montessori-mama - Tumblr blog

[montessori-mama]

My kid slept through his night feedings two days in a row, which made me overconfident. He was he was up at 3:30, and I finally got him back down around 5, thinking I might be able to sleep till 6:30.

The cat at 6 on the dot: Mom. I need food immediately, and I will hold this room hostage to get it.

[montessori-mama]

The eternal question: do I wake my kid up to feed him the bottle I made when I thought he was waking up (last sanitized bottle) or do I wait until he wakes up naturally (preserve the sleep cycle but also I have to drag my ass to the kitchen to sanitize more bottles at 2 am).

[montessori-mama]

Teach your children how to deal with emotions in a constructive way. I wish I had done this with my children.

[montessori-mama]

I live in America, which means that my three month old is in daycare so that I can go to work and care for other people's babies.

We live in a high cost of living area, so the least expensive daycare is a mortgage payment. I am paying as much in daycare a year as I spent to go to college. According to Chicago Parent Magazine, the US is in a childcare crisis, defined as a lack of affordable or available childcare options. According to the Department of Health and Human Services cited in the article, that means families would pay around 7% of their annual income on childcare, but many families pay up to 15%.

We don't have family in the area who could help provide reliable childcare, so our choices were to either pay a quarter of our annual income to put my son in daycare, or to lose 50% of our annual income and have one of us stay home. I'm not great at math, but I know I can't cut enough coupons to make up that kind of money.

We were lucky to find a Montessori school that is both close and certified, and it was in the mid-range of daycare prices in the area. We went for a visit while I was still pregnant and were impressed by their class sizes, the respectful and calm way the teachers spoke to the children, and the lack of chaos. All of the kids, even the babies, radiated contentment in a way that I had never seen before in a childcare environment. That's not to say that it was silent -- children talked to one another and played, but there was a lack of screaming and meltdowns that I had come to expect from a daycare or school.

I watched a one year-old boy drop his open water cup, and when the teacher handed him a rag and asked him to please clean up his spill, he did so cheerfully. The kid next to him knocked over a bowl of blueberries, and the teacher repeated the ritual, and the two of them worked together to clean up. I was pretty much sold right then.

We are lucky to have found this school. I trust them to care for my son, and he enjoys his time there. We got on the waiting list right after he was born, and thankfully the time on the wait-list was shorter than some people experience (he only was without childcare for a week when a spot opened, so it was about a 3 month wait).

That said, in an ideal world I would be able to either stay home with him until he is at least 6 months or to drop down to part time and have him in school far less. Full time childcare is a lot for a baby, and it's a lot for his mother.

He needs to spend some time in daycare because he will be an only, and it's such a good way for him to learn social skills. It would just be nice if there were also a way to have him home more often and to spend more than 2 hours a day with him that doesn't involve both of us being up all night. We'll have to confine our adventuring to weekends when I am not working, I suppose.

I'm glad we found a place where I know he will be safe and I have seen him be happy. It's just really rough to not see him as much as I want to, and to have to spend all of my time with other people's children when I want to have my own with me.

[montessori-mama]

unsolicited parenting advice of the day tell your kids what to expect! If your two year old is anxious about when dad is going to get home from work, teach him to recognize what patterns indicate that dad is coming home soon! After lunch we will do an activity and then clean and THEN dad will get home. Listen when the calendar day starts with an S dad does not have to go to work!!

and if something goes wrong and today does NOT go according to the plan your little guy expects, tell him!! Hey, dad has to go to work after all today, but he will be home after lunch! Today dad has to get groceries after work, so he’ll be home later than normal. But he will return with more bananas! Focus on the positives too, give them things they can understand. Don’t just say “not today,” they understand the concept of grocery stores and unexpected trips. Just tell them the problem. You’d hate being in the dark about everything that happens to you also. Let them control their situation, even if it’s just their own emotions and expectations.

or even! Teach them to read an analogue clock! Let me tell you, church nursery in the 1.5-3.5 age group got so much less stressful and anxious for EVERYONE when I taught my kids how to read the clock. They don’t have to ask me anymore how much time is left and fish for answers I can’t give them. They know that their guardians will come for them when the long stripe on the clock touches the 2, and that if they aren’t there then then they’re LATE and they get to hold this over their parents head. Because they know their parents can be late. And they LOVE knowing when this has occurred. There is so much less anxiety.

anyway explain stuff to your kids, they want to know. This has been an unsolicited parenting advice PSA

[montessori-mama]

Without looking it up, when you first hear "Tornado Warning", what does that mean to you?

[montessori-mama]

Hey I keep thinking about this question.

For further elaboration; you will be perfectly healthy without it, and face no complications relating specifically to that thing. You can still get exhausted from physical work and need to sit down and rest, but you won't have to be completely unconscious to recover. Likewise, your nutrients will stay balanced and you stay at your current weight, but you won't need any food. You can drink if you want, but its not needed if you don't eat.

And you absolutely CANNOT do what you choose ever again. no enjoying good food or enjoying a comfortable nap. Make your choice.

Reblog if you want it will be appreciated 👍

[montessori-mama]

I got a free milkshake from a local restaurant as a mother's day promotion. Guess childbirth was worth it after all.

[montessori-mama]

I had a day off yesterday.

And I can already practically hear the assumptions that such a statement is prompting the reader to make. Those assumptions are wrong. I don't mean I didn't work. I did, for about 8 hours. That's not at all what I mean.

I mean my wife took the kids out at 9:30, spent the night with her mom, isn't back yet the next morning.

There are things I NEED people on this website to understand about parenting. And I've talked about it before, and I'll talk about it again, because honestly the way that Tumblr as a cohort talks about parents makes me sick. Multiple polls have shown that only about 2% of people on here are parents. We're a huge minority, and we're constantly talked over, ignored, or accused of being bad parents (like, personally, I have had people reply to my comments or come on to my posts and tell me I shouldn't have my kids). In my case, being a parent means I'm almost 41, I'm married to @ramblingandpie, and our children are inching up on being 8 and 6 years old.

My entire day, and therefore my entire life, revolves around them. I'm up most mornings at 5 AM, because that's the earliest they're "allowed" to wake up, and so my brain just defaults to being awake around then - better to wake up before them, at least then I get a few minutes in the morning. Between 5 and 7, I sit with them, do my social media, work on side blogs, study Chinese. Then it's helping them get ready for school, then my wife or I or both get them on the bus, and then I work until the last possible minute, which is either when I need to go pick them up for an after school activity or when I need to go down and meet them off the bus. My afternoons are after school activities, chores such as washing the dishes and cleaning up toys, talking with them, working with them, playing with them. Their bedtime starts at 7:40, and my son gets scared if I leave before he falls asleep so I sit with him until about 8:15. As soon as he's asleep, I go fall on my face, sleep as best I can, then wake up and do it again. Overnight, it's hard to sleep deeply, because about once a week someone will wake up in the middle of the night and need help. That could be as minimal as a hug or as complex as having to completely change the bedding on a bunk bed at 2 AM while also comforting a child who is afraid they'll be in trouble, or afraid they're sick, or afraid of their nightmare, or, or, or. Further, if a child is awake, there is always noise. I usually study Chinese with two or more competing sources of noise. I read the same way. My life is loud, and active, and consists of constant interruptions.

I adore my family, and I love my children, but this is terrible for me.

I do all of this as an neurodivergent introvert. My clinical depression is at least medicated, mostly because post-partum depression after I gave birth the first time nearly drove me to suicidal in under a week (we were expecting this and were prepared, fortunately, getting help was as simple as a phone call). The constant noise and interruptions and forced socialibility are about the worst combination of home-life I could be subjected to. I spend far too many early mornings just breathing deeply and gearing myself up to be subjected to the wall of Loud, Boisterous, Needing-My-Attention that is every minute when anyone else in the house is awake.

So what did my day off look like?

I helped get the kids ready to go and did some morning chores. I'd been up at 4:30 AM so I also had already social media'd and studied. Then, while my wife finished the preparations, I started work, and I worked from about 8 am to about 4 pm, straight. I didn't get hungry so didn't bother stopping for lunch. No one interrupted me, no one asked me to look at anything they'd built, no one broke my concentration, no sounds could be heard except those I'd chosen myself.

I'd been out the day before at a local shopping street and listened closely to the things the kids said they wanted, so at 4 I grabbed a couple orders I needed to ship for work and drove to our local downtown, dropped the orders in a post box, then went back to the shops and did some Christmas shopping in the 45 minutes or so before everything closed. I think I'm basically done with what we'll get them - other bigger things will be left to grand parents - so that's a load off, I literally had a stress dream earlier this week about it being 12/24 and having forgotten to do the shopping and having to go to (oh horrors) the mall on the day before Christmas. (Reminder: I'm a Jewish atheist. It's just virtually impossible not to Holiday in the Culturally Christian Hellscape that is the US. Also, my wife is Christian. So.) Found something cute for my wife, too, even tho I already know the main thing I'm getting her. Then, I realized - one of my favorite restaurants is on that block. So. I went there. I sat by myself at a table, only the indistinct restaurant hubbub around me. I read four or five chapters of my book, and ate a savory crepe, and drank lovely fruit tea, and got a scone to-go that I'll eat for lunch today. It was more than I probably should have spent on myself - about $25, including tip - but fuck it. I only get maybe a handful of days off all year, and I'm allowed to indulge a little.

Then I came home. There were no lights on. There was no noise. I had considered doing some more merch work while watching TV on the actual television (my kids are too young for subtitled shows, so usually if I want to watch My Shows I either have to do it on my computer when they're not around, or put them on and read all the subtitles aloud while trying to keep up and process the actual meaning of what I'm reading). But when I got back, the quiet and dark was so goddamn NICE that instead I curled up on the couch and read more of my book. I did that until bedtime - still about 8:15, because I'm exhausted. Then...I went to bed. And I slept long and deep, knowing that there was no chance I'd be interrupted and woken up, I didn't have to be, even in sleep, alert to every noise and possibility that I'd be needed.

I'm still exhausted and burned out, but even one night to myself felt really, really nice.

Saying "Tumblr does X" as a universal statement is doomed to failure, but generally speaking, the parenting posts I see on Tumblr, the ones with tens or hundreds of thousands of notes, speak what's apparently widely seen as a truism on here: that unless someone wants to spend 24/7 with their kids, to be 100% emotionally available at all times, is always kind and patient and perfect, they are a bad parent, maybe even abusive. I remember when covid started, there were multiple posts actively mocking the "oh god, my kids are now home all the time, how am I supposed to do this?" attitude that a lot of parents posted in despair. WhY dId YoU hAvE kIdS iF yOu DoN't WaNt To SpEnD tImE wItH tHeM?

Look at what my usual day looks like.

Look at what my day off looked like.

Do you really think I don't want to spend time with my kids? Do you really think I don't love my kids?

But I'm not a fucking MACHINE. I'm a PERSON. That's what people on Tumblr seem to forget. PARENTS ARE PEOPLE. The same tumblrinas who post ~uwu be kind to yourself rest if you need to, you should forgive yourself for that mistake you made~ will turn around, with zero sense of irony, and post "you're a bad parent if you ever raise your voice around a child."

Expecting parents to be perfect means expecting parents to be inhuman. It also means that a parent can't be poor (can't spend all your time being the perfect parent if you have to work multiple jobs or weird hours!), can't be introverted (can't be a perfect parent if you're not completely emotional available, god forbid socializing is exhausting for you), can't be on the ADHD or autism spectrum (what do you mean you forgot to get your kid to a doctor's appointment once? what do you mean over-stimulation can make you angry? how dare you get angry at a kid!), can't be depressed (gotta get out of bed every single day, gotta always be upbeat, patient, happy, or else that's Evil), can't be (like my wife) physically disabled (what do you mean your hands hurt too much to hold a child's hand? are you denying them touch?? CRUEL). And when the only answer you can offer to that is, "if you can't be that perfect you shouldn't be a parent," then you're saying people who aren't middle class to wealthy, people who aren't neurotypical, people who aren't physically able, shouldn't have children.

And honestly...what the fuck is your problem?

I'm not perfect. I tell my kids to just leave me alone sometimes. I raise my voice, especially when one of my kids starts punching the other, but also sometimes just cause I'm exhausted and Can't Anymore. I've forgotten an appointment by accident and felt like a total fucking idiot, and I've skipped an after school activity because I just wasn't up for taking them. I've served them more unbalanced, unhealthy meals than I can count. I've made many, many mistakes, but I've also done my best, and I love my kids, and I hope that when they grow up, they'll still love me even as they recognize that I wasn't perfect, just as I've come to accept my own parents' short-comings while still loving them very much. They're people, too, and the older I get, the more I understand where they were coming from.

When I fuck up, I apologize.

When they tell me they're unhappy with something I've done, I apologize, and I try to do better. Sometimes I even succeed.

This shit is hard, yo. And it's getting harder every year.

I'm BEGGING Tumblr: you need to start seeing parents as people. The way y'all talk about parenting on here is toxic, and genuinely harmful, and frankly exhausting. You have no idea what the reality of raising kids is like, and you need to shut the entire fuck up.

I had a day off yesterday.

I might get one more before the end of 2023.

I already can't wait. I am so, so, so tired. sigh

(if you actually read this whole rant and even a single word of it resonated for you, please reblog it. I'm tired of never seeing positive posts about parenting while I see negative ones with a bajillion notes.)

[montessori-mama]

“Because I said so” teaches your child NOTHING.

[montessori-mama]

Being sick with a baby is actually the worst? If we definitely had the same thing it would still suck but mine has morphed into a sinus infection and now my husband and I are scared for me to take care of the baby too much in case it's dangerous for me to touch him.

So not only is my baby sick and miserable, and I can't do anything about it, I also can't hold him to try to make him feel better.

3 months is too freaking young for daycare.

[montessori-mama]

Part of the issue is that there is no support for parents in this country. For working parents, we have to work full time to afford to put our kids in daycare so we can work full time. Even if people have family or friends willing to help, that doesn't mean they are also willing to help immediately, babysit, be on the phone in the middle of the night, etc.

So everything is super expensive, most people can't afford to either have one partner stay home or to pay for childcare but have to pick one anyway, and they need to try to get stuff done while hanging out with their kids because "free" time doesn't really exist anymore. That will inevitably lead to a lot of people doing things like freaking out at their kids, especially if the kids do normal kid things like Be Loud In Public At Inconvenient Times.

It breaks my heart when I see people screaming at their kids at work, especially because I would give a lot to be with my kid but instead have to send him to daycare so I can work. I understand how it happens, how you get to that frustration threshold, but it is upsetting to watch.

But mom groups meet during the week and during work hours. Library programs and park district kid programs too, all of which require parent supervision and involvement. That leaves people with the Internet, listicles about "10 ways to make your kids stop crying now" while they are screaming. Kids get used to seeing parents with phones in their hands. Kids want to copy their parents and start begging for phones or iPads. So it begins. But what else can some parents do? Blaming them for trying to keep the kid quiet with an iPad when schools are integrating iPads and Chromebooks, when they don't have any real guidance or support, is just not helpful. @justsomeantifas is right, this is a systemic issue.

at a certain point we’re going to have to accept that all this posturing about “most people being abusive and neglectful parents” is an indication of a societal issue that we are conveniently turning into personal moral failures of parents

either because they hit their kids or shove their kids in front of screens or because they do not know how to properly feed their kids or because they do not play with their kids etc. …

so we as a society don’t have to actually structurally change anything to make life easier on families and children.

What I find most haunting as a parent right now is how negatively parents speak of their kids, as if their kids are messy burdens designed to make life hard and them look bad and the fact that I struggle to find parents like me who love their kids and enjoy letting them get messy and have fun outside … is an indication of a larger issue

The fact that my kids pediatrician was surprised my 3 year old doesn’t know how to use a phone or a tablet/has a tan … this cannot be simply classified as personal issues…

We need more parent and child support groups, educational outreach programs… it needs to be more acceptable to take kids places outside of kid designated zones—even if the kid is loud and prone to outburst…

The world is pretty hostile right now towards children … we’re a highly technologically advanced society where many of us spend a large amount of time socially participating online a place children cannot and should not go.

The convenient answer is to blame parents … but the fact that it is *so many parents* doing this *should* ring alarm bells as a larger issue … one that we cannot simply rule out as a skill issue on the part of parents doing this.

We aren’t going to get anywhere with improving the lives of children by simply shaming parents for doing things that harm kids like shoving tablets in their faces … only when socially conscious efforts are made to better lives does change for the better start to take shape.

[montessori-mama]

I have a sinus infection because someone sent their kid to school sick. I called out of work because I sound like a rusty hinge and went to the doctor, who gave me antibiotics and told me to go home and sleep till my tonsils aren't swollen shut.

Me: ok, I put a load in the dishwasher, time to make a snack and lie down for a few hours until it's time to pick up the little one.

The school: come pick up your kid, he's oozing.

Me: 😭😭😭

I'm sick. My kid is sick. Both cats are sick. My husband is the last man standing in this house.

[montessori-mama]

Parents, for the love of everything that ever pretended to be holy, do not make household cleaning a punishment for your children.

My parents did that. As an adult, I would rather stare at a blank wall for five hours straight than wash dishes. I would rather do math problems without a calculator and have my answers read aloud in public than clean a bathroom. If my hatred of cleaning was a capturable energy it could power interstellar travel. All because, growing up, cleaning house was a primary form of punishment.

Don’t fuckin’ do that. You’re not instilling discipline. You’re instilling hatred for something they need to be able to do as adults without hating every microsecond of it.

[montessori-mama]

[montessori-mama]

seeing a lot of videos that are like “I didn’t know babies couldn’t have water” so here’s an incomplete list of things you need to know before having a baby

- the obvious, they can’t have water bc milk is incredibly high in water already so excess water leads to over hydration

- babies cannot have honey until 1

- if ur breastfeeding your kid and saving excess milk, make sure you label what you pumped in the morning vs at night bc your body produces different melatonin levels throughout the day and giving your baby daytime milk at night can make them more alert and fuck up their sleep schedule

- idk why ppl keep saying this but swaddling your babies or getting them those baby straight jacket things is not abuse. It chills them out cuz it reminds them of the womb

- babies have a dandruff like buildup on their head called cradle cap, and it’s very easy to deal with and remove with just some baby shampoo, a gentle scrub brush (MADE FOR BABIES!!) and a comb. It does need to be removed tho cuz it can be very painful after a while. This can also continue to happen late into toddlerhood it’s normal

- you have to clean out the creases of your baby’s skin and hands and feet they WILL collect dust😭😭

- you cannot bathe your baby until their umbilical cord naturally falls off. Use a warm damp rag until then

- tummy time is actually very important

- your baby might have a misshapen head at first (not all the time but sometimes) this will either sort itself out or they’ll need a corrective helmet ask your doctor

- I wouldn’t recommend having your baby leave the house very much until they’re at least 6 months old, especially if they’re born near cold and flu season cuz the common cold can kill a newborn

- you’re not an awful horrible person for having postpartum depression and it’s always a million times better to let your baby cry a few minutes longer than normal while you regain your composure than to freak out and give ur kid shaken baby syndrome

- you’re not an awful horrible person for giving your baby formula milk either

- don’t put shoes on your baby it’ll compromise their toe box and balance

- babies put every single thing in their mouths

- the easiest way to burp a baby is to hold them straight up (spine straight) and hold their head a bit higher

- always support their head they barely have necks

- if your baby fights away food, fights tummy time, vomits every single time you burp them, is gaining or losing an unreasonable amount of weight at a time, wheezes after eating, or goes red after eating, chances are they’re probably allergic to the type of milk they’re eating (again ask a doctor but these are just some signs it’s not just colic)

- they will wobble a lot when learning to do things but you gotta fight the urge to help them every single time cuz they gotta learn

- they’re not always spitting out baby food cuz they don’t like it they just don’t know how to eat. Like they don’t know how to push food down they only know how to stick their tongue out so be patient

- babies craniums are broken up into three parts at first that later fuse together, this is to help make birthing easier but it results in a small EXTREMELY sensitive spot in the top of their head that has no protection. This puts their brain at a high risk. Always protect their soft spot

- read to your baby!! Get cute bright colorful sensory books with sight words and read them to your baby it makes such a huge difference in their educational growth and will help them acquire a love for reading early on. And talk to them never shut up just say whatever comes to mind all the time this will strengthen their vocabulary growth also.

- babies poop like a lot. A lot. an unreasonable amount. Bring back up clothes and more diapers than you think

- no pillows or stuffies in the crib and only use a muslin blanket unless it’s especially cold to prevent suffocation

- babies kick reflexively until they’re out of their newborn scrunch (they stay womb shaped for a while) and if your baby is crying and pushing at the swaddle try letting them flail around for a minute

- consoling your baby is not spoiling them ! They need comfort and they will learn to self soothe on their own

- singing lullabies actually works, they can recognize your voice a consistent place of comfort from the womb and the cadence of lullabies is literally engineered to create a calm headspace

- for the love of god do not get boring ass beige toys. Colors are important for their neurological development

- babies are very responsive to praise from a young age so be as supportive of them as you can

- babies get constipated a lot and you have to do like tummy massages to help ease their pain the easiest way is to lay them on their backs and hold one foot in each hand, kick their feet like bicycles, scrunch up, and then stretch their legs out

- holding them on your hip too much will not cause bow legged-ness if your baby is bow legged that was always gonna happen

- they drool so so much and you have to get bibs for them so they don’t get chest eczema

- don’t use scented products on their skin cuz their skin is sooo much thinner than ours

- when your baby first starts sitting on their own never walk away from them without setting up a nest of pillows and blankets around them. Even minor head trauma can mess them up sometimes

- this one is kinda morbid and scary but sometimes babies just die out of nowhere and it’s no one’s fault or anything it’s called sudden infantile death syndrome(SIDS) and it’s about 1.3k deaths on average per year in America so not super common but still very real. 90% of these deaths happen during the first four months however edit: apparently it’s bc of an enzyme deficiency which at the very least you can take steps to try and prevent

- smoking and drinking during pregnancy WILL affect your baby and your breast milk and also might contribute to SIDS cases

- babies sometimes have a big red mark on them somewhere called a stork bite immediately after birth but typically it goes away

- babies can’t see very well for a while after birth and they’re VERY wobbly so they’ll typically bonk their head into your chest and face a lot while trying to support themselves

- female babies might have smth similar to a period the first few days after birth, this is because of the hormone transfer that happens during the birthing process and the days leading up to it

- male babies get random erections for the first few days after birth(hormone transfer again) literally do not be weird about this it’s a baby

- things like weaning your baby onto solid foods, potty training, weaning off pacifiers etc, can actually be directed by the baby and will happen naturally will minimal guidance from the parent(some guidance is still necessary) although I would do individual research into baby led weaning for food to prevent choking

- get those chewy feeding pouches to help with weaning

- the most random things will scare the hell out of your baby don’t take it personal 😭

- baby carriers are life savers (tulas are one of my favorites)

- once babies hit toddlerhood they’re tougher than you think, and a lot of their reaction is based on YOURS. they’re always going to be looking to you for how to react to a situation. Remain calm and if they’re ok they’ll calm down but if they’re genuinely hurt they’ll keep crying

- babies will most likely get ridiculously attached to an inanimate object and you have to keep this thing intact at all costs until they’re old enough to abandon it or they will throw a FIT. I got a lemur plushie from a zoo once and every single one of the kids has bonded their soul with it until about 6 years old and once a month I have to stitch him back up

- don’t compare yourself to other parents. Maybe your kid isnt getting grass fed wild caught north Atlantic cheerios but at least they’re fed. If your kid is alive and healthy and happy you’re doing a good job

- you will need 3 car seats, an infant seat, a grow with me toddler seat, and a booster seat

- getting a good diaper bag is a MUST

- the hair a baby is born with will most likely all fall out or they’ll get a bald spot on the back of their head where they sleep cuz their hair is so fragile and thin but once it grows back it grows back thick

- get like 20 muslin blankets so you always have a backup when the main ones are covered in spit up

- the babies grip IS stronger than yours (keep your hair up and keep pets away best you can)

- your best bet for your teething baby is a pacifier you can put your finger in so you can massage their gums and some chewing toys numbing cream can be dangerous and should be used sparingly

- go ahead and come to terms with the fact you’re gonna have to use a Frida Baby to manually remove snot

- babies can get hair and thread wrapped around their toes and fingers that can cut off their circulation try to make a habit of checking

- don’t hit your kid please it’s nothing but trauma and fucked up coping mechanisms from there pls empathize with your child they’re a person too

- be careful not to pull too hard on their arms and legs(like during play or holding their hand while they walk) and NEVER pick them up by their hands this will very easily cause dislocation

- they might have a little tooth like callous on their lip from their pacifier. This does not hurt them and it will go away but it may hurt during breastfeeding

- breastfeeding will make your boobs different sizes

Yeag that’s all I can think of rn but yk i Will add as I remember stuff ppl are also adding things I forgot in the tags in case you’d like to look thru that as well <3

[montessori-mama]