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: 04-14-2003
Mon, 02-12-2007 - 1:49pm

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nah. here we're back to militant math--one of your fortes, if i recall. the op has given us the perfect storm here--she insists the child isn't awake more than a half hour a day when she is with her parents on the weekdays (and sleeps almost all weekend, to boot). and even if we are to believe that she--dead-dog exhausted from sleep deprivation and hours on end of wailing--doesn't fall asleep for good in the car, the swing would play an incidental if any role in getting such a sleep-deprived and traumatized child to sleep at that point. two days a week, the child might be soothed to sleep by a specific type of swing; five days a week--two and a half times as frequently, conservatively sixteen times as much--the dcp is establishing what is consistent those five days a week--and by far most often, as well.

i think that you have no idea how infants respond to multiple caregivers because your lines of questioning and reasoning require this. anyone who does have any experience at all sharing caregiving responsiblity for an infant knows what the ops and i mean when we discuss consistency. the only way not to know that infants adapt to different handling, different routines, different expectations from different caregivers are those few who have zero experience sharing any substantative caregiving responsiblity. i'm very open to the idea that you are being disingenuous here, but this is a pretty clear-cut either/or.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-26-2006
Mon, 02-12-2007 - 2:25pm

<>

What are you talking about?

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I saw the post in the beginning where she said ***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. As for the sleeping almost all weekend I didnt see that. Where did she say that?

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Again I am not sure but from what I read she came to her sleeping in the swing. So before the baby came she was sleeping in the swing. The baby sleeps in the swing every evening and on weekends. So her 5 day a week routine is hindered by 7 days of swing sleeping correct?

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Well you are wrong.

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So because I am a SAHM I have no experience with mulitple caregivers? I will have to mention that to my DH and both my parents and step parents.

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Um sure.

Still waiting on the links to all the things you have said she stated.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-14-2003
Mon, 02-12-2007 - 3:05pm

no. not because you are a sahm. because you are pretending/claiming that because one caregiver does things one way, the child won't adapt to others doing it another. either/or.

there is a substantial discussion about how the op expected and asked the parents to either provide the swing or stop using it--starting within the first two-dozen posts. i'm not going to link because i already pointed this out to you, and it isn't at all hard to find. i'm curious how you are reconciling this claim of ignorance on your part, anyway. you are chastising people for saying that it was the dcp's responsiblity to solve the sleep problem, but then claiming not to know that the op, who blames the parents for not doing it, required anything of them.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-15-2006
Mon, 02-12-2007 - 3:54pm

But my response to you was not about babies, we had a misunderstanding. I did not realize you were specifically addressing the 6 month old in the OP>

Forgive my ignorance, i overlooked that. ;/

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-15-2006
Mon, 02-12-2007 - 3:57pm

B/c i was talking about children, not specifically about infant's. Im sorry i was not more clear.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 02-12-2007 - 4:39pm

Why would this dcp blame the swing? Because she's in way over her head and so grabbed for the easiest thing.She's been doing this for less than a year (per first post) and doesn't really know what she's doing or how to handle a wide range of baby temperments. She SHOULD have been able to get the baby to nap in dc regardless of what the parents were doing at home. It doesn't MATTER what the parents were doing at home. Babies can be very situational and this dc provider had 5 days a week to get her to nap w/o a swing, starting at 6 weeks vs. th 2 days a week the parents had. But she couldn't do it. Why? Because she didn't know what she was doing. Unlike an experienced, or at least trained, dc provider- she was winging it entirely. She was no better equipped to open a dc just because she had kids of her own than I am to open a restaurant just because I can cook dinner.

Like some other posters, I nursed dd to sleep when she was an infant. In my care, she would not go to sleep until she'd nursed. I was ok with that. I nursed her. She slept. All good. Why all good? Because when she was in OTHER people's care, she just went to sleep in a different way because nursing was not an option. The "must nurse to sleep" only happened with me (until she weaned). What most definately didn't happen is shw wasn't returned to me an exhausted, unapped mess. She slept quite readilt for others without nursing and so wasn't sleep deprived just because I wasn't there to nurse her. So the whole argument that there was NO POSSIBLE WAY to get the baby to sleep without this sppecial side-to-side swing just doesn't too compelling to me. A better dcp provider would have had this baby napping at dc regardless of what the parents did. But this dc provider is inexperienced (just started this year on a whim to get more money) and unqualified. So she got in over her head pretty quickly with only the 3rd baby she took in. She has no future in this business because she doesn't know how to deal with a broad range of babies and situations.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 02-12-2007 - 4:45pm

Great post!


I agree 100%!


Sue

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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Mon, 02-12-2007 - 5:20pm
You QUOTED where I said BABY. How can you now claim you didn't mean babies? This makes no sense.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Mon, 02-12-2007 - 5:22pm

So? I trained them to sleep didn't I? The important part is they slept not how I got them to sleep.

And no, I wasn't unable. I'd only bu unable if I tried and failed. I didn't try. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It wasn't an issue often enough to worry about changing anything.

Why should I train my babies a different way if my way is working? Because you say so?

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Mon, 02-12-2007 - 5:25pm

I assumed everyone here understood that consistency is in a particular person being consistent. I guess I shouldn't assume.

It's not necessary for everyone to to everything the same way but it is important for each person to do things the same way. Babies associate different ways with different people.

Take my kids. The only way I could get them down at night was by nursing them and lying down with them but my dcp could get them to sleep by rubbing their backs and dh by stroking their hair. Each caregiver finds what works for them.

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