My 4th kid is now almost a month old, so it seems like as good a time as any to write up some random tips I’ve learned for dealing with young kids. Here they are, in no specific order.
Sleep
A friend of mine with 3 kids, when asked for parenting advice, said “just think long and hard about how you are going to deal with the lack of sleep.” It has been the toughest aspect of parenting by far, for me.
Here are some things that helped us:
- Never ever ever let the baby sleep on you, ever. Always put the baby down in bed when he or she is falling asleep, no matter what. Once they get used to sleeping on you, then it’s all over. After that, they will scream every time you put them in bed, no matter how sleepy you think they are. With our first 2, I spent many nights tossing and turning in a rocking chair with the baby on my chest, because of this mistake.
- Seriously consider sleep training at about 6 months, if your baby is a crappy sleeper. The Ferber Method has saved our lives. Yes, there will be crying, but it won’t last long and it would save you months or years of sleep deprived insanity.
- Take it with a grain of salt, but we’ve had more success by NOT swaddling our babies. That way they get used to being free and it’s not a big transition later, and they can learn to suck a thumb or whatever for soothing.
- When your baby wakes up in the middle of the night and you can tell they’re not sleepy, make a cup of tea and put on some Netflix and try to make the best of it.
- If you have $1000, then the Snoo smart bassinet is supposedly magic. We never tried it because it didn’t exist when we needed it, but people swear by it and I totally would have bought it if I could have. I would have sold my house for some decent sleep, for a while there.
By the way, some babies are good sleepers and some babies aren’t. If you are blessed with a good sleeper, and you haven’t experienced a bad sleeper, then just take my word for it: it’s absolute torture. I can’t properly describe what it feels like when it’s 4am, and you’ve slept about 18 minutes all night, and you lay the baby down in bed with the tiny bit of hope you have left, and as you sneak away you hear the screams starting. If you’re not sure if your baby is a good sleeper, then my rule of thumb is: if your baby sleeps for 2+ hours at a time, that’s a good sleeper.
Books
Find exactly 1 well regarded book about babies, read it front to back, and then don’t read any others. That’ll give you the info you need, and you don’t risk confusing yourself or stressing yourself out with the stuff that other books disagree about (which is never that important anyway).
Teeth
Spend the money on a real children’s Sonicare toothbrush, not a knockoff, and buy toothpaste with some dang flouride. Kids get cavities like dogs get fleas. It’s incredible. Take it seriously.
For the young kid that won’t let you brush their teeth without squirming and bouncing around, make them lay down and then sit right behind their head with your legs on top of their arms like this. It works fabulously to keep them still.
Crying
Hold the baby in one arm and vacuum a room with the other arm. The repetitive motion and loud white noise seems to work pretty well.
Also, just remember that babies cry. With our first kid, we flipped out every time our baby cried for a few minutes, thinking that something was wrong. With our 4th kid, not so much.
Sickness
Buy one of the NoseFrida nose suckers and just go ahead and get over the “ew that’s icky” aspect of it because it works.
A fever below 102.5°F or lasting less than five days isn’t worth worrying about (source). Parents freak out about fevers way more than necessary. Same with random rashes and bumps.
Clothes
Find a type/brand/size of sock that you like, buy a metric ton of that one type, and buy NO OTHER SOCKS! Oh, the endless frustration that I’ve dealt with over the years from trying to find tiny matching socks when we have 19 different types or designs or brands.
Keep a backup outfit in the car at all times.
Car seats
Make sure you buy a car seat with a push button to detach it from the car, like this. If you don’t, then trying to unhook the base from the car after it has been sitting in the heat for 6 months and probably has sticky crap all over it is more or less impossible.
Chaos
When your kids are going insane and running around and screaming and you feel totally overwhelmed, put on some dance music and channel all that energy into a sweet dance party.
Entertainment
When they’re watching TV/movies, turn on captions because they will read them without meaning to and as they learn to read in school it’ll help them practice.
Sharing
If you have multiple kids, then a rule of “everything belongs to everyone” can help. Just give the first turn to the kid that it actually does belong to, then start setting 10 minute timers to take turns until they get bored with it (which usually happens before the first cycle ends). That usually diffuses the fighting.
Shopping
One of the things you don’t think about before you have kids is how impossible it is to have a non-stressful shopping or grocery trip with them, especially once they hit 2 or 3 years old. Get as much delivered as you can afford (including groceries), and save the rest for when you have a babysitter.
Don’t even attempt restaurants. It’s not worth it.
Relax!
Don’t try to be the perfect parent because we all suck in our own personal ways that children are experts at identifying.
- It’s fine if your kid doesn’t have a bath every single day
- Bribing with candy is often totally worth it
- If your kid wants to keep their pajamas on all day, who cares
- If you need to lock yourself in a bathroom to keep from yelling, then do your thing
Just try to do what you need to do to give you and your kids a good time, because a happy family trumps everything else.
Mike Crittenden 
