Simian Farmer parent hacks

A website I check out daily is called Parent Hacks, and they've got some real gems of ideas for beating your kids into submission easing the transition from the ebullience of heady, single freedom to the raw, chafing sores that result from parents' introductions to the chains that accompany at least 18 years of domestic confinement.

I thought I'd share some of our own.  I have no idea as to the originality of any of these, but Amy and I pretty much just made them up or dredged them from some recess of memory.  Amy's responsible for most of them.  That woman as a mother is a wonder to behold.  Two kids, two dogs and she has yet to seriously essay an attempt to kill any of them.

So here's 2.5 years worth of advice that we're foisting on the ether.  Amy had to remind me of most of this when I told her I wanted to post about it.  (I think I got carried away.)

The power of routine

First and most important.  Routine is what's helped my wife and I retain some vestiges of sanity and scrape the remnants of free time from the bottom of the kitchen sink some evenings.  Tavish is still a novitiate, but Declan's batteries run on his routine.  By now, I get the impression that he could steer through the after-dinner scenario without any help from us at all:  bath time, towel time, snuggle time, book time, bed time.

We've skipped out early on social engagements or showed up late in order to adhere to the schedule we have going.  It's all been well worth it for the increased ease of handling what would otherwise be more recalcitrant children.  Plus, having a routine makes it easier to recover when you make a mess of it on certain days.

Pick a schedule around the child's clock, insert yours where possible.  Waking, eating, naps, activity, bathing and bed times.  Stick to it, and watch it morph all by itself over the months until it reaches equilibrium.  This was the hardest thing for us to do and is still sometimes taxing to maintain, but so worth it.

Sleep goggles

Both our babies, when over-tired, would fight off the sweet siren call of slumber we so envied them.  From a cousin, Amy picked up the trick of quietly humming and tracing figure-eight patterns around the baby's eyes with a gentle finger tip, creating a hypnotic calming effect.  To see an infant go from squirming whiner to heavy-lidded, limp potato sack in the space of about 15 seconds is tres cool.

Spray cleaner

Our counters, table top, stove and high chair tray seem to have various layers of crustification at which we must continually chip in order to stay within acceptable limits of squalour.  Cleaning products are a must.  Declan, though, likes to suck on spray bottles and I hear tell that Windex isn't all that palatable.  So, we keep a spray bottle of about four to one water / vinegar solution always at hand.  Does just as good a job, is cheaper, and won't yield the result of an inadvertent ambulance ride. 

Besides, it's nearly as much fun to see Dex sucking on the business end of a vinegar spray bottle as it is to give him a wedge of lemon.

Make your own baby food

I don't know why the hell we didn't do this with Declan.  Heinz made a mint off us for as long as Dex was on mushy food.

Fresh or frozen veggies + blender + water (for consistency) = food.

This is HELLA cheap compared to the bottled stuff, and WAY better for the spawn.

Ice cube trays

Our freezer, when opened, will probably evoke psychedelic nostalgia for the over-50 crowd.  Bright green and orange create an unexpected visual assault.  Best way to store freshly blendered baby food is to dole it out into ice cube trays and freeze it.  Store the frozen cubes in a Ziploc bag and you have perfect serving sized vegetables in as long as it takes to thaw them out.  (We try to put out the next day's servings in the fridge the night before, with middlin' success.)

Also a great way to store breast milk, which we prefer to use on the baby's cereal instead of water.  As an added bonus, it creates ample opportunity for me to use the term 'Boob Cube', which I love doing.

The down side: we have very little actual ice available to us.

Go outside, fer Chrissake!

It's amazing how quickly and easily our two boys (6 months & 2.5 years) are placated by a change of scenery.  A long walk or a trip to the park are on par with music for taming the savage beast.

The hose

Declan is in the midst of his terrible twos which, knock wood, are going smoother than expected.  Little bugger can be a pain in arse sometimes though.  It's like he constantly wants to be entertained or something, and he watches too much TV as it is.  (He emotes scenes in Toy Story before they happen.)

As nice as this summer was for us, we spent a lot of time outside.  The absolute BEST toy for that little boy all summer was to give him free rein with the water hose on low pressure.  He'd soak himself ("Raining!  Wet!") and then start chasing the dogs and parents.  Good for at least an hour's worth of distraction.  (Best done shortly before bath time for obvious reasons.)

Don't let toys teach the boys

Declan spent hours in my lap after I got home from work and watched, entranced, as I traced the alphabet and the 10 digits onto a peel 'n' erase doodle pad.  He had his alphabet mastered months ago (without the aid of that annoying song) and can count to ten on his own - correctly most of the time, even!

Educational toys that come with all the bells and whistles can be, and frequently are, great for teaching our wee ones.  But I'm also of the strong opinion that parental interaction is at least as key an ingredient in that mix, if not, um, keyer.

Freeze bags of breast milk for bottles, instead of formula

Amy's milk was a couple weeks late coming in with our firstborn, so when it did arrive, she pumped like a Texas oil baron with too much stock in Enron.  Our deep freeze was filled quite rapidly with breast milk bags, which gave me the opportunity to bottle-feed the boy the good stuff rather than cracking a can of formula if Mommy wasn't available or (in rare cases) out of the house on purpose to socialize.

Sleeping through the night

Both our boys have done pretty well getting into a sleep pattern that allows Mum and Dad to unpack the bags under the eyes by about three months.  (Mum much more so than Dad, bless her heart.)  Again, it's sticking to a routine.

Amy would hold the baby's hand (in a basinet beside bed) instead of automatically giving him a boob to settle him back to sleep.  This helped placate the Milk Monster and delayed the late feeding, eventually leading to no feeding at all in the middle of the night.  It was quite often just a bit of attention the baby needed, not necessarily milk, and by avoiding the obvious (easy) fix, we avoided turning late-night feedings into a firmly entrenched habit.  (Some friends of ours were doing the late boob thing past a year!) 

Even now, just past six months, Tavish rarely wakes in the middle of the night and can almost always be put back to sleep with some small attention, without us resorting to the bottle of chloroform by the change table.

Fussy little bugger

There are times when Tavish just won't settle down; he wants his soother but keeps spitting it out, and just generally becomes an annoyance.  Whichever one of us is holding him will ensure we have a clean finger available and let him suck on that.  More fun for his itchy gums to chew on and a lot harder for him to spit out.  I think disembodied faux fingertips would make for excellent teething toys, but I don't think they'd sell too well.  Maybe Hallowe'en.

But yeah, clean digits are important for this one.

Teething

Other than the regular type chew toys and OraJel gum-numbing stuff, our favourite remedy for our rosy-cheeked fuss budget waiting to cut his first teeth is to have a ready stash of frozen baby wash cloths rolled up in the freezer.  Wet a cloth, roll it up like a crepe and freeze it.  Better than just about anything else, other than the aforementioned chloroform.

The steely glare

I've heard it said a lot that if you scream at your kids you'll raise a screamer.  Amy and I are generally opposed to corporal punishment, so we recruited Sergeant Steely Glare.  It's far from fully effective in quelling inappropriate behaviour, but it does a pretty good job.  A thin-lipped stare accompanied by a shake of the head and some suitably disapproving mutterings go a long way to at least letting him know he's doing something wrong, and it always gets his attention.  Amy and I tag-teaming at the dinner table creates an almost palpable shimmer in the air.

The occasional backfire takes place when Dex gets really quiet, lowers his eyes and shakes his head while murmuring back to us, "No, no..."  Then it's so hard not to bust a gut

*****

Any other parenting suggestions for toddlers and infants are appreciated in comments if you've got 'em.

Comments

[rick]

You've got the start of a book here.

This woulda been gold 19 years ago.

[Mark]

Good stuff. Creativity goes a long way toward smoothing the transition from kidless to kidness.

I've stopped Ben in his tracks with some of my stern looks. Very effective (but we slip and yell sometimes).

Indeed, as Rick said, you could add more, maybe throw in some missteps, things you would have done/are doing differently, anecdotes, and you could sell it.

The figure eight trick sounds so cool, I almost wish we had a baby again.

Nah!

[marian]

You have to be careful when you write posts like this that the gods of parenting hubris don't strike you down with some kind of unexpected impossible new behaviors on the part of your offspring that remain immune to all your efforts.

It happened to me, it could happen to you. Just a fair warning is all I'm saying...

[marian]

I think you should offer to sacrifice a chicken, or maybe a jack russell terrier. seriously.

[Linda]

I think Marian makes an excellent point. There are always those curve balls to watch out for. Her second comment was priceless...

[Brittany]

Ahhh...the 'sleeping glasses'.
Passed to us from my father from his mother...and on and on...
"Round and round, round and round, down behind the years, across the nose, round and round, round and round, time to go to sleep my dear"
Good to hear they still work.

[Brittany]

**down behind the ears

[TerriTorial]

Wow...we parent a lot alike! Though I never had boob cubes. Pumping wasn't my thing.

[Cheeseburger Brown]

Dear Simon,

A delightful and contagion-worthy collection! Many of your tips, I might add, are also mainstays in our own household.

I will add this: we have a song for all occasions, so when a child has forgotten a step in their routines (brushing teeth, for example), we prompt for a recitation.

I can proudly boast that my "Days of Week" song is not only a big hit, but also bilingual.

Finally, I compose counting songs about anything that can be counted. When I take my daughter up to bed, for example, we count the sixteen steps. Every few days we change it up, to discuss how "four fours make sixteen" or "two eights make sixteen" or that "sixteen is ten and then six more."

So, much earlier than I did, my daughter is confident in her definitions of both "factor" and "multiple."

Love,
Cheeseburger Brown

[dee]

Hyland's Teething Tablets! They were my greatest find with my third son. They are all natural and melt instantly in baby's mouth. Yeah, I tried one just to be sure he wouldn't choke on it. They are great and they really work.