Improper raising of children

Max shopping in Sacramento.

Max playing poker with Great Uncle Peter.

OK, we're back. Delia's almost healed and is exercising again, we're getting breaks thanks to both sets of grandparents, and Max has received several upgrades. Pretend Max is a month younger for this update and you'll be on top of things.

A couple videos: First, here's a video documenting Max's roll to his side.

Max demonstrating side roll.

And here's a video of Max walking.

Max walking.

You may think the above pictures and video are cute, but we are doing irreparable damage. First, Kaiser nurses told us that assisted walking is bad for Max. As we later learned, everything else we currently do for Max will make him a disease-ridden, deformed sociopath. Sit him up on our lap? It will deform his spine. Hold him upright? It will stop him from developing core muscles. Lie him on his back? He'll develop a flat head and not develop normally. Show him lots of love? He'll become overly dependent and whiney. As we learned, his only hope in a normal life relies on us putting him on his tummy until he screams. (On what might be a possibly related note, my parents recently told us we need to relax more. So, basically, you're saying we're not being ideal parents? That stresses us out! How will Max react to the stress? He's going to be anxiety-ridden!)

Some people we know have been inspirational to me. One of them told me to just put spit on a kid's wound to make him think it's better. So, I asked him, won't he'll lose all trust in you? He replied, "By the time he's old enough to know, he's lost all trust in you anyway." I asked, "But what if he still trusts you? He'll keep putting spit on his wound forever!" He replied, "Builds up his immune system." I will be seeking more advice from him.

By contrast, the nurses at Kaiser are slowly losing their grip on us. When Max went back to breastfeeding, he woke up every 2 hours to feed. This drove Delia insane.

Max at 5:00 am. He was fed and diapered. He was also very awake.

Delia's mom told her she was working when Dan was a baby and was also sleep deprived, so eventually she tried to put Dan on a feeding schedule at night - 4 hours between feedings. Dan was horrible for 2 nights and then, like magic, took to the feeding schedule. This story is very similar to the another dad, who had 6 kids, all of whom were put on a schedule, and all of whom adapted fine after a couple days. But when I asked a Kaiser nurse if Max was old enough for a schedule, she responded, very scared, "But he's hungry!!! How would you like someone to take away your food when you're hungry?" Soon, I heard her speed-dial Child Protective Services. I got a similar reaction from the nurse to another time-tested method to get a baby to sleep longer - dissolve cereal in some milk. Max completely lost his taste in formula, which rendered the idea moot anyway. In any case, we are getting a very strong suspicion that these nurses are not following their advice with their own kids.

First attempt at feeding Max rice cereal mixed with formula. He liked it less with each passing day. We didn't know why until we tried it. Our suprising conclusion: Formula tastes nasty - sort of like a Tang version of milk.

Finally, we came up with a solution. We already knew that Max went to bed far easier on his tummy. We put him on his tummy, he cried and flailed around, which just tired him out, and then he finally passed out after around 5-10 minutes - after which we flipped him on his back. But we soon noticed he slept longer on his tummy. Apparently this is very common with babies, so my generation was put to bed on our stomach. So, we kept Max on his tummy through the night. Yes, this increases the risk of SIDS, but really, given his current sleeping pattern, it might be his only path to survival. And it worked - he slept for progressively longer times for 2 weeks.

Max on tummy.

Then disaster struck.

We should have seen it coming earlier. But only now are we beginning to understand what happened. First, we placed Max in the center of the crib (see above photo), but we later picked him up, crying, with his head against a crib corner or his arm sticking through the rails. We never saw it happen in real time. The crib didn't seem to be tilted.

A day later, Max's back was wedged against the crib rails. He was on his side.

"Did you put him there?" I asked.
"Nope." Delia replied.

Then we found him on his back.

Now we realize he was moving around the crib like an inchworm. Unfortunately, he has no reverse gear, but when he hits a barrier, he simply cries. To flip over, he tucked his legs under his tummy and fell over. Soon, he was doing it quickly. And hence, the tragedy. No longer does he flail around anymore - just a neat flip to the side, and he has plenty left in the tank for hours of wailing. Gone are our carefree days when we could guarantee Max could go to sleep whenever he was cranky.