Parenting Megathread - For Those Who Managed to Reproduce

[Derrick]

Does anybody have any advice on traveling with an infant? I'm about to drive four hours with a less than two months old for Thanksgiving dinner and I'm definitely not looking forward to traveling with a young baby for that long.

 

[expectant asshole]

Build in lots of time to stop and avoid long highways where you can’t pull over if you need to. It’s super stressful driving while your baby is crying. So pull over when it’s safe to, for feeds or changing or cuddles.

Is someone else going with you? It felt odd but when mine were babies in car seats, I’d sit in the back with them while husband drove so I could feed them or just keep an eye on them.

Two months isn’t so bad. Wait until they’re a screaming toddler.

Not to double post, but can someone give me a basic primer on warhammer? Older son (13) is just starting to get into it.

 

[Derrick]

Is someone else going with you? It felt odd but when mine were babies in car seats, I’d sit in the back with them while husband drove so I could feed them or just keep an eye on them.

Yeah that's what we ended up doing, my wife sat in the back to "jangle the keys" so to speak and keep the baby occupied.

 

[TiggerNits]

Somehow, our baby is crazy agreeable and totally sleeps through the night - from 1.5 months old till now, at 1 year old. Been waiting for the hammer to drop and for the sleepless nights to come, but amazingly, it's been evaded entirely so far. It felt so "too good to be true" that I was starting to think "Maybe this indicates a problem??". But nope, he's normal or ahead on every development milestone, just naps less often during the day and gets it all in at night. We've only been woken up by this baby 5 or 6 times total, and each time seems to have been a bad dream/night terror, which was pretty easily resolved. Now we're debating if we want to chance a second, but then again, there's no way in hell we'll get so lucky a second time...

My oldest was a 7pm to 7am sleeper with a nice 2 hour long nap in the middle of the day.

My youngest is still fine, normally but compared to her brother we realize how spoiled we were bevause we whine about her only sleeping for 7 hours instead of 12

 

[The Man With No Name]

Not to double post, but can someone give me a basic primer on warhammer? Older son (13) is just starting to get into it.

There's two types of Warhammer - 40k and Fantasy (split between Old World and Age of Sigmar)

40k is humans are fighting against an extremely hostile universe and the perversions of the warp. Heroes like the Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, the Imperial Guard and more stand between humanity and utter destruction at the hands of the daemons and gods of Chaos, the savage Orks, the scheming Eldar, the hiveminds of the Tyranids, and the communist Tau, among others.

Perfectly normal thing for a 13 year old to get into, I certainly did at that age. There's video games, comics, novels, and miniatures to paint and collect, as well as the original wargame aspect. The minis can get expensive but they're a good hobby as far as learning how to paint and create your own models.

The Fantasy/Age of Sigmar stuff is cool too, but less into it. It gets video games too, and models, but less popular than 40k nowadays despite being the "original"

 

[umseriously]

Children should really not be allowed to have cell phones even during their early teenage years. At best, they should just have a flip phone. Even if exceptions should arise, the average child shouldn't be considered one.

 

[PyrrhicRustle]

Children should really not be allowed to have cell phones even during their early teenage years. At best, they should just have a flip phone. Even if exceptions should arise, the average child shouldn't be considered one.

I don’t think anyone here is going to argue for giving kids unmonitored Internet access.

 

[Aubergine Stupendous]

Alright, dad-to-be looking for some guidance here. My beloved wife is carrying not one, but two babies and it has been really difficult seeing her go through all the discomfort and difficulties of a twin pregnancy. Maybe it’s because this is both of ours first pregnancy and I’m being overly sensitive but I was hoping for any kind of advice to help her, or really anything for first time parents or twin stuff.

 

[Palantir]

Alright, dad-to-be looking for some guidance here. My beloved wife is carrying not one, but two babies and it has been really difficult seeing her go through all the discomfort and difficulties of a twin pregnancy. Maybe it’s because this is both of ours first pregnancy and I’m being overly sensitive but I was hoping for any kind of advice to help her, or really anything for first time parents or twin stuff.

Does she have a pregnancy pillow?

Also, there is a book called "have your second child first" by Kerry colburn it's got a lot of good tips in it.

My best tip is buy everything except your car seat and poo things second hand. It'll save you a lot.

Make sure mum gets time away from home or at home without babies when she is ready. She's going to be so happy to get time to herself, a lot of mums miss this.

Remember everyone is an amateur with their first and we're all here, so don't worry you'll be fine.

 

[ApeBass]

Does she have a pregnancy pillow?

This would be my number 1 pregnancy suggestion. I kept waking up with a back ache from (surprisingly!) early on in my pregnancy, the back ache disappeared once I started sleeping with a foam wedge underneath my bump.
I also splashed out on visiting the local cranial osteopath in an attempt to keep my joints and posture in check. It was nice to talk to her about pregnancy and baby-related stuff, and she was qualified to treat babies too, so I took my newborn for a check-up. Seeing an osteopath was an indulgence rather than a necessity (unlike my wedge!) But I was glad I could afford to see her, it was reassuring to have her on standby in case I developed pelvic girdle pain or had a colicky baby.

Congratulations and good luck to you and your wife! My baby is now 5 months old; I didn't know what tiredness meant until I became a mother. The best advice I received from a friend was "take each day as it comes."

 

[ye's Official KF Burner]

Alright, dad-to-be looking for some guidance here. My beloved wife is carrying not one, but two babies and it has been really difficult seeing her go through all the discomfort and difficulties of a twin pregnancy. Maybe it’s because this is both of ours first pregnancy and I’m being overly sensitive but I was hoping for any kind of advice to help her, or really anything for first time parents or twin stuff.

Does she have a pregnancy pillow?

Also, there is a book called "have your second child first" by Kerry colburn it's got a lot of good tips in it.

My best tip is buy everything except your car seat and poo things second hand. It'll save you a lot.

Make sure mum gets time away from home or at home without babies when she is ready. She's going to be so happy to get time to herself, a lot of mums miss this.

Remember everyone is an amateur with their first and we're all here, so don't worry you'll be fine.

You can get a belly band that helps to ease the pain as well. But yeah, all the above suggestions. If she's into it prenatal massages are always a nice treat.

Buying secondhand for mostly all your stuff is the way to go. Facebook marketplace and Craigslist are a great place to check. See what local programs you qualify for and can take advantage of, as well as if your hospital of choice has programs or have special gift baskets for new parents.

 

[Polystyrene Glioblastoma]

Well, I stepped up to the plate to help with childcare because I love my best friend, his wife, and their two and a half year old son. Another little one is on the way. They both are working now and their extended family is unreliable sometimes with help. I probably won't ever have kids of my own due to a variety of reasons.

I feel like it is a good deal. I get an heir to my massive property that borders theirs and I've already experienced the joys of seeing milestones reached. I don't feel like I will die alone anymore. I like to help out.

It was very frustrating at first dealing with tantrums or minor issues but my patience has gotten a lot better and I'm able to be empathic. My godson respects me and listens most of the time, especially his dad too.

One thing that really annoys me is how his grandmother lets him be a disrespectful hellion and allows him to tear up the house when she watches him.

One time the grandmother let him get ahold of a handgun in the nightstand of a room he's not supposed to be in unsupervised (thankfully unloaded) and he entered the room I was in and pointed it at me. I will admit I went a little apeshit from the adrenaline rush and pushed him to the floor and smacked him to get it out of his hands. After that incident, me and the dad made sure all the firearms were secure in case the grandmother was being lazy again.

It is insane how much crap she lets him get away with. One time she let him sit in a shitty diaper for hours and we came home to the house absolutely destroyed. My godson is very defiant when he's around her and I just had to vent about how much I hate that she doesn't discipline him. The grandmother is a weird but relatively young widow and lives in a she-shed behind their house, even though she's wealthy enough to have a mansion. I try to do my best to watch him instead of her, just I wish she would just contribute more to the house.

Lately I've been working on getting him potty trained, calling me my nickname and talking more, and I make sure he gets at least 2 hours of outside playtime when I watch him.

The potty training isn't that hard. I just have to ask him if he needs to go every now and then and 25 minutes after eating.

My godson calls me "daddy" and I've been trying to get him to call me my nickname but it is still a little difficult for consistency. I try to remind him of my nickname periodically. If I bribe him with snacks he'll usually call me my nickname. He's started calling me "daddy" less and calls me "mine" more at least.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

It is insane how much crap she lets him get away with. One time she let him sit in a shitty diaper for hours and we came home to the house absolutely destroyed. My godson is very defiant when he's around her and I just had to vent about how much I hate that she doesn't discipline him.

They will always push boundaries to see how much they can get away. Even at only 15 months old our daughter was noticeably much more demanding and defiant towards Mum. I made a habit early of not responding to screams or tantrums and she gets it now, she doesn't do them with me, but they do still work on Mum and she knows that too. You just gotta keep nagging Mum about it (but in a nice way, parents fighting is the last thing any kid needs).

I must say I think it's absolutely insane the kid got their hands on a gun, you guys are lucky he didn't kill himself. What the fuck man.

I need advice on keeping the kids away from smartphones and the Internet once they reach their early teens. I know it's absolutely what must be done but I don't want them to be ridiculed or feel left out if they're the only kids without it. Personally I think they shouldn't have any access until they're 18, but I'm sure there will be situations where they need it like researching school projects or whatever, they can use the family PC for that. Just don't want them to become weirdos or be left out by the other kids because they don't have phones.