Mistakes in Parenting

[CreamyGoodness]

When SG was even smaller than he is now (he is rather small) he would cry more than necessary, in my opinion. After a while, sometimes I would take my pointer finger and fan his mouth as he cried, making the "wah wah wah" sound. Think a native American in a bugs bunny cartoon.

We are "Ferberizing" now, which is a fancy way of saying we let him cry it out at bedtime for a few minutes and see if he falls asleep.

If he is tired and the crying was an act, he falls asleep silently. If he really needs attention, he continues wailing... and now if he is somewhere in between he continues to cry but "soothes" himself by making that noise with the back of his wrist. "WAAAAAAAAAA-*WAHWAHWAHWAHWAH*"

Abuse or brilliance?

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

When SG was even smaller than he is now (he is rather small) he would cry more than necessary, in my opinion. After a while, sometimes I would take my pointer finger and fan his mouth as he cried, making the "wah wah wah" sound. Think a native American in a bugs bunny cartoon.

We are "Ferberizing" now, which is a fancy way of saying we let him cry it out at bedtime for a few minutes and see if he falls asleep.

If he is tired and the crying was an act, he falls asleep silently. If he really needs attention, he continues wailing... and now if he is somewhere in between he continues to cry but "soothes" himself by making that noise with the back of his wrist. "WAAAAAAAAAA-*WAHWAHWAHWAHWAH*"

Abuse or brilliance?

Yes.

 

[Tin4]

When SG was even smaller than he is now (he is rather small) he would cry more than necessary, in my opinion. After a while, sometimes I would take my pointer finger and fan his mouth as he cried, making the "wah wah wah" sound. Think a native American in a bugs bunny cartoon.

We are "Ferberizing" now, which is a fancy way of saying we let him cry it out at bedtime for a few minutes and see if he falls asleep.

If he is tired and the crying was an act, he falls asleep silently. If he really needs attention, he continues wailing... and now if he is somewhere in between he continues to cry but "soothes" himself by making that noise with the back of his wrist. "WAAAAAAAAAA-*WAHWAHWAHWAHWAH*"

Abuse or brilliance?

I'm of mixed mind on this. My favorite part of the day, any day, is putting him to bed. He's 2, 3 next month.

There's a moment when he's on my chest that he releases. Deep breath in, deep breath out. His worries for the day are over. His war has been waged. It's in my he finds his respite.

I live for that.

So he gets rocked till he's ready to not be. He's already starting to fight it, and that's fine, but I'm holding onto it as long as I can. One more night. At least one more night.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

I'm of mixed mind on this. My favorite part of the day, any day, is putting him to bed. He's 2, 3 next month.

There's a moment when he's on my chest that he releases. Deep breath in, deep breath out. His worries for the day are over. His war has been waged. It's in my he finds his respite.

I live for that.

So he gets rocked till he's ready to not be. He's already starting to fight it, and that's fine, but I'm holding onto it as long as I can. One more night. At least one more night.

I love getting him to sleep. Sometimes he's in my lap or lying next to me on the "big bed" in the nursery and after the mandatory reading of "If I were an Owl" and a very down-tempo rendition of "There was a Giraffe in my loft" he looks at me with those big blue eyes and says "dadadadadadadadada" and falls asleep. I pick him up and hold him to me and bring him to the crib, insert his binky in his mouth and cover him up, being sure to turn on the whitenoise lamb toy and Twilight Turtle. I then leave the room on tiptoe. This is when he starts crying...

 

[Psylocide]

I'm of mixed mind on this. My favorite part of the day, any day, is putting him to bed. He's 2, 3 next month.

There's a moment when he's on my chest that he releases. Deep breath in, deep breath out. His worries for the day are over. His war has been waged. It's in my he finds his respite.

I live for that.

So he gets rocked till he's ready to not be. He's already starting to fight it, and that's fine, but I'm holding onto it as long as I can. One more night. At least one more night.

That was a very cool and eloquent way to put it.

Agree completely.

 

[Homercidal]

My method was to yell, "Shut the F$%* UP!" from across the house. Our bedrooms were separated by a fair distance, so crying at bedtime was never a problem.

You may choose a different approach. Maybe read to them:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1934649503/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[afro_lou]

There's a moment when he's on my chest that he releases. Deep breath in, deep breath out. His worries for the day are over. His war has been waged. It's in my he finds his respite.

There is nothing in the world that is better than this.
Mine is 19 months, and he is getting very good at sleeping on his own, which is good, but also sad, cause I don't get to do this much anymore...
*sigh*
Well, with another one due in a couple months, I guess we'll get to do it some more.

On topic, when he was born he ended up fracturing his clavicle. The doctors didn't catch it for about a week or so, and I was CONVINCED that my clumsy ass broke it putting clothes on him or something... That was rough. It took the doctor another week or so to tell me there was no way I did it, it happened during delivery... I'm still kind of mad at the doctor for that.

Oh well, I'm sure there will be more ways I'll screw this kiddo up! [emoji1]

 

[Homercidal]

There is nothing in the world that is better than this.
Mine is 19 months, and he is getting very good at sleeping on his own, which is good, but also sad, cause I don't get to do this much anymore...
*sigh*
Well, with another one due in a couple months, I guess we'll get to do it some more.

On topic, when he was born he ended up fracturing his clavicle. The doctors didn't catch it for about a week or so, and I was CONVINCED that my clumsy ass broke it putting clothes on him or something... That was rough. It took the doctor another week or so to tell me there was no way I did it, it happened during delivery... I'm still kind of mad at the doctor for that.

Oh well, I'm sure there will be more ways I'll screw this kiddo up! [emoji1]

Mom probably broke it when she was delivering. I'd start using that as guilt leverage.

 

[afro_lou]

Oh, I just can't stay mad at her hooha...

 

[1977Brewer]

I'm of mixed mind on this. My favorite part of the day, any day, is putting him to bed. He's 2, 3 next month.

There's a moment when he's on my chest that he releases. Deep breath in, deep breath out. His worries for the day are over. His war has been waged. It's in my he finds his respite.

I live for that.

So he gets rocked till he's ready to not be. He's already starting to fight it, and that's fine, but I'm holding onto it as long as I can. One more night. At least one more night.

3 1/2 year old still falls asleep on my lap, on the couch. When I can't carry him to bed, he can stop. Until then no biggie.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

3 1/2 year old still falls asleep on my lap, on the couch. When I can't carry him to bed, he can stop. Until then no biggie.

My 9 year old is almost there. He'll fall asleep on couch, head in my lap, while I run my fingers through his mop. I shouldn't, but I still find ways to carry him to bed.

 

[Pyg]

My 1 year old wanted to drink from my beer bottle so I put some beer on my finger (an IPA) thinking he would hate it and that would be the end... well he loved it and now he is obsessed with beer bottles. He will yank a bottle right out of your hand and cram it in his mouth before you know what is happening. He hasn't managed to upend one yet but it's just a matter of time until he ends up with a mouth/face/outfit full of beer.

My wife is not pleased.

Both my son and daughter help me make wine or bottle beer/wine.
My daughter likes to go down the the wine cellar/beer room, pull out all my clear wine bottles and draw on them with with either window marker or a perm pen.
For a while she was using empty beer bottles as water glasses. I even capped on for her to keep in her room.
Luckily one day I was packing her backpack for school and found a beer bottle in he bag. Her explanation was she needed a water bottle at school since she could not find hers.

My 5 yr old daughter came to me the other day and said- "I know the L word".
Me- what'?
Her- Hell!
Her- I know the eck word. "Heck" hehehe
Me- Ok hunny.
Her- I know the f word. ****!
Me-
.

I rarely curse (except when I hit my thumb with a hammer, or someone cuts me off in traffic), SWMBO less often as me.
My son came to me an said:
"I know a word that rhymes with chip"
"what"-me
"$h*t"

weeks later he told me he knew the "F" word. being 7 I had to tell him I knew all the words and I dont need him to repeat them to me.
a week late her came to me and said "I know a bad word that begins with N".
I told him to go speak to his mother about it. I was not going anywhere near this discussion.

However when he was beginning to speak he would stand in the window and yell truck as they passed by. unfortunately his "T" sounded line an "F", so it came out like "fruck", except with no real R sound.
So I had a 2 year old screaming the F word from my window as everyone walked by the house!

 

[brewkinger]

Sooo many things that I could discuss here that are similar in nature to some already mentioned, most of which are not parenting fails.

Last July walking down to lakefront in Burlington for rehearsal dinner for BIL wedding.
Had my son on my shoulders because it was about 1/2 mile walk from parking deck and hot/muggy night (this is important)

Got to the boat area and decided to hoist my son up off my shoulders and toss him straight up and catch him.
As I did so, he panicked and in addition to the vertical launch distance, he projected himself slightly forward and as I reached out to snag him, he slipped right through my slick (remember I told you that the muggy part was important) hands.

As he was falling, I briefly thought about trying to grab him by the feet, but something instinctively prevented me from doing so.

He fell straight and parallel to the ground and bent his elbows up to protect himself and he landed flat on the wooden decking by the boat launch area.

I believe that the flexible nature of the boards, combined with with the manner in which he fell made the outcome favorable.

I snagged him up off the ground expecting to see nothing but facial disfigurement and all I saw was a 3 y old gasping for air (wind knocked out of him) and when he finally caught his breath, he exclaimed "Daddy... why you do that??"

Worst part of all was that the deck area was filled with family and friends that were there for the rehearsal dinner as well, so my parenting fail was well witnessed.
My wife walked up about 30 seconds after the incident and gave me a look that could have castrated me (if I wasn't already that is)

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Yesterday, after bringing him home from urgent care because of the hives, we discover he has soiled his entire onesy. Just terrible. So my wife runs and bath, and I get him undressed and cleaned up. I pick him up... and his leg got caught in a slot in the changing station. He freaked out, and I freaked out and felt like the worst dad ever. Luckily it didn't even bruise.

 

[SharonaZamboni]

I never did manage to use a changing table regularly. We had one like thisView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1431986571.049046.jpg
where we kept baby clothes. Every freaking day, my son would tear everything out of the storage areas.
Always wound up changing diapers on the sofa.

 

[hunter_le five]

I freaked out and felt like the worst dad ever.

 

[fijigus]

Our 5 1/2 year old now chooses to "go commando" half the time. Got a little pee on your underpants? No problem, go commando.

Meanwhile we have a 2 1/2 year old who hasn't quite decided yet to lose the diapers and pacifier because he has twin 1 year old siblings. Now instead of brewing, I buy cases and cases of diapers. It's awesome. And lots and lots of microbrews.

 

[SharonaZamboni]

Our 5 1/2 year old now chooses to "go commando" half the time. Got a little pee on your underpants? No problem, go commando.



Meanwhile we have a 2 1/2 year old who hasn't quite decided yet to lose the diapers and pacifier because he has twin 1 year old siblings. Now instead of brewing, I buy cases and cases of diapers. It's awesome. And lots and lots of microbrews.

My son was commando. Got a bee sting on the wiener once.

I always advise against banning the binky. Binky gets eaten by a monkey at the zoo, and the kids starts sucking a thumb or some fingers, which is a much harder habit to give up.

 

[madscientist451]

My biggest parenting mistake was when the kids were young I was running my own business and was a total workaholic. I did take time to coach soccer for 7+ years with all three kids, spent time teaching them how to ski and went to the beach every summer, but still I worked late most nights instead of getting my ass home and playing with them and spending time with them.
Now they are 20 somethings and teenagers and hanging with dad isn't cool and they moving away. You can't get the years back, once they're gone they're gone. You can always make a buck later after they've left.
Sorry, just my 2 cents.

 

[jbaysurfer]

our oldest has been calling everyone "sissy". my bad. still though, kids need to harden the flocc up. our neighbors 10 y/o had a screaming fit where she was flopping around the ground like a fish out of water covered in bees that were on fire while having a seizure over a pair of roller blades. when I confronted her about it she just giggled like she was getting away with something. our 4 y/o knows better than to try crap like that with us.

I'm confused. Not sure whether it was the fish having a seizure or the burning bees?

 

[SupervisingChildren]

Sounds like "cats in the cradle". Glad my job doesn't keep my from the moments I want to be there for, for the most part.

Fortunately for me, I have all week to be a bad dad since my fiancee is out of town for the week. How many mistakes can I make?

 

[jbaysurfer]

So we have a small backyard. Just big enough for a small deck to Bbq on (/dry brew kettles after a brew session) and a hot tub.

My daughter (who is one hell of a swimmer nowadays/ she's 10) was not even 6 months old when I turned the heat on the HT down the mid 90's and introduced her to the water. At the age of 9 months she would hold her breath and curl up into a ball and sink to the bottom of the tub and wait until her natural buoyancy brought her back to the surface. She loved being naked all the time before she went to school including in the hot tub. She always wanted me to be naked too, and being the liberal CA hippy I am I figured it was harmless.

She has always been very verbal and always eager to try out new vocabulary words. My wife is a teacher and believes in answering questions straight: (I'm getting out of the shower) "Mom? What's that?" "It's a penis honey".

So one day my daughter was 3 and we were in the hot tub. Of course in full voice she says with 3 year old enthusiasm: "Dad, you have a nice penis!"

I hear my neighbor from the other side of the fence about 20' away say: "Calling CPS!"

Needless to say that was the last time we did the naked in the hot tub thing.

 

[Billy-Klubb]

I'm confused. Not sure whether it was the fish having a seizure or the burning bees?

the bees are on fire and covering the fish whom is flopping as though out of water while having a seizure and rolling to try to put out the bees on fire.

 

[afro_lou]

My biggest parenting mistake was when the kids were young I was running my own business and was a total workaholic. I did take time to coach soccer for 7+ years with all three kids, spent time teaching them how to ski and went to the beach every summer, but still I worked late most nights instead of getting my ass home and playing with them and spending time with them.

Now they are 20 somethings and teenagers and hanging with dad isn't cool and they moving away. You can't get the years back, once they're gone they're gone. You can always make a buck later after they've left.

Sorry, just my 2 cents.

Oof. That's some heavy stuff right there. Words to live by.

I'm gonna go hug my son...

 

[Tin4]

This was just a dream. I woke up in terror, but this is a dream.

My two year old was driving. He's been talking about it a lot. Next thing I know my entire family is dead in a car accident.

I woke up and hugged them all when they were sleeping, but couldn't get back to bed.

Who's ready for a long day with me? Woohoo!

Note: He's been trying to let himself out the backdoor all morning. I can hear him playing with the handle. I will investigate shortly.

Oof. That's some heavy stuff right there. Words to live by.

I'm gonna go hug my son...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUwjNBjqR-c

Oh hell. For whatever reason I hit play...

I'm going back to bed. To sad.

Oh, and not a mistake, but my kids have been eating cake for breakfast every morning since Sunday (the day after my Bday.).

 

[Psylocide]

Two things at my wife's company picnic on Friday. It was at a local baseball game.

We were sitting at the table with my wife's boss and some of her co-workers, my 2 year old girl is sitting there mowing down a hot dog and I come back with beers for my wife and I.

Little girl looks at my mom's boss and says "My daddy make beer! I wike a beer! MMMMMMMM!"

Later on, my kid is just going nuts, running up and down the stairs and stuff. I turned around for 2 seconds to answer a question someone asked and she had somehow crawled up on a ~4' ledge and was standing on the edge dancing or something stupid.

Immediately as I see this, a security guard grabs her and hands her to me.

"Is she with you?"

"Yeah... sorry."

"Please be more careful."

 

[beernbourbon]

Oh, and not a mistake, but my kids have been eating cake for breakfast every morning since Sunday (the day after my Bday.).

LOL...I used to be really uptight about that one, but one time we were on vacation, before wife and I got married. Her daughter was eating ice cream for breakfast, and I was like "really? you let her eat ice cream for breakfast" she looked at me with 'the look' and said "well, you let your daughter eat a doughnut or sugary cereal, what's the difference? Ice cream is dairy, egg, sugar. Cereal is dairy, grain, sugar, etc."
So now, especially on vacation, we eat whatever. LOL

Sigh....Love those moments where you know you have been bested by a more intelligent argument.

Cake is dairy, grain, sugar....it works. They'll be fine.

 

[Homercidal]

Dad is great! Gives us chocolate cake!

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Dad is great! Gives us chocolate cake!

"With grapefruit juice."

 

[Tin4]

LOL...I used to be really uptight about that one, but one time we were on vacation, before wife and I got married. Her daughter was eating ice cream for breakfast, and I was like "really? you let her eat ice cream for breakfast" she looked at me with 'the look' and said "well, you let your daughter eat a doughnut or sugary cereal, what's the difference? Ice cream is dairy, egg, sugar. Cereal is dairy, grain, sugar, etc."
So now, especially on vacation, we eat whatever. LOL

Sigh....Love those moments where you know you have been bested by a more intelligent argument.

Cake is dairy, grain, sugar....it works. They'll be fine.

Agreed. I do ice cream from time to time. We don't keep it in the house. I'm lactose tolerant and have no self control.

Dad is great! Gives us chocolate cake!

And that's why my wife gets mad at me. "They love you. Cake, Donuts, fun things in the morning.".

My thought is if she didn't just sit in her chair and complain about being tired she could do the same thing. We wake up differently is all.

"With grapefruit juice."

Gross. No.