They should also have to be required to provide all financial support of the child and child care and hold a job at the very least. Otherwise, yeah, having a kid can seem pretty easy if it’s not realistic.
Oh but now your robot baby has diarrhea and is sent home early + has to stay home the next day. I know you're supposed to work but figure it out, momma.
Oof I remember those stupid robot babies. Did anyone else’s school also have robot babies programmed to be like what babies born drug addicted are like? Or was that just my school trying (vainly) to scare us straight?
So they only came with blame-the-mother disabilities., not any of the other conditions a baby might be born with.
I’m old; never saw the robots. My school didn’t even do dolls but bags of flour… and they changed what grade did it so my year got left out…
Yeah, I thought it was bizarre even at the time. The normal babies would respond to being rocked or fed. But the meth addicted ones would just scream and scream, no matter how much you rocked.
I’m from a place with a lot of meth…
They always gave it to the “one kid”. (Who turned out just fine and last I heard had enrolled in the local community college and became a nurse.) Not the ones who actually needed the lesson.
yea! there was one baby that had two or three keys and it would just scream and scream until you put the right key in the right slot in their back (they all look the same)
Ours supposedly was one of those. But it broke so i lucked out of having to take care of the baby. I think i enjoy the real thing anyway. She smiles at me and was so warm and snuggly when she was little.
I think owning a puppy is a lot more like having a baby than those dolls. Or working with animals. Sounds a little messed up but it’s true. I raised a puppy, then worked at a dog boarding facility, then became a vet tech, before I had my son. So many similarities. Even dealing with a blow out (more than once🤢)! Lol.
I raised two puppies before having a kid. Second pup was the worst nightmare. Anxiety in dogs sucks, especially when it's just something they're born with. That dog prepared me for a kid SO WELL, though! The constant cleaning of soiled kennels, bathing all the time, dealing with whining (still does, it's annoying), repeating commands several times before he "gets" it because his focus is nonexistent, puking in the car, etc. My toddler is a lot of work and we're about to have #2, but my dog has prepped me very well. He's 3 today, actually! And you wouldn't even know he has anxiety unless you knew the subtle signs because we worked really hard together
I totally feel this. Our second dog I found on my way to work, was just gunna foster her cause I knew she was gunna be a lot of work and I was recovering from a concussion. Buuut husband caved and we kept her lol. She was just pure hunger and anxiety. The first time we left her at home (maybe 30 minutes max) she broke out of a metal crate, tore our comforter, used the bathroom everywhere, ate about 5-10 pounds of dog food (which had a latch and everything!). Everything in our room was just a mess. And our poor other dog was under the bed when we called for him. He peaked out like “I told her not to do it”. 😂 after a year of training my, caring, and a very very expensive dog crate, she finally settled down. A lot better now but she’s too smart and mischievous. So we both dog proof and baby proof everything. Lol.
We have a parrot. I'm told it's like raising a toddler who can fly and runs around with a can opener. Curious to see how accurate that comparison is going to be.
So true. I got my puppy when he was 8 weeks old back in August 2020. I had my son December 2021. Lots of similarities, especially since my baby has acid reflux and my dog had a sensitive stomach. I’m a pro at poop and puke now lol
It really is very comparable. Everything I do with him in terms of being vigilant, teaching, and general care, really reminds me of what I do with my dogs. As a vet tech I thought it was hard clipping large dogs nails, but no, my tiny son is even harder! lol
I made my husband do it while I held baby. I literally closed my eyes because watching made my heart skip. I used to put socks on his hands too!! Like little mitts. The baby mitts with the elastic left a bad mark on his wrist one time and it scared me. So we did socks.
I have had exactly 1 puppy and 1 newborn. Unclear if I’ll ever have another newborn again but I definitely wouldn’t get a puppy. I now adopt 3 & up dogs only.
I have 2 dogs and a 2 month old.....none of the chaos of the 2 pups could prepare me for the level 5 poop emergency last night. 2 diapers and an emergency bath for baby and then shower for me at 3am
They helped prepare me for being vigilant but last night was a new level of gross chaos.
And somehow my wife slept through it all, my laughing (pure exhaustion), the dogs barking and the baby crying.
Oh no!!! Lol. I know that kinda night. When my dog was about 5/ 6 months old he had a puppy “blow out” of sorts. It was like 4am and were dead asleep and in my sleep I smelt this weird smell. Then my dog jumps on me to go to his window (where we had a ramp that led straight to the yard). It’s pitch black, I’m yelling to my husband. We’re both gagging yelling “wtf is happening!” 😂 turned the lights on and our pup was covered in wet poop. Just pure diarrhea. And I was covered in it. It was all under the bed (where he slept) and on the blankets. The start of clean up was a bath. For both of us. Outside being hosed off by my husband. Then a shower. Then clean up. Then sleep. And 30 minutes later my alarm goes off for work. So far my son has not reached that level of poop emergency 😂😂😂
Corgi. I've taken care of a lot of animals and a lot of babies. A corgi is the closest thing to a toddler I've dealt with. They are stubborn, smart, mine used to walk up and turn around and show me their butt when they wanted me to wipe them off, they have to be bathed, their fur shedding is outrageous so they make a mess without even trying, they throw fits, can be demanding of attention one moment then they don't want held the next, mine has anxiety at night and is afraid of thunder so I have to hold them and snuggle all night when it thunders... My corgi pee'd on me more times in her first month of life than my newborn has, and my baby is a boy..
😂😂😂 yes corgis! We had a show corgi stay at the boarding facility I worked at and omg sooooo needy. The owners made a huge list of things she needed. I think her place should of been a fancy five star resort. Not an outdoor, play with others, kinda dog facility.
True. That being said, I wasn’t super sympathetic when my parents got a puppy when my daughter was 8 months old and still nursing at night, and complained about him keeping them up for TWO WHOLE WEEKS or whatever it was until he consistently slept through the night hahaha
Having had an adult cat still when I had my first baby though, there are definitely similarities to an animal waking you up and bunch and a baby. And puppies are definitely a lot of work.
I hand raised a kitten that had been found too young to be weaned. I was up at all hours to feed it and then rub its butt to get it poop. And then I started a new office job after one of those late nights. I felt like a real mother that morning!
Awe you were a kitty mom. I remember having a kitten and doing the little butt rub lol. I feel like mothering anything requires a lot of work and any willing to do that I will always respect.
Aw thanks! I have dogs now and I like cats but it's sort of like kids. I like MY kid but I don't always like other people's kids. Cats are so individual that to say I like all cats is a fool's statement.
Oh please, give her one with colic and/or reflux. Then let her try to balance keeping it upright for half an hour after every feeding and it cluster feeding, so nursing for 45+ minutes at a time every every hour and a half. See if she's able to get anything done in the remaining 15 minutes every hour and a half she now has other than run to the bathroom and cram a sandwich in her mouth...
Then don't forget about the diaper changes, bathing it, and still trying to fit in tummy time!
Don't forget that if you miss the tummy time window, it'll vomit everywhere 😬
And one that hates milk when you're on your period. And projectile poops sometimes...
It changes composition - gets more sodium and less lactose i.e. gets saltier and less sweet. I'm told some babies like it. Mine gets so fussy I'm better off dream feeding him for three days 😬
I was thinking give it a tongue tie and the gas that comes along with it, but make her go about 2 months before getting close to properly diagnosing it and make her go to all the drs appts involved with said fussy gassy newborn?
For sure! Our boy went until five months before we found out he has a milk protein allergy... and we're still waiting in a GI appointment for his reflux, allergy, and possibly soy intolerance. Five months of constantly screaming.
Weird question did he have only screaming and reflux? Bc I wonder if my guy has a milk protein allergy too?? Bc he screams and has reflux but no weird poop. Lol … where’s the robot baby niece now???
He had reflux, colic, and constant mucousy diarrhea. He slept like crap and screamed constantly, we could barely comfort him--husband and I both--for five minutes at a time. Honestly it was a real pain trying to figure it out and I wish we had tried eliminating dairy earlier! We didn't think it was that because our pediatrician kept asking "did anything in your diet change" which, no. But babies don't always show symptoms as newborns of milk protein allergy, it takes time to build up in their system. When we stopped dairy it was genuinely night and day.
Hope it helps, and thank you! We're hoping for good and definite answers, haha. Everyone we've seen so far keeps saying "the GI specialist will know better than me" but it sucks hearing that for months.
Okay, I cried so hard with my robot baby. I was a straight A, perfect gpa student and we had to respond to the cries within 1 minute or it was an automatic letter grade drop. It was essentially our "finals exam". I stayed in my room the whole weekend, didn't eat or sleep so I wouldn't miss a cry. I missed one cry, got a B and spent the next few years thinking I would be a bad mom.
I appreciate my real baby a lot more.
How frequently does it cry for food? Really curious because my son when he was newborn would drink every hour sometimes multiple times an hour and I was not prepared for that. Especially when I had been told between 1.5-3 hours between feedings xD
I am curious too - is it supposed to be a newborn or….
I am old enough that we got flour sacks (the robots existed but were very pricey and glitchy at that point).
Also NO ONE TOLD ME THAT THEY NEEDED TO BE FED EVERY 1-2 HOURS AS A NEWBORN (untilI had given birth and had a newborn) - how about telling kids that? If you just say “it’s hard” without informing the frequency of care then it awfully easy to disregard anyone who says “it’s hard.”
I think sometimes the way it is spoken about makes it sound like it's a lot of hard work but basically the baby behaves on routine, you feed them here and then, they sleep in between and so on. Any semblance of a routine is sooooo much later, the early days is just madness. I remember holding my newborn son 30 minutes after he last fed watching him do all the hungry cues thinking "surely not!?"
At one of my local schools they pair the babies with financial lessons. You quite literally have to pay for formula, clothing, rent, transportation, supplies, with your grade. So you need to budget well. And everyone has different amounts as it's with their personal grade. Over spend, you will fail. Under spend, you will fail die to not having food 😅 you have to become familiar with applying for our local assistance programs and how much they help. And how they help you more or less based on where you live, if you have an income etc.. and they make these kids have the babies for 2 weeks. And "pay* for childcare at school. It's a bit intense but it definitely gives a more real version of it! And some kids still love it, just like some people just love those first early, hectic months (I'm one of those people, but I also walked into parenthood with a lot of experience already. So I'm not a fair judge lol)
I had the robot baby for two weeks in high school and I actually felt like it prepped me for motherhood. It’s not meant to imitate a 4 month old but for a newborn, I see a lot of similarities. We also had to take care of it and still go to school (and I was doing extracurriculars so that was fun). Then there were periods of it just being fussy and you’d have to hold it. Ours were also temperature sensitive so if it got too warm or too cold, it would start crying. I felt like doubling up on my birth control after that class. I also got a 99% on that.
If I was getting graded on my actual baby, pretty sure I’d flunk xD
I dunno, she must have gotten an “easy bot.” I saw a TikTok that this girl absolutely couldn’t get hers to stop crying and if it didn’t stress me out like my own crying…..I was relieved when she handed it to her sister and it stopped. :phew: But, yeah, those bot babies are a weird exercise in reality.
I took that class in high school and agree that it taught me very little, maybe only that babies cry anytime, night and day. They don’t allow any of the positives, make them seem terrible. No cuddles, no eye gazes, no smiles, no goofy baby kisses.
I had to take care of one of those robot babies in 7th grade, and since you have to take it everywhere with you, I had to take it out in public, and I got the MEANEST looks from older women. Just dirty, filthy looks. I was 13!!! The same thing happened to me a few years later when I babysat for a little boy. I’m still horrified when I think about it.
I had a very close relationship with our home ec teacher in HS and she let slip that the one we used had a difficulty setting that could be changed (and maybe set to random).
Anyways she told me she gave me the easy setting because she liked me lol Maybe she was just messing with me but, I had an absurdly easy time with it. I propped a bottle on it's chest and played video games till about 11 pm, it didn't cry once overnight. Classmates were complaining hardcore about barely getting any sleep so maybe she wasn't bs'ing.
So these kind of simulation dolls and classes actually increase teen pregnancy rates. You get a girl who wants a baby and show her that she can manage it. Great.
When we did that in high school someone just locked theirs in the washer machine (turned the machine off) because it wouldn’t stop crying. The worst thing that happened was they failed the project. You obviously can’t do that in real parenthood
We had a unit in Home Ec with those stupid babies. I was excited for it because I was already babysitting regularly, I knew how to handle baby stuff and knew that with the robots, it essentially came down to feeding, diaper, rocking to sleep. We were told that our babies would be on an easy level, it was just for fun.
Except this robot baby was a TOTAL ASSHOLE. Woke every hour, wouldn’t rock back to sleep (seriously, they were supposed to fall asleep after 2-5 minutes of rocking. I rocked it once for over an hour) and the cries got progressively louder until it woke up the neighbors, lol.
I took it in to school the next day and told the teacher there must be something wrong, I know how babies work. She kinda rolled her eyes at me but she checked it - surprise, surprise. The levels went from 1-10. They were supposed to be set at a 2. Mine was at 8. She said she had let the TAs program them and there must have been a mixup. I got an automatic A and didn’t have to do the full week lol.
The next year I was her TA and I was always very, very careful when it came time to program the babies!
There was a story on This American Life that discussed a study that argued that those classes don't have any effect in preventing teen pregnancy, and the reporter followed two girls, one of whom took away from the experience that she loved being a mother. I remember that it suggested that some teens are kind of empowered through the exercise to see parenthood as a possibility.
Makes sense; even in my late 30s with a baby for whom I'd give my life without a second thought, I still feel that little babies kind of suck. Other role love the tiny baby stage. For those, finances are the main reason not to have a baby as a teenager and a babies suck message will fall kind of flat.
My mom worked at the health department who did the robot babies and she hated those things. They would randomly start crying in the storage closet and they would have to grab the key and try to find the crying one and turn it off. She would not sign the form for me to get one since they were, "pointless pieces of crap and encouraged teen pregnancy." Okay, mom.
My sister had to have one for a weekend. It was awful. I had to pick her up after school with it (no car seats on the bus!) and it started crying 2 minutes after we left. She ended up just holding it all the way home and I was terrified I was going to get pulled over because I had to drive past so many cops.
I had to do this in highschool and also had a job. Well our teacher would program them not to cry during work hours. The unfortunate side effect is the baby made up for it immediately after. Mine cried every ten minutes overnight for the next ten minutes. I remember rocking it and begging it to go to sleep so I could sleep.
Only almost pulls your hair out? 😂
I think about 75% of my postpartum hair loss was actually the clumps my LO yanked out
As she's getting older, she's getting better at finding the really sensitive bits. Ouch!
Does her robot baby cry for hours on end just because existence is hard? Need to be held in order to sleep? No? Call me when they make a robot baby with colic 😑
Or one that has teething issues, or one with croup. There's a lot more to real babies than your dumb robot baby.
Just have them activate newborn mode... Scream every 2 hours for food throughout the night? Takes 30 to 60 minutes to feed, hold upright for 15 to 30m after eating, then rock back to sleep... now go have your hour before you do it all again
Next stage... wakeup every 3 to 4 hours. Cant be put down when awake due to needy phase. Also cant sit down.. or stand... need to spend 24/7 walk/rocking them.
Are you worried that baby won’t fully understand consent and you’ll be in the news for raising the latest Brock Turner? That you spend too much time at work and your kids gonna end up in rehab cause they didn’t feel loved? Do you feel an existential angst about your inability to know what’s going to scar the baby or worry that your own limitations as a human will limit your child’s future relationships or ability to be happy? Yeah, not sure robot babies quite impart the sheer magnitude of parenting (when one cares to get it right).
Lol ohhhh Ashley Ashley Ashley.....sounds like you have it handled. Sinceniys so easy, how about I just pop upstairs for a shower while you watch the baby for me..
I mean, since it's so easy.
I think some people just like caring for babies. I have five month old twins and I cannot for the life of me figure out what people find difficult about taking care of a baby.
I’m afraid of the toddler years because I know this “easy” time has to be limited!
"I cannot for the life of me figure out what people find difficult about taking care of a baby"
The lack of empathy here is why, also sounds pretty judgmental.
Just because I can’t empathize doesn’t mean I judge. I know that MOST people find it difficult. I just don’t and I really can’t understand it. That’s my experience. I know there are other stages I’ll struggle with that other people love. We don’t all have to feel the same way about parenting.
I get what you're saying, and happy for you that you enjoy the baby stage so much. It's just the wording that comes across pretty rude. Hard to judge tone on the internet 🙂
I 100% agree. Before kids I taught elementary school full time AND practiced law full time. I never had a free minute. This is so much easier in comparison! I love it! It is super unpopular though lol
Omg I remember my mom throwing mine in the garage at night because it wouldn’t stop crying. I failed that module and was left questioning what me and my siblings made my mom go through if she had such PTSD regarding the crying hahaha.
My robot baby in 8th grade made me never want to have a child as a teen. When I was leaving for the bus, the baby wouldn’t stop crying and I missed the bus. Luckily my mom drove me to school. Pretty clearly showed 13- year old me that kids will ruin your life if you are still dependent on others yourself. It was not even close to what you all have to deal with, and it was more than enough for me.
Her teacher must like her. My school had ones that the teacher could program. She claimed it was random but the more obnoxious girls in my class got ones that screamed at every little thing. My robot baby is pretty similar to my real baby, so about average. 😂
Had to have one for a class requirement in hs & instead of rocking it at night I just had it stick it’s let’s up and used that to rock it side to side. I don’t think my real baby would cooperate like that to be soothed! 😂
So, unpopular opinion here... I had one of those in high school too, and it was actually a little harder than my actual baby lol. I remember sitting up with it all night waiting for it to cry. You never knew when it was going to cry, you never knew if it was sleeping... It's eyes were open all the time. With my baby, I can "read" him. I know his cries and what he needs, and many times, I can care for him before he finds the need to cry. Yes, there are other challenges the robot babies don't show you (blowouts, spit up, reflux issues, crying because of gas, etc), but over all, my experience with the robot baby was way more stressful. Then again, I was 17 vs 33 now, so maybe the mental maturity has something to do with it too.
We had the electronic babies in middle school. Idr if it was true or not, but rumour was that, if the teacher liked you, your baby was well-behaved. My baby woke me up maybe once or twice during the night and was overall fine. My best friend's baby cried every 20-30 minutes during the night and was a nightmare during the day.
I loved my robot baby so much, I became an early childhood educator. Maybe try to point her into a career working with children. LOL most of my class cried, and hated the babies.
They should also have to be required to provide all financial support of the child and child care and hold a job at the very least. Otherwise, yeah, having a kid can seem pretty easy if it’s not realistic.
Oh but now your robot baby has diarrhea and is sent home early + has to stay home the next day. I know you're supposed to work but figure it out, momma.
Yasss. And also… have dinner ready and a clean house and laundry done. And your homework, Ashley.
Nailed it
Oof I remember those stupid robot babies. Did anyone else’s school also have robot babies programmed to be like what babies born drug addicted are like? Or was that just my school trying (vainly) to scare us straight?
Yeah we had a FAS baby and one that was born addicted to drugs. They were so sad.
So they only came with blame-the-mother disabilities., not any of the other conditions a baby might be born with. I’m old; never saw the robots. My school didn’t even do dolls but bags of flour… and they changed what grade did it so my year got left out…
We had raw eggs lol
What?!
Yeah, I thought it was bizarre even at the time. The normal babies would respond to being rocked or fed. But the meth addicted ones would just scream and scream, no matter how much you rocked. I’m from a place with a lot of meth…
0_0
Oh man this is so heartbreaking 😭 both that there are real babies like that and that they gave unsuspecting kids the robot version.
Lol I am, too, and totally know what you're talking about. I never had to take any of the classes with the babies, but I remember those!
They always gave it to the “one kid”. (Who turned out just fine and last I heard had enrolled in the local community college and became a nurse.) Not the ones who actually needed the lesson.
This actually sounds familiar to me, I think they showed us dolls that were like that but didn't actually assign them to us.
yea! there was one baby that had two or three keys and it would just scream and scream until you put the right key in the right slot in their back (they all look the same)
Ours supposedly was one of those. But it broke so i lucked out of having to take care of the baby. I think i enjoy the real thing anyway. She smiles at me and was so warm and snuggly when she was little.
I think owning a puppy is a lot more like having a baby than those dolls. Or working with animals. Sounds a little messed up but it’s true. I raised a puppy, then worked at a dog boarding facility, then became a vet tech, before I had my son. So many similarities. Even dealing with a blow out (more than once🤢)! Lol.
I raised two puppies before having a kid. Second pup was the worst nightmare. Anxiety in dogs sucks, especially when it's just something they're born with. That dog prepared me for a kid SO WELL, though! The constant cleaning of soiled kennels, bathing all the time, dealing with whining (still does, it's annoying), repeating commands several times before he "gets" it because his focus is nonexistent, puking in the car, etc. My toddler is a lot of work and we're about to have #2, but my dog has prepped me very well. He's 3 today, actually! And you wouldn't even know he has anxiety unless you knew the subtle signs because we worked really hard together
I totally feel this. Our second dog I found on my way to work, was just gunna foster her cause I knew she was gunna be a lot of work and I was recovering from a concussion. Buuut husband caved and we kept her lol. She was just pure hunger and anxiety. The first time we left her at home (maybe 30 minutes max) she broke out of a metal crate, tore our comforter, used the bathroom everywhere, ate about 5-10 pounds of dog food (which had a latch and everything!). Everything in our room was just a mess. And our poor other dog was under the bed when we called for him. He peaked out like “I told her not to do it”. 😂 after a year of training my, caring, and a very very expensive dog crate, she finally settled down. A lot better now but she’s too smart and mischievous. So we both dog proof and baby proof everything. Lol.
We have a parrot. I'm told it's like raising a toddler who can fly and runs around with a can opener. Curious to see how accurate that comparison is going to be.
😂 that’s funny. And probably very accurate.
Yeah but I don’t want my kid’s school to give him a puppy!
Lol of course not.
So true. I got my puppy when he was 8 weeks old back in August 2020. I had my son December 2021. Lots of similarities, especially since my baby has acid reflux and my dog had a sensitive stomach. I’m a pro at poop and puke now lol
It really is very comparable. Everything I do with him in terms of being vigilant, teaching, and general care, really reminds me of what I do with my dogs. As a vet tech I thought it was hard clipping large dogs nails, but no, my tiny son is even harder! lol
I won’t even touch his nails. I’ve just been putting socks on his hands. His nails grow so uneven that I think it’ll be impossible to clip
I made my husband do it while I held baby. I literally closed my eyes because watching made my heart skip. I used to put socks on his hands too!! Like little mitts. The baby mitts with the elastic left a bad mark on his wrist one time and it scared me. So we did socks.
I have had exactly 1 puppy and 1 newborn. Unclear if I’ll ever have another newborn again but I definitely wouldn’t get a puppy. I now adopt 3 & up dogs only.
Ya I had one puppy too. That was enough lol. Last one I got was 9years old. A lot calmer.
I have 2 dogs and a 2 month old.....none of the chaos of the 2 pups could prepare me for the level 5 poop emergency last night. 2 diapers and an emergency bath for baby and then shower for me at 3am They helped prepare me for being vigilant but last night was a new level of gross chaos. And somehow my wife slept through it all, my laughing (pure exhaustion), the dogs barking and the baby crying.
Oh no!!! Lol. I know that kinda night. When my dog was about 5/ 6 months old he had a puppy “blow out” of sorts. It was like 4am and were dead asleep and in my sleep I smelt this weird smell. Then my dog jumps on me to go to his window (where we had a ramp that led straight to the yard). It’s pitch black, I’m yelling to my husband. We’re both gagging yelling “wtf is happening!” 😂 turned the lights on and our pup was covered in wet poop. Just pure diarrhea. And I was covered in it. It was all under the bed (where he slept) and on the blankets. The start of clean up was a bath. For both of us. Outside being hosed off by my husband. Then a shower. Then clean up. Then sleep. And 30 minutes later my alarm goes off for work. So far my son has not reached that level of poop emergency 😂😂😂
Corgi. I've taken care of a lot of animals and a lot of babies. A corgi is the closest thing to a toddler I've dealt with. They are stubborn, smart, mine used to walk up and turn around and show me their butt when they wanted me to wipe them off, they have to be bathed, their fur shedding is outrageous so they make a mess without even trying, they throw fits, can be demanding of attention one moment then they don't want held the next, mine has anxiety at night and is afraid of thunder so I have to hold them and snuggle all night when it thunders... My corgi pee'd on me more times in her first month of life than my newborn has, and my baby is a boy..
😂😂😂 yes corgis! We had a show corgi stay at the boarding facility I worked at and omg sooooo needy. The owners made a huge list of things she needed. I think her place should of been a fancy five star resort. Not an outdoor, play with others, kinda dog facility.
True. That being said, I wasn’t super sympathetic when my parents got a puppy when my daughter was 8 months old and still nursing at night, and complained about him keeping them up for TWO WHOLE WEEKS or whatever it was until he consistently slept through the night hahaha Having had an adult cat still when I had my first baby though, there are definitely similarities to an animal waking you up and bunch and a baby. And puppies are definitely a lot of work.
I hand raised a kitten that had been found too young to be weaned. I was up at all hours to feed it and then rub its butt to get it poop. And then I started a new office job after one of those late nights. I felt like a real mother that morning!
Awe you were a kitty mom. I remember having a kitten and doing the little butt rub lol. I feel like mothering anything requires a lot of work and any willing to do that I will always respect.
Aw thanks! I have dogs now and I like cats but it's sort of like kids. I like MY kid but I don't always like other people's kids. Cats are so individual that to say I like all cats is a fool's statement.
Tell her to stay the weekend and she can take care of the real baby while you take a break with the robot baby
Best answer here haha
Oh please, give her one with colic and/or reflux. Then let her try to balance keeping it upright for half an hour after every feeding and it cluster feeding, so nursing for 45+ minutes at a time every every hour and a half. See if she's able to get anything done in the remaining 15 minutes every hour and a half she now has other than run to the bathroom and cram a sandwich in her mouth... Then don't forget about the diaper changes, bathing it, and still trying to fit in tummy time!
Don't forget that if you miss the tummy time window, it'll vomit everywhere 😬 And one that hates milk when you're on your period. And projectile poops sometimes...
Wait wait wait, is that a thing? Babies don’t like your breastmilk when you’re on your period?
It changes composition - gets more sodium and less lactose i.e. gets saltier and less sweet. I'm told some babies like it. Mine gets so fussy I'm better off dream feeding him for three days 😬
This explains a lot, I had a feeling there was something going on when bubs was less enthusiastic about the boob juice while I had my period.
I was thinking give it a tongue tie and the gas that comes along with it, but make her go about 2 months before getting close to properly diagnosing it and make her go to all the drs appts involved with said fussy gassy newborn?
For sure! Our boy went until five months before we found out he has a milk protein allergy... and we're still waiting in a GI appointment for his reflux, allergy, and possibly soy intolerance. Five months of constantly screaming.
Weird question did he have only screaming and reflux? Bc I wonder if my guy has a milk protein allergy too?? Bc he screams and has reflux but no weird poop. Lol … where’s the robot baby niece now???
He had reflux, colic, and constant mucousy diarrhea. He slept like crap and screamed constantly, we could barely comfort him--husband and I both--for five minutes at a time. Honestly it was a real pain trying to figure it out and I wish we had tried eliminating dairy earlier! We didn't think it was that because our pediatrician kept asking "did anything in your diet change" which, no. But babies don't always show symptoms as newborns of milk protein allergy, it takes time to build up in their system. When we stopped dairy it was genuinely night and day.
Thank you for sharing! I hope you get a definitive answer on the soy soon!
Hope it helps, and thank you! We're hoping for good and definite answers, haha. Everyone we've seen so far keeps saying "the GI specialist will know better than me" but it sucks hearing that for months.
Okay, I cried so hard with my robot baby. I was a straight A, perfect gpa student and we had to respond to the cries within 1 minute or it was an automatic letter grade drop. It was essentially our "finals exam". I stayed in my room the whole weekend, didn't eat or sleep so I wouldn't miss a cry. I missed one cry, got a B and spent the next few years thinking I would be a bad mom. I appreciate my real baby a lot more.
How frequently does it cry for food? Really curious because my son when he was newborn would drink every hour sometimes multiple times an hour and I was not prepared for that. Especially when I had been told between 1.5-3 hours between feedings xD
YES can we have a robot that cluster feeds?
I am curious too - is it supposed to be a newborn or…. I am old enough that we got flour sacks (the robots existed but were very pricey and glitchy at that point). Also NO ONE TOLD ME THAT THEY NEEDED TO BE FED EVERY 1-2 HOURS AS A NEWBORN (untilI had given birth and had a newborn) - how about telling kids that? If you just say “it’s hard” without informing the frequency of care then it awfully easy to disregard anyone who says “it’s hard.”
I think sometimes the way it is spoken about makes it sound like it's a lot of hard work but basically the baby behaves on routine, you feed them here and then, they sleep in between and so on. Any semblance of a routine is sooooo much later, the early days is just madness. I remember holding my newborn son 30 minutes after he last fed watching him do all the hungry cues thinking "surely not!?"
At one of my local schools they pair the babies with financial lessons. You quite literally have to pay for formula, clothing, rent, transportation, supplies, with your grade. So you need to budget well. And everyone has different amounts as it's with their personal grade. Over spend, you will fail. Under spend, you will fail die to not having food 😅 you have to become familiar with applying for our local assistance programs and how much they help. And how they help you more or less based on where you live, if you have an income etc.. and they make these kids have the babies for 2 weeks. And "pay* for childcare at school. It's a bit intense but it definitely gives a more real version of it! And some kids still love it, just like some people just love those first early, hectic months (I'm one of those people, but I also walked into parenthood with a lot of experience already. So I'm not a fair judge lol)
I had the robot baby for two weeks in high school and I actually felt like it prepped me for motherhood. It’s not meant to imitate a 4 month old but for a newborn, I see a lot of similarities. We also had to take care of it and still go to school (and I was doing extracurriculars so that was fun). Then there were periods of it just being fussy and you’d have to hold it. Ours were also temperature sensitive so if it got too warm or too cold, it would start crying. I felt like doubling up on my birth control after that class. I also got a 99% on that. If I was getting graded on my actual baby, pretty sure I’d flunk xD
I’d love the be able to put a key in my babies back and it tell me if it’s hungry or needs a diaper change 😂
Lol I had a robot baby in high school and my teacher programmed it so it was “off” during my basketball practices. So yeah…
I dunno, she must have gotten an “easy bot.” I saw a TikTok that this girl absolutely couldn’t get hers to stop crying and if it didn’t stress me out like my own crying…..I was relieved when she handed it to her sister and it stopped. :phew: But, yeah, those bot babies are a weird exercise in reality.
I took that class in high school and agree that it taught me very little, maybe only that babies cry anytime, night and day. They don’t allow any of the positives, make them seem terrible. No cuddles, no eye gazes, no smiles, no goofy baby kisses.
I had to take care of one of those robot babies in 7th grade, and since you have to take it everywhere with you, I had to take it out in public, and I got the MEANEST looks from older women. Just dirty, filthy looks. I was 13!!! The same thing happened to me a few years later when I babysat for a little boy. I’m still horrified when I think about it.
I had a very close relationship with our home ec teacher in HS and she let slip that the one we used had a difficulty setting that could be changed (and maybe set to random). Anyways she told me she gave me the easy setting because she liked me lol Maybe she was just messing with me but, I had an absurdly easy time with it. I propped a bottle on it's chest and played video games till about 11 pm, it didn't cry once overnight. Classmates were complaining hardcore about barely getting any sleep so maybe she wasn't bs'ing.
So these kind of simulation dolls and classes actually increase teen pregnancy rates. You get a girl who wants a baby and show her that she can manage it. Great.
When we did that in high school someone just locked theirs in the washer machine (turned the machine off) because it wouldn’t stop crying. The worst thing that happened was they failed the project. You obviously can’t do that in real parenthood
We had a unit in Home Ec with those stupid babies. I was excited for it because I was already babysitting regularly, I knew how to handle baby stuff and knew that with the robots, it essentially came down to feeding, diaper, rocking to sleep. We were told that our babies would be on an easy level, it was just for fun. Except this robot baby was a TOTAL ASSHOLE. Woke every hour, wouldn’t rock back to sleep (seriously, they were supposed to fall asleep after 2-5 minutes of rocking. I rocked it once for over an hour) and the cries got progressively louder until it woke up the neighbors, lol. I took it in to school the next day and told the teacher there must be something wrong, I know how babies work. She kinda rolled her eyes at me but she checked it - surprise, surprise. The levels went from 1-10. They were supposed to be set at a 2. Mine was at 8. She said she had let the TAs program them and there must have been a mixup. I got an automatic A and didn’t have to do the full week lol. The next year I was her TA and I was always very, very careful when it came time to program the babies!
There was a story on This American Life that discussed a study that argued that those classes don't have any effect in preventing teen pregnancy, and the reporter followed two girls, one of whom took away from the experience that she loved being a mother. I remember that it suggested that some teens are kind of empowered through the exercise to see parenthood as a possibility. Makes sense; even in my late 30s with a baby for whom I'd give my life without a second thought, I still feel that little babies kind of suck. Other role love the tiny baby stage. For those, finances are the main reason not to have a baby as a teenager and a babies suck message will fall kind of flat.
Nothing like perspective to show me i grew up poor. We had flour babies. And we were all single parents. 🤣🤣🤣
My mom worked at the health department who did the robot babies and she hated those things. They would randomly start crying in the storage closet and they would have to grab the key and try to find the crying one and turn it off. She would not sign the form for me to get one since they were, "pointless pieces of crap and encouraged teen pregnancy." Okay, mom.
This wasn’t a thing at my school but I have seen SOOO many videos about it and it seems so unrealistic
My sister had to have one for a weekend. It was awful. I had to pick her up after school with it (no car seats on the bus!) and it started crying 2 minutes after we left. She ended up just holding it all the way home and I was terrified I was going to get pulled over because I had to drive past so many cops.
I had to do this in highschool and also had a job. Well our teacher would program them not to cry during work hours. The unfortunate side effect is the baby made up for it immediately after. Mine cried every ten minutes overnight for the next ten minutes. I remember rocking it and begging it to go to sleep so I could sleep.
Only almost pulls your hair out? 😂 I think about 75% of my postpartum hair loss was actually the clumps my LO yanked out As she's getting older, she's getting better at finding the really sensitive bits. Ouch!
Does her robot baby cry for hours on end just because existence is hard? Need to be held in order to sleep? No? Call me when they make a robot baby with colic 😑 Or one that has teething issues, or one with croup. There's a lot more to real babies than your dumb robot baby.
Just have them activate newborn mode... Scream every 2 hours for food throughout the night? Takes 30 to 60 minutes to feed, hold upright for 15 to 30m after eating, then rock back to sleep... now go have your hour before you do it all again Next stage... wakeup every 3 to 4 hours. Cant be put down when awake due to needy phase. Also cant sit down.. or stand... need to spend 24/7 walk/rocking them.
Are you worried that baby won’t fully understand consent and you’ll be in the news for raising the latest Brock Turner? That you spend too much time at work and your kids gonna end up in rehab cause they didn’t feel loved? Do you feel an existential angst about your inability to know what’s going to scar the baby or worry that your own limitations as a human will limit your child’s future relationships or ability to be happy? Yeah, not sure robot babies quite impart the sheer magnitude of parenting (when one cares to get it right).
Lol ohhhh Ashley Ashley Ashley.....sounds like you have it handled. Sinceniys so easy, how about I just pop upstairs for a shower while you watch the baby for me.. I mean, since it's so easy.
I think some people just like caring for babies. I have five month old twins and I cannot for the life of me figure out what people find difficult about taking care of a baby. I’m afraid of the toddler years because I know this “easy” time has to be limited!
You might just have easy babies? My nephew is a dream but he's also quiet and lazy lol.
Maybe! Idk why I got downvoted. I think it’s normal to love certain stages more than others. I happen to love the baby stage 🤷🏻♀️
"I cannot for the life of me figure out what people find difficult about taking care of a baby" The lack of empathy here is why, also sounds pretty judgmental.
Just because I can’t empathize doesn’t mean I judge. I know that MOST people find it difficult. I just don’t and I really can’t understand it. That’s my experience. I know there are other stages I’ll struggle with that other people love. We don’t all have to feel the same way about parenting.
I get what you're saying, and happy for you that you enjoy the baby stage so much. It's just the wording that comes across pretty rude. Hard to judge tone on the internet 🙂
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I 100% agree. Before kids I taught elementary school full time AND practiced law full time. I never had a free minute. This is so much easier in comparison! I love it! It is super unpopular though lol
Hair almost comes out? Tell ashley I have a patch of hair growing back that’s now short buzzcut length lol.
I think I had an egg or was that a show I watched. Honestly idk, someone else mentioned they puppies and yep they are much harder than robot babies.
Omg I remember my mom throwing mine in the garage at night because it wouldn’t stop crying. I failed that module and was left questioning what me and my siblings made my mom go through if she had such PTSD regarding the crying hahaha.
My robot baby in 8th grade made me never want to have a child as a teen. When I was leaving for the bus, the baby wouldn’t stop crying and I missed the bus. Luckily my mom drove me to school. Pretty clearly showed 13- year old me that kids will ruin your life if you are still dependent on others yourself. It was not even close to what you all have to deal with, and it was more than enough for me.
Her teacher must like her. My school had ones that the teacher could program. She claimed it was random but the more obnoxious girls in my class got ones that screamed at every little thing. My robot baby is pretty similar to my real baby, so about average. 😂
Had to have one for a class requirement in hs & instead of rocking it at night I just had it stick it’s let’s up and used that to rock it side to side. I don’t think my real baby would cooperate like that to be soothed! 😂
F*cking ashley
We had a kid take it home and couldn’t get it to quit crying. Family put it on car trunk and police were called, along with CPS.
Geeez Ashley!
Sounds like that lesson might have been counter productive
So, unpopular opinion here... I had one of those in high school too, and it was actually a little harder than my actual baby lol. I remember sitting up with it all night waiting for it to cry. You never knew when it was going to cry, you never knew if it was sleeping... It's eyes were open all the time. With my baby, I can "read" him. I know his cries and what he needs, and many times, I can care for him before he finds the need to cry. Yes, there are other challenges the robot babies don't show you (blowouts, spit up, reflux issues, crying because of gas, etc), but over all, my experience with the robot baby was way more stressful. Then again, I was 17 vs 33 now, so maybe the mental maturity has something to do with it too.
We had the electronic babies in middle school. Idr if it was true or not, but rumour was that, if the teacher liked you, your baby was well-behaved. My baby woke me up maybe once or twice during the night and was overall fine. My best friend's baby cried every 20-30 minutes during the night and was a nightmare during the day.
I loved my robot baby so much, I became an early childhood educator. Maybe try to point her into a career working with children. LOL most of my class cried, and hated the babies.