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: 03-27-2003
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 4:29pm
But ask yourself, why would the parents go to all the hassle of losing their dc provider just to save themselves the cost of a swing? A really good dc provider would be WORTH the modest price of a swing just to hold onto. You see where I'm going with this?
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-26-2006
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 4:31pm
I should have jumped in here long ago. The OP never stated (that I saw post link if I am wrong)she wanted to control the babys sleep habits. She stated that she figured out why the baby wasnt sleeping and that she didnt care if the baby slept in a swing or not. She stated that the parents failed to provide a swing for the baby to sleep in. How this got off into a control issue is beyond me.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 4:33pm
but a small child is not going to have a clue what you are talking about if it is something that happened hours ago. you can certainly talk to your children about not hitting, biting etc... but they are not going to relate it to anything concrete, and certainly not to an incident that happened hours before.
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-26-2006
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 4:34pm
Well here is my theory. I think mom and dad didn't really mind that the baby slept from when she got home until the next morning. It is either that or they are just really stupid. Since I tend to not think people are stupid, I will go with option one.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 4:36pm
you are right, there are many different methods to deal with small children and biting and everyone of them says you have to deal with it when it occurs, not later. how are you going to get a child to stop biting if you never see the child bite anyone. we are not talking about someone who can recall past events or reason and certainly cant relate moms talk to an occurance hours before.
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 4:43pm
please explain how you knew your children at age one knew what you thought was right and wrong and had the ability to differentiate between the two. children much older than that are not able to do it - you must haev really intuitive kids if they could do it at one. my three year old cant even tell the difference between right and wrong with any certainty or regularity, and even if he can does not always have the skills or impulse control to prevent him from acting. he may know that it is not nice to bite but he does not have the skills to recall that information and refrain from biting if a certain situation occurs.
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 4:46pm
I can go with option one up to a point. And that point was when they saw that this issue was getting in the way of them having the baby in this dc. At that point, when they were faced with having to go through the hassle of finding a new arrangement, they STILL wouldn't get the swing? Parents who have a really excellent dc setup would certainly opt to buy a swing just to keep that set-up, even if their baby then had a later bedtime as a result. What I'm thinking is, this dc situation wasn't really worth hanging on to- it was not the sort f "excellent setup" that parents would buy a swing to preserve. Their new arrangement has the baby sleeping in that swing in any case and so having the later bedtime (per a post midway through this thread) so I don't think that either the swing or the later bedtime were quite the dealbreaker they're being made out to be. Parents really really don't like to switch providers if they can help it. These parents threw in the towel so readily that I'm thinking this provider wasn't a "keeper" anyway.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 5:44pm

THat is incorrect. THis is a direct quote from her initial post.

"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."

That does sound like she was trying to force a nap.

She also said this in post 11:

"I told her that not getting the baby to rest during the day was very disruptive to the other two that were napping. That I needed that time to wash bottles, and clean up the mess."

That further implies that she wanted the baby to nap on the other two babies's schedule.

When she was called on it- she backtracked bigtime.




Edited 2/11/2007 5:49 pm ET by janetlynn_64
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-15-2006
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 5:50pm

eh,whose loss is it iyo,susannah? according to the op,the parents were annoyed by this particular sitter,annoyed that there were expectations on *their* part that rolled into months of poor service...i don't blame this sitter. it sounds like she would have *accomodated* if the child would have been provided for which yes,was the modest cost of a swing. parents need to carry their own weight wrt good sitters. i used to leave the pumpkinseat at my sitter's because i knew that was a comfort,sleep zone for my (then infant) ellie. i let her know what she liked and didn't like wrt lunch menus and provided accordingly,too (there were days when *m* made the most fantastic homemade mac n cheese,though. ahh)......but should i have just taken notes of what the sitter told me her day was like? no. a good sitter DOES CARE what *my* (the parent) schedule and routine is like.

i think the loss is to the parent,here. she really opens that box wrt who raises children if her attitude is all about dropping and running,having the sitter *deal* with the child w/o accountability or cooperation on her end.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-04-2005
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 6:07pm

My DD was an only child when we had a biting issue at 25 months old. We told her if we got one more report of biting at school she would lose her favorite toy. The very next day we had an incident report. We went home gathered up the toy, put it away and told her she had to have five days of no reports to get the toy back. Each morning her father would remind her of no biting, the reward (getting the toy back) and which day it was (ie #1, #2, etc.). Each night at pick up, I would praise her for no report, exclaim how proud I was of her and how many days left. On the fifth day with no report, we made a big cermony of her getting her toy back and we never had a biting incident report since.

So I guess I actually did sucessfully handle an issue at home of a behavior we never saw. I just believe in kids abilities to get it.

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