Christmas presents

Just a little gift guide for presents for young children, toddlers, infants etc.
My family is soooooo great when it comes to gift giving! We got soooooooo many presents for my boy. All the gifts were perfect. Things he can actually use.

Here is a little guideline when giving gifts to young ones:
If giving clothes, be sure you know the size ie. asked the parents. If you don't know, get bigger and be sure it is season appropriate for when the child grows into it.
Give toys that are age appropriate. Don't give a rattle to a 5 year old. Don't give a toy gun to a 2 year old.
Books are great gifts, again age appropriate. If you don't know get for an older age. They will grow into it. Little hint, kids are talking around 2 years old. Starting to read soon after. But getting books for parents to read is good for both the child and the parent.
Don't give toys that are messy. ie. paints, markers, play dough etc.
Remember, if all else fails buy diapers or wet naps if they are 2 or under.
Over 2: ask me next year.
With popular presents, electronics, and live animals always ask the parents!

How much sleep

How much sleep do babies, toddlers etc. need?

When Tristian was first born he slept almost 20 hours a day. He would wake up eat and then go back to bed. This lasted til he was about 4 months old and then he would slowly sleep less and stay up more until now he sleeps about 10 hours at night and between 2 or 3 hours in his afternoon nap. As soon as Tristian wakes up at around 8:00am, he is wide awake, funny and not tired a bit. After about 4 or 5 hours he starts fading and really needs a nap because he starts to get cranky. He will go for 2 or 3 hours and wake up feeling great, funny and happy. After his afternoon nap he plays and plays and plays and plays and doesn't ever get tired out. By the time it's bed time he is not tired one bit. We bathe him and lie him down with some milk and he seems to get a little bit tired but once he gets up to his room he just wants to play again. I don't know if we are letting him sleep too much for his afternoon nap or if we should run him in a hamster wheel to tire him out. He eventually falls asleep but after at least a half hour.

Changning diapers

Don't be scared!

It's not as bad as you think. Yes, it stinks like shit (hahaha) but once you get past the smell it really isnt that hard. The best way to do it is to have every thing ready before you start. Have the diaper folded out, have wetnaps out, and a good idea is to have something in the babies hand while you are doing it cause they love to get their hands down there. Wipe with the full sheet, fold it wipe with the clean side then fold and wipe one last time. This works really well but takes some practice before you can wipe a full diaper with 2 sheets. Don't worry about wasting sheets, its better to waste then to have shit on your hands and all over the floor and your baby. Remember to always get in the leg grooves and with a girl to wipe down.

Fold the two non sticky wings in

then roll the diaper up

and once you have it rolled up,

roll it and tighten it up with the sticky wings

I was gonna take some pics with a full diaper but that would've been too bad cause we ate curry tonight!

Baby food

What are your best recipes?

I like rice, carrots, onions, potatoes, broccoli, zuchinni, beef or tofu all cut and mashed up wrapped with seaweed! Tristian really loves it, too.

In the night garden/teletubbies

Have you seen either of these shows?

I have heard that you shouldn't let kids watch tv until they are two or until they can talk. This is mostly because when you are watching tv, there is usually no dialogue between you and your child. Anyways, I do watch tv with my son. Go ahead, say I'm a bad father but I don't think so. When I watch tv with my son, we watch it together. I ask him questions and talk about what we are watching and dance and sing with him. He loves it and so do I. I don't think this is bad parenting. But I digress.

These two shows were created by the BBC and for some reason, they absolutely mesmerize my son and other kids. There is this video on youtube that absolutely kills my son:



Also, In the night garden is another awesome show. Whenever we watch this clip, he rips around the house like he is in the video.


I don't know how the good people at BBC come up with these shows but holy wow do they brainwash kids. A few years ago, I can vaguely recall an uprising against teletubbies saying they brainwash kids and some sort of hoopla and at the time I brushed it off. But now having a kid who watches it, I can see what they meant.

Here are some other good shows for kids:

Superwhy (probably the best kid show, great alphabet and phonics help, it also gets the kids to interact with the show)

Busytown Mysteries (I love the songs and how it promotes a questioning attitude)

Sid the Science Kid (great show about learning with great songs)

What are some shows you watch with your kids?
or
do you think kids even should watch tv?

Let me know!

Cribs and beds

So, what I would like to know is how does eveyones babies sleep?

And at what ages do you switch things up?

When my boy was born, we had a crib ready for him when he got home from the hospital and he would sleep in that everynight. I know some parents sleep with their kids, and this is a really sweet idea but honestly it is sooooo dangerous. You can easily roll over and smother your kid, or your blanket can get over top of his or her head and do the same. Also, you don't want your kid to sleep with you just so you can have privacy and not force them to be dependant on you. Which brings me to my problem.

My boy slept in his crib until one unfortunate day (or fortunate, i guess) we walked in on him with his leg over top of the railing and there was no way we could let him stay in it anymore. So, we moved him onto a mattress right quick. Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that in his crib, we would put him down and sing a song and we could leave and no problem. He started this way in his new bed but once he realized he could walk out and open the door we had to stay with him in his bed until he falls asleep. Is this normal?

So, what I want to bring up is possible ways of breaking him of this habit.

Does anyone else have this problem?

He now sleeps in this awesome upside down bunkbed from ikea that has this cool tent and we tricked it up with a sweet little tunnel for him to get into

Awesome, eh?

Thought I would throw up a Christmas picture.

First post

So, I'm not the best father in the world. I don't know the answers to everything. I couldn't change a diaper, give a bath, make formula; I haven't even held a baby before my shining son was born almost 2 years ago but what I can do is give advice, help find answers and use my last 2 years of fatherhood to help those who are thrown into fatherhood without any prior training.

This is partly why I wanted to start this blog, there are very few good resources for fathers on the net. Sure, there are those lame sites that tell you to be supportive of your wife, not to freak out, it will come naturally blah, blah, blah. The specifics are missing and most of the sites assume a lot but what this blog is supposed to do is bring fathers together to help fathers find answers.

So fathers, let's help each other out and I know we can make it through this adventure together.