I wish we could get past the point of sites/locations focused on mothers or fathers and just go to parenting in general. People don't have traditional roles anymore and it seems really outdated. I really hate when I'm trying to look up something about parenting and the results are either sites very specifically for a horribly stereotyped mother or they are sites claiming to be for parents in general but the layout, advertisements and other articles make it super obvious they are focused on mothers as well. How about a nice, neutral web design that brings in everyone?
Even Geekdad and Geekmom are separate online entities which seems really backwards given both sites love to tell you that gender roles should be broken in children.
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
On the upside, I was widely considered to be Father of the Millennium because I changed a damned diaper. Go go low paternal expectations, I guess.
Apparently my husband's dad never changed a diaper for either of his two kids.
I was not about to let that shit stand.
Hmm. I don't mean to disparage anyone but what the hell I'll say it: dads gotta get their hands dirty once in a while. Change the oil on the car, good for you. Clean up the mess left from a poo 5x too much volume for the diaper, now you're parenting.
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
I don't know, maybe some people would be fine with that from their partners, but not me. He went into this thing knowing that diapers were going to be a 50/50 thing.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
It is inconceivable to me that a man could look at his lady, who just spent an enormous amount of time and energy growing and then pushing an entire person out of their body, and say nah, you take care of it. I have other things to do. That's insane.
Well I know I'm part of the outlier/revolution as I'm doing the stay at home dad role so I get the majority of diapers for sure. I feel as though it has created a trusting bond with Leah and me because she usually just lets me get the business of cleaning her poos done without much fuss. Or maybe she just has elite patience skill level? Either way, there have only been a few diaper changes that I would consider bad and I'm rather proud that I didn't chicken out and make my wife do it.
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
Yeah my husband and I have about equal luck with diaper changing. Anyone else, hooo boy. He and my mom did almost all of it the first week and I was such a mess that I would cry that I couldn't change him yet.
Now I look back and I'm like 'man, that was the life. Aside from the pain and moodswings and nightmares and everything else.'
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
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El SkidThe frozen white northRegistered Userregular
edited February 2015
...yeah. It is horrible to tell your wife to change all the diapers :-/
El Skid on
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
I don't even have kids, and I've changed more nappies than I care to remember.
My Mom always had the best diaper story. My oldest brother was in diapers, and my mom was out back, seven months pregnant with my second-oldest brother, digging a ditch in case the creek behind their house flooded, and my dad came out on the back deck eating a sandwich to tell my mom that my oldest brother needed to be changed.
And that story is why I always make sure to change the diapers if possible, because I need to make up for my Dad being kind of a shit.
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
My husband has something similar. When his mom went into labor, there was this raging blizzard outside. His dad stood there and watched while she dug the car our.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
I couldnt imagine not changing the kiddos diapers, it's a bonding experience! Especially when he decides to pee on you too.
On another note we went for our ultrasound on friday and they couldnt tell of the gender of the baby but they didnt get a good look so we are hoping they send us for another so we don't have to pay $60 to get it done privately.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
so crazy question that's going through my mind while of course I'm hyper=actively only kind of planning for this to happen, while also trying to not get my hopes up too high.
Did any of you not know the sex of the baby? not want to know? Or was it one of those "tell me so I can plan"
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
I wanted to know because why not. I wanted all of the information I could get though.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
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GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
We wanted to know because it cut our naming problems in half.
We wanted to know, but we also wanted to not tell anyone else so they wouldn't feel compelled to start enforcing gender stereotyping before she was even born.
Unfortunately my in laws are insensitive assholes and barged in uninvited and unannounced immediately after my wife had a circlage put in and was still pretty loopy, so that secret lasted all of a week.
so crazy question that's going through my mind while of course I'm hyper=actively only kind of planning for this to happen, while also trying to not get my hopes up too high.
Did any of you not know the sex of the baby? not want to know? Or was it one of those "tell me so I can plan"
I wanted to know, Christine didn't want to know, so we didn't find out. Of course I was confident the first was going to be a boy as my family only produces boys. I far prefer neutral colours as far as clothing goes (and indeed every other item that inexplicably comes in gendered versions) anyway so it didn't really affect our planning.
Number 2 is due today, but nothing is happening yet.
so crazy question that's going through my mind while of course I'm hyper=actively only kind of planning for this to happen, while also trying to not get my hopes up too high.
Did any of you not know the sex of the baby? not want to know? Or was it one of those "tell me so I can plan"
We let our first be a surprise, ladyroar did all decor for the room herself and did it in gender neutral tones and we have A TON of hand me down clothing from my sister in law for both genders. So we went with the surprise route.
This time we would like to know though.
I was actually supposed to be a girl and my parents spent $Texas on a decorator and I had ALL PINK stuff. There are multiple witnesses of her saying "PUT IT BACK UNTIL ITS A GIRL" when it was announced I was a boy.
We wanted to know because it cut our naming problems in half.
We actually didnt have a boy name picked out because we couldn't find one we liked. The only thing we knew was Jason was going to be his middle name in memorial to my youngest brother whom was stillborn.
We literally took the only name we kind of liked Tristan when we names him, the conversation went
We also didn't find out the gender. We decided we knew it was going to be our only child (4 years of trying to conceive), why not have it truly be a surprise. We did a ton of yellow and green clothing and did the nursery in a sheep theme with some really nice watercolor sheep art we bought from an artist on ebay.
We had a boy name picked out, but had absolutely no idea what we were going to use we had a girl. Many of my wife's suggestions sounded stripper-y to me so we never even truly had a top 3, so it was good that we had a boy.
We're trying to move him to more 6-7 PM, but he goes into the "fussy want to go to bed" mode at 5:30 or so. It's not the worst thing, just not always what you expect.
If I told my wife I wasn't changing diapers, I'd be changing zip codes because my ass would be out.
By the way, any tips for not having a morning person as a child? Max enjoys waking up at 5 AM and then happily babbling to us about his night.
Get him one of those shirts that say "world's cutest alarm clock."
I don't have any good suggestions. My 7-year-old sleeps 8 hours a night no problem. I put her to bed early, she gets up early; I put her to bed late, she gets up late. So the question is do I want to lose sleep at night or lose sleep in the morning. At least she's going to bed at night these days without all the anxiety she had when she was little.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
We're trying to move him to more 6-7 PM, but he goes into the "fussy want to go to bed" mode at 5:30 or so. It's not the worst thing, just not always what you expect.
I've found when talking to people it seems like it was just assumed in the generation prior to me and earlier that the husband basically just didn't do anything except work and pretend like going to a job meant that was the entirety of his responsibility as a husband and father.
I hear my Dad tell me about how his Dad worked all the time and he rarely saw him or spent any time with him as a kid, and now they never even speak on the phone. Conversely, my Dad was the only person working in my family growing up, but he also put my sister and me first 100%, coached my sports teams, never missed a competition for anything we did, etc.
I'm glad to have had him as an example, because I can't imagine how empty I'd feel if my daughters grew up and I thought back on all the opportunities to spend time with them i'd missed because I had some sort of dumb old school idea of what a Dad or man is supposed to do.
Not to mention I love and respect my wife too much to ever consider letting her do all the dirty work. We both work, we both change diapers, we both do laundry, we both wash dishes. Why? Because we're both just people who love and respect each other, and the fact that we have different sex organs was just a fun coincidence.
Speaking of which, I changed the most colossal shitty diaper this past weekend. It had exploded up her back and down her leg and was contained inside her onesie and possibly had been there for most of the night because it was cold in the morning. The poor kid suffered a bit of a rash from it, and boyyyyy it took a while to clean up. All before I suited up to shovel out the additional 14 inches that fell this weekend. I tell ya, I feel pretty invincible right now.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
By the way, any tips for not having a morning person as a child? Max enjoys waking up at 5 AM and then happily babbling to us about his night.
Gro Clock or teach me time clock or equivalent; these worked great with both our kids. (now the older one gets up and while he stays in his room happily playing with Lego / reading / whatever, he is very very _loud_ when playing with Lego due to the various awful fates that his minifigs suffer, so we don't quite get as much more sleep as we'd like to).
there is absolutely different parent stuff from a father perspective, especially from 0-3. Just, like, biologically. The dynamic is simply different.
mothers go through actual chemical and hormonal changes that bond them to the child. If they nurse, there's further emotional and hormonal exchange.
Fathers actually also go through a hormonal change (testosterone drops), but it isn't as significant as the mother's, and the emotional bond is different as well, and can take longer. When I was a first time father, it took me, I don't know, four to five months to feel really bound to Henry, and even then it took a while after that to feel it super strongly. For Laine, it was like he was a part of her from the moment he was born.
I didn't really have anyone to talk about that with, because it feels weird to say that you love your child but don't feel connected to them. For a long time, it felt like having a ton of new work and responsibility and rarely like a relationship or paternal bond. It would have been nice to talk to other dads about it, because once I started looking around I found out that it was super common.
My wife was very upset at me the other night for not being as anxious and worried about the baby as she is. She is at 4 months pregnant atm. My stance was, "people have kids all the time, we are in our thirties with good income, we'll be fine" and this just upset her more.
I'm sure if she's 4 months pregnant, she's more just anxious about the baby being healthy, her doing the right things during pregnancy, etc. Especially if it's your first. I can't really relate because I was also worried about every little thing that could go wrong during my wife's pregnancies, but I did my best to just try to calm her, and discuss how relatively low the chances are that we were going to run into complications.
I'm sure if she's 4 months pregnant, she's more just anxious about the baby being healthy, her doing the right things during pregnancy, etc. Especially if it's your first. I can't really relate because I was also worried about every little thing that could go wrong during my wife's pregnancies, but I did my best to just try to calm her, and discuss how relatively low the chances are that we were going to run into complications.
We had the blood test for gender + genetic abnormalities and it's in the lowest chance for everything. Her concern was for after the birth, that i won't have interest in the kid for some reason since I'm not a bundle of nerves about it.
Part of it is that i have a chronic condition, IBS, that sometimes flares up pretty badly and on general means my #2s take an hour many times. So she feels like I'll ignore parental responsibilities not because i want to but because I'll be stuck in the bathroom.
I'm sure if she's 4 months pregnant, she's more just anxious about the baby being healthy, her doing the right things during pregnancy, etc. Especially if it's your first. I can't really relate because I was also worried about every little thing that could go wrong during my wife's pregnancies, but I did my best to just try to calm her, and discuss how relatively low the chances are that we were going to run into complications.
We had the blood test for gender + genetic abnormalities and it's in the lowest chance for everything. Her concern was for after the birth, that i won't have interest in the kid for some reason since I'm not a bundle of nerves about it.
One thing you may want to re-iterate is that for a guy, we don't feel any difference or anything until we feel the baby move later in the process. Even then, it's not "real" real until the kiddo comes bopping out into the world. For women, they feel every moment. That may help.
Or not, just keep supporting her and make sure she has what she needs. The answer to our stresses was ice cream every night for her (not really a pregnancy thing, just she loves ice cream and could get away with it). There's plenty of time to freak out when the baby won't sleep and it's 3 AM and that last time you got more than 2 hours of sleep was 2 weeks ago.
During the middle months of my wife's pregnancy, I wrote down a bunch of things I wanted to eventually do with and teach our baby as she grew up. I found it exciting to think about all the possibilities and my wife thought it was quite sweet and endearing.
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Even Geekdad and Geekmom are separate online entities which seems really backwards given both sites love to tell you that gender roles should be broken in children.
Apparently my husband's dad never changed a diaper for either of his two kids.
I was not about to let that shit stand.
Hmm. I don't mean to disparage anyone but what the hell I'll say it: dads gotta get their hands dirty once in a while. Change the oil on the car, good for you. Clean up the mess left from a poo 5x too much volume for the diaper, now you're parenting.
wtf some guys .... get your kids shit together.
Now I look back and I'm like 'man, that was the life. Aside from the pain and moodswings and nightmares and everything else.'
And that story is why I always make sure to change the diapers if possible, because I need to make up for my Dad being kind of a shit.
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On another note we went for our ultrasound on friday and they couldnt tell of the gender of the baby but they didnt get a good look so we are hoping they send us for another so we don't have to pay $60 to get it done privately.
Did any of you not know the sex of the baby? not want to know? Or was it one of those "tell me so I can plan"
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Unfortunately my in laws are insensitive assholes and barged in uninvited and unannounced immediately after my wife had a circlage put in and was still pretty loopy, so that secret lasted all of a week.
I wanted to know, Christine didn't want to know, so we didn't find out. Of course I was confident the first was going to be a boy as my family only produces boys. I far prefer neutral colours as far as clothing goes (and indeed every other item that inexplicably comes in gendered versions) anyway so it didn't really affect our planning.
Number 2 is due today, but nothing is happening yet.
We let our first be a surprise, ladyroar did all decor for the room herself and did it in gender neutral tones and we have A TON of hand me down clothing from my sister in law for both genders. So we went with the surprise route.
This time we would like to know though.
I was actually supposed to be a girl and my parents spent $Texas on a decorator and I had ALL PINK stuff. There are multiple witnesses of her saying "PUT IT BACK UNTIL ITS A GIRL" when it was announced I was a boy.
We actually didnt have a boy name picked out because we couldn't find one we liked. The only thing we knew was Jason was going to be his middle name in memorial to my youngest brother whom was stillborn.
We literally took the only name we kind of liked Tristan when we names him, the conversation went
By the way, any tips for not having a morning person as a child? Max enjoys waking up at 5 AM and then happily babbling to us about his night.
We had a boy name picked out, but had absolutely no idea what we were going to use we had a girl. Many of my wife's suggestions sounded stripper-y to me so we never even truly had a top 3, so it was good that we had a boy.
Lindsay Lohan Jr.
We're trying to move him to more 6-7 PM, but he goes into the "fussy want to go to bed" mode at 5:30 or so. It's not the worst thing, just not always what you expect.
Get him one of those shirts that say "world's cutest alarm clock."
I don't have any good suggestions. My 7-year-old sleeps 8 hours a night no problem. I put her to bed early, she gets up early; I put her to bed late, she gets up late. So the question is do I want to lose sleep at night or lose sleep in the morning. At least she's going to bed at night these days without all the anxiety she had when she was little.
Is he napping during the day?
I hear my Dad tell me about how his Dad worked all the time and he rarely saw him or spent any time with him as a kid, and now they never even speak on the phone. Conversely, my Dad was the only person working in my family growing up, but he also put my sister and me first 100%, coached my sports teams, never missed a competition for anything we did, etc.
I'm glad to have had him as an example, because I can't imagine how empty I'd feel if my daughters grew up and I thought back on all the opportunities to spend time with them i'd missed because I had some sort of dumb old school idea of what a Dad or man is supposed to do.
Not to mention I love and respect my wife too much to ever consider letting her do all the dirty work. We both work, we both change diapers, we both do laundry, we both wash dishes. Why? Because we're both just people who love and respect each other, and the fact that we have different sex organs was just a fun coincidence.
He maintains his status as my favorite nephew/niece.
Gro Clock or teach me time clock or equivalent; these worked great with both our kids. (now the older one gets up and while he stays in his room happily playing with Lego / reading / whatever, he is very very _loud_ when playing with Lego due to the various awful fates that his minifigs suffer, so we don't quite get as much more sleep as we'd like to).
Ugh they're so cute it makes me mad
My wife was very upset at me the other night for not being as anxious and worried about the baby as she is. She is at 4 months pregnant atm. My stance was, "people have kids all the time, we are in our thirties with good income, we'll be fine" and this just upset her more.
this is James and he is a week old as of 12:45pm today!
We had the blood test for gender + genetic abnormalities and it's in the lowest chance for everything. Her concern was for after the birth, that i won't have interest in the kid for some reason since I'm not a bundle of nerves about it.
Part of it is that i have a chronic condition, IBS, that sometimes flares up pretty badly and on general means my #2s take an hour many times. So she feels like I'll ignore parental responsibilities not because i want to but because I'll be stuck in the bathroom.
One thing you may want to re-iterate is that for a guy, we don't feel any difference or anything until we feel the baby move later in the process. Even then, it's not "real" real until the kiddo comes bopping out into the world. For women, they feel every moment. That may help.
Or not, just keep supporting her and make sure she has what she needs. The answer to our stresses was ice cream every night for her (not really a pregnancy thing, just she loves ice cream and could get away with it). There's plenty of time to freak out when the baby won't sleep and it's 3 AM and that last time you got more than 2 hours of sleep was 2 weeks ago.
Try that!