Share your practical parenting tips here!

[CiderLogan]

I was thinking lately of all the great ideas I've gotten from this board and from friends IRL, and I thought this might be a good time for us all to share some helpful parenting tips. Here are some of mine; please add yours!

1. When nursing, wear a ring that is different on each side, and flip it around to signal to yourself which side to nurse on next (I have this one: http://secure.jamesavery.com/view_jewelry/search/viewProduct.jsp?itemCode=R-1255, and I point it to my right or left). I like this better than the clip-on-the-bra trick because it's right there in plain sight before I have to lift up my shirt or position the baby. Also, make a little nursing spreadsheet in a spreadsheet program, print it out, and use it to record feeding times and sides. Ours has a little block for every hour of the day, and if DD feeds in that hour, we record the exact time (say 10:15 in the 10 slot), and we circle R or L. This has helped me tremendously, as I can't remember when each feeding occurs while keeping up with my girls!

2. Buy a wall calendar to hang in each of your kids' rooms. Hang a pen next to it. Record little tidbits of info as often as possible - a funny thing they said, a new like/dislike, etc. -- on the day they happened. I have found this much easier to remember than going to the baby book each time. Then every couple of months I transfer important info (dates of new teeth, etc.) into the baby books. It's also fun to go back and see little things that would otherwise have been forgotten (but aren't big enough to record in the baby book).

3. I shower with my older DD. She was not mature enough until recently (she's almost 3) to be alone while I showered (or rather I wasn't comfortable enough!), so I took her in with me. She played while I got cleaned up, and then I washed her. That way she was occupied when I was showering, plus she got clean too and we saved the bathtime step at night! This is the only way I ever showered for a while there.

OK, so they aren't profound, but these are little things that have helped me. I hope to read some more....

Jenny
Julia, 8/03
Clara, 5/06

[sadie_beth_1124]

Dunno if this qualifies, but my best advice to all new moms & PG women is TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS. You know your baby/ child better than ANYONE. Don't buckle under pressure to go against what you know in your heart to be right.

[purpleeyes]

Ease your toddler into transitions with warnings. I always say 10 minutes or 5 minutes before__________ (bath, bed, time to go, etc). He may have no idea about the actual amount of time, but it gives him a heads up that things are going to change soon. I think it really helps us avoid (or at least decrease) meltdowns. ;)

At bedtime, we transition with milk and books-read a few books and drink milk from the sippie (this helped us wean him off the bottle) Now he asks for "milk and books?" and when we're done says "bath?" It has made a great routine, and a nice way to wind down from playing.


This is a cool thread idea!!

Beth

[karolyp]

I was just gonna suggest the SAME thing! Also, don't worry about what the experts "say" in their books either. Sometimes I think that can do more harm than good, kwim?!

[Jenn98]

1 - She isn't as fragile as you might think. Let her explore and let her be dairng. Let her eat a little sand every now and again. Let her feel and tast the flowers (not the kind that are poison, though!) Basically, let her be a kid and get dirty.

2 - Explain everything as you go. I'm not sure how or where I picked this habit up, but I see a big difference in how DD will react to me when I do it and how she will react to DH when he doesn't do it. "Daddy's going to hold you while I get dinner." or "I'm going to change your diaper." I explain a lot and I give a lot of options - You can do this or that. And I try to redirect her instead of always saying no. She really responds well to having me tell her a lot about her day.

[KrisM]

Choices work well for toddlers. We now ask if he wants to wash his hands or put away his shoes first, after coming in from outside. Before it was a struggle to get him to do either and now he's happy doing both.

I do the calendar too, but don't have it in their rooms. I think they'll go up tomorrow, but maybe in MY room so I can add it at night.

[ShanaMama]

I totally agree with this! Several times, I had an instinct that something was not right with DD, but tried to brush it off. When I finally did go to the doctor, I usually found out it was an ear infection (or something) that was probably brewing when I started suspecting it. I am really trying to listen to that inner voice & take it seriously. She is *my child* & there is no reason that an article or receptionist at the ped should carry more weight than my gut instinct!!
The other thing I've picked up at these boards & really implemented is to be a 'whatever it takes that day' Mommy. Tonight I made the bath water a bit too hot, & once DD felt it she refused to go back in (after I adjusted the temp.) She needed a bath, I had an appt to run out to & DH wasn't home yet. In my past life I would've started tensing up & trying to make it work. Instead, we had an impromptu sponge bath on the bathroom floor. DD was laughing so much & I got off most of the sweaty dirt! Not to mention that it saved time, too!

[maestramommy]

Totally agree with your first one. It's okay if you look up and she has dirt all over her mouth, and it's okay if she crawls off the picnic blanket to sit on the damp grass, and it's okay that she occasionally eats paper and chews on the restaurant menu.

Okay, my personal favorite is DON'T READ ANY BOOKS! I picked up enough from my ped, y'all here, and my gut that the books were only adding to stress rather than reassuring.

[AngelaS]

Babies like showers too. By the time I had my third, she had her first shower within her first month of life. :)

It's okay to let them get good and grubby. They will come clean.

It's okay to put them in the shopping cart, restaurant high chair, floor of the department store. Don't think 'germ infested', think 'builds immunity'. (Of course this is after the first several months...I'm far more cautious then!)

It's okay if the older siblings want to pretend the baby is a dog and drop food on the floor for her. She'll be okay. (see above....)

It's totally okay to do things none of your friends are: breastfeed, cloth diaper, eat organic. Just don't be TOTALLY obessive about it to the point that you freak out over the little things. In the big scheme of life it's really not going to hurt them.

[Jenn98]

As I was reading your post, I looked over and DD was putting a huge chunck of cat fur in her mouth. I smiled and asked her if it was yummy or not and she spit it out. My kid is so smart ;)

[Ceepa]

Keep the camera out of its case and stored in a kitchen cabinet. I grab it all the time for those small moments just because it's so convenient to do so.

I still miss a lot but I have a lot of candids I otherwise wouldn't have.

-Ceepa

[proggoddess]

Keep scrap paper and crayons in a 9x12 baking pan. It makes a nice carrying tray and keeps the crayons on the paper and not on the table.

Use a cloth diaper pin to secure your bathroom hand towel to the rod. That way, toddlers can dry their hands without dumping the towel on the floor. (Unfortunately, this will eventually put a hole in the towel after a few years.)

Beans are great finger food. They come in multiple shapes, sizes and colors to easily fit your toddler's mood that week. :) They take on whatever flavor of sauce you put on it and they keep things moving when your toddler decides to hold it in.

Sign language is great, especially between 9-18 months. We just did the signs for "more" "don't/done" and "eat" and that pretty much eliminated any food-time tantrums.

Water pipe insulation makes great bumpers for babyproofing. We duct taped some along the edge of the hearth, some on the top of our headboard, and some on DD's toddler bed rail. Cheap, too!

[Puddy73]

This is probably more of a philosophy than a practical tip, but it has helped me a great deal: Pick your battles, with your kids and other people. Ask yourself, will this affect me or my kid five years from now? Safety issues like car seats I don't budge on, but things like DD leaving the house with mismatched clothes, a tutu and ratty hair I've learned to let go of. If FIL makes snarky comments about extended breastfeeding, so what? I just let him say his piece and do what I think is right.

Jennifer
Mommy to Annabelle 9/08/03 & Finn 10/31/05

"If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." - Jimmy Buffett

[boys2enough]

I had fun reading everybody's tips. Keep them coming!

1. Agree with many of the PPs. I read "What to Expect..." for my first child and was freaking out and felt "inferior" often. I was told that it was THE "bible" at that time. I wish I had known that I was not the only person who disliked that book, to say the least.

2. When your kids are older, they will say "It's NOT FAIR!" quite often. For some reason we parents often rise to the challenge and feel the need to argue with them, to convince them that why "It IS fair." I just recently made a resolution that I will not take the bait. When DS1 (and now even my 3.5 yo) cries, "It's NOT Fair," I simply say, "I feel bad that you are upset, but this is how we are going to handle it this time etc."

3. Bribery works. "It's ok to bribe." My MIL told me this and I love her for it.

4. Big plastic tubs work great for toys etc. If you give them baskets, you can make a game out of "clean up."

5. When potty train your DS, if you could, train him to go wee wee in the real toilet. This will save you a lot of cleaning up time.

6. (Many will disagree with this one...) Play Doh is outside toy!

LOL.


Cheers, Lin
Mom to 2 wild boys
D 3/98
G 11/02

http://smilies.vidahost.com/kao/chika/chirol_buha.gif

I am celebrating: just passed my "1000 posts" mark. Yipee!

[californiagirl]

1) Kids grow up. You don't have to fix everything today. Most things will fix themselves if you just stop making a fuss about it.

2) A small baby's onesie can be taken off downwards, over its shoulders (the envelope kind work best but they will all go if you're careful). If you don't know why this is the best tip ever, you have never had a breastfed baby, or you are the luckiest person in the whole world.

3) Baby powder will get sand off the baby. (And that's all it's good for.)

4) Your newborn is not making as much noise as you think.

5) Cream-colored T-shirts are exactly the same color as spit-up (the publisher O'Reilly and Associates for a while made all their T-shirts in this fantastically useful color -- now they just do bags, alas).

6) There are people who honestly believe that your squalling baby covered in noxious fluids is cute. There are even people like this aboard crowded airplanes. You can devote your time to remembering them (thank you, lady who admired my poopy baby after she spit-up on me in Macy's; thank you, lady who stopped by my car to say soothing things while I was trying to strap my howling toddler in on a hot day; thank you, man in a business suit who guilted the flight attendant into letting me past by cheerily offering to take my, once again, poopy baby and change her for me; thank you elderly couple in the Auckland airport who reacted to my running toddler by admiring her energy and complimenting me on the story I read her; and even thank you disapproving people who called first aid because you thought my screaming child was actually hurt -- she was just fine but I'm glad you chose to do something when you saw a child in distress.)