On Parenting Advice
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I’ve been a parent for twenty years, and I’ve heard every piece of parenting advice you can imagine. Diapers, car seats, parenting styles, sleep schedules, toys, foods they should eat. It’s truly never-ending and honestly just makes parenting not very fun.
Sometimes people ask me for advice. Some people have actually suggested that I might want to give advice professionally. But I really don’t think I’ll ever do that; the parenting space scares me.
When I think about advice I could give a parent, my only thought is that there is no advice I feel I can give because every person is completely different from the next. It would be so much easier if there were a script we could all follow to ensure our children’s happiness. I’d buy that if we were all A.I.
But the truth is, as we’re all aware, we are animals just trying to make it.
But I do have a couple of thoughts:
Every parent who said teen boys were easier than teen girls was lying and invested in the patriarchy. Personality wise, you get what you get.
Cleaning charts on the fridge don’t work.
You have to take your baby pooping in the tub seriously or they can get a serious case of rotavirus and you’ll both end up in the children’s hospital watching Seinfeld reruns on the tiny TV suspended above you.
Your baby needs a Sleep Blanket™ (Not actually trademarked, because I have no idea how to trademark or to make money off of this, which is why I’ll never be wealthy--I don’t think wealthy.)
The Sleep Blanket™ is the one thing that worked for all of my kids despite how different they all are.
The Sleep Blanket™ is my one true Baby Hack.
The one thing that has worked for all of my friends who have used it.
HOW TO MAKE A SLEEP BLANKET™:
When your baby is born, wrap them in a soft cotton knit blanket.
The blanket should be the size of a regular swaddle blanket.
This blanket is only used when the baby is asleep.
Always put the baby in, on, or beside this blanket when they sleep. They must be touching it.
You want the blanket to soak the scent of sleep into it.
Spot wash it if they spit up on it, (they shouldn’t spit up on it, it’s for sleep, not feeding).
Do NOT wash the blanket for as long as humanly possible.
CRUCIAL: Never give the baby the blanket unless it’s actually time to sleep. If you do, you will ruin the hack. The baby must learn that blanket time = sleep time.
Like an animal, you’re doing Pavlovian work here. The smell of this blanket will be your baby’s Xanax. Your baby will roll their eyes back in their head for this scent. This blanket becomes their dragon to chase, it becomes their nirvana, their cult leader.
I’ve tested this method for twenty years. It might take a few weeks or a month for your child to catch on, but when it works, you’ll know. When it starts working, it will always work. It will work in the car on long drives, it will work on the longest flights. And it will last for years, well into elementary school.
*If someone markets this hack with a blanket sale without me involved, I will sue.
Please add any hack you’ve discovered into the comments below.
If someone steals and markets your hack, use this page as evidence when you sue them. I will pin my hair up and I will testify.
Sleep blanket - YES! May I add that if said sleep blanket has a bit of satin trim or satin patch the eyes roll even further into back of head. My kids taught me that. Also, I have two boys and a girl and they’re all damn different and all “hardest” at certain ages, stages. Just hang in there.
My parenting hack about advice is similar. “Trust your instinct. No one knows your baby as well as you do”