Comments on: I should have known better

By: tigtog

tigtog — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:01:00 +0000

For folks worried about possibly overlaying an infant while co-sleeping (although it’s amazing how rapidly attuned to one’s baby’s breathing and stirrings one becomes) there are plenty of side-sleeping options available in the more hippy-fied side of the parenting supplies business – small cots with one side totally open and an adjustable height mattress platform so that you can put it beside the bed right next to your loving arms for easy cuddles and feedings.

If I’d not been able to feel confident co-sleeping then that’s what I would have chosen for those first anxious months. There’s one available from a place in QLD which looks like it might fold down to go visiting family etc as well.

By: Helen

Helen — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:47:55 +0000

One of the things about the separate-room thing is that I always read about people “decorating” the “baby’s room”. This, apparently, is mandatory in the US and other Western countries: your child is deprived if you don’t repaint the whole room in lovely colours, and most people seem to want to repaint the cot as well. I’m always reading about this kind of thing going behind schedule, as home improvement projects always tend to do.

So what’s the upshot of this practice? babies being put down to sleep in rooms where there are still residual paint fumes.

Goes some way to explain why kids of the bad parents like me often turn out so well. :-)

GA, we found the bassinet (and then cot) in parents room with some co sleeping in mornings, ability to breastfeed in bed when tired and so on to be a great system – it doesn’t have to be either/or. YMMV. This was for the first year or so.

By: geekanachronism

geekanachronism — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:12:20 +0000

My partner and I watched the baby show in horror. He actually ended up on the couch with me cradling the baby bump. I think the rationed cuddles and the no eye contact while feeding scared us the most. That and “the baby knows what it’s doing, it’s getting power of you!” – gendered of course with ‘he knows he’s got the upper hand’ and ’she’s manipulating you’. I’ve already had my mother-in-law praising his sister for not letting her five month old boy ‘get away with anything’. It’s just insane.

I think if it weren’t for the fact both of us are very heavy sleepers (fallen off beds and not woken up while sober, that sort of heavy) and I’m fat we’d co-sleep. NerdBaby is going to be in a bassinette beside the bed though – the show made it very obvious that cosleeping/bedside sleeping was most comfortable for parents and babies. Although I did like the “so dad can’t go and have a few beers” argument against co-sleeping from the maternity nurse. Because god forbid dad actually accomodate having a baby.

By: Rachel (the other one)

Rachel (the other one) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:15:33 +0000

Men who STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE at women.

I’ve just reclaimed our large property from a perverted neighbour who STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARED at me from his own property – zipping in and out from behind trees would you believe?! I did this through STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARING back at him through binoculars and even through our digital camera, taking actual shots of his perveted amusement. He soon got the message.

It might sound like a small victory, but it feels like a monumental achievement.

By: su

su — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:27:55 +0000

All the while I was thinking: Is it actually legal for them to torture those babies like that, just for the sake of our televisual entertainment?

Me too. I suppose this is covered by parental consent to the filming? It horrifies me, I had to turn it off. When the original of Big Brother aired in Holland, psychologists were intrigued beccause they said they would never in a million years get ethical approval to do to consenting subjects what the show’s producers were doing to their contestants. I think of this show in the same way. Appalling and unethical but apparently, legal.

By: Barb

Barb — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:50:31 +0000

Yes! – I saw that show, too. All the while I was thinking: Is it actually legal for them to torture those babies like that, just for the sake of our televisual entertainment? Why not just send your baby off to the Romanian orphanage for a year, if you want it to be completely starved of human contact? I was so uncomfortable watching the poor 50`s mothers crying in anguish as they were forced to ignore their babies cries (and leave them out in the garden with the foxes!)
Did anyone notice the part when the three “mentors” were arguing and one of the women said to the other, as an argument against public breastfeeding : “but why should people be forced to SEE your breast?”
By the way, Hoydens, thankyou so much for your great blog. What a fabulous hoydenistic pleasure it is to discover it!
(PS: love the “unhusband” – classic)
Also – what annoys me today: people who start sentences with “You think….”

By: lauredhel

lauredhel — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:49:55 +0000

The Amazing Kim: Was that the “Bringing Up Baby” show? I didn’t see it, but I heard that it included advice like not holding a baby close and not making eye contact while feeding. That stuff strikes cold into my heart. Claire Verity/Truby King also advocate rigid forced four-hourly feeding regimes likely to lead to constant hunger, lack of supply, and failure to thrive for many babies if actually followed.

I’m reminded of uncared-for orphans, and those monkeys torn away from their mothers who fail to develop.

Another of their ilk, Gina Ford, has been throwing away defamation threats to mothers’ forums who discuss the cruelty she advocates.

Fuck a two-minute warning, that abusive shit should be driven off the air by whatever protests are necessary.

I’d also like to see SIDS authorities giving room-sharing the full-blown public health attention it deserves. Separate-room sleeping increases the risk of SIDS, perhaps by as much as double. The Back To Sleep campaign was very successful; why are we holding back on this one? Right now we still have lots of healthcare practitioners and child health nurses (anecdotal evidence) outright recommending that babies be placed in a separate room. There’s something very fishy about it all.

By: Renee

Renee — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:08:03 +0000

@Meg You are not alone in the hate pink crowd. I hate pink with a passion myself. It's funny when my little boy goes to buy me something he always reaches for pink because even at the age of 8 society has already taught him that, that is a girls color. The unhusband always has to remind him that mommy is not a pink kind of girl. Renee's last blog post..If You’re Poor In New Mexico It’s A Cheese Sandwich For You

By: The Amazing Kim

The Amazing Kim — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:41:39 +0000

I’ve been watching that parenting program-whatever-it’s-called. Last night the ABC had a 2-minute disclaimer before and after the program saying “sleeping routines like the ones shown in the program have been shown to heighten the risk of SIDS” and “maternity nurses have no medical qualification, but specialise in parenting techniques”, with web links to the ABC’s parenting website. They must have had a bunch of complaints last week.

I’d like to know how they judge the success of each regime. Do they check criminal records at 18? Wait 70 years and interview each subject on whether they’ve had a full and satisfying life?

By: Mindy

Mindy — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:56:36 +0000

I so heart that Meg. I think of it as a vomit of pink as I pick through it looking for something in purple, or red or green for my daughter. I often go to the boys section for the primary colours. I would love hot pink or magenta or a soft rose (and so would she) but it’s all that sickeningly candy pink. Which she likes too, but I refuse to dress her in that and nothing else. It’s disturbing how easy it would be to dress her exclusively in candy pink.