What to do when you have a baby and your relationship turns toxic

This is a chapter from my upcoming book “The Clueless Father’s Parenting Survival Guide.”

It’s also one of the longest chapters in the book. Sorry about that. But if I could spend an hour of reading and hopefully spare my child years of pain, I’d consider it a good trade.

I’d say probably about 15% of the book deals with preparing your relationship for having children and also things you can do to rescue the relationship if you weren’t prepared for what children would do to it.

Hope you find it helpful.

Baby Proofing Stuff We Bought

I’ve been asked numerous times what baby-proofing products we bought.

Rapid fire I will post the links for these here:

Outlet covers: Munchkin 36 Count Plug Covers

Fencing for blocking areas off: Northstate Superyard Playgate Light Gray

Gates for blocking off stairways, I can’t find the brand we got, but this is pretty good: Northstate Superyard Playgate Light Gray

Cabinet Locks: Safety 1st Magnetic Locking System Complete. As a note on these. Once our kids got older, they ripped them right off and instead of using the sticky tape, it required using screws.

Self-Closing Trash Cans: Simplehuman Step Trash Can, Black Plastic

Corner Guards: Prince Lionheart Corner Guards, Chocolate Brown. Be ready for your kids to rip these off a lot.

Stove Knob Guards: Safety 1st Clear View Stove Knob Covers 5-Pack

Power Strip covers: Safety 1st Power Strip Cover

I know a lot of people use way more safety proofing products than this. But common sense positioning of furniture and keeping dangerous stuff out of reach or put away also helps go a long way.

 

Awesome B-Complex Liquid Supplement

I don’t know about most people, but I get a very bad reaction to B-Complex. I know it’s a vitamin we are all supposed to take, but my reactions often made me avoid it.

I didn’t know until recently that a lot of b-complex formulas actually have cyanide in them. If you think I’m kidding just do a search on cyanide and b-complex and it’ll pop right up.

Well that’s terrifying right? You want the b-complex that’s made from Methylcobalamin. (I know right? Say that five times fast!) What’s funny is that this actually made sense as I’ve always gotten nauseous before when taking b-complex vitamins and although it’s vital, I often would shy away from it. My wife had the same experience.

So after trying various other brands, we finally settled on Complementary Prescriptions – Methylcobalamin. It’s cinnamon flavored which is great and it’s sub-lingual so it goes right in the mouth for thirty seconds under the tongue and all done. Good stuff. I get a great energy boost every time and it keeps me peppy even when the day is dragging.

Anti-Stress Supplements that Work

I get easily stressed. I work 6-7 days a week and generally about 14 hours a day. We never seem to have enough money or time. The kids, as adorable as they are, can get on the nerves and generally I can be on edge more often than not. But this isn’t good for my health and the doc told me I need to figure out a way to reduce stress levels and get better sleep at night.

After a bunch of searching I found another Natural Vitality product that really helped. It also helped as an after exercise muscle soother which prevented me from being severely sore the next day.

It’s called Natural Calm Raspberry Lemon and is a great supplement that you can mix in hot water and drink like a tea. They have a variety of flavors and packet sizes. I suggest starting with smaller doses and working your way up as I have found taking too much can upset the stomach. Anyways their instructions are pretty clear. Hope it helps.

Great Vitamin packs for pregnant moms and stressed out dads

I’ll say it at the outset. I hate taking pills vitamins and vitamin packs. They always upset my stomach. I never seem to feel any results and I’m generally quitting taking them after a few weeks.

I found these great liquid vitamin packs which are organic, vegan and generally yummy and give me a good boost of energy, don’t upset my tummy and my wife loved them as well (although she preferred to have them in orange juice). If you are on the market for a good supplement, these come highly recommended.

They are called Natural Vitality Organic Life Vitamin Nutri Packsand I can’t recommend them highly enough.

Hope you like them!

My baby only wants milk, HELP!

My baby only wants milk! Help!

My oldest daughter, now 3, was on solid foods and loving it by the time she was 6 1/2 months old. And she’s a good eater. She doesn’t demand sugar too much, she eats veggies and she loves steak as much as or more than her daddy (that’s me). So I really didn’t get what the big deal was about parents who had a problem getting their kids to eat but I was happy that she was fine.

Then our second daughter arrived and by the end of 6 months she refused to put anything in her mouth other than milk. The real big downsides of this are:

1. The baby wakes up more often during the night for feeding (3-5 times is not unusual).

2. You constantly worry about proper development, are they getting enough nutrition?

3. Washing bottles and preparing baby formula constantly isn’t really what I’d call a hobby I enjoy.

But by the time our daughter was 11 months old, a pediatrician we consulted with said that she was out the bottom on the baby development chart (below the 5th percentile in height and weight) and at this point I really started worrying. As an aside, my wife is petite, so I always knew there was the possibility of our daughters being petite as well, but that didn’t stop me from worrying. Anyways, the pediatrician gave us various techniques to essentially force our daughter to eat. None of them worked and all of them made me feel a little guilty because she was obviously beyond miserable.

We then left Mexico to visit some family in LA and I went and saw the doctor who had taken care of me when I was a kid. She told me all about her youngest son who had been a “milk baby” and the great frustration she had to go through as well as the worries on development because just milk isn’t enough by itself. So she started researching and testing various concoctions until she found one that worked great for her kid and after several months he went up to the 100th percentile on his growth chart and has stayed there for the last 3 years. Her theory was that it wasn’t really the taste as much as the texture of the food that the kids had a problem with.

Now as a note, we already complemented the breastfeeding with barley formula (http://youtu.be/feQ6FcZRgFg) because we don’t like using the powdered baby formula products. So now we were looking adding another supplemental/complementary milk formula to this. I rounded up the products and started making this every morning right when she wanted her “wake-up” bottle and at first she started drinking it and then spit it out. I kept trying until I finally found that with the banana out of the mix, she drank it no problem.

I’ve been giving this to her now for almost 5 months and she has now gone up to the 68th percentile on the height chart so I am relieved and happy. The nightly awakenings are still exhausting but my wife and I deal with it as a team so it’s bearable.

The formula she gave us was: (NOTE: CHECK WITH YOUR OWN DOCTOR FOR THE EXACT QUANTITIES AND INGREDIENTS FOR YOUR KID!!!)

12 ounces of organic vitamin d milk, or whatever milk your baby uses.

1 1/2 Tablespoons of vanilla flavored egg protein powder (I use 1/3 scoop of the protein powder I bought which means basically 8 grams of protein. You have to figure out the proportion based off the protein powder you use and how much your baby should be getting. I know there are dozens of others out there such as whey proteins, but I haven’t checked into any of those yet)

1 tablespoon of Kidsafe Supreme Superfood. This is basically powderized vegetables, fruits and other good stuff with all the amino acids, vitamins, iron, etc… intact. Pretty expensive but worth it.

1 teaspoon of organic flax seed oil

1/2 teaspoon blackstrap molasses for all the B-complex vitamins. This is a strong flavored ingredient, the doctor recommended a full teaspoon but until I brought it down to a 1/2 teaspoon or about 14 drops, my daughter wouldn’t drink it.

Fill up a 9 ounce bottle. If your baby won’t drink the milk because it is slightly chilly, then warm the milk before you blend it. But I found my daughter preferred it slightly cool. I then usually have about 3-4 ounces leftover and I drink that and then head out with them for daycare.

Hope that helps.

Best,

T.C.F.

 

 

 

Diaper Rash Remedies

Diaper Rashes. All babies get them. Some get them worse than others. So here are a couple remedies to help you get rid of your baby’s rash as fast as possible.

We use “desetin” which has zinc oxide as the active ingredient. Buy that and a box of corn starch, mix them into a sticky creamcheese like paste and coat the entire rash in that. With the new diaper open pour in a bunch more corn starch and close it up. Check every hour. As soon as you notice she pees or poops, pull it off and clean her up. Leave her naked for an hour if you can and repeat.

Then at night add a couple ounces of white vinegar to the bath full of water. DO NOT USE too much or it will make the baby cry. Let them soak their butt in it for 15 minutes or so. For a full baby bath we only add about one or two ounces, you’ll know if you put too much because your baby will call you a jerk as soon as their tush touches the water.

Clean and dry baby.

Then use desetin and corn starch paste again with another layer of corn starch after applied. Change diaper about half way through night. Should be gone in two days maybe three no matter how bad the rash is. Good luck!