Episode 012 – Parenting Infants and Toddlers

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This is the Suburban Folk podcast episode 12 parenting infants and toddlers.

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Looking forward to having some real talk, some real folks. Hey, this is Greg with the Suburban Folk podcast. My guest today is Brittany from the growing our family podcast. Brittany, how are you doing? Good, how are you doing? I am doing great intro for how we first cross paths is on social media. Sounds like we started our podcast about the same time I think you were a little bit ahead of me. And when I was getting Suburban Folk going and want to do a lot of different topics that cover what suburbian folks deal with on a day to day basis. Parenting is something that I had on the radar. Admittedly, people would get cold feet about talking about parenting because there are a lot of different opinions and a lot of different methods for raising children. So I’m really happy

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That you accepted my invite to come on to the show, because I’ve listened to a few of your episodes. And I think you’ve got some good insights as far as what you’ve come across as you’re getting into the world of parenting. So can you tell me a little bit about what inspired you to start your blog and podcast and how it’s gone up to this point? Yeah, of course. And thank you for having me. And I’m super happy to be here today. When I was actually pregnant, I started doing research on everything baby related because I’m a first time mom, my son is 10 months old. And I knew nothing about babies. I had never been around them and my entire life really. And so I was just kind of heading into this blind. So I decided to just dive in and start doing research. I’m an engineer by trade. So I’m very research oriented. And that’s what made me feel comfortable is kind of finding the information and informing my intuition, I guess, just so I can make it happen.

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Decisions throughout the pregnancy. And when I was doing my research, I found that there’s a lot of contradicting information out there. And it’s really hard to tell, which is true and which is not true. And so I wanted to just kind of start the blog and the podcast to help other parents just find the information from trusted sources like the American Academy of Pediatrics and, and sources like that, that I know are trusted and true. You mentioned that your first time being around a baby. Are you a only child? Do you have siblings? Or was it like literally your first time being around kids at all? No, I have two younger siblings. But I was like five years old when my sister was born six years old. So I don’t really remember any parts of being around them. So I was I have been around babies in my life just not anytime recently, and I’ve never really had to care for them or, or make any decisions about their lives. So it was

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Yeah, the unique part of parenting like that, that delivery day of this sort of weight that comes crashing, crashing down, that sounds negative, but you know, you literally know all these things that are going to be in front of you and there’s no no amount of training I feel like that can get you completely prepared for that particular moment. I mean, even you know, the the birthing classes. Now, I’m speaking from the guys standpoint. So way less going on, I think for the father, then for the mother, but even still, all those classes I don’t think really prepares you for when the baby finally comes and all the things that you have to deal with and did you find with having the blog and podcast it also helps keep yourself even more accountable with like the research that you mentioned, so that, you know the information that you’re putting out is as thoroughly researched as possible. You’ve looked at as many different views is it also helpful for yourself, not only just your listeners? Oh, definitely. I’ve found a lot

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Lot of situations where I had one viewpoint on it. And then after writing a blog post, I came out of it with a completely different viewpoint, just from doing my research and seeing different articles that, you know, went through just all of the information. And it’s crazy how you have to just be very open minded when it comes to parenting, because it’s constantly changing. And there’s constantly new research going on out there that can really change the way that you want to parent for sure. And one that just came to mind. For us, we were getting rid of a lot of our baby things just knock on wood, we think we’re done.

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Unless something really surprising happens. And we had one of those little bassinet that, let’s say three, four years ago was pretty common to have your baby in one of those, you know, by your bed until they get into a sleep cycle and so on. And actually I think you just had an episode with somebody that was talking about the do’s and don’ts and

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I think it was maybe a year after we got done using that for our first that then it came out that no definitely don’t use anything like that needs to be the flat surface needs to be a hard surface, you know, because accidents can happen and, or the swing as well you’re not supposed to have them sleeping in a swing. So the information definitely changes and even when you think you’re doing the best thing, next thing you know, you know, there’s some warning or recall that’s come out that you have to rethink what you’ve been doing. So I think it’s good to definitely be on top of that. Have have you dealt with those differing opinions? Let’s say after you’ve put out an episode or you put something out on a blog, maybe comments of somebody contradicting what your research has said and then you’ve had to either defend a position or like you said have kind of changed a position because I know it can be definitely sometimes contentious when you get to something as personal as parenting styles how

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How’s that going from that perspective? So far, I’ve been pretty lucky that I haven’t had any really angry emails from any listeners. And I have had a couple people that I can tell based off their comments that they probably disagree with the topics I’m talking about. But I really tried to find a neutral standpoint and focus really on the research of it and leave a lot of my personal opinions out because parenting is hard enough on its own, without parents having to judge you. Or, you know, I’m not trying to put my opinions on other people. I’m purely just trying to give them information so they can make their own decisions. what works best for my family may not work best for your family or anyone elses. So I think my goal is to really just provide the information so they can decide what is going to be the best route for themselves totally agree that having as much information at any person’s fingertips is probably the best route and like you said, that can be internalized figure out what

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for that family, and then they can make a decision from there, especially again, with something as personal as your family and parenting. And on that note, the first set of questions that I had for you is baby milestones. Because I know for me, when we had our first baby, I was definitely checking the different references as far as when they’d be sitting up when they could hold his head up, even so that I could feel less like I was going to break the baby, when I’m when I’m holding him. And then you know, into course, crawl, walk and so on. Can you walk us through what you found? Are those milestones and then I think I’d be curious of your perspective on when to actually be concerned versus you know, a range of time that hey, every babies a little different, they’re going to do things at a different rate and when you shouldn’t be as concerned. Definitely Yeah. So I actually created the list when my son was going through the milestones because my husband would

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Asked me probably every week. Oh, when does he going to do this next thing? And he would ask me the same question every time. So I finally did a podcast on it. And I told him to just listen to it. So that way I could stop asking or answering all of his questions on it. I love him dearly. But sometimes it’s like, did you have to just do some research real fast? You can find all these answers, so I figured if he was asking plenty of other people probably were wondering the same questions. So the first one is probably their first smile. That’s, in my opinion, one of the first major milestones. And although some babies do give up a few gas miles in the first few weeks, their first genuine smile typically happens around two months old. And

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in terms of when you should be worried, every baby is different and it really just depends. your pediatrician is going to be the person who will let you know that if there’s an issue. If there

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Worried about anything, they’re going to let you know. And when you go into those pediatrician and appointments, I, there’s one that like, you know, six weeks and and then like two months and four months and six months and nine months in a year old and all of these pediatrician appointments. So you’re going to sit down and ask you these questions and say have they smiled? Have they laughed? Do they make eye contact? They’re going to ask you all these questions. And this is your time to just be honest with them and ask questions and let them know everything. It’s not a competition it you know, I know some parents are maybe a little bit concerned and don’t really want to say, Well, you know, they’ve smiled like maybe once but they just answer Yeah, they smile all the time because they feel like that’s the appropriate answer.

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But I definitely think being honest with your pediatrician and asking questions, if you are concerned is the best route to go. So that first mile probably comes around two months old. If they haven’t smiled yet by maybe like three years.

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Four months, then that’s when I would be concerned and give them a call.

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But to encourage it, I would definitely recommend talking or singing and playing with your baby. This just really helps their development, and they’ll start picking up on social cues to smile. So just make sure to smile and clap back at them and act really excited when they do make somewhat of a smile. And this will help them associate that action with a positive experience and they’ll want to do it over and over again.

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Next is probably the first laugh. After the first smile at you can usually expect to hear them laugh at around three to four months old. And to encourage this you can play games like peekaboo, seeing them songs, or actually in an attempt to really hear them laugh for that first time. And sometimes what makes them laugh can be really unexpected. With my son. He was obsessed with us saying hi. And we would just say it in all different

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Types of tones and every time we’d look and I’d be like, Hi. And he would just crack up laughing it was Tokyo.

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So you can imagine we probably said it like 5 million times. Sure. And, and,

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and that just kind of helps them learn that when you say something, they laugh, then you laugh back at them and they end up, like mimicking you. And it really helps them make those associations. Yeah, we had a similar example with our oldest that one of the videos we play even to this day over and over again is his grandma, my mom would just say boo, and just big big belly laugh and like you said the same thing. I don’t know why he thought blue was funny at the time, but you better believe we said boo plenty of times after that just to get that reaction that I think against being for the dad side of it, eyes light up even more that Okay, now I’m actually going to get an interaction you know, more so than those first couple of months where it’s

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Basically eat sleep, go to the bathroom and you know that sort of that cycle keeps happening. And that’s when I think you’ve really start getting more of that interaction from, you know, the smile at first, but especially when you’re getting into the, to the laughing and some of the extra reactions you’re getting from the baby. Oh, definitely. And up until that point, it’s really a one sided relationship. You know, you’re taking care of this person and you’re waking up throughout the night and you’re constantly exhausted. And just being able to get that reaction and that emotion back from them. It just makes it all worth it. Not saying it’s not worth it in the beginning it just having that reward of seeing them grow and develop and, and show that excitement is just it’s probably the best thing in the world. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like you said that that is the reward. The payoff, maybe that’s a better word. Yes. Like you said, it’s not that is not rewarding at first, but that’s the payoff for those first few months of no sleep and

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Man, let me just say, that is a thing that I certainly didn’t appreciate the term sleep deprivation until there was a baby around. And again, God bless the mothers that you know, are able to breastfeed and and are taking the brunt of that in those first few months or you know, even into the full year because it really does affect everything that you do. So, yeah, yeah, right on when you start to get those those payoffs is very satisfying. Oh, definitely. And then, a little bit after that first laugh, you can expect them to start rolling over around five to six months. But that one is really a hard milestone to pinpoint some babies rollover as early as four months old or even earlier than that, while others might take a little bit longer. My son didn’t roll over from belly to back until about five months and back to belly came a few weeks after that. So it really hasn’t

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A lot of factors that play into it, like how large your child is, if they have a lot of tummy time, and just how motivated they are to roll over, some babies are completely content laying on their bellies and just hanging out there and they don’t really have the motivation to roll over. So this is one of the ones that I would say, I wouldn’t be too worried if you hit that like five month mark and they’re not rolling over yet. It’ll come with time, they just have to build up the strength. And with rolling over comes increase upper body strength, and they might be able to start pushing up on their elbows. So it’s really important to allow lots of tummy time during this period so they can practice the movements. Even if they hate tummy time, just keep introducing it and as they get more comfortable in their tummy and can start moving around a little bit more they’ll become more comfortable and, and enjoy tummy time a little bit more than at the very beginning when they’re just kind of stuck there like a rollover turtle

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And I remember actually that rolling over was one of those milestones that I think our kids were late with. And, again, would echo what you’re saying not to get too worked up about those because everybody’s on a different time timeline, actually, my oldest had a program where I could take him to my work up until eight months. So he didn’t have a lot of time where he could just be on the floor because, well, let’s just be honest, most workplace floors are not exactly you know, the cleanest places in the world. So he was more in like a packet play where he didn’t have as much room or a swing or something like that. So he didn’t get probably as much tummy time as he otherwise would have. That that didn’t help him hit those milestones. But again, the theme of every baby is different. Don’t get too worked up. If they’re not right in line with what the standards are that you find online. It’s not gonna be the end of the world.

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And again, emphasis what you mentioned to your pediatrician and others that around I think will help provide that perspective. Oh, definitely. Yeah, I think social media is the worst when it comes to having kids because you see these other parents that had kids sometime around you, or maybe even their babies, like a month younger, and they start rolling over and they’re posting these videos and you just start getting all these thoughts in your head of, oh, what’s wrong with my kid? Why is my kid doing those things, but then two months down the road, maybe your kid is crawling and there’s still hasn’t called yet you know, it just, it’s all every baby is different. And they all develop at their own rate. Right? Agreed. And so after crawling, I’d say the next major milestone is sitting up, and that typically happens unassisted around six months old. Some babies master the scale a lot earlier, while again, others might take a little bit longer to be able to set up all on their own. But this is a huge turning point for some parents because babies are usually much happier on the ground.

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Once they can sit by themselves and play with toys and just be a little bit more independent, and around six months, you also some other developmental milestones you might want to look out for are passing things from one hand to another, trying to get things just out of their reach and rolling over now, from front to back. And some kids are able to get up on all fours Around this time, it’s not really a this, this time isn’t really when they should be or shouldn’t be. It’s just a lot of kids. This is when they start to get up on all for their hands and knees, and they can start rocking back and forth, which is great practice for crawling.

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And then when it comes to actually crawling, some babies tend to start crawling anywhere between six and 10 months old, while other babies actually skip the crawling phase all together. And if focusing on walking might seem like they’ll be ahead of

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The curve, which is what I thought before I started doing all this research, I just want to let you guys know, it is super important to try to get your babies to crawl even if it’s just for a week or two, because crawling helps develop so many different things. Like they’re finding gross motor skills, balance, hand eye coordination, spatial awareness, self confidence, strength, and so much more. It’s really one of the best ways to grow that arm and upper body strength. Because once they start walking, they don’t really have any desire to crawl anymore. And crawling is one of the things that some parents just want to skip, because walking seems a lot more developmentally ready, I guess. But with crawling, make sure to put a baby gates cover outlets and pick up all the choking hazards and cords and all the other safety risks because once your kid can move and they know they can move, they will get all over the house. Yeah, they’re everywhere. I remember

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That we were around that phase, my video game stuff was all on the floor. And it was right before he was quite crawling. And it’s like, I would look at the screen and then look back at him and like, Is that where you were before and then crack at the screen and then look again, like, pretty sure that a little bit closer is actually going from one of the remotes that was there. And then you know, yeah, it wasn’t long after that, that he was all over the place. I don’t think either of our babies had a long period of crawling before they started to walk. Something else that I think as far as the safety is concerned, in that phase from going to crawling to you know, pushing up on furniture and things like that is the coffee tables and Gosh, I think some of our closest calls you know, would be when they’re trying to pull up on those things. So around those safety things as well that people may not necessarily think of I would recommend you like the rubber

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covers that you can put over corners. Whether you have like a fireplace, that

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They have a sharp edge on it, or again, depending on the type of coffee table or something like you have there, especially when they’re pushing up, you know, and it’s very possible that they’ll fall back down in there, but you don’t want them to, you know, catch there somewhere on their head or even worse, like their eye or something like that on the side of a sharp table or anything. Oh, definitely. And when they’re first learning how to stand up on things, they’re so unstable and their legs are given out on them. So they’ll be standing up and you’ll be watching them. And all of a sudden, they drop like a sack of potatoes. Just their little legs just don’t know what they’re doing yet. They’re like a little baby beer. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, any and everything that can be locked down. Definitely do that. Another one. Again, I will say, for the DI wires, it can be kind of a pain to get the cabinets, you know, childproof, but it needs to be done and I would say do it sooner than later. I probably waited longer than I should have as far as being able to get in and get like pots and pans and stuff. So definitely, you know, Marco weekend.

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To get that done as well, we ended up using the magnetic ones that you don’t see as much. And then that way you can hide the key to those. And then you can even just unlock them after the fact you don’t have to take them all off like the ones that just kind of sit up in the front. So that would be another that I would certainly add his recommendation for making sure that folks do that because again, I’ll admit I waited a little longer than we probably should have to get the kitchen cabinets all secured that way. Oh, definitely. And once they find out where those pots and pans are, it’s like bees to honey. You know, it just you can’t keep them away from it for Jurassic Park fans. When they talk about the Raptors they say oh, they remember and and you know know which things they can and can’t get to it. It’s funny. After we spent the weekend to get all of that locked down. He lost interest in a couple of weeks. I didn’t even try the cabinet. Oh, yeah, yeah, he’s like the little dinosaur just tapping. Yep, remember going to go on to the next thing

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I can get into and that’s still open and I don’t have to worry about so.

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When you think about it again, going into the reaction part, if you step back from the frustration of oh my gosh, how can they get into everything? It is pretty amazing how resourceful the babies can be once they’re mobile and what they can get into. Oh, definitely. It’s so funny too, when, you know, they’ll have a toy, a foot out of their reach. And they’re sitting there crying for it, because you know, it’s too far. It’s slightly too high. But then, you know, you put the something that they’re not supposed to get into, like up on the counter, and they’re trying to, like do acrobatics to climb up on the cabinets. And it’s like, Dude, why can’t you have this motivation for the things that you know, you’re allowed to have? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, another for us was stacking, like couch cushions. Now, it was when they were a little bit older. But still, you stack those up and they try to step on that that’s not exactly a very stable surface, all for the same reason, like you said, whether it’s a I don’t know a cookie or something, or a toy that they’re not supposed to have yet. Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. You hope that resources

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This last into adulthood so that when they are figuring out what they want to do, they’ll keep that same headstrong mentality.

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Exactly.

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So from there, few more major milestones, I guess in their first year is their first tooth around the six month mark. And that normally happens really between six and 10 months. But teething can actually start long before that I’ve actually read that some babies are born with their teeth, which I feel like would be a little bit creepy, but I can’t really imagine a newborn with like a full set of teeth in their mouth, but not very common. It normally happens around six to 10 months. And they emerged symmetrically, usually between the left and right side so the two front bottom teeth come first, followed by the two front top teeth and then it just heads back from there.

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And then first words normally come around seven months, give or take and

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They start saying really easy where it’s like mom or dad, duh. But at the beginning, it really is more of a string of syllables like my mom, or Dad, dad, dad, dad, they’re not really understanding the correlation between mom and dad. And the sounds that they’re making. They’re just they’ve learned to kind of mimic your sounds. And then some of the common first words are Dad, dad, his first then Mama, and then high. And then dog sounds. So either saying dog or saying the dog names or are like rough or things like that, that have to do a dogs. And then bye and no are the last ones on the list. And once you hear no the first time, you’re going to hear it so many more times. From there now, especially when you get into toddlerhood. I feel like Oh, definitely, that’s probably one of the most common, you know, first words that kids just like to repeat. I’ve been trying really hard not to say no to everything I tried to say like or something

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Like that just cuz I know the second he gets that word in his head, he’s just gonna never stop saying it, I was actually gonna ask you that I’d read a similar thing that says if you can use other words other than know so that they don’t get stuck in their head and repeat it back to you, you’ll save yourself a little bit when they get a little bit older and that’s going to be the word they use and take their stand. So I honestly can’t say how well we did with using alternative words to know but we’ve definitely hear our share of it. Yet as they as they both are into toddlerhood but agree that that is a tip that I have heard as well to limit the amount of times you say no to them directly, so that doesn’t get used against you quite literally, later on down the road. Yeah, and I also try to save it for really dangerous situations where I want it to hold a little bit more ground. You know, if he’s gonna go play with a fireplace. I feel like if you say it, if he doesn’t, you know, if he wants a cookie and you say no, and then

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He’s trying to play with the fireplace and you tell him No, it doesn’t really hold as much weight. This is just in my mind. I don’t know, I don’t know if this is actually true, but

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right. So that’s, that’s also kind of one of my reasonings on trying to avoid saying as much as possible, but it’s so hard because it’s just the first word that tries to come out of your mouth when they’re doing anything that you don’t want them to do. You have to have a lot of presence of mind to use different words in your vocabulary, then a straight out know for sure, definitely. And then some of the final, like the big milestones and the first year is standing up, which not usually we talked about this a little bit earlier. They stand up holding on to things around nine months old.

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And this can also vary drastically. Anywhere from 10 to 15 months old is considered normal for starting to stand up without the support of the couch or coffee table. And to help encourage the standing when they’re first starting out. You can put

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Come on your lap, with their feet on your legs and help bounce up and down to really build that leg strength. And then you can also put them close to things that they can safely pull up on. You want to avoid some toys that are easy to topple over, because they’ll try to stand up on it. And I’ll just fall over on top of them, which can be a little bit dangerous. And then from there, their first steps normally come in around nine in 12 months. They’ll start by cruising along furniture while holding on to some or they can like hold on to something supportive, like a walker. And then they’ll just slowly start to take independent steps from there.

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And once they take the small steps, they’ll start really cruising along. But this is not really until I would say probably 15 months old is when you should talk to your pediatrician if they’re not really taking steps by then, but it’s totally normal. I would

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have friends and they have a 11 month old and she’s walking all around. And it’s really easy to look at her and say, Oh man, like, why isn’t my kid? You know, again, why isn’t he walking yet, but don’t feel bad if your kid is a year old and they’re not really walking. That can come a little bit later. And that’s totally normal there. There’s nothing wrong with them. They’re just developing at their own pace, or my right to say we’re about to the point of going from those physical type of milestones more into some of the mental milestones as far as more words and comparing the number of words they have in their vocabulary.

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How many words they can put together for you know, a three word sentence a four word sentences, about that time that those milestones start to come into play. Yeah, definitely between really one and like three years old, that’s when they really start to develop personalities and and it’s not

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much about, like physical development and making sure they can open and close their hand. Right and, and taking those first steps. It’s it’s really about forming their vocabulary like you said, and, and making sure that they’re understanding empathy and compassion for others and other things that are really important in a development that can’t really be.

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I guess you have to teach them. Someone isn’t really going to learn how to be compassionate for others, if you don’t show compassion for them and and show them how to be compassionate, I guess is is what I’m getting at. Yeah, and you’re hitting into one of the questions I had had here, where I’ve read different opinions about compassion, manners, those type of behavioral dare I even say societal considerations, versus the vocabulary or even learning to start to count, especially pre K.

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And then getting into preschool and into kindergarten. Have you done kind of some research around there to suggest that?

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Let’s say if you had to pick one being more behind than the other, that the social things of learning to share, let’s say, or other things like that, versus maybe not knowing their alphabet, as well as the steps would suggest they maybe would, again, any research on which one is easier to get caught up on if one would fall behind either of those two categories. I haven’t done a ton of research on it because my son isn’t quite there yet. But in my opinion, I think both are important, but I personally as like a human being, I prefer someone who maybe is super nice and caring and compassionate and maybe doesn’t get straight A’s in school and doesn’t do amazing versus someone who is a genius, but is brewed and really not

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compassionate towards others. If you think about the kind of person you want your child to be, that really helps you put an emphasis on where you’re going to focus a lot of time and they’re going to learn counting their ABC is at school, they’re going to learn how to read in their classroom. But it’s a lot harder to teach a classroom full of kids how to be a good person. And that’s really I think, where parents role comes in is just helping them develop these like personal skills that they’re going to take without them through life. Yeah, and I even think of going all the way to the work world, which is all eventually find themselves in as far as how you can be more effective as far as working in a team versus having to be an individual contributor. And certainly there are roles for both but you know, folks that can work in a team could potentially have more options, you know, as they figure out what they’re going to do in school and even into the work world. So

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It does seem to me that there is a significant importance to making sure that they have and those those social cues down that they can work with their peers and,

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you know, have good manners. And then like you said, presumably, a lot of the other stuff can come as far as the educational side and so on. So I tend to have a similar view on that. And like I said, that that’s what I had seen in a couple of articles that that I’ve read on the subject. So I was curious if you heard similar and like you said, I guess I guess you’ll start to find out a little bit more as as your son gets into those those toddler years and the sharing and all those fun lessons come up. Oh, yeah, definitely. So switching gears a little bit here. A couple other items that I had that I noticed you’ve done is topics. One is traveling with kids and the reason why it’s interesting to me is

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I know for us a lot of the rules that we have can get thrown out the window when we travel just because

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It’s whatever you can do to sort of get through whatever that distance is. For us when I visiting parents, it’s about a six hour ride. So, yeah, we sort of tried to make sure either they’re napping at the beginning so that we get a couple hours in before we’re having to pull out all the stops to keep everybody sane, or maybe get a couple good hours in and hopefully they nap in the middle, you know, with a break somewhere. So the couple items that I think of our food, right, you try to make healthy choices, do the right thing, you know, on a day to day basis, but like I said, From my standpoint, travel, you know, all bets are off as far as a what’s available, it’d be like what you can pack as far as snacks or, you know, for example, that’s too long. It’s not like you’re gonna be able to bring sandwiches unless you do a whole cooler but you might not even have the room for that. So what is your philosophy with traveling especially with a baby, and then if you’ve done any research as they get into again, like that toddler age where

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Just the long car rides can really be a challenge for him. Yeah, definitely. I think like you said, Sometimes all your rules kind of fly out the window when you’re just trying to survive that six hour car ride or however long your car right is because if your child is, you know, crying and screaming in the backseat, there’s only so long that you can handle that and you’re stuck in a car with them, you can’t pull them, you can’t comfort them, you have to get from point A to point B. So it really becomes a survival mode type of situation. And you’re, I know my parents and me, I would do whatever I have to do to just make it to the end point. And I think that actually can make car rides a little bit more fun. If you do have special privileges during car rides for kids.

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for food, you know, if you don’t go out to eat very often, and now you get to stop at McDonald’s and everyone gets a happy meal. You know, my mate gets really happy. Even if

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That’s not something that you normally do and you try to avoid greasy fast food or, you know, just as an example, I think that just really helps make the car ride a little bit easier. And it doesn’t mean that now you’re going to eat fast food every day for the rest of their lives. You know, one unhealthy meal isn’t going to hurt your child, I agree as well. And I will say for myself something that I had to adjust as traveling by myself and being able to do things faster, that I had to train myself to also be able to slow down. And the meal is really a way I think, to do that. Whereas, you know, think about not doing the drive thru. In going in and giving the kids a chance to stretch out relax a little bit before they’re back into the car.

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And the first few times we did that I’m sort of looking at my watch, like, oh, man, we got to go, you know, like, if we were doing the drive through, I’d be 30 miles down the road further, you know, by the time by the time we get everything cleaned up, but I think even from the parent’s standpoint, you got to sort of step back

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A little bit, yeah, make a little bit of special time even in between the travel because it can be stressful, and just treat it as such as long as it doesn’t become habit forming, you know, in your daily life after the fact that it should be just fine. Yeah, and I know one of the other topics you had mentioned was screentime for the older kids and toys in the car. And I think that really goes hand in hand where I know a lot of parents don’t allow their kids to have screen time and the except for when they’re in the car. And that just helps it give them something to focus on and, and keeps them entertained while they’re driving. I think I know screentime is is pretty

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controversial with when it comes to kids especially. But I don’t know me, me personally, I don’t really see that big of an issue. I feel like it’s more hurtful to the child to screen for a full six hours. You know if that’s it, those are your two options. I would definitely pick this one.

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I’m over that but you know parenting isn’t black and white. It’s a lot of gray area that comes with that. But I know there are a lot of tips for keeping them entertained on those long car rides and one of them is actually using special toys that only come out during car rides. And they can be labeled with your different kids names so that way everyone has their own been their own toys, they don’t have to share if they don’t want to and they get to play with toys that they haven’t played with maybe in a year on your last long car ride and they seem brand new and really fun and and that can also help with keeping them entertained during those like long trips. We do the same kind of combining both of those ideas. As far as the screen time is concerned, as well as special toys. You know, we do try to limit it you know in our daily lives. But it is at this point known that when we go travel, they’ll get more time on you know, a tablet or whatever

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else we might happen to have. So

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it does help make the trip itself seem like its own special time. And then of course, you just got to make sure that you’re consistent that once the trip is over on the back end that you know, whether it’s a special toy or if it is, you know, some sort of electronic device that then that goes away and we go back to the regular schedule because our son once he started to put it together, and he tried to, let’s say extend some of the vacation definitions

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as far as when he should be able to have the tablet and watch certain shows and so on. So get he got kind of crafty with it. But again, like you said, we have found similar that if there is a correlation to a special toy or some other special event that goes along with the travel at least it gives him something to look forward to while while you’re getting to where you need to go so that they’re not super stressed out.

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Because I will say like you said controversial topic certainly as far as screentime and limiting screentime just in general so I won’t go into any are too many of those details but um except to say we have witnessed some of what people talk about as far as what can be addiction is concerned so so we definitely went through some of the cycles of rolling it back into our daily lives but but again for those car trips, I think all bets are off.

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And you do what you can to make that work we even the first time we took the kids on a flight and I have to credit my wife for doing this research or finding this out she bought you know, like five or six just little dollar been toys and actually wrapped them up so about once an hour it gave them you know, a new thing to open and see what they had and you know, keep their attention for a little while, you know, before they would be ready for

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For the next thing, and it actually worked really, really well, for that part. And, you know, really, if you do the math, it’s like, yeah, that seems like a lot of things. But hey, if you get an activity book or something like that, that might be on the way, you know, you’re spending the same amount of money, and it probably won’t last as long. So that might be something to consider for folks. And that was we were doing a cross country flight from Virginia to Los Angeles. So we needed you know, any trick we could find. And we found that that was definitely a good one to be able to use again, to just make it seem a little bit special to make the time go a little bit faster. Yeah, definitely. That’s a great idea. The last item that I had, again, kind of sticking with everybody has different opinions on this one is the childcare options. And I know that you have talked about this, I think in a couple of your blog posts and episodes. So give me your overview as far as what those options are. And if you have

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Any pros and cons for each one of those options that people should be aware of, again, obviously, everybody’s family situation is unique. And they don’t necessarily have all these options available to them. But I think at the same time,

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this is is an area where information is power, kind of like we were saying, having as much information at your fingertips so that you can make the most informed decision possible. So tell me about what your research has found as far as the childcare options for families. Yeah, definitely. So there’s really four major types of childcare options. I know there’s probably a lot of other alternatives out there that you can do just on a case by case basis. But when it comes to like your, your initial research and trying to decide what method you’re going to go with, it really comes down to using group facilities. I home daycare, which is daycare in somebody else’s home, in home nannies, which is what

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Are someone comes to your home and watch is just your child or children inside your house. And then family care, which is a really popular one which is where grandma or your aunt or you know your your sister so the child’s aunt watches them during the day or someone that is related to your child that watches your baby while you’re at work. So the first one, the group facility, this is one of the most common forms of childcare. They typically have multiple classes and they’re sorted by age. So each class will have designated teachers and age appropriate toys and activities, goals that they want to accomplish throughout the year. And it’s really a classroom like setting where they’re able to play and interact with other children that are their same age. They have more adult on site usually, and smaller child to teacher ratios. But these definitely have their downsides. Some of them are

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scheduling conflicts. That’s the number one reason people decide not to use a group facility, they typically have a much more limited hour of operation than others. And if it doesn’t work with your work schedule, then you may eliminate it really all together. And not only that, but a lot of times they’re late policy is can be really strict. And I know my daycare, I think they charge you like a few dollars for every minute, you’re late. So not not ours every minute you’re late. So if you’re 10 minutes late, you’re charged a ridiculous amount of money. So I know some of them are more strict than others. I think my daycare is a little more lacks on that role. It’s it’s more in place, in case someone starts to abuse the system that they can enforce it. But I know other daycares that, you know, your very first offense, if you’re five minutes late, they’re charging you that like $20 or whatever it comes out to be

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and having this large group of people

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Children can be really encouraging and other aspects. It allows you child to play with other kids, they learn how to share and develop at faster paces because they’re able to watch other kids. So they see one kid crawl over to their toy and they’re like, hey, I want to do that too. And, and it really just helps they are able to learn by watching other kids do it. But some children do struggle with overstimulation and it can take a toll on their sleep schedules while they’re at daycare. So they really have their pros and cons to it. I think the group facility like this is really common because it is really similar to a classroom like setting. It has structure. If a teacher sick, it doesn’t affect your schedule. You know, you bring your kid every day, at the same time every day and you know, there’s going to be someone there to watch their child.

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When it comes to a home daycare, this is really similar to group facilities.

45:00
Except for they are held inside of a house, the children will normally varying age. And they’ll have anywhere between like two to 15 total kids with one to two teachers on site. And the exact number of children and the teacher child ratio will really depend on the local government regulations and the type of daycare they’re at. So that’s really specific to your location. But on average, it has less kids, and they have more, a larger age range inside the facility, so your baby is in the same room as maybe like four year old.

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These home daycare still have to be licensed in most states to make sure they’re following all the safety regulations. But these daycares are normally less stringent on schedules and are frequently less expensive than facility. The homey environment is really appealing to some parents, especially for children. That might mean

46:00
more attention or special accommodations. So I know some babies like have to be rocked to sleep, or they really want to be held all the time, you can ask the teacher to maybe wear like a carrier, and they can just wear your baby and a front pack versus some of the facility. They don’t really allow for that type of hands on. It’s kind of like a safety issue.

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But you know, this one does have some downsides as well. They have less regulations and limited backup plans. So if someone calls in sick, or if an emergency happens, they don’t always have someone that can show up to the daycare. If there’s only really one teacher on site. You might be stuck having to take the day off of work to watch your child.

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And then the licensing for in home. daycares really vary by state. So the daycare may not have a strict of guidelines to ensure that they’re properly like, cleaned every night or that

47:00
They have the same level of safety standards, it’ll still be more than just having like a nanny come into your house because they are licensed, but I don’t think they have as strict of policies as a big facility would have. And then the third option is the In Home nanny. These are typically the most expensive option out of the four different types of daycare. This is where a nanny comes to your house and watches your children while you’re gone at work. And this is really convenient because you don’t have to worry about pickup or drop off packing or preparing bottles and mere meals. And you don’t really have to worry about the spread of germs that come with a group daycare facility so your kids are less sick or sick less often than if you were to put them in a regular facility. a nanny is provide parents with a little bit more control over how their child spends their day so you can really decide what your babies exposed to what and when they eat

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where they go and what their overall schedule looks like, like when they take naps and, and all of those items that you get to tell the nanny when that happens. And it really helps your child keep with a schedule, and there’s no other competition for their attention. It’s just your children in one nanny, so you don’t have to worry about if another kid is being if they’re sick and maybe needs a little bit more attention or, you know, they’re teething and they’re just very fussy. That teacher is going to have to spend more time with that other kid and maybe your kid doesn’t get as much one on one playtime as they normally would. Is there any consideration for the nanny whenever the kids would get to school age and presumably they would roll off what you should be prepared for as far as emotions are concerned or separation, that kind of thing is that any sort of a pitfall that should be considered

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I definitely think so with I guess this can also be a factor with the In Home daycare because it is like one to two teachers that your kids are with all the time. But I know that they definitely can form those really strong bonds because they spend so much time with them. In the group facility. That’s what my son’s in. He is really close to the daycare workers, he loves them, but he’s going to be moving classrooms every single year. So it’s not like they’re growing up with one person that’s there every single day. So I definitely think that is one. One of the plus sides and downfalls to having a nanny is there your child’s going to be really comfortable with them. They’re going to be like another person that can go to with issues and just feel really connected to them, which is great. But also, they’re going to feel really connected to somebody who isn’t their parent and may not always be in their life. And that’s

50:00
You know, that’s going to be a hard thing to explain to your child, if your nanny quits or has to move away, why they’re no longer there to watch them, at least in my area, then he’s definitely would be a higher cost than the group care as well. So just acknowledging that it may be an option for some depending on what their budgets are versus others may not necessarily be an option to go along as well with of course, the pros and cons that you mentioned as far as socialization is concerned. We’re also in group care. So like you said, they would go from classroom to classroom, either in a year intervals or even less in some cases. So

50:37
you know, less of a consideration as far as that separation from one teacher to the next. And then you mentioned, I think that the sicknesses that’s one that I would second as well that before having kids, I did not appreciate how quickly when they get into that type of a setting. They can

51:00
catch all kinds of bugs from the other kids that are in there. Like I mentioned our oldest, I was able to keep him with me until he was seven months and he wasn’t sick once at all. And within like two weeks, probably even less. When he first went into our group facility, he was runny nose sick. He had a lot of different ear infections, all that kind of stuff that was in and out. So it’s something I think for folks to be prepared for for sure. When you prepare the childcare that, you know, you may be getting those calls as your baby and toddler get their immune system, you know, a little more up to snuff and fight off those bugs because because at the onset, you name it, it feels like they’re going to get it. At least that’s how it feels when they first get in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, my son’s 10 months old, and I think he’s probably had a cold, maybe eight different times.

52:00
since you started daycare, it’s nuts at least once a month, he ends up getting sick, and has the runny nose and the snot everywhere. And it’s just, it’s gross and you feel so bad for them because they can’t breathe. You know, they sound like a little Bulldog. And yeah, what I use as a saving grace is so I’m told that you can tell the difference between those kids that have gone through it at the younger age, versus the kids that you know, either were staying with family or were able to stay at home up until preschool in kindergarten. The kids that are in the full time daycares have way more built up immune system, kids, you’re you’re paying for it now so that you don’t have to pay for it later when the rest of the kids get into kindergarten. So that’s what I keep telling myself at least anyway. Yeah, I know that I tell myself the same thing. And just hopefully by the time he starts kindergarten if he gets one golden that

53:00
Christie, I’m going to be so mad. Yeah.

53:03
It goes back to that payoff we were talking about.

53:06
laughter It’s like that, that needs to be the payoff for what we’re dealing with. Now, definitely. Obviously, there are a ton of topics in the parenting world. So we could go on and on, I’m sure, but those are the main ones that I had that really hit home for me as far as when our kids were babies. Are there anything that’s Top of Mind that you’re either researching now or that you’ve had to deal with? that you’d like to mention before we sign off? Oh, man, I like you said I could go on for days on everything. I would. I would just say, do some research and, you know, look up some information, listen to podcasts, and really just do your due diligence and informing yourself because it’ll make parenting so much easier. When you know what your options are. You won’t feel pressured into anything. You’ll just have a really informed view on parenting.

54:00
There’s so much information out there and there’s so many tips that can make your life so much easier. So I wouldn’t say I have anything in specific that I could dive into because I could be here for another three hours talking about right you know, other parenting topics, but that’s definitely my suggestion is just even if you listen to podcasts at work, that’s what I do. I listen all day and and not even just parenting items, but just podcasts in general because it’s a great way to, to get information on your drive or why you’re just sitting there and, and it really helps with creating a well rounded, you know, knowledge base. Yeah, I totally agree. And you want to go ahead and give your social media contacts, your website information, and any maybe special events that you have coming up how people can get ahold of you. Yeah, of course. So you can find everything at growing our family calm, and that’s growing. Oh, you are family calm and that has My pleasure.

55:00
My blogs every week I do a product review on baby pregnancy related products that I really enjoy. And then it also has links to my social medias. But for anything I’m on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, that’s growing our family and and for social media that’s growing the letter our family this because it’s too long with the whole thing written out. And and for any parents out there I do have a Facebook group that you can join and you can find that on my Facebook page I linked to it and on my website that we just we just started it but we talked about parenting topics and and it’s really a great community of right now it’s mostly moms but we welcome parents of you know moms and dads, everyone to just go on and and ask questions and get feedback because I think having a community of supportive parents can really help with this whole process and make you feel not as alone in in the parenting process. So I would definitely say

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Second that that one of the best parts about our playdates is that you can compare stories with the other parents and find out that you’re not alone and some of the struggles that happened to come up. So that community is definitely a good support system as you’re dealing with the different things that can come up with your kids that are of any age. Well, Brittany, I really appreciate again, you taking some time and you have an open invite to come on the show anytime you’d like because, like we said, there are plenty of topics I think that we can cover in the world of parenting. And I think I think we’re all set so you gotta appreciate it. Well, thank you so much for having me. I had a great time talking with you today. Okay, take care. You too. Bye. Bye.

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If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to give us a rating on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to be notified of future weekly shows, please hit the subscribe button. Thank you. Suburban Folk.

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is part of the pod all the time Podcast Network with six other great podcast Nick here and I’m the co host of a podcast called real aka true real aka true was a podcast that talks trending topics celebrity news music sports life the world around us and more the way was yet hilarious aspect

57:20
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