More Tips for Clueless Fathers
I know nothing!
Well, maybe not nothing. Just far less than I thought I knew even back then. I’d be fine if she would just stay the same for a couple of days, but she’s keeps on learning new things just when I’ve mastered the old things. Frankly, she’s got a lot of nerve.
For instance, it’s one thing to attempt the aforementioned pajama snaps while your child is lying handily on her changing table, gurgling and cooing. It’s another to try to do it while she’s motoring across the room after the cat like a drunken coyote.
Still, I continue to hear from other fathers even more clueless than myself that there’s a pressing need for information on handling the challenges of the job, no matter how spotty or ill-informed said information may be. We’re a desperate lot.
With that in mind, I offer the following tips, based upon the year or so I’ve spent trying to keep up with my daughter (and watching my wife, who is always there to answer my complicated child-rearing questions, like “Should I change her diaper now?” and “Is now the time when I should change her diaper?”):
1) Sleep is a myth. Sure, everybody else claims that by 3 months old their kid was sleeping for 11 hours straight. These people are lying. Your child will never sleep through the night when she has the option of spending quality time keeping you awake. You should take this as a compliment.
You’ll get all sorts of advice as to how to keep your child from getting up in the middle of the night. One way is with the “Ferber Method,” which involves going in to see your child - who by this point is standing up in her crib shaking the bars like a tiny, disgruntled convict - and saying something like “Everything’s OK, sweetie, even though the fact that you’re screaming at the top of your lungs would seem to indicate otherwise.”
Then you leave the room, come back 10 minutes later, and do it again. And then again. The good news is, if the kid grows up to be a serial killer you can blame Dr. Ferber.
2) Try not to get caught up in all those milestones. It’s very easy to become obsessed with tracking the exact moment when your child first gets a tooth, rolls over, says “mama” or whips a juice cup at you while you’re trying to drive. This is because you want to see if she’s keeping up with what the books say she should be doing, and, more importantly, to make sure she’s smarter than the neighbors’ kid.
But one thing you’ll realize is that even if your child reaches some of these milestones late, it doesn’t matter in the long run - she’s still smarter.
3) No need to encourage that walking thing. When our daughter began walking at 10 months, we were so proud at how “advanced” she must be. Then she started careening off walls and trying to jump out of her stroller and make a break for the Gymboree.
Then comes the climbing. You’ll know you’re at this stage when you reach down to pick up the TV remote, and when you stand back up your daughter has somehow hoisted herself on top of her toy box and is scaling the window sill like a crazed spider monkey.
Soon you’ll start reminiscing about the days when she’d lie in one spot occupying herself for hours with a Winnie the Pool mobile. You know, about a week and a half ago.
4) Table food is not pretty. The great thing about bottles is that the food is usually in one of two places: in the bottle or in the baby. Once you move on to table food, the vittles can wind up in any number of destinations, from the floor to the cabinets to that handy expanse of forehead over your left eyebrow.
I’m looking forward to the day when my daughter can say thoughtfully, “You know, Father, I’d prefer a banana over Fruit Loops today.” Until then I guess I’ll have to settle for her current method, which is to shake her head wildly and swat the bowl with just enough backhand to clear the edge of the high chair.
5) It all comes out in the wash. I could go on and on about all the other stuff I don’t know about raising a toddler, but the one thing that seems constant is that somehow you get through each stage, and that every hassle brings its own rewards. After all, how can you mind chasing your little rambler around the house after that first time she runs across the room to give you a hug?
Even if she does spit up on you when she gets there.