EP6 – You Are A Bad Dad

Welcome to episode number five of, I don't know Jack about parenting and I'm going to tell you what you should do as a parent.

I was like, Whoa, what is this topic about?

It's all on a message board in a facebook group. Probably about 1500 of us dads. It's pretty much a support group for men who are a new found fathers are about to be father's day or this morning. When I went in there, I saw feed, mind you, US men. Are that always that Vocal. It was a feed in. There were. There were like 70 comments and I was like, Whoa, what is this topic about? And it was a soon to be father commenting about how he read that co-sleeping sleeping with your children is a raises the chances of sids, sudden infant death syndrome in kids and babies, typically infants to four months old is where those numbers are in large leads to co-sleeping. So his statement was not being a father, yet he had seen or read an article or watch the video where there was a, uh, parents proud of the fact that they slept and co-slept with their kids. And his last statement, which is one that got him in trouble on this group, is anyone who co-sleeps. Knowing that sids is, it is a greater chance if you sleep, in my opinion, that is just. And he put in big, bold capital letters, bad parenting.

You should allow your kid to sleep in their crib or bassinet and you shouldn't ever co-sleep. That is bad parenting. So I'm here to tell you, I'm here to tell you that I don't know Jack about parenting, but what I do know about people is this, you'd never tell people what they should or should not do. And as many fathers in this group as it's a men's only group went on to get defensive like, Hey, I go sleep and don't tell me I'm a bad parent. And that's what they said. And they said, you don't know Jack, you haven't been a parent yet. When you have a child at a certain age of that and you are trying to go to work and live life and do what you need to do and you're trying to get rest of yourself. If what comforts, this child is sleeping in my bed or our bed, then that is what we are going to do. And for you to tell me I'm a bad parent, you don't know anything. So there's really a lot of defense. So my response in this whole thread as I read through the 70 plus comments was here's the deal in tool.

You have no clue what the world looks like 

You are a parent to. You could put yourself in the shoes until you have a baby crying uncontrollably and, and you want to comfort this child and you don't know how to do it is really hard for a non parent. And this. I think this is where it comes in a non parent to give advice to a parent. You have no clue what the world looks like on a day to day basis, especially those first few days were a new parent is full with fear and uncertainty and lack of sleep and lack of knowledge and wondering whether or not we're going to be able to provide for this new life that we're responsible for for the rest of our lives. You can't tell a parent as a non parent how they should be parenting because you definitely don't know Jack about parenting as you've never been one. And I think where a lot of that animosity came from. So what I shared in the group was was,

and I will let you know and I didn't. I didn't let them know I am not a fan of co parenting, but I am not about to judge the parent who does so. And what I said and what I hope this podcast brings for a lot of yours is I'm never going to tell you what you should do because I don't live your life. I don't live your experiences, I don't know where you came from that brought you to the point of making the decisions that you are making. What I am going to do is share with you my journey. What I am going to do with you is share the things that I believe worked for me. What I am going to share with you is so many areas I messed up on and how hopefully I and correcting those what I am going to share with you are some tips, tools, tricks that I've implemented and maybe the results I've gotten, but what I will never do is say, I did this. You should do it too. Why?

Gather as much information as you can

Because you should never do anything I do simply because I said to do it now. Which would you would you can do is gather as much information as you can. So as a, as a new parent or a parent in this situation, if I didn't know anything about sids and I was sleeping with my child and somebody brought that up to me, I'd never read any article like that and I would. Google sids. I encourage every single one of you to do your own research, and I would say, what is this sids? Oh, sudden infant death syndrome.

Wow,

what are the causes of this? They're kind of unknown and because it's unknown, what they've done is research. How many of these were during leaving? How many were this during these months, that month, that month, and they pulled all this research and they find that some of the sids cases are during co-sleeping. Do we know that that's the cause? No, but if there's a number of them due to co sleeping or in conjunction with sleeping, then maybe just maybe you take that into consideration and make a different choice, but you're making an educated choice. So what I said in my response is we shouldn't be judging, giving any advice that's unwarranted.

We shouldn't be throwing our opinion. A lot of the responses were, I don't think sids is caused because of that. Well, don't think anything you. You are not an expert on sids and the experts don't even know. So how would you know or think or have an opinion towards when you haven't done the research? So if you don't think that's fine, but I would suggest to do the research. So I said go make your educated decision by educating yourself, doing your own research. I personally do not go into my doctor's office, uneducated. So when my doctor gives me information about my child, I ask intelligent questions based on the research I've done.

I've actually educated my pediatrician

To my surprise, doctors are human also. To my surprise, doctors are so busy serving their clients and customers and living their own lives that whatever they learned in college and through their practice sometimes myself, someone who's read new material, someone who is a very up to date on what's going on because I have a new baby myself and I've. I've read the first time and I've read the second time I didn't think, oh, I know it all. I've actually educated my pediatrician on a few things and sent her information where she's thanked me and said, wow, I didn't even know this research I didn't use. This makes a lot of sense. I'm glad you sent this to me and then I may. I educate my pediatrician. I educate and I make educated decisions based on my own research. On multiple occasions. My pediatrician, in my opinion, was not congruent with the way I want to raise my child. So guess what? I educated my own pediatrician as to what our parenting style was and why we're doing what we're doing. And she says, well, that's not the norm. I can't disagree with you. That's the way you want to go about it. Then. Wow. I, I understand and I, and let me clarify,

both of my children were sleeping throughout the night by three months. So at one of the, the, the three month visit, my pediatrician asked me how much food my son was eating. He's eating 27 and a half ounces of food today. She says 27 and a half. I was like, yeah, well how's the math? And I broke it down in my head. I can't do it right now, but it was like seven hours, seven hours, seven hours, six and a half ounces. Well, what time does he eat those? And I was like, he eats at 6, 10, 2 and to 6:00 AM, 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. So what is he eating the middle of the night so he doesn't. He's now sleeping through the night and he just started that last week. She says, well, he needs food in the middle of the night.

She was telling me that that's not normal

I said, no, it doesn't because we weaned him off of it. We had a process that I follow. I didn't make this up on my own. I read a book. I did my research and it worked for both children, both of my children, seven years old and 13 months old, sleep throughout the night, both in perfect health in both allow mom and dad to sleep throughout the night because both of them sleep throughout the night. My oldest has never had a sleeping problem, never had nightmares, never had any challenges in. Same thing with my youngest. So as she was telling me that that's not normal, I said a normal is for people who want chaos in their life. There's a lot of chaos in the world. I'm not normal. We have structure in my house in order for me to be an effective parent, listen to me in order and I'm not telling you guys what to do in order for me to be an effective parent. I need a good night's rest. I can't be cranky. I can't be unrested. So I train my children through a process to become good sleepers. Yes, there's a process for everything because of that.

And, and, and part of that process is not sleeping right because they become dependent and not independent to sleep on their own for an extended period of time, right? Because I'm not to sleep for 12 hours, so if I don't sleep for 12 hours and the baby's required to sleep for 12 hours to get proper rest, what happens? They get unrest and I get unrest in that to me just doesn't make sense to have a healthy, sleeping atmosphere for baby or for parents in that leads to crankiness and other problems in, as I see it. I know myself and myself only if I don't get proper rest, I'm going to be ineffective as a human being. And more importantly, as a parent, I'm not. That's my truth. That's my story. And that's what makes sense for me. Now I'm not going to tell anybody that they shouldn't go sleep.

There are consequences

Whatever. There are consequences of that. If they're willing to have it, so be it. I'm not gonna tell you what you should do, but I guarantee you what I just said to most people makes sense? Wow. He can be a better effective parent even though I don't know Jack about parenting. If he gets proper rest, will it be great to have my kids on a schedule would it be nice to create that schedule for my kids? If the answers to those things are yes, then I empower any of you watching this or listening to this podcast to reach out to me for the resource because there was a resource that I followed not once but twice and both times extremely effective, but I would tell you this, never going to tell you what you should do. I personally want you guys to research and come to your own conclusion as to what is best for you and your family based on where you're at and if what I say makes sense, feel free to reach out. All the contact information is below in the notes and at the very least you've reached out to me at bethedadyouwishyouhad.com and you'll find my book there, but more importantly, you'll find a way to contact me.

Have an awesome, awesome day. I don't know Jack about parenting, neither do you. We're in this thing to win it together and learn and educate from each other. Talk to you in the next episode.