I thought this would be a nice place to aggregate lists of miscellaneous parenting tips, organized by age. Maybe if this gathers lots of good input, I’ll post another age group in a few days. If nobody is into the idea, no big deal.

Let’s start with babies 4-6 months old, since newborns are way to fucking complicated!

Suggestion: post a single tip per comment, so people can up/downvote each tip, rather than long comments with lots of ideas. May the best advice float to the top!

  • minorninth@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Baby wearing! There are a lot of carriers out there, find the one that works best for you. You can wear your baby in the front, or the back, facing out or facing in, or even sideways in a sling.

    It’s great because it allows you to get things done, like cooking dinner and light housework, while also staying close to your baby. You can talk to them, teach them about the world, and give them warmth and snuggles, without abandoning other needed work.

    There are baby-wearing support groups in most metro areas. Check one out and you can visit nearby parents to try out different carriers and see the one you like, since they’re not cheap.

  • vcdp@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    All your advices and tips are true and great. I’d like to add two things on the mental side.

    • It’s not your baby’s fault. Parenthood, at least mine, has moments of doubt, frustration, exhaustion and anger. Baby won’t listen, will cry a lot, will demolish your face with amazingly fast growing fingernails, will break your favourite thing, shit in your car and puke on your new shirt. This may sound weird for some of you, but to calm down in some moments it helped a lot to tell myself, that this is not the baby’s fault. It’s not trying to be mean to me, it’s just a fking baby. Since it’s actions are not meant to be harmful, reject every impulse to be harmful too. Be the adult one. Be the calm one. And protect your eyes from that fingernails!

    • It will not always be like this. Try to enjoy every moment. You will forget the bad things and miss the good things of this very moment. You will be like “You remember when we had like zero sleep? You remember when we couldn’t really use the car, because he was freaking out?” Things will change. They will be even better.

  • yacht_boy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    My baby is almost 11 months old. His big brother is 5 1/2 years. I literally remember nothing about 4-6 month old babies. My only tips are that it’s over before you know it, and that you don’t need whatever it is that’s in your Amazon shopping cart.