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Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My friend asks me 3-to-4 times a week if I want to FaceTime or Zoom, saying her 4-year-old son “Jack” wants to see me. I then proceed to sit around for the next 15-to-20 minutes watching him play with his toys. Most of the time, he barely acknowledges me beyond a quick hello. I don’t want to keep doing this, at least not so often. Once or twice a week would be fine—my friend and I can chat (though there’s only so much to talk about when our days consist of staying at home). But this 3-to-4 times a week for more than five minutes pattern is irritating. The trouble is, I seldom have an excuse to decline because I’m quarantining, so I have nothing else going on. It would be different if Jack were talking to me, but I’m staring at my phone while he sits and moves his trucks back and forth. For the record, I’m not blaming Jack for any of this; I just don’t want to keep doing it so much since he doesn’t interact. How can I tell my friend I’m not interested?
— (Phone) Jack Is Wack
Dear P.J.I.W.,
Wanting your darling child and your homies to interact, even when they don’t necessarily feel drawn towards one another, is a parent thing that I can’t quite explain, even though I’ve been guilty of doing it myself. Perhaps it’s just a function of how much we love our little ones and love our friends, and wanting them to know and love each other.
Considering the timing of your note, it could be that Jack’s mom is trying to keep him entertained while they’re stuck in the house … and also, perhaps, that she needs a brief break herself to sort her thoughts, complete a task, or just have a little relative quiet, and that she’s using these calls to buy herself a little peace. As someone who has been helped out tremendously by friends taking a little time to speak to my kid via video chat, I strongly suspect that would be the primary factor in her instance upon making these calls so frequent.
Tell your friend that despite the shutdown, you’re attempting to get on a more regimented schedule and be productive during the day, which means you aren’t as readily available to speak to Jack whenever she feels like having him call. Perhaps you can offer 1 or 2 predetermined time windows per week that are open for Jack chats and hopefully, over time, the little pumpkin will have something to say to you. It would be super kind for you to do so, and on behalf of all parents who could use someone else to take the weight of our shoulders even temporarily, your efforts to be supportive are truly appreciated!
Dear Care and Feeding,
My partner Paul and I are the parents of a 9-month-old baby, and the pandemic has changed our usual routine a bit. Paul works nights and gets home between midnight and 2 a.m., and doesn’t go to sleep until 3 or 4. When I leave for work at 7, the baby remains in the crib while his dad sleeps. Lately, Paul has been flying the baby in his swing for hours because it puts him back to sleep during a time he typically would be awake and heading to daycare.
This is killing me. I feel like he’s being a bad parent, and that he simply needs to go to bed and wake up earlier as opposed to making our baby sleep more so he can rest. Our kid is being neglected and is not being allowed to grow and develop, and it just can’t be safe. We fight about this a lot. Unfortunately, we live far from our families, so we don’t have anyone who can help us out. Am I being unfair? I watch the baby in the swing on the camera monitor and cry at my desk. Please help me navigate this.
— Pissed at Paul
Dear P.a.P.,
Ideally, Paul would head straight to bed when he returns from work in order to be somewhat rested and ready for your little one’s morning activity. However, it’s not entirely unreasonable that he’d want to create a schedule that allows him to have a bit more rest during the mornings either—it just needs to be done in a safer way.
Before we consider the more subjective “good parent” versus “bad parent” issue you raise here, it’s important that you make it clear to Paul that infant swings were not intended for naps. The American Academy of Pediatric’s guidance for safe sleeping call for babies to sleep on their backs on a firm mattress, sans comforters, pillows, extra sheets, or anything else that can lead to suffocation. If your baby falls asleep in the swing, she should be removed and placed in her crib.
What happens for the rest of the day, after the lengthy morning nap? Does Paul engage with the baby, or is she left to her own devices more often than not? If your partner needs a morning recharge in order to be ready for an active afternoon, that’s very different than simply sleeping until twelve and then setting the playpen up across from a TV turned to PBS.
The two of you need to compromise and come up with a plan that allows Paul to get a reasonable amount of rest and for your child to be 1) safely placed in a crib or bed for all naps and 2) to be actively entertained and nurtured when the morning rest period has ended. That’s the only way this works. It seems obvious that your partner will struggle to function without adequate sleep, but he can’t dispatch his daddy duties to a piece of furniture either. Be gentle, yet firm with him. Best of luck to you.
· If you missed Tuesday’s Care and Feeding column, read it here.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
Serious question—how do you safely/adequately raise a child without a landline? We have one, but so many people don’t, and I’m wondering what I’m missing. My oldest is 6, and I have taught her how to dial our home phone. I’ve printed a list next to the phone with pictures of family members and their phone numbers so she can call them in an emergency. As she gets older (but isn’t old enough for a cell phone), she’ll be able to use the landline to call 911 in an emergency or to reach a family member if she’s staying home alone. Even in a non-emergency case, I have one friend who had his tween daughter’s friends calling his cell phone to reach her. I don’t want a parent’s phone to become my kid’s by default, so I’m planning on having her use the landline until she’s old enough for her cell phone. So what do people with only cell phones do about their kids who are old enough to use phones, but not old enough for their own?
— Dial My Heart
Dear D.M.H.,
I commend you for managing to avoid the joint custody situation that exists for so many parents, our children, and our smartphones, including many of those who actually do have housephones (which do not have TikTok, YouTube, or games and thus, lack much appeal to kids who are too young to desire old-school phone conversations).
I can’t speak for everyone, but I’d argue that most responsible parents of kids who are at the “old enough to use a phone but too young to own one” stage are unlikely to put their children in a situation where they are outside of the care of someone who would have a phone on their person. Furthermore, while there is no agreed upon age in which a kid should get ownership of a phone of their own, it certainly has become more common to see 8, 9, or 10-year-olds with their own devices in order to communicate with parents during their commute to and from school, while visiting friends or relatives, etc.
That said, I’ve found that a landline is a great thing to have in case of emergencies; if there is only one cell phone in the house, a misplaced charger or hard fall could put you in a precarious situation pretty quickly. For those of you who have the means but haven’t owned a house phone in years, I’d suggest trying to bundle one into your monthly cable/ internet bill so that you’re never in a position to be entirely cut off from the outside world.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My spouse and I are gay men. Our son just turned 18-months-old at the start of the coronavirus societal separation. He has not been to daycare in about four weeks. Since he’s been at home, he has had trouble napping. His night sleeping hasn’t changed, and he continues to get about 12 hours a night. I am a teacher, so I’ve been home as long as our Nugget, and my spouse is a pastor who started video streaming services weeks ago. We are all home a lot, understandably.
My question is about rage screaming. How much is too much? We’ve tried to follow Nugget’s schedule from daycare. His daily reports from daycare had him sleeping 1.5 - 2.5 hours daily. We try and tire him out with lots of activities. At nap time, he will fall asleep on our shoulders in his room, but the transition to the crib wakes him up, and he becomes inconsolable unless held. He was sleeping on a cot at school. At home he props himself up at the crib corner and just bounces and cries for two hours. We’ve tried lying down next to the crib after putting him down and comforting him, but as soon as we get up to leave Nugget starts raging again. We’ve tried the gradual lengthening of our time away. Nothing has worked. Right now we just let him cry for two hours. I’ve read about sleep regression, but I need to know that I am not hurting my child. Will he ever figure out that he needs this sleep? My spouse and I need nap time to clean, do our jobs remotely, or de-stress with a West Wing episode or video game. Part of me is scared of becoming numb to his cries. Thoughts?
— Nugget Needs a Nap
Dear N.N.a.N.,
Have you tried to replicate the sleeping environment that Nugget gets at school? Perhaps ordering a cot like the one he uses there, playing the same music his teacher uses, and/or observing the same pre- and post-nap rituals could be helpful.
Or, perhaps not; some kids who are regular, peaceful sleepers at school or daycare are largely incapable of having the same habits at home, and vice versa. As it’s highly likely that we will be operating outside of our normal schedules for quite some time, it’s not as important for you to try and force naptime during the hours in which your child would get one with his classmates as it is that you come up with a daily routine that works for what he seems to need now. It could be that he’s sleeping later in the morning since he doesn’t have to go outside for school, and/or that he’s simply not tired enough by the time he’d normally nap for it to make sense that he’d be ready to crash.
Try pushing the naptime back by a few hours, or even eliminating it all together for a few days and observing when your child naturally begins to show signs that he’s ready for sleep. Use a pack-and-play or swing to keep him occupied when you need to cook or clean without him demanding all of your attention, and forgive yourself now regarding your ability to keep him on the same schedule he’d gotten used to at day care. Everything is different now, at least for the time being, and we owe it to ourselves to focus on adapting, not forcing “normalcy.” Best of luck to you all.
— Jamilah
More Advice From SlateMy boyfriend and I have been together for five months, and we’re both 36. He treats me well, is caring, and I enjoy his companionship. The dilemma … our sex life is sparse. It’s been over a month since we’ve been physical. I brought this up and told him I wanted to get to the bottom of it. He told me that he is not physically attracted to me and never was. He had hoped that how well I treat him and how strong our connection is would help overcome this, but it hasn’t. He’s by no means repulsed by me and is willing to work with me on this. For reference, I make healthy choices food-wise and have trouble getting motivated to go to the gym (which I admit); I am of average weight and height, and all of my labs are normal. I was understandably hurt by this. Last night he came over, apologized for how much he hurt me, and cried for two hours. He wants to stay together, and I asked him for time to think about what is best for me. What are your thoughts? It is worth staying with someone who treats you really well but isn’t attracted to you?
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