Spoiling Babies

Hey, did you know that by responding to your baby's biologically wired needs, you're going to spoil him? Did you know that by holding him too much (quantitative specifics still being calculated) you are letting him know that HE is boss, and not you?

Did you know that by allowing him to sleep in your bed, or next to your bed is allowing him to manipulate you? By you not sticking him in his own room and allowing him to cry, sometimes for hours at a time, you are letting him run YOUR life?!

Ways to make sure that time-sucking brat doesn't completely ruin your life: 

1. Make sure he knows who is boss. 
2. Don't hold him too often. Make sure he's in a swing or car seat or bassinet more than he is in your arms. Don't let him get any funny ideas! 
3. Don't feed him too often. Put him on a strict schedule for breastfeeding. Don't let his cries throw you off, he needs to learn to self-sooth ASAP. 
4. If he's crying through these things, he's trying to manipulate you. Put him in his crib, and walk and and shut the door. Again, show him who's boss! 
5. Why should your sleep schedule get fucked up, just because he hasn't learned how to sleep? That's why cribs look like lockdown cells with no roof! He can't get out. Let him learn that he has no choice but to sleep. 
6. If you're out and about, keep him in the car seat. DO NOT hold him or wear him in any hippy carrier. You're going to break rule 2. 
7. Don't worry about the hippy freaks who say his cortisol levels will be raised unnecessarily. Shit, life is stressful. The sooner he learns this, the better off he'll be. 

Babies are, after all, a huge inconvenience in our lives. The sooner they learn that we're not putting up with their manipulation, the more calm and controlled the house will be. Because that's what life with kids is. Calm and controlled, scheduled. Maybe Skinner had the right idea with the baby-in-a-box. You give them the right temperature, clean diapers, scheduled feedings....that's all a baby needs. A mother is simply an incubator, supporting the baby's life until he's on the outside. Then he only needs the basics, and nothing more.

While we're at it...I was born in a time where car seats and seat belts weren't used. I was raised in an extremely emotionally abusive household with two parents obsessed about their own lives to worry about mine, other than control. I drank and drove as a teenager.

I lived. And that's the bottom line, right? As long as the kid is fed and housed...everything else is inconsequential.