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Papercut posted:Ours turns 3 in November and still doesn't watch any TV or use a tablet. His media consumption is entirely music and books. We tried to stick to the "no screens until 2" advice, and at this point we don't see any reason to change things up (maybe if a second kid comes around). He's an awesome kid but that may be completely unrelated to the screen time thing. We tried to do this, but TV time slowly crept in when we felt like it'd be better for her to be watching some TV show than for her to by staring at us whining because we're doing the dishes or something. Anyways, there are quite a few things she has picked up from the TV shows we put on. She's picked up a whole dance routine from This Video. She's learned how to recognize and name quite a few things(animals, trains, airplanes) from other videos. I think the main issue with TV isn't that it's inherently negative for babies. It's only if you are using the TV so much that it starts displacing time you would normally have spent socializing with them that it becomes an issue.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:45
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GlyphGryph posted:Do you guys ever get concerned that they watch shows too often? I used to be very strict about screentime. I used to make sure my oldest (when he was an infant) was turned away from the TV when it was on, but then I had two more and I realized he was the same awesome kid no matter if he watched a morning of Doc McStuffins or played with his train set in his room. Now we have maybe one or two lazy mornings during the week, the rest of the time is preschool, errands, playdates, appointments, etc. My kids are incredibly active. We do My Gym several times a week, multiple playdates during the week, our weekends are usually full of traveling and doing stuff, and for them to unwind on the couch or have the TV on in the background while they play with the toys in the living room is a nice break. My oldest is starting kindergarten in a few weeks, which he will be in for 5-6 hours a day, so if he wants to come home and relax with some Miles from Tomorrowland or Tinkerbell, I'll give him that break. Then it's homework, dinner, bath and bed. Right now Doc McStuffins is on, but my oldest is playing with his R2D2 laptop working on his spelling, my youngest is roaming the room playing with random toys and messing with my middle child, who is slowly finishing her breakfast. In an hour, we will be out and about running errands and doing stuff for several hours, so I give them this time to fart around before I expect them to be on their best behavior out in the world. Honestly, it's all about balance. In screentime, food, etc. My kids get dessert almost every night (if they earn it), but they rarely get sweets any other time. My kids watch a few cartoons during the day, but they still don't have the attention span to sit through a full movie and I haven't taken them to a movie theater yet - I'll save that as a special treat for my oldest once he has the attention span and there's a movie I know he'll want to see and could sit through. My kids get a ton of physical activity every single day, so giving them an hour with Sofia the First is a nice break for me and them. And they don't have tablets or phones or anything, they rarely get to watch something on Netflix on my tiny phone and it's usually when one of them is in gym class or if we are waiting somewhere lame like a Verizon store.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:55
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My kid will sit for maybe, maaaaybe, 15 minutes to watch TV or play on a tablet. He's two. He's too busy to sit still! If he develops interest, we are going to have a limit of 30-60 minutes a day, and make sure one of us is there to interact with him and talk about what he's seeing (hey, what do you think Elmo is doing? Should we stand up and dance along with Mickey? Etc.)
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Jul 21, 2015 17:56
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sullat posted:Didn't George Carlin do some too? Both carlin and starr spent time as mr conductor in shining times station. Which was a live action show, that aired segments of Thomas the tank engine (among other things) on pbs, and I believe was the first broadcast of Thomas in the US. This all happened in the early 90's when I was 7 or 8. This reminds me that I've been wanting to find original recordings of these and square one before my son is old enough to watch them.
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Jul 21, 2015 18:05
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Apogee15 posted:We tried to do this, but TV time slowly crept in when we felt like it'd be better for her to be watching some TV show than for her to by staring at us whining because we're doing the dishes or something. I think the main thing about screen time is what the parents are doing. Like you said, if they have some screen time while you're doing chores then whatever, they would be on their own during that time anyway (unless they're helping with chores  ). If they're having screen time while you also have screen time, each on your own screens, I think that's really lovely parenting because that should be prime time for relational interactions between the family. If you're all watching something together after a long day of activity, that sounds fun and I am really looking forward to doing that with my boy.Of course I say this as someone who watched a disgusting amount of TV growing up with no restrictions whatsoever, and I think I'm doing okay.
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Jul 21, 2015 18:23
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Papercut posted:I think the main thing about screen time is what the parents are doing. Like you said, if they have some screen time while you're doing chores then whatever, they would be on their own during that time anyway (unless they're helping with chores This is pretty much us to a T. We're always watching with Sydney and are always engaged with what's on, and it's not just mindless staring since we're usually singing along with Daniel Tiger or talking about what's going on on Planet Earth (HD nature documentaries are a big hit right now, especially anything with fish/ocean life). I would definitely agree that I'd consider that time to be completely wasted if I were poking around on my phone at the time.
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Jul 21, 2015 19:05
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Chicken Biscuits posted:She also loves listening to Ralph's World on YouTube. And in the car. And on Pandora. But that song Abby's Alphabet Soup is probably responsible for my 20 month old starting to recite the alphabet. We watch a lot of Super Simple Songs on Youtube (they're genuinely good, both musicwise and the visuals, I recommend them to everyone), and I was still bowled over when my just turned two-year old suddenly went "Dobba-you ex wy and zeee, now I know my ABC..." in the bath one day. We're Norwegian  She also knows "winka winka wittle staaaaar" and LOVES Let it Go ("GAYA GOOOOO GAYA GOOO!") It's stupidly adorable, even though I've had to learn it by heart because I'm her go-to karaoke-machine 
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Jul 21, 2015 19:13
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I'm in a community theatre production right now so my 2 year old is singing a lot of Mel Brooks songs.
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Jul 21, 2015 19:44
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greatn posted:I'm in a community theatre production right now so my 2 year old is singing a lot of Mel Brooks songs. We sing lots of songs from musicals in the house, and my son loves trains so "The Trolley Song" from Meet Me in St. Louis is very popular. We've also been potty training lately, so he now loves to sing "pee pee pee went the penis, toot toot toot went the buuuutt" and then laugh and laugh and laugh.
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Jul 21, 2015 19:52
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Papercut posted:We sing lots of songs from musicals in the house Growing up in a home filled with music and songs is such an awesome gift for a child! And it doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful for the kids - I feel so bad for all those people who have picked up the notion that they can't sing from school or bad childhood experiences or whatever - my husband is pretty much tone-deaf and I'm a classically trained singer, and our daughter loves our singing equally  (though I couldn't conceal my joy when she proved that she could follow a tune - I want a future duet partner for Christmas carols!)
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Jul 21, 2015 20:23
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My daughter turns 7 months tomorrow and I feel bad whenever we turn on music for her because she always turns to the TV and/or soundbar like HOLY CRAP MUSIC! OMG! I'm conflicted because I want her to enjoy music as my wife and I are both major music lovers but also because it pretty much distracts her from absolutely anything else going on for a while. Bonus: pic of my daughter with a moustache and some anus. 
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Jul 21, 2015 20:39
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Papercut posted:We sing lots of songs from musicals in the house, and my son loves trains so "The Trolley Song" from Meet Me in St. Louis is very popular. We've also been potty training lately, so he now loves to sing "pee pee pee went the penis, toot toot toot went the buuuutt" and then laugh and laugh and laugh. We were at my brother's house once and he was showing my son (he was 2) his piano, he played and sang "Let it be". Couple of hours later my son had to go pee, went to the washroom and peed while singing "Let it peeee, let it peeeee!!!".
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Jul 22, 2015 17:19
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So it seems for most people anyway the solution is less "worry about screen time" and more "make sure they have plenty of opportunities to be active and do other things", which makes sense. Thanks for the responses. Also, I really hope there's always plenty of music in my house while he's growing up. Me and the wife almost never listen to music together, but we sing all the time. I'm looking forward to when he can associate me playing on the guitar with the sounds actually coming from the guitar (or when he actually wants to bang on something along with the music, even better)!
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Jul 22, 2015 18:19
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For music stuff, both my kids are in the Music Together program and it's phenomenal. I highly recommend it. There are very interactive and fun classes once a week and you get the music on CD/digital download and a book with the actual sheet music. The music isn't as annoying as normal kid music either.
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Jul 22, 2015 18:27
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skeetied posted:For music stuff, both my kids are in the Music Together program and it's phenomenal. I highly recommend it. There are very interactive and fun classes once a week and you get the music on CD/digital download and a book with the actual sheet music. The music isn't as annoying as normal kid music either. Yeah we did 3 or 4 semesters of Music Together, it was really fun and the CDs are fantastic. It does depend on the teacher though, because it's a franchise model so some classes are better than others. Along with the CDs, you also get the music books. We'll still sit down at a keyboard and play/sing the songs together, even though it's been a year since we took the classes.
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Jul 22, 2015 18:36
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Our 2 year 2 month old boy has always slept like a champion. 7 pm to 7 am, since he was about 3 months old, with very rare exceptions. Self settles with no problems. Just the past week he's started waking up, whining, getting louder till he’s basically screaming. Last night my wife was with him from about 2:30 - 4:00 am, then I went in at 4 and when he wouldn’t stop I brought him out to the living room. We sat on the couch chilling for a while, he went over and played some piano, only got upset when I tried to turn the volume down. He didn’t go back to bed till late morning. Now tonight he started around 9:45 pm, and it’s 11:30 and he’s still going. I’ve gone in a couple times, he stops as soon as I pick him up, hugs me, falls asleep, then starts again as soon as I put him down. It’s now 12:30, the wife went in a while ago. Same thing, except this time she stayed in there and lay next to his cot. They’ve been quiet for a fair while now thank God. Anyone know what’s going on? He's probably teething a bit, but we don’t think that’s what it is. He doesn’t rub his cheeks or eat his hands. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s as if he’s suddenly scared of sleeping. Like he had some bad dream and is afraid to go back to sleep. Does that sound likely? Nothing else makes sense. Poor little guy. Recommendations appreciated. Edit: I thought maybe it was night terrors, for example, but that sounds like a different thing. Bucky Fullminster fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Jul 23, 2015 |
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Jul 23, 2015 15:37
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When you say cot do you mean he is still in a crib? Around 21 mos we had an issue where he was suddenly scared of his crib, we pulled the mattress out and put him on the floor and he was fine. Not really sure what changed and it took us a couple of weeks to figure it out.
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Jul 23, 2015 16:44
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GlyphGryph posted:Also, I really hope there's always plenty of music in my house while he's growing up. Me and the wife almost never listen to music together, but we sing all the time. I'm looking forward to when he can associate me playing on the guitar with the sounds actually coming from the guitar (or when he actually wants to bang on something along with the music, even better)! I think I mentioned it in passing before but I'm loving Spotify as a resource for this. Shareable playlists across different devices has been a lifesaver for us. I have a Bathtime playlist and a Bedtime one and I'm always adding/removing songs from both as Sydney's tastes change. Plus if she just wants to hear something like the Dinosaur Train theme song over and over again (someone please kill me) it's there as well.
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Jul 23, 2015 17:33
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One of our National Broadcasters has a channel that from 6am-7pm is nothing but kids TV shows. It tends to run the days that we're home as background noise - he'll pay attention to the shows that interest him inbetween pretending to fish or playing with Duplo, drawing, play doh ... whatever his indoor activity is at the time. I'm ok with that, he does plenty of other things that offset his screen time, but it's quite interesting to see the things he HAS learnt from the TV and watch him intereact with the shows - calling out the colours and shapes with Mister Maker, counting with the Num Tums, dancing at the Wiggles. The broadcaster also has an app to watch the shows/music videos. When he wants the music I fire it up on my tablet and Big Block SingSong is currently being played all the time. It's cute and quirky and pretty neat, but my word does it make for some annoying ear worms.
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Jul 24, 2015 08:06
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lady flash posted:When you say cot do you mean he is still in a crib? Around 21 mos we had an issue where he was suddenly scared of his crib, we pulled the mattress out and put him on the floor and he was fine. Not really sure what changed and it took us a couple of weeks to figure it out. Yeah it's a crib I guess. The mattress is all the way down on the ground cos he climbed out of it. I don't think that's it through, he has no problem with it otherwise. Anyway last night was fine, so maybe it's alright now, see how we go. Thanks.
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Jul 24, 2015 22:34
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Anyone experience marital problems after having a kid? My wife and I have never fought as much as we have in the past year. This would be so much easier if my son was five years old and able to make himself some drat breakfast. We're so so so so so sick of cleaning up everything and having to entertain him 24 hours a goddamn day.
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Jul 25, 2015 23:48
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Daycare is a nice break. Let's me recharge a little bit. Date night without the kids helps too.
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Jul 26, 2015 00:21
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Hdip posted:Daycare is a nice break. Let's me recharge a little bit. Date night without the kids helps too. My wife is a stay at home mother, so no daycare here. We don't really get to go out on dates...that involves getting someone to sit here at home while he sleeps and we hate asking people to do that. Seriously, I'm going nuts. We're both so sick and tired of having to look after a whiny, needy little toddler. If you don't look in his direction all the time he starts bawling.
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Jul 26, 2015 00:44
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CelestialScribe posted:My wife is a stay at home mother, so no daycare here. We don't really get to go out on dates...that involves getting someone to sit here at home while he sleeps and we hate asking people to do that. I hear you and get what you're saying. I stayed at home with our first. Just because you're a "stay at home parent" doesn't mean that a day or afternoon of day care isn't necessary. Daycare was a suggestion to help your situation. I drop the kids off and go surfing and feel so much better afterwards. Absence makes the heart grow fond. Babies are almost never absent unless you get a sitter. Start to look for a trustworthy baby sitter and use them. If you hire someone to do a job for you (baby sit) you won't feel bad asking them to do it. It's their job. Everyone is happier at the end of the day. You and your wife will realize you're still human.
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Jul 26, 2015 01:08
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It is hard. You both need time to yourself without the kid, and time together without the kid. I'd work on figuring out how to make those things happen.
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Jul 26, 2015 01:41
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Hdip posted:I hear you and get what you're saying. I stayed at home with our first. Just because you're a "stay at home parent" doesn't mean that a day or afternoon of day care isn't necessary. Daycare was a suggestion to help your situation. I drop the kids off and go surfing and feel so much better afterwards. I'd love to do this, but at the heart of the issue is this - my wife is still breastfeeding and she insists she doesn't have time to pump. Which means that we can't go anywhere very long otherwise he'll just want to snack. I'm really just 90% venting, but goddamn, it's extremely hard. We get time off by ourselves but never time off together that isn't sitting around and watching TV.
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Jul 26, 2015 02:06
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How old is your baby?
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Jul 26, 2015 02:24
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CelestialScribe posted:Anyone experience marital problems after having a kid? My wife and I have never fought as much as we have in the past year. Yes, every marriage with kids ever. My wife and I fought more in the first year than we had in our entire 10-year relationship prior. One thing that helps a lot is to always keep in mind that your kids are always paying attention to the way you're treating each other, and will mirror the behavior. So always treat your spouse the way that you would like your kids to treat other people. Papercut fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Jul 26, 2015 |
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Jul 26, 2015 03:52
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Just chiming in to say you're not alone. Got any family you can pawn your baby off on for an evening? Realize you both are having similar feelings and give each other a pass on the little stuff.
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Jul 26, 2015 04:04
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We have almost zero family or friends support and it's really really straining on a marriage. We don't necessarily fight THAT much (although we have disagreements on how to do certain things) but the big impact is that it's just sucked the life out of any interaction we have. We all went out to eat tonight and little Eleanor (who turns 1 in a couple of weeks) was having a ball.. meanwhile mom and I struggled to find anything to talk about because we literally have loving nothing to talk about. We could bitch about work but that's not gonna do us any good. So we just sit there in silence because the only subject of our day to day lives that we share is sitting two feet away from us desperately trying to fling everything within reach to the ground.
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Jul 26, 2015 04:41
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A lot of the fighting we do is about housework. When I'm looking after our son, I can do that as well as clean the kitchen, vacuum, fold the laundry and sweep/mop. By myself. My wife says it's too difficult to do that - I come home every day and I come back to a house I wouldn't even allow my friends to enter. I'm certainly not the type of guy who wants the little lady to have the house ready for her man or some poo poo but I kind of feel like parenting is being used as an excuse not to keep things tidy. I don't know, am I crazy?
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Jul 26, 2015 04:43
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CelestialScribe posted:A lot of the fighting we do is about housework. When I'm looking after our son, I can do that as well as clean the kitchen, vacuum, fold the laundry and sweep/mop. By myself. My wife says it's too difficult to do that - I come home every day and I come back to a house I wouldn't even allow my friends to enter. You're crazy if you let something like that ruin your relationship. Just let it go.
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Jul 26, 2015 04:46
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CelestialScribe posted:A lot of the fighting we do is about housework. When I'm looking after our son, I can do that as well as clean the kitchen, vacuum, fold the laundry and sweep/mop. By myself. My wife says it's too difficult to do that - I come home every day and I come back to a house I wouldn't even allow my friends to enter. Kids do behave differently for different parents. You might want to keep that in mind.
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Jul 26, 2015 04:50
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If wife doesn't want to have a baby sitter. Maybe get a house keeper. Wife will be happy being able to spend time with baby. You'll come home to a clean house. *shrugs* The constant need for attention get's slightly better when they become more mobile. Of course then you're just trying to keep them from jumping off of whatever new thing they figured out how to climb up. Venting helps though. Feel free to yell at my suggestions. I don't have to live with you :P
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Jul 26, 2015 05:58
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Papercut posted:You're crazy if you let something like that ruin your relationship. Just let it go. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that housework be equally shared between partners. Right now I'm doing at least 90%.
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Jul 26, 2015 06:22
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CelestialScribe posted:I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that housework be equally shared between partners. Right now I'm doing at least 90%. You said she's a SAHM. In my experience, even the most stressful day at work is about 1000x easier than a day at home caring for a baby/toddler by yourself, so if anything you should be coming home every day just grateful that 1) the baby is healthy, and 2) you weren't responsible for keeping he/she that way for the past 8 hours. There is a natural rebalancing that has to happen post-birth when it comes to tasks, both because neither of you has as much time for existing tasks and because there are a million more things you need to take care of. This is where the vast majority of fights and bickering start, I think greatly exacerbated by the fact that everyone is sleep-deprived. Of course you should communicate if you think you're doing more than your fair share of work. But you're loving out your goddamn mind if you expect your wife to be both a caretaker and a housecleaner at the same time. You wouldn't expect either a nanny or the aunties at daycare to clean your house, so asking the person who is filling that role to do double duty is not fair to her. The mindset you should be taking home from work is, "Wow, wife must be really tired from taking care of little Scribe Jr all day, I need to make sure to give her some break time to take care of herself", not "The house better be clean when I get home".
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Jul 26, 2015 06:36
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You're going to look back at this time in a little while and wish you hadn't made such a big fuss about cleaning. Breastfeeding is extremely time-consuming and pumping is even worse, because you somehow have to keep the kid occupied while you're doing it. I got so little cleaning done until my baby started eating solids. My husband was pissed about that for a long time, too, and it drove a rift between us when we needed to be working together. Now he feels bad that he made such a fuss about it. I hired a cleaner on the sly one day and he didn't even notice. Because it wasn't really about how clean the house was, it was about him feeling like he was working harder and giving more. (I should note that I was still paying the majority of our expenses during this time between my maternity leave pay and freelancing income, so it's not like he was the sole provider.) Things will get better, your kid will get older and your wife will have more time for other things. Don't destroy your relationship over what is an extremely temporary problem. Edit: This keeps going through my head lately. Song for a Fifth Child by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth, Empty the dustpan, poison the moth, Hang out the washing and butter the bread, Sew on a button and make up a bed. Where is the mother whose house is so shocking? She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking. Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue (Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo). Dishes are waiting and bills are past due (Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo). The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo. Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue? (Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo). The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow, For children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow. So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep. I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep. LyonsLions fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Jul 26, 2015 |
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Jul 26, 2015 08:03
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BonoMan posted:We have almost zero family or friends support and it's really really straining on a marriage. We don't necessarily fight THAT much (although we have disagreements on how to do certain things) but the big impact is that it's just sucked the life out of any interaction we have. We all went out to eat tonight and little Eleanor (who turns 1 in a couple of weeks) was having a ball.. meanwhile mom and I struggled to find anything to talk about because we literally have loving nothing to talk about. We could bitch about work but that's not gonna do us any good. So we just sit there in silence because the only subject of our day to day lives that we share is sitting two feet away from us desperately trying to fling everything within reach to the ground. Well, this is a normal situation and nothing abnormal that either of you should feel bad about it. It's a phase that's part & parcel of having kids. I dunno but recognizing this is just a (temporary) fact of life that everyone with a family has to go through, has made things relatively easy for us. Just acknowledging that this is our situation, but we shouldn't feel bad about it, I mean, we got a kid, what'd we expect?
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Jul 26, 2015 08:27
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Papercut posted:You said she's a SAHM. In my experience, even the most stressful day at work is about 1000x easier than a day at home caring for a baby/toddler by yourself, so if anything you should be coming home every day just grateful that 1) the baby is healthy, and 2) you weren't responsible for keeping he/she that way for the past 8 hours. Depending on the day I could be a lot more stressed at work than at home with the twins (happened several times after we both started working and they got sick and had to stay home from daycare), though I admit I mostly found it mind numbingly boring because there's not a lot of mentally stimulating things you can do with 1.5 year olds. And a lot of what I could do was just watch TV while they where sleeping. This was the worst part, I felt my motivation to be a productive person slipping by the hour and I'd turn into one of those people just sitting around playing games or watching TV all day.
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Jul 26, 2015 08:34
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CelestialScribe posted:I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that housework be equally shared between partners. Right now I'm doing at least 90%. My wife is able to work from home 9-5 during the work week every week for her job. We have a babysitter and her parents for a total of 4 out of 5 days every week to help take care of the baby while she works, and it's still difficult. It's hard for us and stressful too, but don't think that being a SAHM makes live magically easy and free. It doesn't. What you need to do, is try to lighten her load (aka take the kid so she can have a break), because not everyone happens to love the SAHM lifestyle. Everyone else has more or less said this, but yeah - what she does is harder than what you do.
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Jul 26, 2015 12:19
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