Did you know that new moms today can get a digital timer to remind them to feed the baby? Is it just me, or is this the most ridiculous item ever put in front of pregnant women? These poor women are distraught, tired and distracted by their own swollen feet, so they’re vulnerable to absurd and manipulative marketing. Your baby will die if you forget to feed it. Better put that timer on the registry!
In case you have the kind of baby who doesn't cry when hungry, or smell when poopy.
People! You do not need a timer to remind you to feed your baby. Your baby will remind you. Your baby is programmed to do just that. Basically, it is the only thing your baby can do for a long, long time.
Anyway, as I was smugly making fun of this timer, I suddenly remembered an episode from my own crazy first-time-mom past. I somehow blocked this out, preferring to remember a fictional history of myself as a non-panic-stricken individual who did not go over the top with her first baby. But I did. Boy, did I ever.
When I was pregnant with L, T and I wanted to take a baby first aid and CPR class. Not unreasonable, right? Well, we were both full-time students with no money or time to spare for such courses. No worries, because I found the perfect solution! A way we could become baby saving experts on our own time for even less money than a course! I found this:
Maybe the scariest thing I've ever received in a box in the mail.
That’s right. I got my very own plastic baby. (This was a few years ago and ours looked a lot less like a blow up doll and a lot more like a dead baby. A totally freaky thing to live with.) What a great thing to have! We could always freshen up our skills. Just pop in the DVD, inflate the baby and compress to our hearts’ content!
If you think this is where the crazy ends, wait, there’s more.
Then I had my precious baby. He actually did choke once and I had to quickly turn him upside down and pound on his back until he vomited his body weight on the rug. Thanks plastic baby for the practice! (You might have mentioned the vomit and suggested doing it over tile or hard wood.)
Fast forward about 8 months when I’m ready to leave baby L with a babysitter. A random girl (who I grew to love) who I found on a university job board. This made me nervous. These days I’ll leave my kids with anyone willing to take them, but this first time I was so anxious about it! Guess what I made her do?
Yup. I made her come about 1/2 an hour before I was scheduled to leave so she could watch the video and practice on the dummy baby. And she did it graciously, as if it was a perfectly normal and not at all neurotic request, and she didn’t tell me I was a crazy lunatic. God, I love that girl.
I completely forgot all of this, like I said, and was so embarrassed for myself when I remembered. So, if any of you were ever under the impression that I’m at all cool, I give you this story as incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. *Takes bow.*
Yeah, I totally have that timer. We used it a bunch for the first six weeks, which is the only time you need it. After that, you get the hang of it. And actually, it was kinda useful. Unnecessary? Yes. I admit it. Would I buy it again? Yup. Cuz my postpartum brain was so so much mush.
Oh, and I never bought the scary plastic baby. I will take the timer over that any day.
That gave me a much needed laugh–imagining the babysitter practicing on the scary blow up doll. Hilarious! Thank you!
You win. I was crazy, but not that crazy. 🙂
i also bought that timer… it just helped me develop a schedule… it doesn’t actually have an alarm, really… it just tracks the amount of time between feedings and such… when i was nursing, it was super-helpful for me to tell my infant, in the nicest voice possible, “you CANNOT be hungry again! you just nursed for AN HOUR TWENTY MINUTES AGO, jerk…”
your baby could be hungry that soon – do you only eat on a rigid schedule – less clocks – more paying attention to your child
That is awesome.
I agree with you, that timer is not necessary. If you really want to track your babies feeding you could just write it down in a journal. Much cheaper 🙂
Now I must know: where is the plastic baby? And did you name it?
Haha. I wish I had a great answer for you. The fake baby freaked me out and it had to live in a drawer in our garage, unnamed. We’ve moved twice since then and I don’t think the baby has made it through the big purge before the moves. Big mistake. It was the best behaved baby EVER.
I think that its unneccessary and actually can be detrimental to breastfeeding. When we force ourselves and babies into a schedule we can miss opportunities to feed and stimulate production like nature intended and we make ourselves crazyt hinking something is wrong wth our child if they dont want to eat when the time says to or if they are eating mroe then the time says to. “Watch the baby NOT the clock” I can confidently say I have not been crazy from the beginning. 😉
Do they make a reverse option to monitor the mother? I remember when I had A I was so obsessed with her I would forget to do things. The low point was when my hub-ster told me to take a shower. Fail.
first of all, i don’t think we are crazy, we are human. also, i do want to let you know that i’ve discovered much to my medical dismay that i’ve developed stress incontinence from laughing so hard at your blog that i first must arm myself by wearing a poise pad so i don’t pee in my pants. you make me laugh so much! in a way that’s good for my soul and blood pressure, just not my underwear!!! please let me know if are ever in the cleveland ohio area b/c i want to take you to dinner (and let my husband babysit all of our kids, lol!)
That is hilarious! The image of the poor babysitter. You should put all your funny blogs together into a screenplay – how funny would that scene be on the big screen?
I wonder if that timer would have been helpful with the twins – I charted feedings and such so I could remember (or let other caregiver know) which baby was fed, bathed or had pooped. Probably that was crazy but it seemed so necessary at the time.
Why is tracking things a bad idea again? There are several apps like the timer for your iPhone, which allow you to record when you fed, what you fed, when baby pooped, what it looked like, etc. When you go to the doctor because there’s something wrong, and actually have a week long record of what has been going on, you’re prepared. These tools are great for people who have both parents taking an equal role too, if Dad forgets to ask when did Mom feed baby before she goes out for her job, it’s much better to have a written record.
These are records, not alarms. I think they’re a great tool to help you keep track of what’s going on. I’m glad you don’t suffer from any memory problems or organizational troubles, but some people do and will benefit from a journal of baby’s needs being met. Why not make it electronic?
We got that timer as a gift for the 2nd kid and I thought it was crazy because I didn’t journal my first baby’s feedings. However, after entering the world of multiple kids and new new level of sleep deprivation it did start becoming useful. First, the little switch at the bottom to tell nursing mamas which boob to use next. Great for dads who seem to be clueless about why baby is crying. Most frequent conversation in our house with a small baby:
Baby: Crying
Dad: Why is the baby crying?
Sleep deprived mom: I don’t know.
Dad: He must be hungry.
SDMom: He can’t be hungry. I swear I just fed him. Check the timer.
Dad: Oh. He ate 20 min ago. Last diaper change 5 hrs ago.
SDMom: Guess you should change his diaper.
The hospital sent us home with badly photocopied pages to chart when they last peed, pood, nursed, and how long. It took about a week to understand how long to wait before changing the diaper. Now I just see how low it’s hanging towards the floor or notice a smell. You gotta start somewhere, I guess. But in that first 5 days before my milk dropped, it was good to know the times. I think the ol’ pencil and paper did just fine though.
That doll is both creepy and hilarious. It’s good that you know CPR! And made sure your babysitter did, too!
I have to agree with you. Babies cry when they’re hungry, and motherly instincts should kick in at that point and baby’s cries should be a que that hey, baby needs to eat. A timer just seems like a waste of money. Plus, if you REALLY need to remember when the last time you fed your baby was, there’s always good old-fashioned pen and paper, right?
The blow-up baby looks scary but that DVD set seems useful, at least. I feel guilty because I’ve been meaning to learn baby/child CPR for the longest time and I still haven’t. My youngest is almost 9 months old now and has started eating solids though so I REALLY need to.
I don’t think you were neurotic at all, actually. I would have made the babysitter do the same thing if she wasn’t already CPR certified.
I don’t have the timer, but I did set alarms to feed my baby the first week. Our newborn got jaundice pretty bad, so he was not waking up and crying for food when he should’ve been. We had to wake him up for feedings.
I got lucky with the CPR thing in that I worked at a preschool, so I got to take a class with my co-workers — we all felt a little less awkward as we pounded away at the plastic people.
I remember registering for my shower with my mom, and seeing that timer, and saying to her “Uh, won’t the BABY remind you it’s time to eat?” After having my second, I see how you can get confused about how long it’s been for baby A to eat and baby B to get a diaper change, etc…but still, you know one of the trifecta (eat, diaper, sleep) needs attention when they cry or fuss. And HELL to the YEAH that you fictionalize the crazy parts of the past…don’t we all? If you don’t, you should 🙂 I agree these blog posts should be made into a screenplay. I would see that movie in a second!!!
it’s an electronic device; it doesn’t mess up your natural breastfeeding pattern… it just helps keep track in those first few weeks… i agree COMPLETELY with the SLEEP DEPRIVED MOM statement… it definitely helped my husband and me stay on the same page… it also times naps, which is nice… you push a button when the baby goes down and another when she wakes… that way you know not only how long she slept but also how long between naps… crazy, yes… detrimental to ANYTHING, no…
I guess I could go more in depth with my reasoning. I would consider it a detriment in the cases that women follow the timer religiously and when they find out that their baby does NOT follow a timer like they “should” they end up in a wic office asking for formula to supplement because “my baby is eating all the time instead of every two hours so he must not be getting enough. I need formula” which in turn decreases supply through the supplementation. The same thing happens with the iPhone apps. baby doesnt follow the schedule, momma freaks out and assumes its her lack of supply.
As far as a RECORD keeping device I could see it being useful but honestly why do we need to know how long baby slept for a nap or how long between? Thats a personal interest. lol Im thrilled when I can get through a whole load of laundry and fold it before mine wakes up!
Whaaa?! I’m neurotic enough on my own, don’t need a machine to take me to the next level (a padded cell?).
Ugh the timer. When my daughter was born she slept more the first week than she ate. When she did eat she ate for a lone period of time (2.5 hour nursing session…ugh). She lost about 11% of her body weight and the ped. told me it was because obviously I was starving her and not feeding her every two hours. Because you HAVE to feed her every two hours. She literally told me I was starving her.
She had me start religiously filling out those damn charts and tracking it with a (different) timer (that I bought from her) and all of that to prove that my child was eating. I also forced my baby to eat every two hours and she started puking all the time. When I took her into the doctor and showed her the charts she said “I don’t care about those…I refuse to look at any of them. They don’t matter.” Then she told me my child as probably going to die of kidney failure unless I also bought the special formula she was selling.
And that’s when I decided all that mommy-help stuff is for the birds!
Had the timer. Was totally crazy. Probably still am…hence basically everything I write:)
I will proudly stand up and admit we have one of those and that thing is the freakin’ BOMB.
Now, don’t get me wrong, you still need to be observant enough to understand that you have to pay attention to your child to determine if they need to be fed, changed, sleep, etc. But being able to track how much they’ve eaten over the past week, how much they’ve been sleeping on average, how long it’s been since they’ve had a good poop? I barely have enough memory ability left in my head to remember my own phone number, let alone how many ounces my child drank in milk yesterday. This thing is a godsend.
Why do you need to know how many ounces your child drank yesterday? It’s just not necessary to know that stuff. How do breastfeeding women track it? There’s no way and no reason to.
I don’t think I made any crazy first time baby purchases unless you count the 500 outfits he grew out of before he could wear.
I did however ban him from eating any candy after he choked on a dip-n-stick. I have since learned there are scarier things than a piece of candy. The Gremlin likes to play in traffic and LOVES to eat money.. Yeah. Much scarier! LOL. `
That timer is one of the few things I didn’t get for my first kid. With the last two, I didn’t even use half of the stuff I bought for the first.
And that babysitter of yours sounds great. Will she travel for badly paid assignments?
Oh man, I loved that “timer” thing. It isn’t really a timer though. It counts UP, not down, so you know how long it’s been when your child is acting famished and you can be all like “no way, I fed you an hour and 43 minutes ago.” So it isn’t really a REMINDER to do x, y, or z but just a way to keep track of how often they are eating, needing reflux meds, etc. in those hectic (AND TIRED) first months.
LOVE the CPR baby and that the sitter had to come early to practice:) The timer – yeah, that’s basically all babies do. You will not forget to feed them.