Things They Don't Tell You About Babies

[katieupsidedown]

I feel like there should be a full disclosure clause on all things you get asked about as a kid. Like, you say you want to be a teacher when you grow up, Timmy? Let me tell you about teacher's unions and what the salaries are like compared to most jobs. Dora says she wants to get married? Well, Dora, I'd like to talk to you about alternative

Comments

[mel06]

Babies are amazing little creatures. My niece actually cries when she is wet, though, which is fantastic. Or, now that she's older, I guess it's more like she whines and scoots around (great), but still. She let's us know. Also, she TOTALLY had to be taught to sleep, and my sister was a total puss about it. She was all "Ohh I put her down and she just cries!" and I was all "Yeah, and... then you turn the baby monitor down until it stops, right?" First night she stayed with me she slept all 6 hours that I did.

[katieupsidedown]

I swear people who use baby monitors have way more trouble with this than others. I've always just been a fan of not using the baby monitor and putting in my earbuds when I put the baby down. 15 minutes later, I take them out, and the baby is done.

I did an overnight with Mary a few weeks ago and although we've been doing cry-it-out with her since she was 4 months old (she's 8 months now) she still woke up crying 4 times in the night. Mostly she put herself back to sleep, which is great, but she still woke me up.

[erato]

The baby's brain is not going, "I say, I seem to have pissed myself. That is rather uncomfortable. Maybe I'd best scream till someone fixes it."

I definitely read that in my head in a Stewie voice.

[butterbuns]

I am so glad I'm not the only one who did.

[seraphtrevs]

THESE ARE ALL TRUE.

Something else that seems to be glossed over: spit-up. I mean, I knew that babies spit up, but I had no idea what a continuous volcano of barf babies are in the first few months.

(And yeah, my baby never cries when he has a dirty diaper. In fact, when he's finished pooping and he sees that I know he's pooped, he runs in the opposite direction, because he hates having his diaper changed so much.)

(Also, I wish I'd known that at least 25% of all my post-baby conversations would revolve around bodily secretions.)

[katieupsidedown]

The spit-up thing definitely depends on the baby. I mean, Max spit up once or twice a day, but even as a newborn Mary only did it a few times a month. I actually feel like the media makes a bigger deal out of spit-up than necessary. You always see people in sitcoms holding babies and then getting barfed on and freaking out as a gag, but it's not really that bad or that much. I mean, it's not like there are chunks of food in that shit.

I thought about including the you-will-suddenly-find-poop-fascinating part in the post but I felt like including that might be a sure sign to my friends that I'd gone a bit wrong in the head. That's one that I find most people just cannot be told. It seems so stupid and gross... and then it happens to you. Hell, my boss texts me on the weekends to let me know if one of the kids has pooped an unusual amount of times that day, even though I am not at work.

[shibaiko]

"In conclusion: babies make no sense. It is amazing the human race has lasted this long, seriously, because babies are bad at everything."

THAT MADE ME LAUGH SO HARD, I can't even tell you. STUPID BABIES DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING, GOD.

[katieupsidedown]

Seriously, get it together babies. >:( God, you will never go to college if you keep chewing on electrical cords.

I bet people would have higher average IQs if we were all kept in bubbles for the first year of our lives, so we couldn't continuously ingest chemicals and bang our heads into the corners of furniture.

[ioianthe]

but then we'd all die the first time we came into contact with the germs of the outside world; it's merely the fact that we eat dirt and dead bugs and paint chips that prevents that. Evolution wants us to be physically hardy before it wants us to be smart... at this rate we'll never evolve into a super intelligent technology dependent species! ;)

[honeybearbee]

I was having a meh day.

Then I read this.

I LITERALLY LOL'd out loud.

You have made my day. ♥

[katieupsidedown]

Glad I could help :D

[shinyhappygoth]

You laughed out loud out loud?

[no2no3no4no1no5]

It was that good.