7 thoughts on “Great Ideas in Parenting”

  1. It looks like a chicken coop.

    In the movie version of “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies,” the mom has several little boys in NYC, and they have a cage for the youngest for safety.

    Here’s a still:

    The One with the Baby in a Cage

    The movie is mainly about them migrating out of the big city and moving to a big old house in the country.

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  3. My children happily taught their younger siblings how to climb out of their cribs.

    I did use playpens. They were not psychologically damaged by time spent in their playpens.

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  4. Same as cranberry, we used a playpen, and our daughter appears perfectly normal.

    Our daughter was very well-behaved about staying in bed. One of my wife’s friends was complaining about how her two boys got up early each morning and caused trouble, and my wife said, “I don’t know how to break this to you. Our daughter [this is at age 5] lies in bed in the morning and shouts, ‘Mom, can I get out of bed?’ before she gets up.”

    She hasn’t always been that obedient or well-behaved in the succeeding 15 years.

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  5. My kids would neither stay in playpens nor in strollers, but with all the parenting advice, I would presume that other parents are in fact deciding whether their children are tolerating the playpen, stroller, baby cage, . . . . For us, it was easier to deal with the consequences (emotionally, most of all, but also physically and practically — we had lots of help).

    Now, my son did not sleep through the night in his own bed until he was 6, and that, after I bribed him, at $5/night to do it.

    I’m immune to other people’s opinions, but I’m guessing I would get significant complaints from all camps (until he was 6!!! years old and bribery $5/night! and, the bribery decision was not made in a well thought out way, but was a momentary response to being woken at 4 AM).

    I told him in the morning that i would pay him for 30 days, and he has slept through the night since. He doesn’t spend his money on anything, so it was actually the idea of a reward that convinced him. After the first few nights, I was worried that he was lying in his bed in distress, but, when I asked him, he said, “No, it was easy.”

    (With my fear of heights, though, those baby cages are down right super scary. They make me dizzy looking at the picture).

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    1. bj wrote:

      “Now, my son did not sleep through the night in his own bed until he was 6, and that, after I bribed him, at $5/night to do it.”

      It sounds like it worked perfectly. That’s one of those things you’re “not supposed” to do, but what if it works?

      Speaking of bribery, last year we spent a year living in a duplex apartment. Unfortunately, it was roach central, and I’m talking about the big guys–“water bugs,” AKA the American cockroach.

      http://www.orkin.com/cockroaches/american-cockroach/

      Even more unfortunately, for some reason, probably about 80% of our sightings of the were in our 5th grader’s room and bathroom. Understandably, she was having a terrible time getting to sleep. What if a roach were to TOUCH her? We eventually came to an understanding with her that if a roach touched her, she would get $10 for the first time. We did have to pay out–at some point she had a huge roach on the back of her pants. But she was able to sleep, knowing that if a roach touched her, she was indemnified.

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  6. I had a conversation with our youngest when she was in first grade where I told her that if she didn’t learn to sleep in her own bed eventually, it was going to severely limit her college choices . .. . She replied that she was OK with that. She’d go to college locally and continue sleeping in our bed each night. She eventually moved out. I think she was seven. (But we moved the year she was six, so I could understand being freaked out in a new house, etc.)

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