Miscellaneous Baby Polls
First of all, I’d like to recommend the Graco/Baby Einstein Activity Center to anyone on the lookout for such a product. We got it for Maddie on Friday and she’s in love with it. She’s already learned to rotate herself in order to play with all the toys.
OK, onto the polls… don’t pretend that that’s not why you’re here. We both know better.
1. The Clipping of the Nails - Now that Maddie’s ever so squirmy and grabby, it’s quite difficult to trim her nails. Last week, I trimmed the tip of her thumb. It bled for a 147 hours and made her cry. I felt like a monster and vowed never to trim her nails again. Unfortunately, her nails grow like crazy and she starts scratching herself if I don’t trim them once a week. I used to trim them right before bed when she was drowsy and docile. Now, when she’s drowsy, she’s fussy; not docile at all. Any tips on making this easier and less, well, bloody?
2. What’s in a name? I’ve read that babies start to realize that the word you keep saying to them is their name around five or six months. However, I hardly ever call Maddie by her name. She’s called:
Boo Bear
Maddie Boo
Fattie Maddie Boo Bah Laddie
Honey Girl
Sweet Pea
Baby (often accompanied with “Nobody puts Baby in the corner”)
And the best one? Champagne (pronounced: sham-pag-knee) Porsche Lynn. This one is all Gerald’s. Before her bath, Gerald reads her a story and then gets her undressed for her bath. As he brings her to me in the bathroom, he announces her nakedness using her “stripper name.” Yes, my daughter has a stripper name. Don’t worry, we’re not installing a pole in her room anytime soon.
This poll is two-fold. A. Should we concentrate on calling her “Maddie” all the time so that she knows her name? I’m kinda afraid that she’s going to think her name is Boo. Don’t get me wrong, Boo is a lovely name. It’s just not hers. B. I’m nosey and want to know what you call your kid(s)?
3. Sleepy - How much do/did your kids sleep at this age? Maddie sleeps A LOT. 11-13 hours a night and then two naps averaging two hours each. This seems like too much sleep. In the morning, she wants to go back to sleep about two hours after she gets up. Then, she’ll sleep for two hours or so. She’ll stay up for three hours(ish) and then take another nap. She’s ready for bed by 6:00. I’ve tried keeping her up, but she gets fussy and crabby until I let her sleep. I’ve tried letting her sleep as much as she wants to, but this seems to lead to more sleep. The more she sleeps, the more she sleeps. You see? Is this an issue? Should I talk to the pediatrician about this? Or is she just one of those people that needs a lot of sleep? To be honest, I’m one of those people. 10 hours is my ideal amount of sleep. Screw eight hours, man. Is this hereditary? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?
4. TV - I know the AAP says that children under the age of two shouldn’t watch TV. However, Maddie has been very interested in TV for a while now. It would be on in the living room while I fed her and she’d stop eating to watch. I had to start turning it off so she’d eat. Seeing as she was watching, I started TiVOing Sesame Street for her. Now, we watch one or two episode a day together. And “watch” is loosely translated into “look at the TV for a few minutes, spit or laugh like a loon and then go back to playing.” Do you let your babies watch TV? Is this horribly damaging? It’s not like I put the TV on in lieu of playing with her…. well, not often, at least. Sometimes, I put it on so that I can wash dishes or take care of some other mundane chore around the house. Thoughts on this, anyone?
Filed under: uncategorized on June 25th, 2007
I’m completely opposed to unsolicited advice (something my mother-in-law has yet to learn), but since you asked for some, here’s my two cents:
1. I kept the nail clippers in the diaper bag so that when my daughter fell asleep in the car I could just pull them out and take care of it wherever we were.
2. Definitely throw her real name in there sometimes. We called our daughter “Doodle” so much when she was little she wouldn’t answer to anything else for an entire month or two.
3. Enjoy the sleep! I’m convinced kids sleep as much as their little bodies need them to. And if your body needs extended sleep then she probably inherited that from you.
4. My kids watch TV too and I feel only slightly guilty about it. I figure that while a little TV won’t kill them, a grumpy mommy who wants ten minutes to eat breakfast in peace just might.
1. Don’t feel too bad, I clipped the top of my son’s finger when he was 3 months old. Yes, it bled forever too. I usually try to grab Zachariah when he’s sitting nicely in his high chair or after a calm diaper change. Lately I’ve just been doing one hand or foot at a time. I can tell right away if he’ll let me do it that time or not. If not, I try again later. Just keep those clippers handy all the time.
2. Well, Zachariah has a few nicknames: Big Mac, Zac Attack, Zacker, Bubba, Bub, and a few othes I can’t think of right now. Mostly though we call him Zachariah or Zac. Nicknames are cute though, especially when they’re little like that.
3. My son sleeps almost that much now. He always has. Well, actually he sleeps less now. Since he was 4 months old he slept 12 hours through the night, then 3 different 1-2 hour naps. So, there you go. I don’t think she’s sleeping too much. Enjoy it now.
4. I love TV! Zachariah has never been interested in it. I used to try a Baby Einstein DVD, but he didn’t watch more than 30 seconds of it. And now…who has time for TV, he has way to many other things to do. I’m ok with that, because I think most kids watch too much TV. On the other hand, I wish he’d sit and watch to give me a break just for 10 minutes or so a day. Oh well.
1) I keep the baby nail clippers in my pocket, and I clip a nail or two or ten whenever it seems like a good moment. If I only clip one single fingernail, but I get one every day, I can usually keep things under control so I don’t get my face sliced off by a waving hand.
2) We do a lot of nicknames at our house, too. My husband would probably call them nothing but their nicknames, so I try to throw in their given names often enough that they’ll recognize them–but I don’t worry about it. I love that Maddie has a stripper name.
3) Some babies sleep more than other babies. I’m a fan of the good sleepers. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about–but I also like to ask the pediatrician about anything I’m worried about, because I like reassurance.
4) I don’t think my first baby watched TV his first year. But all my subsequent babies HAVE, because the older kids watch it. And now I just kind of go with it. My toddler twins watch…um. Well, they watch it, okay? And I use the time to blog or read celebrity magazines, and to eat chocolates I’m not going to share.
My children are a bit older, but I still remember the young days.
Nail clipping was done when they were asleep.
Nicknames RULE!!! My son, is sonny bunny, bubba, J-man, J-dog, just to name a few! He’s 9 now, and he knows his name just fine! When my son was a baby, my sister also had a baby, hers being 4 months older. We used to call our son all kinds of cute nicknames and she would tell me that my son would NEVER learn his name. Guess what? He did.
Sleep is good! My kids are sleepers just like mommy. 10 hours of sleep ROCK! We are earlier to bed, late to rise, kind of people. Again, my kids are fine.
Hope this helps some!
HUGS!
grace
Don’t worry about how much she’s sleeping right now; it will change again and you’ll wonder in the future why you ever bitched about it, lol! ;-P
TV: I put on Mister Rogers or Sesame Street for Lucy when she was a baby if I needed to do the dishes or a quick vacuum or something. And some videotapes. Didn’t seem to hurt her; she’s one of the least TV-oriented people I know today. Same for her brother. If you use it as a tool once in a while, so you can get the dishes done or whatever, no problem.
As they got older, a TV program was something you did and then you were done, like a project. Like, they would watch whatever show they needed to see, then the TV got turned off and they had to do something else.
Never allowed the TV to just be on all the time, just one lame show after another in the background while the kids would run in and out of the room. I’ve seen that kind of thing in some homes and I think that’s what can cause some kids/people to become addicted to it, when it’s just on for no reason like that.
My two cents!
I’m with Grace I clipped nails while he slept. Even if you can only get a few done each night.
I would not be calling the pediatrician for 10-16 hours sleep. But next time she bleeds for 147 hours, I’d schedule an appointment!
Her little body is telling her how much sleep she needs. I think it is fine. Mine did not sleep through night for the first year. I am still recovering and at 19 he is still a night owl.
As a single mom I had to use tv as a baby sitter. It caused no problems he only watches about 2-3 hours a week now. He reads a good bit, and spends a lot of time in front of the computer. But I think that is ok since it is his chosen career.
I called my baby Mikie, Baby Mikie, Little Boy Blue, and Little Man Little Man Little Tin Can Man! This one used to make him squeal!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
The best advice I ever got was “Don’t worry he won’t still be doing (whatever) when he heads off for college! And I am pleased to announce they were right!
Huggs
Theresa
Aiden will not let me clip his nails while he is asleep, so I do it while my husband feeds him a bottle. He is too concerned with eating to worry about what mom is doing with his hands.
Nicknames:
Pea Pie
Billy Wayne Hank (Thanks Erica for that name!)
Buddy, which is confusing because we call the dog that too…
Sweet boy
I agree with Jana, enjoy the sleep. My son is the complete opposite. He will only nap for 45 minutes to an hour a couple of times a day. On a rare day he will sleep a couple of hours. The only good part is that he sleeps through the night and has since about week 4. The bad part is that because he doesn’t take naps he is cranky & ready for bed around 5:30-6:00 each night. Basically I pick him up from my mom’s house drive home and put him to bed. Anyone have any tips on how to get him to nap?? I can tell that he is tired during the day, but he will not go to sleep.
Ah, the TV…
I also read that babies shouldn’t watch TV at an early age. I was very concerned about this but one day I went to pick up the baby from my mom, I walked in the house, she had him in her lap feeding him a bottle and his head was turned almost all the way around staring at the the TV and she announced “we’re watching Charmed.” I thought, great his first TV experience is a half naked Alyssa Milano. But then I realized that he is not focusing on the images themselves, he just likes the lights & sounds. I am not that concerned anymore. Now it will be a different story when his 10 years old staring at a half naked Alyssa Milano…