Hillary Frank - Weird Parenting Wins: Bathtub Dining, Family Screams, and Other Hacks from the Parenting Trenches

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Copyright 2019 by Hillary Frank

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Illustrations by Hillary Frank

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Frank, Hillary, author.

Title: Weird parenting wins : bathtub dining, family screams, and other hacks from the parenting trenches / Hillary Frank.

Description: New York : TarcherPerigee, 2019.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018053135| ISBN 9780143132554 (paperback) | ISBN 9780525504474 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Parenting. | Parent and child. | Self-help techniques. | BISAC: FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / General. | HUMOR / Topic / Marriage & Family. | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Life Stages / General.

Classification: LCC HQ755.8 .F73 2019 | DDC 306.874--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018053135

Version_2

For Jonathan and Sasha,

who make me feel like Im winning...

even when Im just being weird

On fussy infants and toddler freak-outsat home, in stores, and on the road

Food trickery for babies and picky eaters

On getting out the door, bathing and grooming, potty stuff, manners, cleaning up, and going to bed and staying there

On calming active imaginations

On sibling rivalry

Like, whenever possible

So you can have time to recharge, talk to another grown-up, or just take a freakin poop in peace

Because real things are often scarier than imaginary things

Communicating with tight-lipped kids on matters big and small

Do we really need to explain this one?

Giving your baby the space to grow up, while setting boundaries that (hopefully) wont backfire

Because once it comes full circle, you have truly won

NINE YEARS AGO, during the last storm of the snowiest winter in Philadelphia history, my stomach began to gurgle loudly like a draining bathtub. It took about an hour to realize what this meant: my daughter finally wanted out.

Toward the end of my pregnancy, Id discovered that my baby was facing my belly in my wombsunny side up, the midwives called it, which sounded to me like an apartment listing that calls a tiny studio cozy. I was told to hang out on my hands and knees as much as possible and the baby should turn in time for delivery. She was angled in a way that meant shed have to do nearly a full 360. Apparently fetuses can only rotate in one direction, like a flushing toilet.

I killed time in my last few weeks by watching the winter Olympics on my hands and knees. When I needed a break, I crammedrereading key passages from my stack of childbirth books and handouts from classes at the hospital. Which breathing techniques to use for which stage of labor, which types of massage to request, which props to use. I was prepared.

Here is what I knew. If you just relax enough and surround yourself with people you trust, youll be able to have a natural childbirth and it might even be euphoric; you must, must, must breastfeed the baby immediately after she is born, plus keep her in your room with you that first night no matter how tired you are; and, as detailed in The Happiest Babyon the Block, with Dr. Harvey Karps five Ssswaddling, side/stomach position, shushing, swinging, and suckinga bawling infant is magically soothed.

Here is what the books didnt tell me. That I would be in so much pain I wouldnt even want to be touched, let alone ask for a back rub. That the only type of breathing Id possibly be able to muster was to blow raspberries. That I would get stalled for half a day at five centimeters. That just the teensiest, eensiest bit of Pitocin would send me into a series of ten-minute-long contractions that would leave me yelling for an epidural. That my baby wouldnt turn, making it impossible for me to push her out without an episiotomy. That shed take her first poop inside me, breathe it into her lungs, and need to be rushed to the NICU immediately after being born. No nursing her; no keeping her with me in my room. I was kept up all night by a screaming newborn, but it was my roommates, not mine.

They had Sasha hooked up to machines for the first three days of her life. I tried nursing her a bit, but we couldnt really seem to get the hang of it, especially with all those wires in the way. I was given a breast pump without much instruction, so I basically didnt use it. Besides, the only things holding me together were the moments that I could go to the NICU and put Sasha inside my hospital gown, pressing her warm bare skin against my own. I wasnt about to give that up to pump little splutterings of a substance that wasnt even milk yet out of my boobs.

A few days after we took Sasha home, we discovered that my episiotomy stitches had busted and I needed to be recut and restitched. It was sort of like going to the dentist and getting shot with local anesthesia, except in a much more sensitive part of your body. The surgery left me unable to climb stairs for two monthsor walk, reallyso I lived on an air mattress in my dark living room during that time. I couldnt stand long enough to change the babys diapers. I couldnt carry her around to comfort her. I couldnt even sit and comfort her because sitting on my butt hurt too much. With the help of pillows and rolled-up swaddling blankets to get us in exactly the right position, I could nurse her. But it turned out that because I had neglected to pump at the hospital, I had low milk supply and had to feed her three ways each time she ate: at the breast, then a bottle of pumped milk, followed by a bottle of formula. I was swollen; I was sore. I wept every time I went to the bathroom, during every infrequent shower I took. There were fluids pouring out of me from every orifice, except maybe my ears.

We tried the five Ss. We tried really hard. Sometimes they worked. But more often they didnt. And at those times we didnt just have a crying baby on our hands, we had a crying family. Thats when we discovered the sixth S: shit out of luck. It all came to a head one night when my husband, Jonathan, was sickpassed out on the couch with a fever. It was 2:00 a.m. I was trying to nurse Sasha and she was yanking her head back and doing what Jonathan called her Fay Wray scream. She was clearly starving, but she just wouldnt eat. I frantically dug through my breastfeeding handouts, trying to find an answer. Nothing. It was too late to call anyone. I started doing this thing that I think a lot of people do when theyre desperate, where Id loop my memories over and over in my head. Id relive the birth as if it were a movie and Id always get stuck on this one frame. This split second during labor when I was sure, absolutely convinced, that if I had just gotten on my hands and knees one last time and accepted a massage from my midwife instead of opting for drugs, everything would have gone differently. I wouldve been able to turn the baby, which would mean I wouldnt have needed an episiotomy, which would mean I wouldnt have needed to be restitched, which would mean Id be more capable with Sasha, which would mean shed be happier right now, which would mean shed be nursing calmly in my arms, gulping and making little sighs of baby satisfaction. But I was weak and I did choose the drugs, and here we were: Fay Wray. I was suddenly so full of rage that I nearly threw the baby across the room. It was the scariest thing Ive ever felt, and I quickly put her in her bassinet and walked away.