Parenting Homework

34 weeks...only six weeks left! Ahhhh! As much as that might seem like a good chunk of time, my recurring nightmares keep hinting that Baby Carlson is planning to make his premiere early. Beside the fact that we don't have a crib yet (in the above mentioned nightmares, he sleeps in a cardboard box), so much is really coming together. We have stocked up on many of the essentials, we have started planning/packing our hospital bags, and we have completed/are currently completing a bit of parenting instruction.

After doing some poking around, Alex and I decided to work our way through a parenting book to help give us confidence and know-how once Baby arrives. We landed upon The Happiest Baby on the Block by Dr. Harvey Karp and I'm currently over half way through it. 

The text itself is a pretty quick read and Karp attempts to spice up the material with personal anecdotes and various excerpts from other well-known works (both literary and medical). However, at its core, the book is really a how-to manual for parents of young children. Karp has uncovered something that he coined the "calming reflex" and debunks myths about colic and various soothing techniques. It's hard to tell if his suggestions are legitimate as we don't have a crying infant to try his tactics out on, but his logic appears sound and the book is well-supported by parents and pediatricians alike. One of the more interesting bits of his studies surrounds the presence of colic in the Western World, whereas many other cultures don't experience colic or extended periods of crying at all. Long story short, Karp claims that the long-believed theory of gastrointestinal problems cannot be the sole culprit and he claims that his soothing technique will calm any crying child. Without having finished the book, I would still reccommend it to expecting first-time parents but also to seasoned parents, as it pokes a few holes in some well-known parenting practices.

Another parenting venture we have embarked on are our parenting and labor classes. We've only had one session of our parenting class (the second session is tomorrow) but so far we've learned a good deal and I look forward to the next session. One of the major bits of knowledge we took home was about crib bumpers. We picked ours out at Babies R US based on the display and didn't think much about it after that. Much to our surprise, our infant instructor informed us that crib bumpers are major culprits when it comes to SIDS and that they should no longer be used by anyone. The same logic applies to all blankets, stuffed animals and any other plush items within a crib. Even the mesh models pose a risk. As a matter of fact, the sale of crib bumpers has been banned in many major cities. This was news to us, and seeing that every crib display in the store had one, we were pretty shocked. After further questioning, our instructor explained that as much as crib bumpers may prevent potential bumping and bruising caused by kicking the wooden rails, the risk of infant suffocation is much higher and possibly fatal. Needless to say, we returned ours ASAP. As much as it was pretty darling, we care more about our little darling than the aesthetics of our nursery. So, for you current/future parents out there: bumpers beware! 

On a lighter note, we also learned about the six states of infant consciousness, what they look like, what purpose they serve, and what parents should do while their child is in each state.  Here are our notes on each state:

Our instructor ended our last session with a bit of parenting homework. We were tasked with compiling a list of six traits that make a "good enough" parent. She didn't elaborate much on what "good enough" really means but we read into it as sufficient, okay, not bad. Here, in no particular order, is our list:


Six Essentials to Being a "Good Enough" Parent
1) safety
2) food
3) clothing
4) shelter
5) attention
6) love? (the question mark was my doing as I see love as a "great" characteristic, but Alex phrased it well when he said, "If a parent doesn't love their kid, then they're a bad parent." - good enough, I guess)

Call us over-achievers, but we weren't satisfied with simply being "good enough," so we decided to take our homework one step further. What are six essentials to being a GREAT parent? This is what we came up with (again, in no particular order):


Six Essentials to Being a GREAT Parent
1) patience
2) playfulness
3) enthusiasm/energy
4) willingness to teach/learn
5) open-mindedness
6) teamwork

Regardless of the books we read, the classes we take, and even the advice of others, nothing can truly prepare us for what this wonderful world of parenting will entail. I guess this quote really says it best:

The trouble with learning to parent on the job is that your child is the teacher.  
~Robert Brault

Teach on, Baby C, teach on.