KA: What is a baby bucket?

[_Jersey Girl]

That's not what I meant. Sorry, I was doing something else and gave you such a brief reply. Transporting a baby while holding them isn't safe because you can fall with the baby. (Trip, slip, be pushed, etc.)

So I should never walk from the car to the store while holding my child? Or walk around the house with her?

Surely you can't mean that one cannot walk around while holding one's child?

No, not at all, skippy. I was responding to KA's remarks about carrying the baby through stores while shopping. Sorry I wasn't more clear.

[_JonasS]

OMGosh, so exciting. hehe. Urghhh, am I getting broody? LOL. I think "strollers" as you guys call them are wrong. I think it just looks wrong. Especially for young mums, but I guess because f where I live, I associate them with young mums, too young to be a mum and it is like a symbol it just looks so disgusting. But perhaps when I have my own children I might be older wiser and more mature to see the potential of such a device.

If I got married, I would choose a family over university. Perhaps that sounds crazy and maybe I am slightly brainwashed, but I can't imagine what would be more fulfilling. And I don't think it will be perfect, but I think it would fill some gap.

[_Jersey Girl]

Sam,

Here is a link for Dr. T Berry Brazelton:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Berry_Brazelton

I can't recommend his books highly enough. The above doesn't contain book titles, but I can get those up for you another time. I just wanted you to have the name and background on him first.

[_moksha]

OMGosh, so exciting. hehe. Urghhh, am I getting broody? LOL. I think "strollers" as you guys call them are wrong. I think it just looks wrong. Especially for young mums, but I guess because f where I live, I associate them with young mums, too young to be a mum and it is like a symbol it just looks so disgusting. But perhaps when I have my own children I might be older wiser and more mature to see the potential of such a device.

I used to enjoy taking the stoller for a walk. Even better when I took my daughter too. It was fun to walk to the park and back. I wish we would have gotten one of those three wheel jogging type stollers. Not that I jog, but they look cooler for the Dad.

[_Sam Harris]

I like a good jogging stroller. Little one won't be let out of the house for the first two months of life, as he/she will be born in January, and there's no point going anywhere at that point...well, except to the grocery store, my trip out! :D

Jersey Girl, thanks for the link, I will definitely take a look. I have two pregnancy books which have helped me to see that I'm not losing my mind and my body is not falling apart. (LOL).

I saw on the discovery channel that you can't really spoil a child by holding them a lot before six months. And infants need a lot of physical contact anyways, it helps to reassure them. I plan to cuddle my little one every chance I get.

I'll definitely let you guys know when I have nursery questions. I'm glad that daddy is in the house, it would be very difficult doing it on my own. At this point, I'm just afraid of the sleep deprivation. I'm dealing with that enough as it is with Steve's snoring, LMAO

[_Always Thinking]

I have found that with each child, my parenting styles and opinions regarding them have evolved. I am not nearly so opinionated as I once was...

I have found that none of my children put up with staying in a car seat (bucket) very well at all. They only barely tolerated it in the car, and never tolerated it otherwise. It wasn't a choice for me to leave them in their buckets, unless I was willing to strap them in and let them scream (I wasn't willing to do that, lol).

I used strollers with the first two. I find that strollers are handy, but so often, children demand to be held, and I am then stuck trying to hold a wiggly baby and push an empty stroller at the same time. Not easy, but with only one child, it was still worth it to have the stroller for the times that the child was willing to sit in it. With two children, it was sort of worth it to have a stroller, though I would often be stuck with holding a baby and chasing a toddler, while pushing an empty stroller...

When I had more than two children, I abandoned strollers all together. It was a nightmare. The older (but still young) children always fought over who was going to push it. The baby didn't want to sit in it anyway. So then I was stuck with older children fighting over the stroller, while I was holding the baby almost the whole time anyway. Maybe the toddler would sit in it, maybe not.

After I stopped using the stroller, I would carry my baby around in the sling. If my husband was with me, he would wear the toddler in a baby carrier (the back pack kind with a strong frame). The older two just had to walk. End of story. If my husband was not with me, I avoided leaving the house with all the children unless absolutely necessary. It was a rough time, honestly! The children were everywhere all at once...

I have known people with calm children who happily spend a lot of time in strollers and car seats. I have sometimes been jealous of them. But then, I know my children have a healthy curiosity of the world, and I think it is good thing that they hated sitting still, even if it made my life a little crazy.

But, now, they are older, and I don't use strollers, slings, etc., anymore!

[_Yoda]

Sorry, I don't see anything wrong with leaving a child in the carseat and putting child, carseat and all, in the cart at the grocery store, particularly if they have fallen asleep in the car! My kids always fell asleep in the car. They're 4, 16, and 19, and still fall asleep in the car. LOL

Now, I agree that the best solution is to wait until Dad comes home, and have him watch the baby while you go shopping on your own. ;)

BUT..if you have to go get a couple of things, there is nothing wrong with bringing the child in the carseat into the store. Frankly, I always thought it was more sanitary to do it that way because at least I knew what germs were in the carseat my kid was already in. LOL

Now, I agree that leaving a child in a carseat for hours is wrong, and definitely not good if the child is unattended, but poor parenting for using it as a convenience at all? Give me a break.

[_Sam Harris]

My mom told me that when I was an infant, she used to take me for a walk around the block in my stroller every evening before bed. Well when it rained, I was so used to the routine, she had to walk me in circles on the back patio under our porch. :-) I was a demanding child, many say.

I've seen some babies take well to the carseats, and others just hate it. I have a cousin who, at less than nine months could hurl herself out of hers, she'd throw her legs out, and then her butt, and then the rest of her...but she couldn't really do much else after that. Didn't matter...she was out of that seat!

I like the slings, and I think that for short trips I'll be using those, though it was wonderful exercise, my first nanny job, to take the baby in the little baby backpack and go hiking. She talked to the trees until she got tired, and then I turned her around to face me so she could sleep all the way home. It was nice.

[_Jersey Girl]

Sam,

I'm going to make you up a little list of some of the things I see pro's do for the nursery but I want to tell an anectdote about Brazelton, just because I want to.

When I was preg. with my first, I pretty much consumed child development books (which was a good thing considering the profession I later took up) and once I had her, I found that Brazelton had a cable show. I watched that show every single day and just totally loved his gentle and common sense child. His attitudes were the complete opposite of Dr. Spock (whom you might not know about) and I particularly loved the scenes on his show where he'd pick up a baby, look in it's eyes and just fawn over the baby. Just so loving!

Fast foward to said child in her 20's who by now has also taken up the profession of her mother. (And she's very good!) She had a chance to go to an all day conference where the main event is (you guessed it) T. Berry Brazelton all day long. She bought one of his newer books (I'm going to give it a closer look to see if you could use it yourself) and he did a book signing.

When she got to the table he greeted her, asked her name of course for the book signing and she told him "My mother said to tell you that you raised me." And he smiled and said "Aw! That's so cute!" and she had her picture taken with him.

One day I hope you can look at a picture of your grown child up front and close with someone who influenced your early parenting, be so proud of how she turned out and also thankful for that person who helped guide and encourage you even if it's on a television or in a book. I so treasure that photo of her and Brazelton. He was a huge influence on me as a new mother, a source of reassurance and I hope that when you go to the library next, you check out one of his books and see what I'm talking about.

I'll get back with you on a "good ideas" for the nursery list and let you know about the book I mentioned.

[_Jersey Girl]

Also Sam, you can catch a few Brazelton videos on youtube just to get an idea of his nature. I just finished watching them. He's so old now and still advocating for children and parents.

p.s. When your baby is born s/he will be assessed using a Brazelton score assessment. :-)