Parent Thread

Joeboo

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So nobody warned me about Nesting 2.0-Baby-Proofing. Way more annoying than pregnancy nesting.
We didn't go too crazy with baby proofing. About all we did was put a lock on the drawer in the kitchen that has all the knives in it, and then remove any decorations that were made of glass from our coffee tables/endtables, and that was really about it. You just have to be diligent about saying "NO" and keeping at it. But yeah, if you want to be able to let your kid go crawl off on their own for 10 minutes and not worry about them you probably need to do more than we did, but kids learn fast what they can and can't do as long as you're consistent.

That being said, we also only have 1 kid, so it's easy to keep up on what he's doing, there aren't other kids running around the house distracting us while the baby goes and eats your dishwashing detergent.
 

chaos

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I still haven't locked up my knife drawer because the latches they sell don;t work with my drawers and they really only sell one kind for drawers. We were a little nazi with gates for a while, we had gates in front of their rooms and gates and the top of the stairs and gates sectioning off the living room and the basement. The only remaining gate is the one at the top of the stairs, which probably will be there for another year or so. We lock up the cabinet with the cleaners, we have the outlet covers but those things are worthless, our kids could get them out the first time they saw us do it. And we have the doorknob cover thing on the front door but it really only keeps adults from being able to get out, my 5 year old can operate it and the 4 year old probably can too.

Really as time has gone on I have realized there is no need for most of that stuff.The gates were nice really, you can relax and not be watching your kid like a hungry hawk. Other than that, it has mostly been a wash.
 

opiate82

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Yeah, I am on the minimalist end of things. A little supervision goes a long ways. However, I'm pretty sure my wife wants me to turn the house into one giant padded room. I will concede that our current entertainment center is a baby death-trap. Completely open so all the components are exposed and she could easily crawl back behind it and get to the cords, so I understand things like that, but somehow "baby-proofing" has turned into me needing to replace all the carpet downstairs with hardwoods. I'm still puzzled as to the correlation there.
 

chaos

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With that shit you just need to stall undtil the newness of having a kid wears off. Unless replacing the carpet is something you actually want to do. But yeah, stall stall stall and then suddenly they forget.
 

iannis

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Just remind her that in 1 year those baby safe non allergenic hardwoods will be toddler deathtraps of their own.

Hardwood is a lot easier to keep clean, but it's also a lot easier to completely ruin.
 

Crone

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More than likely she read some article talking about the nasty ass junk that is in carpet, and got freaked out her new baby would be crawling around all over that. lol. My wife did the same thing, but was able to talk her out of it.
 

BrutulTM

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Tell her that the baby needs to be exposed to nasty-ass carpet junk in order to not become an allergy-riddled weakling that dies from touching peanuts. That carpet is VITAL TO HIS/HER SURVIVAL. Also, you should take the baby to a farm and let it crawl around in some manure from time to time.

Farm Life Linked to Fewer Allergies, Less Asthma
 

Larnix

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Our apartment is all Marble everywhere. Floors,baseboard, shelves, counters. It is not friendly to anything breakable to include fresh little baby melons. Other than a few rugs around the house there is just no padding for our little guy.He had to learn quick to keep his head up when falling but it didn't stop him from exploring the house and climbing up on everything he can. he was crawling at 6 months and walking at 11 months so it was lots of bruises for him. We just baby proofed as he grew a few breakable things just keep getting moved up a shelf as he gets taller. He is 2 now and we have our second is due on the 8th. Good times
 

opiate82

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Tell her that the baby needs to be exposed to nasty-ass carpet junk in order to not become an allergy-riddled weakling that dies from touching peanuts. That carpet is VITAL TO HIS/HER SURVIVAL. Also, you should take the baby to a farm and let it crawl around in some manure from time to time.

Farm Life Linked to Fewer Allergies, Less Asthma
Supposedly if you have dogs (I have two) who have free access to outside around children it will help with allergies and/or asthma as well, so I have that going for me.

As far as the carpet I guess it might be a little bit of a dirt issue but what I really think is at play here is she really just wants the hardwoods and is using the baby-proofing as a guise to get me to do the project. I do think my wife and I will have battles over me trying to inculcate our daughter with any and everything vs my wife trying to shield her from everything. My wife is the type of person who when I get a little scratch is chasing me around the house with neosporin.
 

Crone

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Supposedly if you have dogs (I have two) who have free access to outside around children it will help with allergies and/or asthma as well, so I have that going for me.

As far as the carpet I guess it might be a little bit of a dirt issue but what I really think is at play here is she really just wants the hardwoods and is using the baby-proofing as a guise to get me to do the project. I do think my wife and I will have battles over me trying to inculcate our daughter with any and everything vs my wife trying to shield her from everything. My wife is the type of person who when I get a little scratch is chasing me around the house with neosporin.
Lol! My wife lets our kids chew on rocks, because she says, how else they going to learn they are gross? And honestly, it's worked. My 2 year old son only did it a couple times before he learned, with prompting from us, that it was gross, and you don't chew on rocks.
smile.png


I'm lucky to have such a chill wife though, as I don't know any others that are so laid back when it comes to that.
 

opiate82

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Yeah, my wife is pretty chill for the most part, but she is a nurse. Some hypochondria comes with the territory with that profession in my experience.
 

chaos

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Yeah, my wife can't even come with us to the park because of her anxiety. Last time we tried that, she almost had a complete meltdown because one of my girls put some mulch in her mouth.
 

lurkingdirk

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So, here's something different for you all to tell me what to do about. My youngest has never been a super eater. Sleeps like a champion, reads several years ahead of his age, is the absolute smallest kid in his class at the entire school. He's almost 7 and he's just 38 pounds. He's also on medication for attention deficit, and don't start that discussion, I've already had it. I resisted for a long time, but he's on it, and it makes his life better. Trouble is, it's time for an up in his dosage, but because he's not eating and gaining weight, his doctor wants to see weight gain before we up the meds, because they are appetite suppressants.

So, he said, have him drink 2 Pediasure things every day. Trouble is, they taste like a dirty fucking ass, and he will simply not drink them. We forced him through one, and then I tried it myself, and he will never have to drink it again. Holy disgusting. But, the little dude has to gain weight. So, we've started him on the Gatorade protein bars, because what he needs is lots of calories, and lots of protein. We also give him this chocolate milk stuff that is high in both, too. But it's still a struggle. He just isn't hungry, and simply doesn't want to eat/drink. He is, but it's making meal times kinda miserable right now. It sucks for everyone.

I've tried to make things he loves, but there are only so many mornings I can make biscuits and gravy, or sausage AND bacon and egg muffins. The other kids don't need the extra calories, but he does.

Anyone have a genius solution for increasing a nearly 7 year old's body mass so that it is no longer in the 0 percentile?
 

Falstaff

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My kid is like a goat these days. She tries to take a bite out of every piece of paper she finds... coloring book, newspaper, magazine, book, etc.
 

Prodigal

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Yeah, my wife can't even come with us to the park because of her anxiety. Last time we tried that, she almost had a complete meltdown because one of my girls put some mulch in her mouth.
The first time we took my son to the beach (he was about 18 months) he grabs some sand and puts it in his mouth. Spends the next two minutes spitting it out. He looks around, grabs some sand from a different area and proceeds to find out that sand tastes like shit too.
 

chaos

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So, here's something different for you all to tell me what to do about. My youngest has never been a super eater. Sleeps like a champion, reads several years ahead of his age, is the absolute smallest kid in his class at the entire school. He's almost 7 and he's just 38 pounds. He's also on medication for attention deficit, and don't start that discussion, I've already had it. I resisted for a long time, but he's on it, and it makes his life better. Trouble is, it's time for an up in his dosage, but because he's not eating and gaining weight, his doctor wants to see weight gain before we up the meds, because they are appetite suppressants.

So, he said, have him drink 2 Pediasure things every day. Trouble is, they taste like a dirty fucking ass, and he will simply not drink them. We forced him through one, and then I tried it myself, and he will never have to drink it again. Holy disgusting. But, the little dude has to gain weight. So, we've started him on the Gatorade protein bars, because what he needs is lots of calories, and lots of protein. We also give him this chocolate milk stuff that is high in both, too. But it's still a struggle. He just isn't hungry, and simply doesn't want to eat/drink. He is, but it's making meal times kinda miserable right now. It sucks for everyone.

I've tried to make things he loves, but there are only so many mornings I can make biscuits and gravy, or sausage AND bacon and egg muffins. The other kids don't need the extra calories, but he does.

Anyone have a genius solution for increasing a nearly 7 year old's body mass so that it is no longer in the 0 percentile?
Milkshakes, right? You can put anything in a milkshake and they are very dense in calories. Throw some protein powder in a milkshake once or twice a day for him. After making sure with the pediatrician, of course.

Pediasure has these smoothie things that didn't look too awful, but that might be what you're talking about. It's so hard because all of the food products designed for kids these days are very conservative when it comes to calories.
 

Prodigal

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Lurkingdirk - does he like smoothies? There are some pretty good recipes for fruit protein smoothies which my son liked, and I'd make him a chocolate milkshake in the evenings with whey protein, ice cream, milk and carnation instant breakfast. Of course we made meals also, this was just to supplement his diet since he was usually hungrier early and late.

My son is 14, and we've tried alternatives to meds, but he's currently on Vyvanse because it's the difference between A's and F's. He's old enough to understand he needs to eat and he plays football so gaining/maintaining weight is important to him, and he still doesn't want to eat during the day.