-
@Mae: I'm right there with you. I consider it a major victory when we manage to take a walk in the neighborhood without him screaming. I find it almost impossible to comfort him while out and about. We get about 45 minutes of available time (not changing, feeding) before he needs to get ready for the next nap. I feel guilty even thinking "oh he might be a difficult child." There was never a "honeymoon period." But I'm telling myself everything in a phase and it's ok to just take some things in survival mode (and secretly think mean, jealous thoughts about parents with quiet, mellow babies).
-
We didn't. I remember feeling triumphant when we got to cvs and back without tears. All kids are different! It will pass I promise and life will go back to normal.
It got way easier for us at six months
-
It has a lot to do with the personality and needs of your LO and also how determined you are to get out there and just do it. I think my daughter was a little less maintenance when she was born so she went everywhere with me at a very young age. When DS came along, she was almost 2. He was very high maintenance. He was all about nursing, hated the car seats. It did limit what we could do for awhile. But I was just sick of being home or being left out of life activities. We did our best to do things around his schedule, but even that was just highly unpredictable. We definitely did our fair share of doing our best to go out and get the most out of a 1.5 hour outing and "trying" to make it look effortless. But everyone with a kid knows that nothing is ever effortless with them. I think sometimes that's all you can ask for or need. It got a lot better as he got older and I've taken them on several road trips (with friends) by myself without husband. Just plan short but sweet things you can do to get out of the house and have some fun, don't be intimidated or talk yourself out of something because you feel stressed. Experience also helps a lot too!
-
I know it's not always the most popular choice, but DH and I decided that DD would not rule our life and that she would have to learn to adapt (within reason of course.) We wanted to attend the family events, friend get togethers, ect. and we just brought DD with us. We usually had her stroller and would take her for a quick walk (sure fire way to get her to nap) and she would take her normal nap in there while we socialized. The only thing we did not mess with was her bedtime, we made sure we were home by her normal bedtime because she slept thru the night consistently when a baby we did not want to mess with that. However, we are a lot more lenient now at 2 and if we are out and about and she seems okay we will stretch it another hour or so.
-
We had this issue right around 4 months also - until then, she would sleep anywhere. 4-5 months was rough. Now, at 8 months, she's awake longer, and will just take catnaps if we're out and about. It gets better, and this stage doesn't last long!
-
We have a pretty flexible baby and we just cart him around everywhere and he generally sleeps on the go. It was super easy as a newborn - he slept everywhere and we were still using the bucket seat, so we'd just pick him up and plop him in the stroller.
Now at almost 10 months it's a little harder if we're doing something where we're in and out of the car. We need to either have a long car ride, or we need to get somewhere and have him in the stroller. We also have to be careful that we're not in restaurant when naptime crankiness hits.
But he does really well now on the 2-3-4 schedule, so we generally stay in during the morning (he wakes ~7, sleeps ~9-11) and then we'll go out to lunch and run errands/go shopping, etc. He's also a lot more flexible for the afternoon nap than the morning one.
-
Our baby was never an easy sleeper, so I always had to make the choice of going out past her naps/bed and paying consequences later (consequences being overtired child who refuses to go to sleep, even more wakeups at night, like 4-6 wakeups) or staying home.
That meant that 90% of the time, I chose to adhere to a pretty consistent schedule of naps and bedtimes at home in her crib. And the other 10% of the time had to be reallllly worth it or unavoidable for me to consider it. Examples like long road trips to see family, Christmas celebrations with family, the very occasional birthday or doctor apt that was right at nap time.
This question is so going to depend on what kind of sleeper the child is. Mine is not a good sleeper and I now have 2 different daycares who have complained about her "bad sleeping" to confirm what I already know--my little lady does not like sleep in loud environments. =) At her current daycare, out of a room of 12 babies, she has the distinction of being the one that gives them the most trouble at naps! I just tell them, yup--sounds familiar!
-
@LuLu Mom: This was us too.
My LO was not a very easy baby, but we had her out and about from day 1, so she had to adapt to taking a nap while being worn, or in the stroller or in the car.
I also think that the more you do, the more comfortable you get. At first doing anything or going anywhere seems daunting, especially if you are afraid of a meltdown, or a diaper blow-out or whatever. You know what though, it happens to everyone! If you're out eating and a full on non-stop meltdown begins, you can always leave. Same with anywhere else. The more I took LO out, knowing that yes, her colicky little nature could flare up at any time, but that what would be would be, the more comfortable and less stressed I got.
-
Honestly I didn't. I did not have a sleepy baby. I had a screaming baby. We would go out but it took planning and couldn't be at a specific time. We did lots of walks in the ergo. She hated the car seat and stroller. I couldn't participate in life until she was over a year. It just slowly got better and better - 6 months was an improvement and then 9 was even better... the more I do the more confidence I have, as others have mentioned but it was not a pleasant first year. Kid would only sleep while held or in an ergo...
If we have any more I think I will be much more chill if the baby is screaming or pooping all over in public or what have you. First baby stressed me out
never once did she sleep in her carseat...
-
@yoursilverlining: See I had the opposite experience. The more we took her out and about at the beginning, the more traumatized I got. We said "oh she'll adapt", but she never did, and the outings seemed less and less worth the large amount of trouble. I'll never forget father's day brunch last year when LO was 6 weeks old and DH ate by himself while I stood outside the restaurant furiously swinging LO in her car seat to get her to stop screaming. When he was done, he took over swinging and I shoveled the (expensive) food down my gullet alone so we could get out of there. Eventually I just gave up trying to make her adapt. Staying home was just less stressful and expensive
-
@JoJoGirl: It so depends on what type of personality the parents have, too!. I personally have major guilt when my LO is obviously over tired and cranky and zombie like because we're out and it's her nap time (or bed time) and she's not in her crib at home. But my mother (who had 6 kids), is always like, "she's fine! She's just making a little noise...let's keep going!".
I get uncomfortable when LO is whining and kind of making loud, whiney moans in public but my mom always thinks LO is "totally fine" and "not bothering anyone", while I am super super concerned with how other people may not like the noises coming from a nearby baby while they are eating/shopping/etc.
And needless to say, my mom took us everywhere and I am not that kind of parent. We just have different tolerances for what is acceptable behavior in public and I just care much, much more about my baby being tired whereas my mom is more like, as long as she isn't nuclear, she's fine.
But I'm a first time mom and my mom had 6 kids and has 7 grandkids, so who knows...I will probably up my tolerance a lot when we have more.
-
@Anagram: Oh I agree. Maybe we were over-ambitious taking her to a nice restaurant when she was that young, but the host asked us to step outside because she was SO LOUD and screaming bloody murder non-stop. We sat to order and have a cup of coffee with her crying and by the time the food came, I was outside. That happens a few times and you give up
-
@JoJoGirl: my mom would be like, "oh, she's fine! Everyone understands that sometimes babies cry."
-
@Mae: I just had a little sob fest over this last night. I was feeling the exact same way, I could have written your post! I pretty much stay at home all day when my husband is at work and then on the weekends, we occasionally will go out, but we try not to mess with her naps because we are so afraid that she will become overtired and we will have a horrible night because of it. Who knows if thats true, but we are scared, lol. But, then I try to remind myself that she is only 4 months old. In just a couple months, she won't be napping 1 million times a day and we will be able to do more. I feel bad because I kind of feel like I am wishing away this time, but I am looking forward to when we can leave the house for longer than 1 hour. But, like others have said, I do get jealous when I see other babies out and about while I feel like we are stuck at home because O baby would have a meltdown if we did that, etc. But, at the same time, sometimes we just go ahead and do what we want to do. If she has a meltdown, well, so be it. We cannot let her rule our entire lives! O baby still will not take a bottle, so I have not been able to be away from her longer than 2.5 hours which is depressing in itself (I mean, I love her, but it would be wonderful if I could catch a break). Anyways, I think a lot of people feel the same way you do, so you are not alone!
-
@Anagram: Totally agree. My fear of her crying in public is because I having always haaaated babies crying in public. DH and I always swore we'd never be those people who imposed our offspring on the world, so we do everything possible to make sure she doesn't freak out in public and disturb people.
Also, I guess our issue is not so much the initial meltdown because she actually rarely meltdown in public (she is usually too distracted to be upset, and I wear her when we are out which she likes). But the issue is by the time we get home then she is overtired and it ruins literally the rest of the day. So its not A meltdown I'm trying to avoid. It's the onslaught waiting for us the rest of the day if her schedule is tinkered with.
@ellewoods84: Yes to wishing these days away. I had that meltdown on Saturday, not for this reason but due to a really horrible day of nap refusal and screaming. And I told my husband that it sucks because she's so awesome when she's happy and I want to cherish this time I'm home with her and not be waiting for her to grow up. But at the same time, on the hard days.. its like omg baby get a little bigger so you're not ALL I can do in a day.
-
@Mae: I wished those days away and I don't regret it. Life is 1000000x better now. Don't feel bad, some moms and babies have a tough time when they are super young.
I have a friend who had a SUPER easygoing baby. They were constantly out to dinner etc when she was young. Now that she's older, my friend is like "well, it's more fun, but it's also harder than when she was super young and easy to drag around". For us, things have just gotten better and better. So there are two sides of every coin
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
55 comments