5 things I would NEVER DO as a parent (whoops).

You guys, I used to know a LOT about parenting before I had kids. I knew exactly what I would and wouldn’t be doing with my own when I had them. I watched a lot of TV shows with parents in them. I saw people parenting children in restaurants and in grocery stores, and made mental notes of tons of things I’d never let my kids do. Then, leading up to the birth of my first child, I read piles of blog posts about the correct way to do just about everything. I was TOTALLY prepared. My kids would be the picture of happiness and health and most of all, would ALWAYS be well-behaved. I was so ahead of the game! I was going to NAIL parenthood because:

1. We would NEVER sleep train our babies. We would never be the kind of parents who let their baby cry all alone. That’s borderline abusive. Our babies would sleep happily, and if not, they would learn to sleep when they were ready. They just needed our love, support and patience.

But then… that didn’t work. And we did sleep train. Turns out that a lack of sleep is just as terrible for babies as it is for parents. Our first baby, “A” was a pretty terrible sleeper for 6 months. He started out super great. We were all, “My 3-week-old just slept 6hrs in a row!! He’s a great sleeper!” Psych! I will NEVER let those words past my lips again without knocking on wood (I’m not kidding - my husband rolls his eyes everytime). After the first month, he got worse and worse until he was up every 45-90 minutes all night, every night by 5 months old. Not only that, he also was miserable during the day. He was angry most of the time he was awake, and would only nap for about 45min at a time. He was exhausted, beyond sleep-deprived, and we were all struggling. Something had to change. So we sleep-trained. We let him cry. It was NOT easy. In fact, it was the hardest part of the first year. We put on white-noise in our room and I was armed with sleeping pills, vodka, and a rope for my husband to tie me to the bed. Kidding… but only about the rope. Sleep training SUCKS. There’s no sugar-coating it. Hearing your baby scream for you is the worst feeling in the world. But guys… in the end, everyone in the house was better for it. After the first night, I thought for sure he was going to hate me in the morning, but he didn’t! He was like a new baby. A happy baby. The clouds had finally parted and the sun came into our house again because he was finally well-rested, and the rest of us were too. Hallelujah!

Now THAT is the face of a happy, well-rested baby!

2. Our son would learn to eat real food through baby led weaning because it’s really the only way feeding should be done. I pinned tons of BLW recipes and food photos on pinterest. I knew it would be so easy and it would teach him how to love food in a healthy way.

But then… that didn’t work. A wouldn’t have anything to do with baby led weaning. He wanted to EAT A LOT and NOW. The frustration of trying to figure out how to get that entire roasted carrot into his mouth and down his throat was more than he could handle. “Wait, you want me to gnaw on this vegetable until it’s pureed by my own gums?! Eff that noise! Give me some food I can swallow, WOMAN!” He was a screamer from the very beginning. I was not about to force him to scream even more out of frustration and hanger.

yeah, I get it buddy…

3. Ok, so purees it is. I would make all of his purees, it would be SO easy. If I didn’t, I’d be a REALLY lazy mother.

But then… that didn’t work, and I didn’t make all his purees. For a few weeks I pureed… but everytime I put A down without being directly in his face singing or making silly faces at him, he screamed. And the sound of that food processor?? Scared the sh*t out of him. So I thought, “Ok, I’ll do it during naptime!” Nope, it woke him up, and AGH! There goes naptime! MUTHER EFF, I’m heading to Target, where do they keep those squeezy pouch thingys?

4.  We would keep our kids away from screens until 2. That’s what all the doctors recommended and we knew exactly how to keep babies entertained, why on earth would they need TV?!

But then… I needed TV. After the clouds parted and A finally became a happy baby (see #1 above), we decided that we would go for baby #2. I mean, if we can get through that… we can do anything, right?! 1 month later, M was on the way! And with her came the incredible exhaustion of pregnancy. I was still nursing my son and growing a 2nd human at the same time. Never in my life had I experienced that level of exhaustion. It was worse than the exhaustion of having a newborn.  I remember laying on the floor of the living room desperately wishing A would just sit still and snuggle with me so I could rest for a while. He was constantly active and needed me to be his partner in play. But, it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. Enter Elmo… My sister calls Elmo the gateway show and guys, I really needed that! So we introduced A to Elmo. It wasn’t necessarily as magical as I thought it would be, but it did give me about 6-10min of quiet stillness every so often. Now, here we are, 4 years later and my kids still watch TV everyday. It’s their down time, and my quiet time. Hey, at least I try to keep it somewhat educational...

I’m laying on the floor with him here thinking “GIVE ME ALL THE ELMO!”

5. We would never hide vegetables in our kids’ food. I refused to have picky eaters! And we would never cater to our kids’ dinner preferences.

But then… that didn’t work like I thought it would. We have a stubborn eater now, and I totally hide kale in his pizza sauce. I offer fruits and vegetables at every meal and every snack, and sometimes they choose to eat them. But most often they don’t. A is stubborn about food (and I use the word stubborn rather than picky because it’s mostly about control rather than the actual food). Like most kids, he started out eating everything I put in front of him. He loved broccoli, avocado, all kinds of beans, eggs, you name it. But then he turned 2, and found his voice, and meals became a battle. He stopped eating most things just because he could and would go days without consuming anything but crackers, peanut butter and milk. I tried pushing foods on him, insisting that he try one bite of whatever was on his plate. But the harder I pushed, the more he pushed back, and meal-time fighting is not ok with me. So I stopped pushing and started hiding vegetables in the things I knew he would eat (toddler food-hacks post is coming soon). Hi, I’m that mom.

Eating is such a crazy thing. We have a 4-year-old who won’t consume anything but Pirate’s Booty and milk for 3 days in a row, then he’ll down 3 bowls of spinach salad in one sitting. And we have a 3-year-old whose favorite food is raw salmon sashimi. In fact, we can only take her to sushi on special occasions because she would eat us out of house and home otherwise.

Turns out eating preferences aren’t actually 100% tied to parenting choices. We’ve parented 2 children the same way with the same food options and habits, and they’ve become VERY different eaters because of their personalities.

M, eating her favorite food - sushi

A, eating his favorite food - pizza

6. Our children would always treat adults with respect and kindness. There would be no tantrums or bad behavior towards other people.

Well, I bet you can guess how that one turned out. I had this expectation that our kids would be compliant because we wanted them to be. And I didn’t necessarily know how, but we were going to raise well-behaved children. Welp, it turns out that A is stubborn and feels the need to control everything in his life - enter defiance. He also has gigantic feelings that completely overtake him. All those things combine into a recipe for disaster when it comes to controlling behavior. We are constantly working on this one. Last summer, after a particularly challenging week that included more screaming fits than I can count (one that lasted a full hour), we sought the help of my sister-in-law who is a child psychologist. Hallelujah for that! She suggested using the 1,2,3, Magic method (learn more about it here) to help him learn to manage his ginormous feelings. And it has helped a TON. But we’re still a LONG way from having children who are always respectful and well-behaved.

Just another failed attempt at getting a nice family selfie.

Loves, parenting is one of the most humbling experiences we go through.

We make alllllll the plans and have so many expectations of how it will be, but in reality, there’s no way to know about any of it ahead of time. I read, and watched, and made lists, and pinterest boards, but you guys… almost none of it has gone as planned. That’s the beauty of parenting though, isn’t it? It teaches us so many lessons about humanity!

Despite all the things I wanted to do, but didn’t, our kids have still turned out pretty great so far. They watch too much TV, but they’re still brilliant and creative thinkers. They eat WAY too much Pirate’s Booty, but they still also love my homemade chili. We let them cry alone in their cribs, but they still can’t get enough of us. They throw tantrums - BIG ONES - and sometimes in public, but they also still have genuinely loving and kind hearts.

Honestly, if I really think about it, I think the best thing I’ve done as a parent so far, is just roll with it all. I made lots of plans and tons of them didn’t work. So what?! Find what works today and allow yourself to go with it because it’s the exact right answer for you and your family right at this moment. We find so many reasons to beat ourselves up as parents, but changing course shouldn’t be one of them.

Do me a favor and comment below: what things have you changed course with for your kids??

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