We have recent addition to our family (arrived almost 7 months ago). It has inspired me to start what could be an epic disaster of a thread. Unsolicited advice on how to raise your kids has to rank near the top of any list of non-violent anti social behavior. But this is what internet discussion board are for right? Both parents and non-parents are welcome to join the discussion. Feel free to discuss anything parent related.

I have strong opinions on how to raise my kids but I also realize that every family is different. I try really, really hard not to be judgmental about other parents. I still judge other parents.

I'd love to get some participation from Chinese Moms or the children of Chinese Moms.

I'll get the ball rolling with how we treat some hot button issues for the baby stage.

1. We co-sleep.

2. we did not and will not Ferberize our baby.

3. we plan to breastfeed until one year. Solids are already being introduced. Started at 6 months.

4. We basically follow an Attachment Parenting philosophy w/o the cloth diapers and all the hippy/eco/wiccan type BS.

5. I used to think LFS was overprotective of his kids for not letting them play with the crazy Russian neighbor kids. Now I sympathize.

6. My daughter is so damn cute and happy that I worry about having the balls to discipline her when she gets older.

man i will be shocked if this thread turns out well, but i'm interested!

I am a big proponent of people doing what works for them. I have a six year-old and a two year-old but am heavily involved in a community center/preschool so I've seen a lot of things that worked and things that haven't.

don't let a doctor put them on ritalin at age 6

I think I love you.

We were co-sleeping, non-ferberizing, non-cloth diaper parents with super cute girls. One year is not terribly long to breast feed. Our kids went to a little over 2 years old. I'm sure you'll be able to discipline them fine.

Some thoughts/advice:

Kids are all really different and whatever you do is probably going to have a lot less impact on who they are than you think.

When you do it, it will seem like weaning is super hard, but for us anyway it was only a bad couple nights. The second child we pretty much just tricked into getting weaned. She had the flu and we kept telling her a little longer than necessary that it would make her throw up.

We don't have crazy Russian neighbors, but we are the family that actually lets their kids go outside and play. My wife won't really allow this, but I will even let my kids knock on other kid's doors and see if they want to play. I don't even call their parents to schedule it!!!

We're not that strict and our kids behavior is good, but not perfect. We never tolerate them being cruel (well, to each other? siblings will fight fight fight......) but it hasn't really been an issue. They are really nice to non-family members anyway. If they can't sit still for long enough to eat at a nice restaurant or something, then just don't take them to places like that.

My biggest advice to new parents is to get to sleep early and I should have taken that advice myself tonight - early morning tomorrow.

Did you get a push present?

I want pictures of babies.

A few things from my years as a parent of 3 boys:

Don't whisper when the kids are sleeping. Speak normally. In fact, right when the kids went to sleep, my wife would start vacuuming. Getting them used to noise at bedtime is crucial so they're not light sleepers. Nothing worse than the phone ringing and it waking up the baby that you just got to sleep.

They're already probably too old to matter, but when you go to family functions give the kid to others and let him/her be passed around. You don't want a wussy mama's boy who only goes to mommy. Get them used to others holding them. Also, you get to enjoy the family function without a baby in your arms at all times. Besides, people love to hold babies, so you're actually doing them a favor too.

Don't worry about people washing their hands to touch the baby. Okay, worry about it, but don't go crazy with Purell or anything. It's been beaten to death, but exposure to some germs are good for them, blah, blah.

From the time my kids were old enough to walk, I did the look both ways thing, even if there were no cars for miles. Parking lots are an easy place to practice this. When going into the food store, stop every aisle in the parking lot and do it. Kids learn quickly and will enjoy being responsible. My kids are 8 & 9 (don't do this with the 15 year-old) and when we get to an aisle I'll just stand there and not say anything. I'll get the, "daddy, what are you doing?.......oh, no cars!" said in a sarcastic voice.

Okay, enough for now. I might have more for you later if this thread doesn't get derailed.

Wait, wtf is up with the cloth diapers being for hippies?

I have a 3 month old. Not much parenting to do at this point, but so far:

He sleeps in our bed. We had a co-sleeper attached to the bed, and he would never be quiet in there and would always wake up if he wasn't near my wife, so it's stuck. We've gotten him used to sleeping alone at naps and once he sleeps through the night, off to his crib in his own room. All of our extra bedrooms are upstairs and our room is downstairs, so it's more about not wanting to have to go upstairs 2+ times per night to take care of him. We got a bed rail and avoid turning on him. We also have a dog that sleeps in our bed but she leaves him alone.

Wife breastfeeds. On weekends, I will get up with him and let my wife sleep in and give him pumped milk that is frozen. Seems to work well. My wife deals with him at night to let me sleep, so it seems fair.

We use cloth diapers (athough will use disposables if we go out, and we used them on vacation). It's not too bad. I got a sprayer to spray the poo into the toilet, put them in a garbage can, then my wife will wash them every 2 days or so. I don't find them much more annoying to use than regular diapers. My wife made most of them and is big into sewing.

We try to let as many people as possible hold him so he doesn't need to be around us. We've had a few date nights where we left him with one of his grandmas and he does well there.

Recently tried to take him on a 1000 mile road trip to see my mother. My dog is neurotic in hotels, so we wanted to make it straight through. It took 15 hours with my wife and I last time we tried it. Baby was great for the first 7 hours, then melted down and did not want to be in his carseat. We had to stop every 30 minutes to calm him down, and the trip took 16.5 hours and was pretty miserable. We bought my wife a one-way direct flight home and I drove the dog home. It took me 14 hours with 2 stops. Do not recommend this long of a trip for a 3 month old.

Hippies use cloth diapers. But so do a lot of other people.

Diapers are expensive, screw that.

Also, any advice for uncles etc would be useful. I have a niece and a nephew (real close to my brother godfather of the boy etc); any advice parents have for the uncle bucks of the world would be appreciated, as some times I feel the nerf dart guns, and pocket knives are just not being appreciated by my sister

ca$h money, homey

Ya, I do that, I have a college fund setup for both of them that I make a monthly contribution, then on bdays/xmas etc, Ill put extra + a toy

My wife's sister and her husband almost never give my kids a birthday present. They always take them to dinner and to the movies, or something similar. The kids love this so much more than that extra transformer to add to the 5 they already got. Also, if you don't have kids, it keeps reminding you why you don't. Win-win.

that's fine guids.

if you want to really up your game, consider watching the snowflake for a couple hours while the parents can go out and do whatever.

I guess I will hop in before the derail starts. Wife and I are having our first child in four months so I have been looking into all of these. My wife is an elementary school teacher and a former preschool teacher who has taken many child psychology classes. Thus, I have been in discussions about the pros and cons of all of these for the past few months.

Why is this derail going to start again?

Who smacks some butts up in here?

My wife and I have chosen almost the exact opposite approach on all of your points. Our kids appear to be happy and well-adjusted.

I read #2 as "we did not and will not Febreze our baby" and was like yeah, that's probably a good idea.

Wow, I feel old. my youngest is 11 and I have no idea what most of the stuff in the OP is.

Ferberize? co-sleep? WTF?

Here's my advice. Stop reading books about it and do what feels right to you and the kid will be fine.

I have a three year old and a 1 1/2 year old and another on the way.

1.) Both our kids sleep in our bed still. Definitely not a good idea for the parents sleeping habits but that's what my wife does and I don't really fight her too much on it. My son (3 year old) slept in his bed for about a year. Not really sure when the current arrangement started.

2.) We did some ferberizing with my son to get him to sleep in his bed, which has now been ruined of course (see 1.).

3.) I am an unbelievably huge supporter of breast feeding and my wife breast fed both our kids until a little after a year old and pretty much let them make the decision to stop. I only say this to my wife as people that don't breast feed obviously would get pissed but I honestly believe that if you're not prepared to make the sacrifice to breast feed your baby, you should not be a mother. The benefits are HUGE, both for the mother and the baby, and in every way you can possibly imagine.

The rest I'm not really going to comment on. Basically spend as much time as you can with your kids, show them tons of love and Patience is BY FAR the best virtue in parenting, as far as I'm concerned. Make sure you understand that it's really difficult being a little kid and learning new things and they get frustrated A LOT when learning new skills. Be understanding and don't punish them every time they have a fit.

That's my two cents anyways.

Having kids at this time is a bad idea. The oil is running out.