Why do some parents have to be so

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2007
Why do some parents have to be so
1221
Tue, 02-06-2007 - 1:51pm
ridiculously difficult. I am a SAHM that decided this year I would watch a couple of children to make some extra money. I have lurked on this board a lot and notice quite a few WOHM here. I just stopped watching this one baby that I just couldn't figure out the parents. The baby was a mess all the time. She was sick, had multiple respiratory problems, and cried all the time. Every time I called the parents to pick the baby up due to wheezing, or fever they seemed annoyed with me. Which I thought was odd. I have a strict policy that if the children have green noses they must go home. Also if the children have a fever they must go home and not return for 24 hours after the fever has broken or on antibiotics. Well I could never figure out why the baby cried so much until I was talking to the mother. Apparently they allow this baby to sit in a swing in the evenings and on weekends to get her to sleep. So the only time this baby naps during the day on the weekends is in a swing. Well that is not going to happen here. The baby is almost 20 lbs and I am not purchasing a swing for this child to sleep in. So according to the mother this child goes home around 5:30 or 6pm and sleeps from 6:30 until 6:30 the next day. No wonder...she won't nap here. So I told the mother that if I couldn't get the baby to nap during the day then I would no longer be keeping this baby. Well I guess she didn't believe me and I gave these parents a 1 week notice. I can't imagine having my baby that I haven't seen all day sleep a half hour after I got home and sleep until the next morning. I have tried for 4 months to get this baby on a schedule. When the other 2 children I have take their nap this child screams and screams. Just weird to me that a parent would want this for their child.

   

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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-09-2006
Sat, 02-10-2007 - 10:00am

Uh, no. What you said was <> (Post 304).

Nice try. Except, you know. Not really.

In terms of fabrications, you still head the class.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-09-2006
Sat, 02-10-2007 - 10:09am

Furthermore, in post #169, on Wednesday, a posted written at 5:40-ish pm EST, you said, "Today the little boy I *have* has a little cold." The latest possible time period you could have been posting from is Mountain time (none of the states in Pacific time or further west permit the ratios you're claiming) which is 2 hours earlier, or 3:40-ish pm. and you used the present tense, "The little boy I HAVE HAS a cold." Not, "the little boy I watched earlier today has a cold."

In a later post, in response to being asked if you called his father to come get the boy as he was sick, you said, "no, he wasn't THAT sick."

At no time, and this would have been an excellent time to mention it, n'est pas?, did you comment that the boy went home at noon because of school vacations.

Sorry, there is too much evidence, in terms of things you can no longer spin (such as time/date stamps) to make that excuse plausible. you either fabricated the baby with the cold (possible, since you couldn't remember which gender he/she was‚ or fabricated having the week off. Or have been fabricating the entire story from the beginning. I don't know and I don't care. I just know you've told enough provable fabrications that nothing you say has any credibility.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Sat, 02-10-2007 - 10:26am

"However it isn't my responsibility to provide individual needs for children."

WHAT? Not your responsiblity to see to children's individual needs? Your job is to care for these children and yes that includes their individual needs.

Incredible. So who do you think should meed children's individual needs during the day? Should they just wait to have their individual needs met until after they go home from day care?

I'm just shaking my head here.

And putting you on ignore. This has me way too pissed off to post. How can anyone treat children this way?

I hope you find a job that meets all your requirements. If you dont' want to meet the individual needs of children, you should not be a dcp!!!!




Edited 2/10/2007 10:28 am ET by gr8fulmom1
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Sat, 02-10-2007 - 10:44am

I disagree. The provider needs to train the baby to her schedule which probably isn't the parents schedule at all. My kids had no schedule when they started day care. In time, their schedule became the schedule at day care. My kids started day care before they were 10 weeks old so getting them used to the schedule at day care really wasn't a big deal.

My youngest was my trouble napper. It was best to just not fight her on it. Fortunately, I had a dcp willing to work with her. She insisted she take some quiet time and trained my dd to, at least, spend a half hour quiet time in her crib but she didn't insist she sleep. If she was still awake after half an hour, she'd let her get up.

At home I just let her go until she passed out. She'd be just playing whatever and you'd turn around and she'd be sound asleep on the floor. When it was nap time, it was nap time but when it wasn't, it wasn't.

She's a very strange child. Starting when she was about 2, she'd announce "I'm tired, I'm going to bed" and off she'd go but lord have mercy if you tried to send her to bed at a specific time.

We still have problems with her. We learned from our dcp though. She doesn't have a set bed time but she has to be ready for bed and in her room at a certain time. She can play quietly, listen to music or read until she's ready to go to sleep. She just doesn't shut off like the rest of us at a certain time. It takes time for her brain to slow down.

One of our theories on why she didn't nap at day care was that there was just too much going on there and her brain was too busy processing everything. I admit I hated the days when she passed out as soon as we got home because she hadn't napped at day care but you have to work with what you have.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Sat, 02-10-2007 - 10:50am

"that any infant on the face of the earth can only be soothed by one single method in the entire universe? really?"

This baffles me too. While there were certain ways that certain people could only soothe my dd's, there was never one thing that had to be just perfect or else. I've never even heard of a baby like this.

When dd#1's dcp wanted her to nap, she played music and rubbed her back. When her dad wanted her to nap, he put her in her crib and stroked her hair. When I wanted her to nap, I had to nurse her into oblivion (I guess she did insist on a certain type of equipment with me, lol). Different places and different people used different methods.

Dd#2 was my difficult napper and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do about that. It wasn't an issue of soothing her to sleep. She sleeps when her brain finally turns off. End of argument. Now her dcp did train her to take quiet time when the other kids nap but it was hit or miss if she actually napped. Many a day, she just laid in the crib and listened to the music. I did allow her dcp to put her down with a bottle to keep her quiet while the ohter kids slept. She LOVED her bubu's. I thought she was going to go to kindergarten with one in her mouth, lol.

To quote my MIL "No one has ever graduated from high school still taking a bottle". She had one like dd whose only source of soothing was a bottle too. Amazingly, she still has all her teeth.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Sat, 02-10-2007 - 10:59am

ITA. 6 week old babies haven't formed dependencies yet. IMO, the problem is at day care because the problem started before the baby would have been so used to anything that she needed it to sleep.

My kids weren't even on a schedule by 3 months. We were still trying different things to get them to sleep. Odd that this one dropped right into this swing and developed a dependency before most kids are even sleeping through the night?

While at 6 months it's quite possible she was dependent, it would be hard for her to be too dependent on something she didn't even have at day care. Most nap times were handled without the magic swing from 6 weeks on.

Honestly, we adopted our dcps methods not her ours. But, then again, she'd been a dcp for 20+ years and knew a few things we didn't. She even managed to get my no napper to take quiet time in a crib without a fuss. That's the way it was at Nana's house. Period. She was rather no nonsense about some things and everyone taking a rest in the afternoon was one of them. The kids knew the routine. Have lunch, clean up, get the cots out, turn on the music and everyone lays down. Sleep or don't sleep whichever you want but everyone lays down.

You know, I couldn't do that at home to save my soul, lol. That was clearly Nana's rule.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Sat, 02-10-2007 - 11:07am

Okay...how does a parent control how a 6week old -6 month old baby (the age this child was in day care) behaves in day care? Ground her if she mis behaves?

So how would you get this baby to behave correctly at nap time?

It is my place to deal with how my child responds when I amd the one there getting the response. I cannot control my children from a distance. They don't have remote controls. Now do babies remember when mommy says "Now remember, I said no strained carrots if you don't sleep for the dcp", lol.

So how do you control your baby when you're not there? Telepathically? Damaging BS like that moron Ezzo preaches?

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Sat, 02-10-2007 - 11:25am

" i committed the cardinal sin of sleep habits with my first: nursed her to sleep, every single time i put her down for a nap or bed, for eighteen months. obviously her dcps didn't nurse her, and it didn't take them more than a week to get her in the habit of falling off to sleep in a crib, "

Me too. Yet our dcp managed to train dd#1 to sleep at nap time and dd#2 to take quiet time (she often didn't nap) wihtout much fanfare.

Something isn't right about this story. I'm hoping it's made up as bb bait. That this poor baby cried for 4 months straight in this dcp's care is so sad no matter what the reason she was crying.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Sat, 02-10-2007 - 11:35am

"I don't care what the parent's schedule is at home, I have my own."

I can imagine a day care would be chaos if you tried to match every parents schedule. Since my kids had nap time at day care more often than they had nap time at home, the day care schedule became the normal scedule simply because it's the one that was followed most often.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Sat, 02-10-2007 - 11:41am

I have to disagree. I can see asking the parents to bring the swing with them in the morning but they shouldn't have to buy equipment for the dcp. After all, the dcp is the one pulling her hair out in the afternoons so it's in her best interest to do what it takes.

Now, it would have been nice if the parents had offered but I don't think they are required to buy the dcp equipment she needs to do her job. If my dcp had been short a crib when my dd's started, should I have bought her one?

The swing likely would have been used by more than just this baby and the dcp is the one with the problem. Hence the dcp should have bought it. However the first thing to do would have been have the parents bring the swing for a few days to see if it really worked.

Personally, if I were a dcp, I wouldn't want the parents buying equipment I was responsible for. I'd be liable for returning it in good condition (if they bought it, it's theirs when I no longer need it for their child and should only be used by their child).

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