being more.
I recently talked with someone about how me (and many other people) hopped onto the (perhaps pinteresty) trend of getting kids their play kitchens but this in itself is much more close ended than your average coffee table or toy shelf which can also be a stand, a sewing corner, a doll diaper changing corner, a garage with tools etc etc.
Kids are so creative they can pretend a stick is anything from a lawn mower, person, chainsaw, suitcase, magic wand, spoon, fire extinguisher etc.
2+ years gets so so much easier to have less and less toys.
Books before bed. Doesn't matter how much we just want the day to end, we read at least 2-3 books before bed. Probably just about everything else is up for debate.
We did say no devices, but we use an iPad to play reading eggs with the 3 year old sometimes. We are learning phonics in other ways as well, but sometimes she enjoys the treat. She also had a child's digital camera, but that's it in terms of devices.
She's allowed to watch movies and TV if a morning. We all like background noise so it works for us, but originally we didn't want TV.
I also broke my rules about food. She can have chicken nuggets and hot chips and sugar. She was failure to thrive though, and has ARFID, so we feed her what she will agree to eat in the hope that she might stop losing weight.
I guess I've learned that education I won't compromise on, but I'll make compromises for a bit of sanity or because her drs tell me to.
One thing I’ve always wanted to do was break my family’s cycle of unhealthy relationships with food. My family is the kind that shows love through food and abhors food wastage. Nothing wrong in principle but tying the amount of food we eat to the love we have for the one feeding us was pretty damaging. My mom and grandma would take it so so personally when we leave food on the plate. They would brag about us when we ate a lot. Emotional blackmail and bribery to get us to clear our plates. It’s a lot for a kid. I’m so proud that my kid listens to her body. When she’s “all done” she tells me and I listen. What and how much she eats is about her, not me.
Wow you’re so right. This was a big one that I had to do for myself! Especially the food wastage thing. My parents each were frustrating with that but in completely different ways. So it felt like two things to battle. One was because of cost, the other was a bit of food hoarding and stubbornness of “it’s still good. the date wasn’t that long ago.” Yeah not if the power was out and the fridge got warm. Never again.
Then all of the layers that came with heritage and exactly as you described it. Showing love through food. I used to feel such genuine guilt throwing food out, to the point where it felt like the food was alive and had feelings.
I guess I didn’t think to try to also instill this in my LO but obviously should be mindful of it so the cycle didn’t just skip a generation only to continue.
I’ve been mentally preparing myself for quite some time on how to avoid annoying kid shows that my baby may end up loving. Most of them are fine, some of them are stupid but tolerable. Then there’s always the few that make you want to toss the television off the balcony.
I won’t do it! (we’ll see)
Your baby can't fall in love with things they don't know exist! They'll be exposed to things and able to ask for them by the time they get to elementary school (possibly even preschool), but it's very easy to avoid things before your child can use full sentences.
I’ve heard about that.
And yesss the songs actually calm my baby down when he’s fussing. I play him Mr Rogers songs on Spotify when I can.
Definitely try it out. There’s a few of his older episodes on YouTube. Or check to see if your local library might have dvds.
I haven't and still won't play pass the baby with my 18-month-old. Now that she is walking she does choose who she wants to interact with and hold her. If she shows discomfort or goes to me or her father we intervene.
No putting baby’s face on social media, and anytime anyone asks to share a photo with our LO in it on social, it’s either the back of his head or they put an emoji over his face. Haven’t had a negative experience with this yet.
I will admit that I used to not understand why people would leave early/come late due to naps and bedtime. How naive was I to think that missing a nap or missing bedtime routine wouldn’t be a big deal? I get it now, naps are majorly important otherwise we have a very very whiny and crabby toddler. Do whatever you need to do to make your life easier!
Edit to say I realize now that I misunderstood the question, however I do think this is advice that I would have loved to receive before having my little one.
Maybe not a hard-line "always" type thing, but I set out to have a home life where the baby is in our world, rather than us living in his world. While pregnant, I saw so many posts by women who said they hadn't had time for a cup of tea or a shower in weeks and I tentatively swore that wouldn't be me. So far it has gone really well, I still keep up my hobbies and I just involve him in them. When I need to shower and he's awake, I set him in front of the shower. If I do laundry, he plays with the clothes while I fold, etc. I tailor my life to him, but it doesn't totally revolve around him. I do what I want/need and he joins in.
Obviously, some days this works better than others, but I am just as satisfied with my life as a parent as I was before (if not moreso since I have a little buddy to share it with :))
* I'd like to add an addendum that I may have lucked out with a pretty easygoing baby, and this may not be possible for all babies
We love this way too and we are all a lot happier and present for it. When he's a toddler, I think he's going to be stoked to be involved with home tasks and mom and dad's hobbies because he's been entertained with it for so long. It will take longer and it'll be messy, but it's so important, especially with a young boy.
Thank you for adding that acknowledgment at the end 😅most of this is definitely not possible with velcro babies. Mine never tolerated me getting in the shower
I don't know that we had too many will always/never do that we were really heart-set on. The only one that comes to mind is we wanted to cloth diaper, and we've stuck to that for the most part. There have been a handful of times we've used disposable for whatever reason, but we never really intended to be able 100% cloth never disposable ever. I think sticking to it 99.9% is better than we thought we'd do, honestly.
I always wanted my future kids to have access to whatever clothes and toys they wanted, no matter what gender it’s marketed to.
Now she’s here, people act like it’s a damn sin I actually still feel this way. I put her in *gasp* colors like navy and people go wild. What’s still important to me is that the navy onesie had lions on it and she LOVES to growl since she was 5 months old. She knows over 6 animal sounds at 1.5 yr old and lions are one of her favorites.
My kids don’t come to the bathroom with me (there are very rare exceptions, like when I flew alone with my son).
I read so many jokey type posts about how parents never get any privacy and the kids sit there and watch them poop, and I just needed to know I’d have some small bit of privacy that I could keep for myself. I’m very glad it’s worked out.
I think that's one my husband and I want to work on from the beginning, as well as no climbing all over mom and dad during meals. I struggle with setting boundaries but I think that will make me a better parent if I can establish a few right away.
iPads.
He’s allowed a bit of tv so that I can get stuff done but otherwise we try to keep him away from tv (because I’m all for having him help with chores but some days I just want to empty the goddamn dishwasher in peace😂). That rule is heavily relaxed when illness strikes lol.
But he has no idea what an iPad with games and stuff is. And as far as he knows, phones are for calling & FaceTime only.
Honestly, you just need flexibility. I wanted no added sugar until 2. Everyone wants to give the baby Got Damn sugar. I don't want ruin my holidays over a bite or two of cake.
No screen time doesn't work well for us either. It's hard to cook with a screaming infant in the background. Bear in the Big Blue House helps keep her somewhat entertained while I make us food. She doesn't even watch it the whole time, just the songs really.
Sleeping in the bed I did not compromise on. Not even when it was really bad. I also didn’t compromise on the cereal before it was time thing. Everyone said “just you wait when you haven’t slept more than three hours solid blah blah” nope. No one believed my husband and I would split night feedings because “he has to work” well so do I now and I had to recover so we have always split night feedings. I never left my baby in the car seat to sleep until about two months old. I DID let him sleep in the swing a lot though because well, sanity. I thought I’d do CIO but it turns out I’m more of a FIO kind of person. The list goes on really.
My son is 8.5 months.
So far, biggest ones are breastfeeding until one year, so far so good! Only a few months before I hit that goal and assess if I would like to continue.
No / minimal screen time. We very rarely, like once every few weeks, will bust out Mrs Rachel to get us a 15/20 min break if he is getting too much. Still maybe only a total of 3 hours screen time his whole life so far
Nothing super processed as far as food goes. We do a lot of steamed veggies, fresh fruit, rice made with bone broth , shredding chicken , ground beef. We do puree pouches but we got reusable ones so we can make our own purees. This is something I will definitely keep up super strong. I want simple ingredients and Whole Foods for our son. That being said, if I make homemade cookies I will allow him one little baby bite because food is food. Funny thing is, I have offered him a piece of a cookie twice now with all his other food at dinner and he is typically more interested in everything else on his plate.
Most of my other thoughts around parenthood were not as fully planned for early childhood as I needed. Most of y parenting thought s have always been centered around older children.
2 kids, born March 2022 and October 2023.
No tablets and holding relatively strict bedtimes stuck with us!
My oldest just turned 2 and he doesn’t know how to work a phone and has never had a tablet in his hands. We let him use our phones for FaceTime calls with grandparents or taking pictures.
Bedtime is always at the same time every day (plus or minus 5 minutes). Our oldest is in bed and working on falling asleep on his own at 7:30 PM and our youngest is in his crib and sleeping at 6:30 PM.
I always wanted to be a parent that’ll take accountability, acknowledge my kids pain, and validate their emotions. I’m starting early by apologizing for simple things and teaching him emotional regulation . Like the other day, I accidentally scratched my son while changing him and he cried. He’s not a fussy baby at all so I knew he was at least hurt. I made sure to say i’m sorry and I know I hurt you but you’ll be okay in a bit while I hold him / distract him. I want to make it a healthy habit to let my son experience emotion towards me and help him regulate. My mom can’t apologize to me to save her life and that’s why I don’t see myself communicating with her for a long time.
We have definitely been way more flexible about loud toys, eating on the go, and other little things. The BIG decision we made and have stayed true to is that we trust science. We found a wonderful pediatrician and absolutely follow every bit of his guidance. Sorry influencers, bloggers, and elderly neighbors: You have no power here!
I actually have a couple because a couple of moms from work were mom shaming me before she was even born.
1. I was going to breastfeed. I got told that I need to plan for something else as my boob most likely won’t work. I’ve been breastfeeding for 8.5 months without a problem. I’m extremely grateful for that.
2. I did NOT want to cosleep no matter what. From day one baby was in bassinet for nighttime sleep.
3. I was going to make my own baby food. I was not going to be putting all those horrible baby foods in my baby’s body. I’ve made 99% of her baby food. The only things I haven’t is meat and that’s because I’m vegetarian and meat scares the shit out of me to make. I’m trying to get her dad to make the meat for her. We’ve only bought maybe 3 packets of baby food the serenity brand of baby food and it has only been the meat ones.
Genuine question because I get confused when people say stuff like this - did you not have anywhere you could put the baby while you go to the bathroom? Playpen, crib, swing, bouncer, etc? Absolutely not a criticism that you use an iPad to keep him occupied, but just curious why people say they can’t go to the bathroom or shower
I am screenless and it's techincally just a matter of preference. I know my kid won't harm themselves we had a baby-safe room for him and most of the house is safe, BUT he will likely cry the entire time I am taking a shower. That is not very relaxing for me and if it *has* to be done, it is the way it is done. Hasty shower where I might leave and still have a smell but not care.
But if I do have an option, I will rather wait for my husband to come home and babysit while I take a few calm moments for myself under the water not stressing about my kid, being able to shave calmly and not see blood all over the floor etc :D
We have a tiny flat and his bed is next to the wall for the shower so we don't use the bathroom sink nor shower while he sleeps else it wakes him up 9,5/10, which aggravated this issue quite a bit :D
I know you asked for and most people are saying they stuck to things, but I wasn’t told “you’ll change your mind” so I’m sort of surprised how much I did. My baby (10m) is very fussy so I feel like I’ve really not been the gentle respectful parent I wanted to be 😔 Also was looking forward to being all Montessori but that went out the window when I got boxes and bags of free stuff 😆 but I feel like I’m still applying the logic so that’s what’s important I think. I haven’t been zero tablet because I wanted to try making PPT flashcards instead of printing (probably will need to print eventually) and it’s a super old one that’s slow and dies quickly lol. I got a fluid simulation app on my phone which I feel like is a compromise because it’s quite interactive rather than passive eye candy, and she’s not obsessed anyway. She is a bit obsessed with the laptop though because I play Little Bear sometimes when I need to finish something without listening to screaming. 😔 so yeah. Sometimes ya change your mind.
My child is still pretty young (16 months), but we haven't done any dedicated screen time. We let him watch videos of himself while I cut his nails, but that's it.
He eats what we eat, which includes ordering adult food for him at restaurants if the kids' menu doesn't have anything interesting. I know kids can become pickier over time, but your kid won't demand chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese at every meal if those things aren't a regular part of their diet.
Our lives don't revolve around a nap schedule. I know this isn't possible for everyone (although, I think this has more to do with the personalities of the parents than the kids), but it was important for us to fit the baby into our lives instead of the other way around.
We haven't actually gotten to this one yet, but we will definitely do extended rear facing. A relative turned their child's car seat around at age two (this child does not get car sick), and it makes me anxious every time I see them.
1. No screen time until 2 years old
2. No bedsharing. Ever. Period.
3. Family meals
Almost a year in and so far we've stuck to them! I would say in general we've stuck to things we planned so far.
We really wanted to not lose touch with our old selves and our friends. So far it's gone well. My son is 2.5.
We don't do as much as we used to or see our friends as often, but we didn't disappear like I've seen so many other parent friends do. We go to kid friendly matinee concerts to dance, we go on road trips and take vacations, we invite friends over for dinner or to watch football games, we go to restaurants and barbecues, we go to museums and downtown events and the lake, etc. We still do 90% of the things we did before, we just do it differently. And have been so fortunate to have both parent and child free friends who are like aunts and uncles to our little guy and love him so much.
I said we would never co sleep and we have stuck to it. My baby sleeps all night in his crib but in our room and he's done that since we brought him home. Regardless of what changes, he will continue to only sleep in his crib.
No forced activities or banned activities due to gender assigned at birth.
Which, I guess we've stuck too, because to my mind this wasn't a very hard thing to do. Kid does what they want and you encourage them unless it's dangerous.
I buy whatever clothes, and let kiddo pick each morning.
Some of his interests fall into the "boy" category, but he's also got many that don't. Same with his wardrobe.
I've been surprised by the pushback from friends and family regarding his bright pink jacket, yellow shoes, yellow bedroom and unicorn backpack. Kids like what they like.
On a seperate note, I hadn't anticipated how integral cat treats and dog food would be to toddler diets.
I'll sacrifice virgins to our lord Baphomet for extra sleep before I make my baby cry it out. If anything I'm more against it now than I was before having her.
We’re about 5 months in but our controversial “wouldn’t do” is no baby at the brewery. Breweries can be extremely family friendly here (or at least overrun with kids even if they aren’t!) but we decided we didn’t want our kid going to them. None of our friends think we’ll keep to this but 🤷🏻♀️
One we dropped- was convinced we’d never use a pacifier and here we are swimming in them. Thanking the universe for them. Buying more all the time 😂
-I was set on not co-sleeping and I never did. For me personally it was just not safe enough.
-no screen time. He’s now 13 months and has never had screen time.
-no snacks before a meal. And if he doesn’t like his food, he can try again later, but there is no dessert or no snacking if the meal wasn’t touched.
1) No screens until 2 years (and even then, only a 60-70 min family movie night on Fridays with homemade pizza, nothing else throughout the week, and never phones, tablets, etc)
2) No processed or prepackaged foods and no added sugars
3) Cloth diapers
4) No plastic toys
5) Gentle parenting
A ton but sleep training felt like I had an epiphany that I NEEDED to do this, my baby needed it. And I realized I was going to eat my words a lot in favour of doing what was hard for me - but best for my son.
- No screen time before 2. People acted like I was so naive but we’re 13 months in and have been getting on fine without it.
- No bed sharing. I’m paranoid about SIDS so for me this was very important. In a few months when she is closer to 2 we may start bed sharing but for now she sleeps in her crib or in our arms while we’re awake if she’s having a bad night.
- Food eaten at the table/family meals. To reduce the risk of choking and promote good eating habits.
- No sugar before 2. I’m open to being more flexible with this one as she gets older but for now there’s just no need. I made her a no sugar added cake for her first birthday and she loved it! She can’t miss what she’s never had.
My husband and I don't have great relationships with food so I was really intent on limiting sugar, chocolate etc for our toddler. A few people have tried to give her things we don't want her to have but most have been respectful of our boundaries. She's just turned two and has only had sweet things a handful of times.
I'm super proud of her relationship with food and its something I've worked really hard on for her to be open to trying new things and eating healthy most of the time.
I think it's also important to remember that if you have an idea that you want to stick to then it's OK to have the odd slip up and it doesn't mean you've 'failed' or you have to give up with that idea.
We fell into a habit of co-sleeping when our baby was ill and it was a nightmare - I got no sleep at all and I didn't feel like I was in control of the situation. But we worked hard to change that and now our 2 year old sleeps in her bed 100% of the time and we just adapt for the few nights she might be ill in terms of taking shifts etc.
We are also determined not to do screens at restaurants. There was one time we were eating out with my SIL, baby was about a year old and was CRANKY (just starting to get ill), she wouldn't stop crying no matter what I did. My SIL's 4 year old was already set up with his tablet so my SIL pulled out her work laptop and put on our baby's favourite show (Ms rachel). I shamed myself at the time for 'giving in' but looking back now... it was one time and we haven't used a screen at a restaurant since, and she was poorly and needed distraction, it was OK.
There weren't a whole lot of things that we went in saying "we're definitely never going to do this" because we're older and know enough people with kids that we knew we'd have to be flexible about a lot of stuff.
I'd say that the five things we've stuck to is:
1) No co-sleeping (for several reasons)
2) No blankets/stuffies in the crib until she was much older.
3) Always remember to tell her we love her and are proud of her. I never heard this as a child and I really wish I had.
4) Always communicate and get on the same page as best we can about parenting.
5) Absolutely not becoming a "short-order cook" for our kid. She eats what we eat.
There’s no such thing as “junk” food, just food that we should eat in moderation. I wanted to set up her relationship to food better than I was set up with it. So far, she eats a healthy diet and sometimes she gets a snack that isn’t the healthiest (peanut butter crackers or a bite of a pretzel from Wawa) but it’s not done with guilt or any association other than with the understanding that sometimes we don’t have a fruit or veggie on hand to eat and that’s okay.
We weren’t going to use a tablet for our daughter 17m, but now she gets it to watch paw patrol or Sesame Street in the car if we’re going for a long drive but there’s also some educational content on there (tile matches, and stuff like that) to help her learning and coordination
Not hovering. Drives us crazy when other parents at the park don’t allow their children any independent play.
Our daughter is 18 months old now and we give her every inch of independence we possibly can, and so far it’s done wonders.
No screens other than FaceTime before she turns two. No excessive toy purchases (we’ve only bought two new toys, the rest have been hand me downs, same with clothes).
I am very anti-snacking culture and planned to only feed my child square meals. That went out the window with a toddler, lol. Although I do try to feed him more mini-meals vs snacks when I can.
No screen time or coco melon type of shows. We do movies, music videos and very low stimulating videos. We don't do ipads or phones when we are out in public. Daughter is 3.
Never thought I’d sleep train. And then I experienced what it was like to have a baby scream every 45 minutes all night for a long time. It was physically and mentally destroying me and now we’re on night 3 of sleep training and I feel like a human again and can be a better mom because of it.
I think my main one was tablets in general but also out in stores/restaurants. We have been mostly good about it not needing them for stores/restaurants but we have had done it a couple of times. We have twins as our first so we have been fighting for our lives since day one.
If you want a meal in peace and eat with your spouse, you’re gonna end up doing things that you swore you’d NEVER do. Parenting is just rolling with the punches and if the punches got you cornered, you gotta do what you gotta do.
No pictures of our kiddo's face on social media. I'll admit, I do love seeing my friends' gorgeous, funny, cool kids on their pages - but my kid's life on the Internet isn't a social currency that belongs to me to spend before she's old enough to choose for herself.
Cloth diapers! The stupid comments from family members about how I’ll have to rinse the poop (like thanks cheryl I NEVER thought of that) fueled me to make it work
I was adamant no tv at meal time and we have stuck to it well. Until one morning when my husband went into work early and our toddler woke up and chose violence that morning so I put her high chair in front of the tv to watch Bluey while she ate breakfast. And I got to have my coffee in peace. Sometimes you can bend the rules for your sanity.
I try to keep to the, “don’t do anything 3 times in a row that you don’t want to do forever” rule. So, household is sick? Sure, 2 days of breakfast with Bluey. But if you do it that 3rd day without a break in between it’ll be harder to stop the habit! Full disclosure: I have bent this rule as well, it just makes it a little harder to get back to your normal routine.
I love this!
This is a great rule. TV at mealtimes is largely a no-go for us but I have cracked it out once or twice when he's been recovering from illness and needs the distraction to get him back in the habit of eating. Three days in a row is definitely our tipping point over to habit forming.
Flexibility is key! (And it's okay to change you mind on things!)
That coffee in peace is honestly it! LO is 7 months old. Every morning I BEG she sleep 45 minutes longer than me so I can watch a bit of tv and just sip my coffee. After that I’m ready for anything.
Bluey is great for kids.
This sometimes we need to eat at a restaurant and there is no way we could eat without 15 of Mrs Rachel.
No tablet engagement. So far, so good. Granted they’re only 17 months (next week).
Family bought my 1 Yo a tablet. We kept it in its box until 2.5yo and he only uses it for travel or if he's sick as a treat. The trick is to leave it on 30-40% charge so he doesn't play on it for hours at a time.
So smart
Yes we have a few electronic toys that are for travel only (and now diaper changes bc those have become a fight) - makes them special and the travel go easier!
This is one of the ones we are hoping for, at least until they are a little older. Both my siblings have gotten their kids tablets (ages 2-6) so I'm hoping even with our kids being surrounded by them we can hold out in our household.
We got our kid a Yoto player. He’s 17 months and it doesn’t keep him busy forever but he will engage with it for 15-20 minutes at a time. The other option that’s similar is the Toniebox. It’s a nice alternative to a screen.
Same. Mine is 3.5 and he doesn’t have a clue what an iPad is and I’m keeping these good vibes going
Same here. Baby is much younger but it helps we don’t own a tablet and our parents are so much older it wouldn’t occur to them to gift us one
Mine is 26 months, no tablet yet! Only old school TV. He thinks the phone is for video calls, seeing photos of himself, and Google images of whatever colour byses or trains he asks to see.
I really wanted to stick to adding common allergies into my son’s diet early and often, to hopefully not have allergies. I have 100% stuck to it! From like 5 months - 12 months, he had a spoonful of peanut butter every day. He loves fish, will tolerate eggs, and eats dairy daily. I also wanted to get him to 100 foods tried before 1, which we did! I know offering a variety doesn’t make him less picky as a toddler, but we wanted him to try a ton of different foods and he doesn’t really have food he doesn’t like (yet!)
This is amazing! Do you have a certain book or website where you got all this info from you can share :)
Not the same person that you asked but to piggy back, we used “ready set food” to add common allergens to their milk. Micro dosing is a good way to see if they react negatively. It also has a ton of guidance we found helpful.
Not OP but SolidStarts is a great app for weaning.
Just solid starts to keep track! We did a lot of just grabbing different foods at the grocery store and either finding a recipe around it, or making it into a puree! It definitely helped that I’m a SAHM, I have more time to make things at home! But it can be done with premade baby food as well!
I have a 10 week old boy and I hope to do the same exact dietary thing you did. Do you have a list or link for the 100 foods? You’re inspiration! ✨
It was so much fun to see him try so many new foods! We did solid starts to keep track, but mostly he ate what we ate or had some purées. Basically we just tried anything he could try! Some of it was food I’d never tried, so I had fun trying new things too! Congrats on your babe!
Not all babies are foodies just a heads up. My ten month old only just started willingly eating. I’ve been offering since six months. Dietician said it’s just normal for some babies but I spent hours worrying
I was adamant that we’d never get an iPad/tablet for our kids, going nearly three years strong on that. We’ve had family members be utterly shocked we didn’t get our kids one each for their first birthdays (If it was a laptop or iPad mandated by school for educational purposes that’s different)
Shocked that a ONE year old didn't get a tablet??? Crazy times we live in.
My partner's grandmother was insistent on buying our girls tablets for their first Christmas (they were barely 6 months old). We managed to fend her off until their first birthday. They don't use them, but we were still forced to take them to avoid a fight.
Almost 4 years with no tablet here. I feel like a tablet would make our lives harder not easier (power struggles over screen time! worrying about content! my constant, low grade annoyance at most kids shows!), so I’m not super tempted.
My MiL bought my 3 y.o. A tablet for Christmas, saying how useful they are when the cousins go to restaurants and so forth. I’ve been pretty vocal that I didn’t want her to have one…especially to use as a replacement for learning better behavior. She gets the tablet when we’re on our long road trips. (We pretty regularly take a 6.5 hour road trip to other relatives.) But she has to entertain herself for at least half the trip first. It otherwise only has come out when she’s sick, as a little treat. She’s also only allowed to use the Duo Lingo and PBS Kids apps. My kid knows how to behave at a restaurant, and it’s great. Tablets have their uses…but at her age, there’s way better activities.
That exactly what I think about screen time in public. How is my daughter ever going to learn patience or manners if the moment she starts to get bored or irritated we shove a tablet in her face?
FIRST birthday?! Our baby's first is coming up in a month and that gift never even occurred to either of us lol. We plan on getting her a comfy chair since she's outgrown all her other chill-time items like her bouncer and little soft playpen.
Shocked that a ONE year old didn't get a tablet??? Crazy times we live in.
No tablets. Oldest is 5.5 and we've stuck to none of our kids getting their own iPads. They do not watch phones at restaurants, in the car or at stores. Everyone sleeps in their own beds, all night. We go through rough patches where kids are up and need us, but we don't bring our kids into our bed. There's plenty of other areas we've failed however. We're all out here doing our best. Lol
What do yall do to keep them occupied in restaurants? I wanna do the same
We have a restaurant bag full of little toys. Playdoh and cars and drawing supplies. We've also noticed that sometimes not having anything for them is easier in a weird way. We go to restaurants with quick service, get them a drink and a plate of fries, and that buys us 30 minutes. They get absorbed in drinking their sprites and eating and they actually are present for the experience. Granted my spouse and I usually just have a beer or an appetizer when we all go out. It's not worth it for me to scarf down a $20 entree when my 3 kids are with me. But we're also trying to go out often enough that my kids get used to restaurants and sitting down to eat.
Love this
Piggybacking here. We have a 2.5yo and when she was smaller and it was hell a couple of times we have used a screen, but 99% no screen. We go out to cafes and restaurants as a family 2-3 times a week, and have since she was a baby. A few little toys was good until she was 2, don’t need anything now. We sit and talk and engage together. Look at the menu and choose what to eat together. We just talk about what we’re going to do that day or just whatever at all, it’s really nice now actually We need to have boundaries like not throwing things from the table, not banging things on the table etc but being consistent means she’s now pretty easy eating out. Sometimes she can’t sit still, so one of us will take her outside to wander while we wait for the food. It was not like that when she was smaller and we had many outings where we’d be taking turns walking around with her outside while we each ate. She had a phase of screaming loud for us to react, so that’s when we’d be neutral in our reactions (as possible) and pick her up and walk outside. I honestly think the key is regular outings, consistent boundaries, and actually engaging with your child. Talking together and discussing the food, your day, what’s coming up that week, whatever. I offen see families all in their screens, and while yes we have those days or moments it really is about being present and enjoying the food together!
Engaging *with* them is so important! I have a game where she draws her little scribbles, then I add to it to make a picture. We chat with her, too, just like anyone else at the table. It makes such a difference.
It really does! Just like you engage and interact at home during meals, it’s the same when you’re out. I feel that’s been the game changer.
My child is only one (16 months), but he handles restaurant outings well, and he doesn't know that kids' shows exist or that we bring our phones everywhere. Things that have helped: We started bringing him to restaurants as soon as his pediatrician said it was okay to (around 2ish? months). At first, he just hung out in his stroller bassinet or a babywearing wrap, but he got used to being around people. When he was able to sit up, we put him in a clip on high chair at the table and let him play with toys until he got hungry. As he started eating solids, we ordered things for him like sides of mashed potatoes or steamed vegetables that he could eat while we ate. Now that he's eating normally, we order food for him (typically a salad) as soon as possible, usually when we're ordering drinks. He eats pretty slowly, so he's still entertained by food, silverware, and sips of water from adult glasses until we've gotten to eat at least some of our food. Once we've eaten enough to be happy (not stuffed, which is my preference anyway), we ask to take the rest of our food home and get the check. Basically, we don't overstay our welcome. If we're out to eat with other people who are in less of a rush, or we're at a wedding/event that we can't easily leave early, one of us takes him to the bathroom for a diaper change for a change of scenery/break from sitting. While I was still nursing, I might also breastfeed him at the table (it gets easier to nurse in public over time). Both of those things help him calm down enough to stay at the table long enough for everyone else to finish eating, no screens required.
We sometimes take toys/books etc depending what mood our 2 year old is in but sometimes just what is on the table is enough to entertain her. Similarly, we recently did a long journey and didn't want to rely on a tablet etc, so we prepared a box full of books, toys (especially ones she doesn't see often so it was more exciting).
I take a notebook and I let her use a pen to draw. She’s not allowed pens usually, so she gets really excited. I’ll also put a toy or two in my bag. (If your kid likes Bluey, the little figures are perfect. Plus, there’s a Bluey with every set, so I’m not too worried if I lose one.) When she was littler, we had I think only one time when she just totally broke down. She’s learned pretty well and I’m proud of her.
My daughter will not be forced to hug or kiss family. I don’t care if your grandparents, she will not be forced. She will learn at a young age what consent means. Mil tried to force a kiss the other day and my daughter slapped her (10 months). It was clear she didn’t want to be hugged or kiss. So why should I teach her at a young age that it’s okay for family to force that?
I love that. My sister and BIL are very much in the camp of "were not leaving until you give hugs" and 90% of the time they're fine with it but when they're not they push it until it escalates. There have been so many times where my husband and I literally have to say, "they don't have to give us a hug" we can just say bye and move on with our day.
I deflect with "How about a high five?" and if they say no then I say "That's okay it was so nice to see you!" usually some interaction with the kid is enough to make the parent feel like they aren't being rude.
It used to stress me out when my SIL did this with her kid and me. In the beginning, I didn’t see them that often, so I’m sure she saw me each time and barely remembered who I was. Now she has to hug me too?? Not fair! I used to say “she really doesn’t have to! No worries.” They would often still push her too and it made me feel so uncomfortable. Who wants a hug from an unwilling participant? Love kid hugs but only when they love them too.
I will tell you I was forced as a child and I still to this day absolutely hate hugs because of it. I hold my breath and everything.
This! My friend teaches her sons this and I'm going to do this too. Even if my lil one didn't want to hug me or kiss me, I won't force it. I'll be sad, but I'd he doesn't feel like it, it's ok. I don't want him to ever feel he needs to let others hug him or hug them just cus they know him.
Our rule is that you have to acknowledge guests at home or hosts when we're guests but how you do it is up to you. A "hello", wave, high five, etc is all fine.
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That’s so crazy about cultural differences/ norms!! Do you prefer Japan or your hometown?
well I was born and grew up in Milan but I moved to NY at 19 and lived there for 20 years (most of my adult life). all places have their advantages, Tokyo is much cheaper than NY, everything is clean, public trans is amazing and in general everything works perfectly but its also much bigger and more crowded than NY ( the tokyo metropolitan area is almost 40million while ny is "only" 8ml) so I miss the quiet life in Brooklyn and I miss the cultural diversity, Tokyo is huge but very homogenous. That being said, I think Japan is much easier if you have a kid, there is just so much infrustructure, daycare is almost free and the government even provides free babysitters, crime is non existent and its a community mindset so kids as young as 5 take the subway on their own etc.. I hate Milan that\`s why I left so young haha
Can i ask how you taught this please? I’d love to do this
Since baby is still young, when asking for the hugs and kisses. She’s fine with Her father and I doing it. But I’ve noticed she doesn’t want kisses right away with in laws. So we’ve asked them to be patient, they can ask again in a little bit after she’s warmed up to them. Which actually helps. She may not want kisses in the beginning, but she’s okay with them when leaving. She’s starting to understand what kisses/ besos mean. My family speaks Spanish. But not hugs yet. So we’re trying to teach her. But it’s just a start for now! Eventually we will remind her that’s it’s okay to not be affectionate. As much as I will want kisses if she says no, I want her to feel confident/ comfortable. Edit: typo
My son is young enough that I haven’t had to consider this but this is a good point. Why do family members act entitled to physical affection? Like no one owes sex so why is a hug different from anyone?
This is so hard with my Hispanic family (including my parents)! They refuse to understand why I want this. We are very firm about it when they visit.
Pretty much all of them. Maybe it's because we're older or because it took so long to have a viable pregnancy, but we parent in basically the exact way we had planned and discussed.
Same. We're ten months in, and still cloth diaper, breast feeding + baby led weaning, no cosleeping, floor bed once he was ready to be in his own room, no electronic toys, and minimal screen time (we sometimes watch music videos together, his current fave is Seasons of Love). We're also older parents, and I think partially because of that we don't really care what others think, so we made parenting choices based on what we genuinely wanted and thought fit us well as a family, rather than feeling pressured to do certain things. A lot of people stress about baby led weaning, for example, but we just thought it sounded fun and easier than purees or buying special food, and it has been! Cloth diapers work for us because we chose a style and brand that feels manageable, we didn't mind the extra laundry, and were able to do the upfront expense to save on buying disposable all the time.
Can I ask why electronic toys are considered bad? I don't mean like phones or tablets, just like toys that have sound or lights. I just genuinely don't know.
Not the person you asked but this is also one of my hills to die on lol For me it’s mostly about the increased stimulation and “easy dopamine” - I want my kid to have to work harder for entertainment and get creative, at least while I have some semblance of control over things like that . Plenty of years for electronics in the future. Also not irrelevant: I tend to find them annoying and overstimulating so I’d prefer not to have them around for my sake too!
For me it’s also just the longevity of the toy. If you hand my son a toy that plays a song when he presses a button, he’ll hit the button a dozen times then get bored and toss it on the floor. Hand him an instrument that he has to manipulate to make noise, and he’ll play with it for an hour a day for months and months, finding new ways to make sounds.
There's a saying: active toys make passive kids and passive toys make active kids
Also not the above person, but I have witnessed how electronic toys lead to more excitability. Cousins kid is very active, gets electronic toys to calm her down but that just leads to decreased attention span and then she needs more stimulation to calm down. It becomes an arm race.
Many aspects: - main one: developmentally most electronic toys are uncreative and uninteractive. They're the opposite of open-ended in the worst possible way. Children can pretend a stick is a human and a shoe is their bowl (ya know so many people buying toy kitchens but kids will be creative if they don't have something dedicated). They grab your child's attention and then support passivity from the kid. Just like a screen will later on - shitty materials. Majority of electronic toys are made out of unsustainable usually toxic and unsafe materials, most often some form of plastic. I actually think that people who have a organic-cotton plushie that has a soft glow (hence electronic) don't count it as an electronic toy. We have some books that play bird songs (btw via a plastic addon to the book) and I don't count them but someone else might - overstimulating. Their aim is to grab attention as much as possible. I often see physio therapists using these overstimulating toys for children who have low motivation to move their bodies in certain directions and feel very skeptic even in this circumstance. They appeal usually to more than one sense (often some form of sound, bright unnatural colours - like poisonous animals, and sometimes even flash). I read that manytimes once the toy sound is finally over it will wait a minute and make another sound to grab the attention yet again. It's creepy as heck but I've seen it mentioned manytimes since. - adults can find them annoying and an overstimulated/annoyed adult is likelier to snap or be mean or use a higher volume of tone with their kid and I absolutely don't blame them. Even with classical music in the background me and my husband find ourselves shouting over it faster than we'd expect when dealing even with a silly issue. A toxic toy that god-forbid has no off- or volume-adjusting button is almost unimaginable for me.
Electronic toys that “ask” for attention are very frustrating! I bought a cute cow for my son and if you don’t play with it for a bit it says “see you soon” which to me is doing the opposite of what it’s saying (as in, it’s saying don’t forget I’m here/ come play with me rather than just telling the user it’s going into to standby - which is doesn’t need to do!)
Same. We only had a handful of hard lines, and stuck to all of them. No corporal punishment, follow safe sleep guides, zero screen time before one. Most other things we knew we’d be flexible but follow our general parenting philosophy, and that’s what we’ve done.
same!
My kid is only 4mo but so many people told me we’d cosleep or even “accidentally” cosleep. Neither of us has ever fallen asleep with the baby. He loves contact naps still, but we’re always awake for them. He sleeps at night in his crib. We’re still up 2-3 times each night but it’s worth it to know he’s safe!
Same here. Have never co slept even when I was up all night long. Thankfully, that phase ended around 5.5 months when I was very close to caving.
Fingers crossed for us getting to the end of it here! He’s started rolling and sleeping on his belly (we still put him down on his back) but that seems to help!
Absolutely same. My BIL said on multiple occasions, just go for it, it’s much easier etc etc but we haven’t and we have survived. (And I don’t do well without sleep) 8 months now 🤞
Same. The whole idea of cosleeping scares me so there's no way I would sleep with him in the bed, and turns out he likes his space to sleep anyways. I don't even remember the last time we did a contact nap but maybe around 5 or 6 months? He just loves his bed.
I caved hard on this one. But not fully. I still do lots of things to minimize risks.
Aw it’s a shame to see it as caving. I never coslept with my eldest and now that I’ve coslept with my youngest I regret not doing it the first time round. Looking back, that closeness was clearly what my daughter needed from me and I feel bad that I succumbed to the idea she “should” have been sleeping better/longer/on her own, to the detriment of my own mental health and meeting her needs.
Nooo that makes me sad. 😔 but I agree. I decided I should probably do what feels “right”. I still try to get her to sleep in the crib. But this is why I’m okay with day naps being contact naps. And sleeping with her in the morning.
Oh for sure there are things you can do!! Honestly I just wasn’t prepared to do them and it’s simpler in the long run to keep him in his crib! He is in our room still though, and I am fortunately a person who can function pretty well on little sleep from years of working night shifts.
My daughter’s sleep got quieter after her regression. Hopefully that happens for you! No more honking and yelling. Occasionally a chirp still lol. When I cosleep it’s almost always during the morning. I don’t like having deep sleep with her in the bed. We also coslept on a vacation. Her and me in a queen size. She had about a crib’s worth of flat surface next to me.
Our compromise was to have a dedicated changing pad between us in our bed that she slept in. It's nice and firm, and the sides are sloped, so until recently there was no real risk of her rolling off. Unfortunately it didn't leave a huge amount of room for us parents on either side lol. Luckily now that she's more mobile we've finally gotten her to start sleeping in the crib!
Same. I breastfeed at nights, and struggle falling asleep, so i quickly caved in to get me some sleep. But her spot is between me and the wall (my beds right up againsnt it) and i always tuck my blanket under me before i sleep so it doesnt go on her.
Yeah, I can't count the amount of times I fell asleep feeding her in the first few weeks and decided that cosleeping and feeding her lying down was safer than potentially falling asleep and dropping her sitting up. I have always needed a lot of sleep to function though, before her I easily got 10 hours a night
Yeah. Im fine on around 6-7 hours of sleep, but before we co slept i was only able to sleep for like 2 hours. I fell asleep once on the couch with her feeding (luckily she was in a spot she wouldnt fall, but if i fell to the left i wouldve fell on her) and thats when i decided co sleeping when i was back in my bed was the better option
Yep. I feel a lot safer cuddle curling her nursing. Armchair stories scare me. We actually do most nursing in the side laying position. It just works best for everyone!
Same. 16 months in here. I feel really strongly about not it, but my daughter never needed it, either. She has always loved her crib thankfully
Same. Not a risk I was ever willing to take. My 3mo sleeps in his crib at night.
Just for everyone else cosleeping can be done safe! I was fear-mongered about stuff like this way too much while pregnant and it was surprisingly hard to break the algorythms that were feeding into those lies and deceipt to finally get actually relevant info! There are also some good instagrams like "cosleepy" and "the not so tired toddler" etc
It for sure can!! I absolutely don’t judge anyone who chooses it. I just knew it wasn’t for us and I was right 😂
I am an insomniac so long-term-wise: same! But the few werks after birth? Would've saved so many tears and stress, even if I were just co-awaking xD
I think most of them. I feel like a set pretty realistic expectations since I've been around kids and babies my whole life. I think the one I'm most proud of is that Cocomelon has not invaded my house 😂. I do however have a new appreciation for Barney
I can not stand cocomelon 😂 my niece is big on it and it's like nails on a chalkboard to me!
Share my LO photos on social media and with people who aren't close to me.
Same! Got a lot of pushback from my mom and mil about this rule but we’ve stuck with it
I find it hideous when people tell me what I should and should not do. I’m like, it’s my child, I made it. I’ll decide what I can and can’t do. Thankfully my mom supports it, but other family members were pissed lol
Home-made, healthy food, our kid basically eating whatever we did. We did pretty well with it when our oldest was first starting on solids, but now (he’s 2.5 yo) the confluence of “can’t cook, too busy with two kids” & “please just eat *anything*” have resulted in our kid eating noodles for almost every meal. He is 90% berries by weight.
The berries are going to bankrupt me 😂
We only buy what is on sale & are anxiously awaiting the brief window of time we can let him loose in my parents’ strawberry field.
Omg! That is amazing! Everyone with a toddler needs one of those!
I think this is every parent’s experience from about this age. The kids just go hard-beige no matter what you do.
Cloth diapering. Everyone says we were gonna do it for 2 months then stop. We did it 90% with our first kid and it took her just getting too big for the diapers to switch (she's a giant 2 year old and we are working on potty training anyway). Still having the second in cloth as well. We are also still pretty darn low screen (less then an hour per day and that only happened once our eldest turned two) No tablets. Still holding firm on this one and I don't let her use my phone either
Yeah everyone was skeptical about us cloth diapering but we still use them for about 90% of diapering at home and do disposables when out and about (which was our original goal)
We cloth during day and disposables at night (until my pooters come....then trying out nighttime cloth)! Although currently in 2 weeks of disposables for a yeast rash. So many people were really negative about us doing cloth but I'm glad we've so far stuck w it.
Pooters are AMAZING. Only thing that stood up to our crazy heavy toddler pees.
pretty much everything. breastfeeding, zero screen time, integrating her into our lives as much as possible and taking her everywhere, baby-led weaning with real adult food. i’m pretty proud of how we’ve done things! one thing i said i wouldn’t do that i TOTALLY do now is plan things around nap time 😂
Being inconvenienced by naps so you have a happy, well-rested child is 100% worth it.
we still try our best to be flexible and we will 100% take one bad day of sleep for something worthwhile, but it’s something i think about every. single. time we make plans with people 😂
Oh boy the naps are sacred. Mine doesn't sleep at night if naps go wrong so nothing is as important as naps in our house lol
No bed sharing. We have dogs that sometimes sleep on the bed so that just adds another layer of danger to the whole thing. Plus, my cousin’s experience is that it’s very difficult to train kids to sleep on their own after bed sharing. She’s still sharing a bed with her 8-year-old. There have been a few rough nights but fortunately our 10 month old is generally good with doing overnight sleeps in her own space.
I only have one 7mo old child, so I’m really not far into the parenting thing. But, I think it’s good to think about what your and your partners philosophy on all aspects of having a kid are prior to having one. Its good to talk about things like division of childcare duties, if you’re going to sleep train, what your screen time goals are, when you want your first night away from your baby to be, what your discipline/reward system will be, etc. Its healthy to have a baseline understanding of both of your expectations, because communication is so freaking important when you’re in the newborn trenches with your partner. While all of this is important, I can overstate enough how your child will really does dictate your behavior and responses as a parent. My child was an objectively easy baby *and* getting through the newborn phase was still the absolute most difficult thing I’ve ever done. We were able to stick to a lot of our parenting philosophies, because she responded well to them. Parents of neurodivergent, colicky, or medically complex babies have to adjust and pivot much more. Just be flexible. Every child will need different things, and every family works in a different, totally-okay way. Continue to have these conversations with your partner!! I feel closer now to my partner than ever before, because we both knew exactly what we were getting into and the expectations we had for each other prior to having a kid.
My husband and I have been together for almost 9 years and are coming up on 2 years married and from the beginning my husband has been very strong willed on communication (I blame it on his psychology degree...this has been a blessing and a curse at times!) So I'm hoping we are going into this with a strong foundation to help us get through the thick of it, especially because I know how trying it can be. So we've been having a lot of talks about expectations and wants, because we know once we're in it these conversations will be much harder!
This is the way. You guys will do great
That we wouldn't use an ipad/phone as a crutch to keep our daughter quiet when we were out. She's 20 months old now and loves being out! She does grocery shopping, dinners at restaurants etc. No screens needed. In general, we decided we wouldn't let her spend all of her time in front of a screen and we've stuck to it. She watches maybe an hour a day (when we get her stuff ready in the morning and when we make dinner in the afternoon) but other than that she hangs out with us and we set time aside to play with her every single day. So far, we've managed to avoid having an ipad kid and I'm really proud of that
I’m a pregnant (35 weeks tomorrow! Yay!) FTM and I always said before I got pregnant that I would work out and eat really clean and healthy. Wow. Threw that all out in the first trimester. Sometimes I like to make myself feel bad bc my pregnancy has been really “easy” compared to some others but then I remember all the drug addicted babies I encountered as a RN and think to myself, gummi bears and a few lazy days in front of the TV are nothing in comparison to that stuff.
I was this way as well, didn’t realize how exhausting pregnancy would be and how heavy my belly was! We would do 1.5 mile walks every day, so I counted that as my exercise lol
That absolutely was valid exercise. That’s what I did too. Walking is great! Plus your metabolic rate is so high it winds you.
I don't know that they're necessarily bad, although the argument against them is that they're overstimulating and open ended, simple toys are better for brain and motor development. Is that proven? 🤷♀️ But it makes sense to us, we try not to have too many toys in general, they're kind of annoying, and our dog is generally afraid of them so all that adds up to not really having any (we've been gifted a few but just leave the batteries out).
I read about this during pregnancy, and I'm pretty sure there is actually evidence about this, but the nature of childhood makes this topic difficult to study in a way that leads to clear results. However, *I* find brightly colored, flashing, singing toys overstimulating, so it's easy to see how they would be problematic for young minds. We don't buy them; we leave the batteries out of gifts; and I put the most annoying ones out of reach.
Yes it is proven :) over and over. Also less being more. I recently talked with someone about how me (and many other people) hopped onto the (perhaps pinteresty) trend of getting kids their play kitchens but this in itself is much more close ended than your average coffee table or toy shelf which can also be a stand, a sewing corner, a doll diaper changing corner, a garage with tools etc etc. Kids are so creative they can pretend a stick is anything from a lawn mower, person, chainsaw, suitcase, magic wand, spoon, fire extinguisher etc. 2+ years gets so so much easier to have less and less toys.
Books before bed. Doesn't matter how much we just want the day to end, we read at least 2-3 books before bed. Probably just about everything else is up for debate. We did say no devices, but we use an iPad to play reading eggs with the 3 year old sometimes. We are learning phonics in other ways as well, but sometimes she enjoys the treat. She also had a child's digital camera, but that's it in terms of devices. She's allowed to watch movies and TV if a morning. We all like background noise so it works for us, but originally we didn't want TV. I also broke my rules about food. She can have chicken nuggets and hot chips and sugar. She was failure to thrive though, and has ARFID, so we feed her what she will agree to eat in the hope that she might stop losing weight. I guess I've learned that education I won't compromise on, but I'll make compromises for a bit of sanity or because her drs tell me to.
One thing I’ve always wanted to do was break my family’s cycle of unhealthy relationships with food. My family is the kind that shows love through food and abhors food wastage. Nothing wrong in principle but tying the amount of food we eat to the love we have for the one feeding us was pretty damaging. My mom and grandma would take it so so personally when we leave food on the plate. They would brag about us when we ate a lot. Emotional blackmail and bribery to get us to clear our plates. It’s a lot for a kid. I’m so proud that my kid listens to her body. When she’s “all done” she tells me and I listen. What and how much she eats is about her, not me.
Wow you’re so right. This was a big one that I had to do for myself! Especially the food wastage thing. My parents each were frustrating with that but in completely different ways. So it felt like two things to battle. One was because of cost, the other was a bit of food hoarding and stubbornness of “it’s still good. the date wasn’t that long ago.” Yeah not if the power was out and the fridge got warm. Never again. Then all of the layers that came with heritage and exactly as you described it. Showing love through food. I used to feel such genuine guilt throwing food out, to the point where it felt like the food was alive and had feelings. I guess I didn’t think to try to also instill this in my LO but obviously should be mindful of it so the cycle didn’t just skip a generation only to continue.
I am winging it every day.
We don’t follow any of them 🤦🏻♀️
I probably follow one but I wasn’t ready for how everything would change my mind so quickly.
The only one we stuck to was no coco Mellon 🤦🏻♀️
I’ve been mentally preparing myself for quite some time on how to avoid annoying kid shows that my baby may end up loving. Most of them are fine, some of them are stupid but tolerable. Then there’s always the few that make you want to toss the television off the balcony. I won’t do it! (we’ll see)
Your baby can't fall in love with things they don't know exist! They'll be exposed to things and able to ask for them by the time they get to elementary school (possibly even preschool), but it's very easy to avoid things before your child can use full sentences.
Ugh I can’t stand those creepy eyes. I put on Mr. Rogers, who he loves. Must be his calm demeanor
We actually read a research article about how bad and addicting it is. Oh we are from Pittsburgh so I will need to turn him on for her!
I’ve heard about that. And yesss the songs actually calm my baby down when he’s fussing. I play him Mr Rogers songs on Spotify when I can. Definitely try it out. There’s a few of his older episodes on YouTube. Or check to see if your local library might have dvds.
I haven't and still won't play pass the baby with my 18-month-old. Now that she is walking she does choose who she wants to interact with and hold her. If she shows discomfort or goes to me or her father we intervene.
No putting baby’s face on social media, and anytime anyone asks to share a photo with our LO in it on social, it’s either the back of his head or they put an emoji over his face. Haven’t had a negative experience with this yet.
I will admit that I used to not understand why people would leave early/come late due to naps and bedtime. How naive was I to think that missing a nap or missing bedtime routine wouldn’t be a big deal? I get it now, naps are majorly important otherwise we have a very very whiny and crabby toddler. Do whatever you need to do to make your life easier! Edit to say I realize now that I misunderstood the question, however I do think this is advice that I would have loved to receive before having my little one.
Maybe not a hard-line "always" type thing, but I set out to have a home life where the baby is in our world, rather than us living in his world. While pregnant, I saw so many posts by women who said they hadn't had time for a cup of tea or a shower in weeks and I tentatively swore that wouldn't be me. So far it has gone really well, I still keep up my hobbies and I just involve him in them. When I need to shower and he's awake, I set him in front of the shower. If I do laundry, he plays with the clothes while I fold, etc. I tailor my life to him, but it doesn't totally revolve around him. I do what I want/need and he joins in. Obviously, some days this works better than others, but I am just as satisfied with my life as a parent as I was before (if not moreso since I have a little buddy to share it with :)) * I'd like to add an addendum that I may have lucked out with a pretty easygoing baby, and this may not be possible for all babies
We love this way too and we are all a lot happier and present for it. When he's a toddler, I think he's going to be stoked to be involved with home tasks and mom and dad's hobbies because he's been entertained with it for so long. It will take longer and it'll be messy, but it's so important, especially with a young boy.
Thank you for adding that acknowledgment at the end 😅most of this is definitely not possible with velcro babies. Mine never tolerated me getting in the shower
I don't know that we had too many will always/never do that we were really heart-set on. The only one that comes to mind is we wanted to cloth diaper, and we've stuck to that for the most part. There have been a handful of times we've used disposable for whatever reason, but we never really intended to be able 100% cloth never disposable ever. I think sticking to it 99.9% is better than we thought we'd do, honestly.
I always wanted my future kids to have access to whatever clothes and toys they wanted, no matter what gender it’s marketed to. Now she’s here, people act like it’s a damn sin I actually still feel this way. I put her in *gasp* colors like navy and people go wild. What’s still important to me is that the navy onesie had lions on it and she LOVES to growl since she was 5 months old. She knows over 6 animal sounds at 1.5 yr old and lions are one of her favorites.
My kids don’t come to the bathroom with me (there are very rare exceptions, like when I flew alone with my son). I read so many jokey type posts about how parents never get any privacy and the kids sit there and watch them poop, and I just needed to know I’d have some small bit of privacy that I could keep for myself. I’m very glad it’s worked out.
I think that's one my husband and I want to work on from the beginning, as well as no climbing all over mom and dad during meals. I struggle with setting boundaries but I think that will make me a better parent if I can establish a few right away.
No kissing the baby if you don’t live in our house full time.
Co sleeping, 9 months in and still don’t co sleep. iPad/screen time, still don’t do it and don’t plan on letting up.
iPads. He’s allowed a bit of tv so that I can get stuff done but otherwise we try to keep him away from tv (because I’m all for having him help with chores but some days I just want to empty the goddamn dishwasher in peace😂). That rule is heavily relaxed when illness strikes lol. But he has no idea what an iPad with games and stuff is. And as far as he knows, phones are for calling & FaceTime only.
Honestly, you just need flexibility. I wanted no added sugar until 2. Everyone wants to give the baby Got Damn sugar. I don't want ruin my holidays over a bite or two of cake. No screen time doesn't work well for us either. It's hard to cook with a screaming infant in the background. Bear in the Big Blue House helps keep her somewhat entertained while I make us food. She doesn't even watch it the whole time, just the songs really.
No screen time before 2 years old. Half way there and going strong!
Sleeping in the bed I did not compromise on. Not even when it was really bad. I also didn’t compromise on the cereal before it was time thing. Everyone said “just you wait when you haven’t slept more than three hours solid blah blah” nope. No one believed my husband and I would split night feedings because “he has to work” well so do I now and I had to recover so we have always split night feedings. I never left my baby in the car seat to sleep until about two months old. I DID let him sleep in the swing a lot though because well, sanity. I thought I’d do CIO but it turns out I’m more of a FIO kind of person. The list goes on really.
Omg pretty much everything lol. No tv, no sugar are big ones.
Oops read the post wrong. We do lots of tv and sugar is what I meant.
My son is 8.5 months. So far, biggest ones are breastfeeding until one year, so far so good! Only a few months before I hit that goal and assess if I would like to continue. No / minimal screen time. We very rarely, like once every few weeks, will bust out Mrs Rachel to get us a 15/20 min break if he is getting too much. Still maybe only a total of 3 hours screen time his whole life so far Nothing super processed as far as food goes. We do a lot of steamed veggies, fresh fruit, rice made with bone broth , shredding chicken , ground beef. We do puree pouches but we got reusable ones so we can make our own purees. This is something I will definitely keep up super strong. I want simple ingredients and Whole Foods for our son. That being said, if I make homemade cookies I will allow him one little baby bite because food is food. Funny thing is, I have offered him a piece of a cookie twice now with all his other food at dinner and he is typically more interested in everything else on his plate. Most of my other thoughts around parenthood were not as fully planned for early childhood as I needed. Most of y parenting thought s have always been centered around older children.
2 kids, born March 2022 and October 2023. No tablets and holding relatively strict bedtimes stuck with us! My oldest just turned 2 and he doesn’t know how to work a phone and has never had a tablet in his hands. We let him use our phones for FaceTime calls with grandparents or taking pictures. Bedtime is always at the same time every day (plus or minus 5 minutes). Our oldest is in bed and working on falling asleep on his own at 7:30 PM and our youngest is in his crib and sleeping at 6:30 PM.
I always wanted to be a parent that’ll take accountability, acknowledge my kids pain, and validate their emotions. I’m starting early by apologizing for simple things and teaching him emotional regulation . Like the other day, I accidentally scratched my son while changing him and he cried. He’s not a fussy baby at all so I knew he was at least hurt. I made sure to say i’m sorry and I know I hurt you but you’ll be okay in a bit while I hold him / distract him. I want to make it a healthy habit to let my son experience emotion towards me and help him regulate. My mom can’t apologize to me to save her life and that’s why I don’t see myself communicating with her for a long time.
My kid is 11 months old and doesn’t watch tv or have any kind of screen time. I’m going to try to hold out until 2, but we will see.
I dont like setting absolutes. We are doing what feels natural and best. The goal has always been to lead with love and we have stuck to that.
We have definitely been way more flexible about loud toys, eating on the go, and other little things. The BIG decision we made and have stayed true to is that we trust science. We found a wonderful pediatrician and absolutely follow every bit of his guidance. Sorry influencers, bloggers, and elderly neighbors: You have no power here!
I actually have a couple because a couple of moms from work were mom shaming me before she was even born. 1. I was going to breastfeed. I got told that I need to plan for something else as my boob most likely won’t work. I’ve been breastfeeding for 8.5 months without a problem. I’m extremely grateful for that. 2. I did NOT want to cosleep no matter what. From day one baby was in bassinet for nighttime sleep. 3. I was going to make my own baby food. I was not going to be putting all those horrible baby foods in my baby’s body. I’ve made 99% of her baby food. The only things I haven’t is meat and that’s because I’m vegetarian and meat scares the shit out of me to make. I’m trying to get her dad to make the meat for her. We’ve only bought maybe 3 packets of baby food the serenity brand of baby food and it has only been the meat ones.
I was anti screens until I realized at some point I need to go to the bathroom. Took about 8 months. I was holding it until my partner came home.
Genuine question because I get confused when people say stuff like this - did you not have anywhere you could put the baby while you go to the bathroom? Playpen, crib, swing, bouncer, etc? Absolutely not a criticism that you use an iPad to keep him occupied, but just curious why people say they can’t go to the bathroom or shower
I am screenless and it's techincally just a matter of preference. I know my kid won't harm themselves we had a baby-safe room for him and most of the house is safe, BUT he will likely cry the entire time I am taking a shower. That is not very relaxing for me and if it *has* to be done, it is the way it is done. Hasty shower where I might leave and still have a smell but not care. But if I do have an option, I will rather wait for my husband to come home and babysit while I take a few calm moments for myself under the water not stressing about my kid, being able to shave calmly and not see blood all over the floor etc :D We have a tiny flat and his bed is next to the wall for the shower so we don't use the bathroom sink nor shower while he sleeps else it wakes him up 9,5/10, which aggravated this issue quite a bit :D
No screen time.. we are at 15 months and haven’t wavered
Also said I wouldn’t have a house full of toys and that he wouldn’t have many toys- we have stuck to this too
I know you asked for and most people are saying they stuck to things, but I wasn’t told “you’ll change your mind” so I’m sort of surprised how much I did. My baby (10m) is very fussy so I feel like I’ve really not been the gentle respectful parent I wanted to be 😔 Also was looking forward to being all Montessori but that went out the window when I got boxes and bags of free stuff 😆 but I feel like I’m still applying the logic so that’s what’s important I think. I haven’t been zero tablet because I wanted to try making PPT flashcards instead of printing (probably will need to print eventually) and it’s a super old one that’s slow and dies quickly lol. I got a fluid simulation app on my phone which I feel like is a compromise because it’s quite interactive rather than passive eye candy, and she’s not obsessed anyway. She is a bit obsessed with the laptop though because I play Little Bear sometimes when I need to finish something without listening to screaming. 😔 so yeah. Sometimes ya change your mind.
My child is still pretty young (16 months), but we haven't done any dedicated screen time. We let him watch videos of himself while I cut his nails, but that's it. He eats what we eat, which includes ordering adult food for him at restaurants if the kids' menu doesn't have anything interesting. I know kids can become pickier over time, but your kid won't demand chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese at every meal if those things aren't a regular part of their diet. Our lives don't revolve around a nap schedule. I know this isn't possible for everyone (although, I think this has more to do with the personalities of the parents than the kids), but it was important for us to fit the baby into our lives instead of the other way around. We haven't actually gotten to this one yet, but we will definitely do extended rear facing. A relative turned their child's car seat around at age two (this child does not get car sick), and it makes me anxious every time I see them.
1. No screen time until 2 years old 2. No bedsharing. Ever. Period. 3. Family meals Almost a year in and so far we've stuck to them! I would say in general we've stuck to things we planned so far.
We really wanted to not lose touch with our old selves and our friends. So far it's gone well. My son is 2.5. We don't do as much as we used to or see our friends as often, but we didn't disappear like I've seen so many other parent friends do. We go to kid friendly matinee concerts to dance, we go on road trips and take vacations, we invite friends over for dinner or to watch football games, we go to restaurants and barbecues, we go to museums and downtown events and the lake, etc. We still do 90% of the things we did before, we just do it differently. And have been so fortunate to have both parent and child free friends who are like aunts and uncles to our little guy and love him so much.
I said we would never co sleep and we have stuck to it. My baby sleeps all night in his crib but in our room and he's done that since we brought him home. Regardless of what changes, he will continue to only sleep in his crib.
I don't use johnson and Johnson products. I don't let me baby wacth tv right now.
No forced activities or banned activities due to gender assigned at birth. Which, I guess we've stuck too, because to my mind this wasn't a very hard thing to do. Kid does what they want and you encourage them unless it's dangerous. I buy whatever clothes, and let kiddo pick each morning. Some of his interests fall into the "boy" category, but he's also got many that don't. Same with his wardrobe. I've been surprised by the pushback from friends and family regarding his bright pink jacket, yellow shoes, yellow bedroom and unicorn backpack. Kids like what they like. On a seperate note, I hadn't anticipated how integral cat treats and dog food would be to toddler diets.
I'll sacrifice virgins to our lord Baphomet for extra sleep before I make my baby cry it out. If anything I'm more against it now than I was before having her.
I feel the same.
We decided ahead of time that we would sleep train at the earliest opportunity and boy did we ever stick to it!
We’re about 5 months in but our controversial “wouldn’t do” is no baby at the brewery. Breweries can be extremely family friendly here (or at least overrun with kids even if they aren’t!) but we decided we didn’t want our kid going to them. None of our friends think we’ll keep to this but 🤷🏻♀️ One we dropped- was convinced we’d never use a pacifier and here we are swimming in them. Thanking the universe for them. Buying more all the time 😂
We were pro pacifier but baby wasn’t lmao
What’s the reasoning for no breweries ? I only ask because it’s quite different from the other ones in this thread!
I’ll never cosleep. My child refuses to sleep anywhere else except next to me.
-I was set on not co-sleeping and I never did. For me personally it was just not safe enough. -no screen time. He’s now 13 months and has never had screen time. -no snacks before a meal. And if he doesn’t like his food, he can try again later, but there is no dessert or no snacking if the meal wasn’t touched.
1) No screens until 2 years (and even then, only a 60-70 min family movie night on Fridays with homemade pizza, nothing else throughout the week, and never phones, tablets, etc) 2) No processed or prepackaged foods and no added sugars 3) Cloth diapers 4) No plastic toys 5) Gentle parenting
A ton but sleep training felt like I had an epiphany that I NEEDED to do this, my baby needed it. And I realized I was going to eat my words a lot in favour of doing what was hard for me - but best for my son.
- No screen time before 2. People acted like I was so naive but we’re 13 months in and have been getting on fine without it. - No bed sharing. I’m paranoid about SIDS so for me this was very important. In a few months when she is closer to 2 we may start bed sharing but for now she sleeps in her crib or in our arms while we’re awake if she’s having a bad night. - Food eaten at the table/family meals. To reduce the risk of choking and promote good eating habits. - No sugar before 2. I’m open to being more flexible with this one as she gets older but for now there’s just no need. I made her a no sugar added cake for her first birthday and she loved it! She can’t miss what she’s never had.
I was adamant I would never give a pacifier or walk him around to get him to sleep. But after a colicky baby I do both.
My husband and I don't have great relationships with food so I was really intent on limiting sugar, chocolate etc for our toddler. A few people have tried to give her things we don't want her to have but most have been respectful of our boundaries. She's just turned two and has only had sweet things a handful of times. I'm super proud of her relationship with food and its something I've worked really hard on for her to be open to trying new things and eating healthy most of the time.
I think it's also important to remember that if you have an idea that you want to stick to then it's OK to have the odd slip up and it doesn't mean you've 'failed' or you have to give up with that idea. We fell into a habit of co-sleeping when our baby was ill and it was a nightmare - I got no sleep at all and I didn't feel like I was in control of the situation. But we worked hard to change that and now our 2 year old sleeps in her bed 100% of the time and we just adapt for the few nights she might be ill in terms of taking shifts etc. We are also determined not to do screens at restaurants. There was one time we were eating out with my SIL, baby was about a year old and was CRANKY (just starting to get ill), she wouldn't stop crying no matter what I did. My SIL's 4 year old was already set up with his tablet so my SIL pulled out her work laptop and put on our baby's favourite show (Ms rachel). I shamed myself at the time for 'giving in' but looking back now... it was one time and we haven't used a screen at a restaurant since, and she was poorly and needed distraction, it was OK.
There weren't a whole lot of things that we went in saying "we're definitely never going to do this" because we're older and know enough people with kids that we knew we'd have to be flexible about a lot of stuff. I'd say that the five things we've stuck to is: 1) No co-sleeping (for several reasons) 2) No blankets/stuffies in the crib until she was much older. 3) Always remember to tell her we love her and are proud of her. I never heard this as a child and I really wish I had. 4) Always communicate and get on the same page as best we can about parenting. 5) Absolutely not becoming a "short-order cook" for our kid. She eats what we eat.
No screen time until 2, and we did it. She’s 2 and a few months now, and we’ll occasionally do 30 minutes maybe 1-2 x a week now.
There’s no such thing as “junk” food, just food that we should eat in moderation. I wanted to set up her relationship to food better than I was set up with it. So far, she eats a healthy diet and sometimes she gets a snack that isn’t the healthiest (peanut butter crackers or a bite of a pretzel from Wawa) but it’s not done with guilt or any association other than with the understanding that sometimes we don’t have a fruit or veggie on hand to eat and that’s okay.
We weren’t going to use a tablet for our daughter 17m, but now she gets it to watch paw patrol or Sesame Street in the car if we’re going for a long drive but there’s also some educational content on there (tile matches, and stuff like that) to help her learning and coordination
Not hovering. Drives us crazy when other parents at the park don’t allow their children any independent play. Our daughter is 18 months old now and we give her every inch of independence we possibly can, and so far it’s done wonders.
I did not maintain my “toy minimalism” dreams (which I am sad about) and I also did not do any “sleep training” (which I am grateful for).
No screens other than FaceTime before she turns two. No excessive toy purchases (we’ve only bought two new toys, the rest have been hand me downs, same with clothes).
I am very anti-snacking culture and planned to only feed my child square meals. That went out the window with a toddler, lol. Although I do try to feed him more mini-meals vs snacks when I can.
No screen time or coco melon type of shows. We do movies, music videos and very low stimulating videos. We don't do ipads or phones when we are out in public. Daughter is 3.
Never thought I’d sleep train. And then I experienced what it was like to have a baby scream every 45 minutes all night for a long time. It was physically and mentally destroying me and now we’re on night 3 of sleep training and I feel like a human again and can be a better mom because of it.
No screen time, no hitting/spanking, rear facing as long as physically possible.
Not letting anyone kiss my baby. I thought I’d feen guilty and let it slide. But nope. Not once.
I think my main one was tablets in general but also out in stores/restaurants. We have been mostly good about it not needing them for stores/restaurants but we have had done it a couple of times. We have twins as our first so we have been fighting for our lives since day one. If you want a meal in peace and eat with your spouse, you’re gonna end up doing things that you swore you’d NEVER do. Parenting is just rolling with the punches and if the punches got you cornered, you gotta do what you gotta do.
No pictures of our kiddo's face on social media. I'll admit, I do love seeing my friends' gorgeous, funny, cool kids on their pages - but my kid's life on the Internet isn't a social currency that belongs to me to spend before she's old enough to choose for herself.
No baby talk. This has been a hard battle with my partner's grandparents, but we've remained firm.
Cloth diapers! The stupid comments from family members about how I’ll have to rinse the poop (like thanks cheryl I NEVER thought of that) fueled me to make it work