5 Baby Myths Busted [Stay at Home Nerd]

There are lies, regular goddamn lies, and then the things people tell you about having a baby. Whether it’s a relative, a cashier, somebody else’s grandma, a stranger on the street or a fellow parent at the park, it doesn’t matter; they will tell you something about parenting or babies and they will say it with such conviction and authority that when you hear it over and over again you will begin to believe them, regardless of the overwhelming anecdotal evidence available to you in your own everyday life. Before you believe their lies and go down a path you cannot come back from I urge you to consider these commonly held baby myths and watch me destroy them.

1. Sleeping Like a Baby: Whoever thought up this phrase should be shot. Or, forced to sleep next to a baby or two for a couple of months. Babies don’t sleep like babies unless you mean for a couple of hours at a time with a pacifier in their mouth and being gently rocked by a loving grandparent. I would love to sleep like that, although I don’t think my grandparents, were they still alive, had the requisite strength to hoist this big boy in their laps for a split second, let alone a couple of hours. Of course, if you mean do I wake up scared and/or hungry every couple of hours, then yes, I’m sleeping like baby thank you very much.

2. You Will Become a Morning Person: No you will not. You will get up in the morning. In fact you will get up in the middle of the night. Does this make you a middle of the night person? No. You will get up in the morning because your baby or your child will invariably get up before you. They will need food, diapers changed, and comfort. If you are a morning person you will wake up first, have food ready, and eagerly change their diapers before comforting them. If you are me, a night person, then you will let yourself get dragged out of bed by a three-year old, take caffeine in one of it’s many forms, prepare deconstructed cereal – that’s where you give your kid a bottle of milk and a bowl of dry cereal so he doesn’t make a mess – and comfort him with a prerecorded television show like Thomas the Tank Engine. You will wonder two things while you do this. One is how your mom was able to raise any children without life’s modern conveniences and two, why is Thomas the Tank Engine such an incompetent asshole. You will never wonder whether or not you have become a morning person.

3. Breastfeeding is Fun: I’m pretty sure that’s not even a myth. No one thinks it’s fun. It can be funny, though. My wife has sprayed breast milk in our daughter’s face and hair and eyes, the coffee table, the cover of Real Simple Magazine, an Iron Man doll, the couch, a blanket, a TV remote, a lamp and the neighbor’s dog (don’t ask). The truth is breastfeeding is hard work and the only reason to do it is because you can and because you love your child and you want them to have the best nutrition possible. The second best choice is formula and that’s a pretty good choice, no, it’s a really good choice, but nobody ever got sprayed from a boob with formula and that’s just not fun.

4. Changing Diapers is a Shitty Job: Quite frankly I am amazed at the number of men, grown men, I know that have told me how they simply couldn’t see themselves changing diapers without throwing up. Throwing up? A couple of weeks ago I was headed out the door when I noticed that my son didn’t quite look right. He was a little pale, a little sweaty. Then he puked. Then he started crying. At three-years old it was the first time he had vomited from sickness. I rushed over and picked him up and told him it was going to be okay. He rewarded my concern by barfing in my ear. That’s right. He barfed in my earhole. That’s what 98.6 degrees feels like in your ear. Changing diapers is easy and there is nothing you get to practice more in the first three days of your kid’s life than changing diapers. By week two it’s conceivable that you will have changed 140 of them. Your wife will thank you for it, probably by having another child whose diapers you’ll have to change, but still, belly up to the changing table and if need be, have a barf bag nearby.

5. No More Happy Hour: One of my favorite things to see on the Facebook are pictures of my single friends eating two-for-one appetizers and drinking half-priced mixed drinks at any one of the many Los Angeles hot spots. It reminds me of when… Who am I kidding? I will unfriend the next person who dares to post a pic of mini-taquitos next to a freshly poured margarita. There is no more getting off work early since parenting is a 24-hour job. There’s no more drinking the afternoon away and sobering up in time to see a late night movie. There is, however, a brief period of time after which at least one, if not both, of the kids have gone to bed. It is during this time that you can crack open a cold one, pour a glass of red, or try to mix that fancy drink you had at the Edison downtown that one time, heat up some Trader Joe’s apps, and indulge in a prerecorded episode of Southland or The Americans. That, my friends, is as happy an hour as you can get.

If you have a baby myth to bust I’d like to know about it. Post it in comments or hit me up on twitter @DadOverboard.

featured image credit: Jerik0ne

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