yanoblog

The category of bad baby products is so large that it may be impossible to choose a victor.

That said, this one has to be in the running. Here’s the description from today’s Times:

Last on our list was the LENA System ($399) a language measurement tool developed by Infoture, in Boulder, Colo. The system is based on research demonstrating a correlation between the amount parents talk to their babies during their first three years and their professional success later in life.

The LENA System includes a credit card device and several children’s outfits designed with large pockets in the front. Several days a month, you slip the device into the clothing and it records conversation between parent and child.

At the end of the day, you plug it into your personal computer. Special software (available for Windows, but not Macs) analyzes the speech — separating adult words and baby gurgling from other noises — and reports on how many words you have spoken to your baby, how often your baby responds, and where you match up against the rest of the American population, to ensure your infant is getting that all-important verbal edge on other infants.

W. T. F!!???

I don’t even know where to begin. They’ve cut the price in the last year, from about $1200 to $700 to $400. I think I’d pay not to have to stress about this.

If it wasn’t in the Times, I’d assume this was an Onion article or something.

Our three-year old seems to acquire toys at ferocious rate (in these days of divorced grandparents, there’s just a lot of people to be giving gifts. Not that we would ever buy extra toys for her).

We’ve been having good success with keeping things in check and keeping our home from becoming overrun by her… stuff.

Most of her playing occurs in our family room area. We have bookshelves in there and we’ve devoted the bottom shelves to her toys. This has the side benefit of protecting our books.

Toys in boxes (puzzles, some blocks, etc.) just go straight onto the shelf. Loose toys have containers that go on the shelves. She has the strength to move any box on and off a shelf.

When new toys come in the house, we just remove toys that have fallen out of favor. She’s getting to be old enough where we can ask her to make that decision, but so far she hasn’t objected to our choices.

If it can’t fit on a shelf, it doesn’t stay in the family area. The result: toy clutter is capped but she has a wide variety of “stuff” with which to play.

At the moment, we’re saving toys removed from circulation for when Izzy is older, but after that they’ll probably go to the Amherst Survival Center.

Our next step is to enforce more actively the rule, “clean up toy A before playing with toy B.” Parent Hacks has a good approach to this.

You are probably reading this for one of three reasons:

1. Something horrible has happened and you got lost on the Internet and ended up here.
2. You are one of the threes of people who read this blog regularly.
3. I mentioned how I blog about parenting to you in some context (probably at one the many fabulous parties I attend), you are a parent, and you got into work on Monday, exhausted from that blow-out party, unable to stop thinking about that intriguing, confident-yet-understated guy you met (me).

(I am optimistic that category three will some day come into existence as I fulfill my social butterfly calling.)

Despite parenting being one of the most important tasks to society (particularly today, where all burden for raising the next generation falls onto individuals) we get no real training in it. Despite that, almost all parents I know, myself included, have a lot of ego bound up and invested in it. “Don’t tell me what to do with my kids”, etc., etc. Identity is a wily beast.

In just about every other area of life, most of us are happy to take advice on topics for which we know less than we need to (car repair, computer tips, photography advice, plumbing, medicine, etc.). But when you get onto a subject that we know little about but are supposed to be perfect at, parents tend to get a bit touchy.

So, since I can’t give anyone any direct advice, I thought I’d make a list of things I find useful (from the mundane to the less mundane). If you are a parent reading this because I mentioned this post to you, you now have to decide if I was being passive aggressive about some perceived deficiency in your parenting or if I was just trying to get you to appreciate my amazing prose.

Here’s a list of things I have found very helpful. It is all skewed towards children three-and-under, since that’s all I have parenting experience with so far. I expect this list will grow. These are all things that I think should be standard issue to parents but you might not come across. I’ll try to do them in rough chronological order.

1. More burp cloths and onesies than you can possibly imagine. If you look at the pile that you have prior to bringing an infant home and wonder if it’s enough, you need four times as many. If you think you have the right amount, triple it. If you think you have too many, double it. Your ability to do laundry is about to plummet. (Gerber receiving blankets make great burp cloths.)
2. Good diapers. Unfortunately, better diapers cost more. There’s a world of difference between Pampers Swaddler/Cruisers line and their less expensive “Baby Dry” line. I haven’t had the courage to try store brand diapers (e.g., Target, CVS or Walmart brand), so there may be great ones in there. I do know that it was a huge relief to find diapers that work. (What’s that you say, you are going to use washables? Good luck.)
3. The Happiest Baby on the Block (book and DVD). If you are lucky, someone you know either already has this or gave it to you as a baby-shower-or-whatever-they-call-it-nowadays gift. If not, you can probably borrow the book from the library and either borrow or rent the DVD. I am convinced that if all parents were given this at the hospital, infant abuse rates would go down. It’s the tools you need to soothe a crying baby.
4. After you read/watch that material, you’ll be convinced about the value of swaddling babies. But it ain’t easy. Until now. At the risk of sounding like an uncompensated spokesperson, the blashpemously-but-accurately named Miracle Blanket is a must have. Again, they are too expensive. Perhaps if you are part of the hipster Craft culture, you can fashion one from found yarn, but the rest of us just need to hint to a perspective grandparent about how helpful a few of them (since they will get spit up on) would be.
5. A decent sling. Apparently, there’s a bit of a cult culture around these things. They are definitely overpriced. Try to get someone to give you one. Annie loves the Ergo (although that couple walking on the beach is a little annoying). I like the irritatingly named Kangaroo Korner Pouch (I’m glad the marketing people didn’t also think it was Kool.)
6. Ferber’s book on sleep and children. This book gets a bad rap. I think it’s like movie reviews by the Christian Right – most of those hating on it haven’t read it. This book isn’t useful until your kid is at least 5 months old, but it then becomes a life saver. It’s not a philosophy of “let them cry it out.” It shows you how to help your children develop good sleep habits and keeps you from going crazy listening to your child cry and cry and cry (comforting them is not only encouraged, but required).
7. Once your kid is two and they start to aggressively test limits as part of trying to understand the world, 1-2-3 Magic is invaluable. We asked for tips at Amira’s day care and they handed us this book (they keep a few on hand as loaners). Reread it periodically, as it’s easy to forget many of its suggestions and fall back on bad habits. (by the way, if you have a toddler who’s driving you nuts and I mentioned that I blogged about how difficult it can be, I probably was hoping you would buy this book. I am thinking about making it a birth gift for new parents, as it’s difficult to give it to people once they start having problems (since we are all supposed to “know” how to handle all the challenges parenthood throws at us) but I don’t think it can’t be viewed as an insult if given to new parents). I guess the authors have some kind of religious thing going on, but don’t let that throw you. Buy the secular version of the book.
8. Along with 1-2-3 Magic is Between Parent and Child. This book should also be reread regularly. It is very helpful for understanding how to help your children develop emotional intelligence. Emotions can be very intense. If you are a child with few reference points, they can be downright scary. This book provides some tools and helpful stories for helping your children (up through adolescence).

That’s all for now. I hope you don’t hate me. (Also, if I’m not related to you, feel free to give me parenting advice. I just might ignore it. But I won’t resent you for it.)

(I got this idea from someone who shall remain nameless, but it worked out very well).

If you find yourself accompanying a woman through the process of childbirth, you’ll probably end up staying overnight (or a few nights) at the hospital.

The two hospitals I’ve been in both had the same option for the mother’s partner – a chair that converts into a bed. Sort of.

A better option is a blow-up bed like a twin-size Aerobed (available on Amazon). Add some of your favorite pillows and you will be far less bleary-eyed when relatives drop by.

Here’s our second child (Isiah aka Izzy), about 100 seconds after birth:

And here’s our first (Amira) when she’s about 300 seconds old:

At birth, they look identical. They like to yawn. So far, Amira seems to be doing well with her new brother. Although she does like to snag his pacifier for her own use.

It’s a work of art by Tord Boontje (and probably other uncredited people). It also happens to be a product placement for Target. This article has a good picture of the piece. Just in case that goes away, here’s what the picture looks like:

Here’s some video. That gives you a better sense of it. We’re staying in NYC for the week and in Union Square, there is this magnificent piece. It’s like crack for kids. Amira could spend hours just wandering around, delighted by the lights, stunned by the crowds, amazed at the spectacle.

If I had a touch screen, it would be neat to clone this app for the Mac. Perhaps you could do it with the mouse or gestures with an iSight. But that still wouldn’t be as cool.

Part of the joy of it is the collective experience of a crowd of people exploring this bit o’ magic in the midst of the city. Watching children lose their minds is also fun. And then there’s the fact that the interface just works—it’s up to you to figure out what it does. You walk through one of the squares, the piece reacts to you, and your (well, at least, my) initial reaction if just silly happiness. Then you start to wonder how it works, what makes each square different, etc. And it works on many layers. But the social aspect of it, in all its “brick and mortar” glory, is the best part.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is its last day. Perhaps it’ll move elsewhere or be back next year.

So, many moons ago, we “Ferberized” our baby and life was good. Our ability to make decisions rationally returned (albeit slowly) and our child was incredibly happy. She would go to sleep at 6:30 and sleep until 7 or 8 the next morning. Cut forward a year.

Over the past few months, her bedtime slowly slipped to 7-7:30. Her nap time at daycare was different than her naptime at home. And she began getting up at 5:00am.

There’s a new edition of Richard Ferber’s Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems and it’s fantastic. (Although I’m sure money was also a factor, he says he wrote the book because of updates in sleep science in the last 20 years and to correct all the mischaracterizations of his work—he wrote it originally to counter the “let them cry” approach to sleep problems.)

Anyway, it turns out that by the time you are two, you only need about 10 hours of sleep a night. I whipped out by calculator. It turns out that you put your two year old down to sleep at 7pm, she’s going to wake up at 5am (I double checked the math).

So, starting last night, we are doing a new bed time—8:30 to 9:00. She went down at 8:45 last night and woke up at 6:40 (I am willing to except an error of 5 minutes). So with one data point (datum), the results are in: Woo hoo!

(Oh yeah—we are also going to have nap time the same every day.)

Remember parents—always RTFM.