Parenting
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@EdH and all other new dads. My mom told me to do this and it really works. When your child hits 4 months old, put them in their crib. The day they turn 4 months. It’s gonna be hard as fuck for the wife because your kid is gonna scream bloody murder. Wait 5 minutes, go in and reassure them that you’re there. DON’T pick them up. Just reach over the crib. Walk out. Come back in 10 minutes. Do the same thing. Then wait 15 more minutes and so on. Until they’re asleep. I’ve told all new parents this and it will teach them that when you put them in their crib, it’s time to sleep. And they won’t be crawling into bed with you when they’re 2-3 years old like a lot of kids do. Cause they won’t shake sleeping with you until they’re 6 or 7. I let my son sleep with us sometimes but only when he’s sick. Hope this helps
Choko -
Oh and it’s 4 months because that’s when kids start forming habits
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That’s pretty much it. That, I believe, is the same as a what they say in the book. I still recommend the book, maybe the library has it? The benefit of the book is that it has a lot of additional info on how to address pacifiers, bed toys and even relapses. You’ll get to those right when you’re feeling good about yourself.
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you'd be safer leaving them now. 10+ years they're a menace.
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@Brian exact same thing with my 6 year old, though he’s an even earlier riser (6am). I’ve given up trying to stop him, it’s easier to just roll with it. Also, on weekdays we expect him to get up fairly early (although 6am is a bit of a piss take) - so it feels a bit unreasonable to expect him to know to adjust his body clock on weekends.
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@Brian I mean, there’s an obvious solution - be awake before the 6 year old?
When I was a toddler, my parents trained me to use the VCR. They’d leave The Jungle Book in the machine, and I’d go watch that through a couple of times before they’d wake up.
Might not be feasible these days - who knows what they could end up putting on streaming services without parental supervision if you taught them how to use Netflix on their own or something…
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@SKT There’s this guy from Norway that does metal covers of pop songs. My baby already has a playlist (curated by me) of SFW metal that I’m training her on to try and avoid this issue arising later. Here’s a YT link to help you find him (I’m not on Spotify):
Though I expect they’ll be more influenced by their peers than their parents in matters of taste. I was lucky in that my best friend when I was a kiddo was obsessed with Queen, so I got into good rock n roll young.
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@Choko we did the same with our kid. He outgrew his bassinet at just under 3 months so we had no choice but to put him in his crib. It worked great. He was out of our bedroom and into his own. There were a few rough nights but my wife and I were pretty regimented about his “sleep training”. He knows it’s time to sleep when he’s out in the crib. He just rolls over and is asleep in seconds. It’s nice. My wife gets all the credit for reading up and implementing a plan.
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Interesting reading this thread. I’ve got three kids, two girls (8 and 2.5) and a boy (6). At the moment it feels like we’re parenting a wide variety of different species; girl toddler prone to tantrums, 6 year old boy with lots of energy, older girl with more complex emotional needs as she approaches her pre-teens. It’s pretty exhausting, but I can tell that our family and home is a happy place for our children. Plus with three it’s always a party.
Sleep is something I’ve learnt to take a pretty laidback approach to. We’ve Co-slept with all our kids as babies. My oldest two slept with us until they were toddlers before moving to their own beds. For a few years they’d come join us in the middle of the night. At the time it bothered me a little, but they grew out of it at around 4-5 years old. With hindsight I see that it was just a small phase of our lives and I’m glad I got to maximise the cuddles while I could. It’s made me much more relaxed with my third - I don’t care that the majority of the time she’s in our bed still. I get a brief few years where she wants to sleep near me, so I’m gonna make the most of the cuddles while I can.
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@jerkules amazing! Don’t know how you do it. I can barely make it through the day with one kid. I love your approach. At the end of the day it all comes down to what works for everyone. I’m looking forward to the day when our son is able to run into our bedroom because he is scared and wants to sleep with us. I remember doing it to my folks. I think everyday how lucky my wife and I are to have a kid, home, and a jobs.
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@jerkules We also co-slept with the kids and to date haven’t seen any negative affects. They too, just reached a point where they wanted to sleep in their own beds when they were 4 or 5, with a few occasional episodes where they weren’t feeling well and just wanted to cuddle. I don’t really know if it was the right thing to do, but it worked for us and I would probably do it again.
The early rising thing doesn’t bother me as I’m often up with the sunrise and my youngest is too. There are times when she wakes up early and just comes to snuggle dad while we watch something stupid on YouTube. I enjoy the time and know that it doesn’t last forever.
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@Brian exact same thing with my 6 year old, though he’s an even earlier riser (6am). I’ve given up trying to stop him, it’s easier to just roll with it. Also, on weekdays we expect him to get up fairly early (although 6am is a bit of a piss take) - so it feels a bit unreasonable to expect him to know to adjust his body clock on weekends.
@Brian I mean, there’s an obvious solution - be awake before the 6 year old?
When I was a toddler, my parents trained me to use the VCR. They’d leave The Jungle Book in the machine, and I’d go watch that through a couple of times before they’d wake up.
Might not be feasible these days - who knows what they could end up putting on streaming services without parental supervision if you taught them how to use Netflix on their own or something…
️He knows how to find ninjago on Netflix and every other streaming service but has his own kids account
Weekdays he has school so being up is fine but after a 50-60 hour work week an extra moment or two in bed would be nice from my side of the fenceTo be fair it won’t be so many years in the future that it will be me wanting to wake him up from his teenage dungeon
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This is my life now…
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@EdH you can take solace in the fact you are the best dressed man at the bday party
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They’re monsters. There were these large inflated unicorns at the party - the kids tore them limb from limb. They were just torsos and spiked horse heads by the end, with those that had the legs battering one another with them. It was horrible, like something from Lord of the Flies. (And absolutely hilarious.)
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Happy Fathers’ Day fellow Dads.
Baby H took me to the pub then promptly fell asleep!
