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The UX on this small child is terrible

mcsweeneys.net

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Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#361
post #64

As someone who's gone through this five times (ok, going through it for the fifth): My experience has been that once I understood it it became very simple, but learning it was hard since none of the documentation is complete and it often only covers the small child that the author of said document had. One piece of very practical advice that I picked up from some docs somewhere though: For some reason adults easily u…

Oh wow, this is the first internet baby tip that has actually worked. Our two year old would take 30 minutes of settling every night, with one of us in the room sitting in a chair. Tried this checking in every couple of minutes idea, and within a few days he only took 6 minutes and was relaxed the whole time. Thanks a bunch! Got any tips for when they wake up freaking out in the night?

I'll favourite this :-)

Maybe even add a bookmark for it, filed under a new tag: bragging_rights ;-)

But please remember I did not come up with this, see sibling comment (pjgalbraith). It seems the method is called the Ferber method although I learned a modified version from what I found when I looked it up[1]: the way I learned it was to increase by two minutes each day, not more, ie first day 1 and then 3 minutes, second day 3 and then 5 minutes etc. I believe this will be even gentler and it has worked wonderfully for both children and adults.

Now to your question:

> Got any tips for when they wake up freaking out in the night?

Two things:

Once kids learn to associate bed with relaxing on their own they can often find their way back to sleep easily but not always.

My rule of thumb has been that if they have been asleep and wake up I walk in immediately as soon as I can so to make sure they aren't worried about being alone. Then it is up to ones judgment as a parent: if it is just old habits, start the countdown timer. If however they are scared (nightmares etc) stay a bit longer or if necessary take the child out of bed and hold them.

This is easier to judge if one arrive quickly because otherwise it is hard to know if they were scared when they woke up or if they became scared after thinking they were alone.

[1]: https://www.parents.com/baby/sleep/basics/the-ferber-method-...

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, this is the first internet baby tip that has actually worked. Our two year old would take 30 minutes of settling every night, with one of us in the room sitting in a chair. Tried this checking in every couple of minutes idea, and within a few days he only took 6 minutes and was relaxed the whole time. Thanks a bunch! Got any tips for when they wake up freaking out in the night?

I'll favourite this :-) Maybe even add a bookmark for it, filed under a new tag: bragging_rights ;-) But please remember I did not come up with this, see sibling comment (pjgalbraith). It seems the method is called the Ferber method although I learned a modified version from what I found when I looked it up[1]: the way I learned it was to increase by two minutes each day, not more, ie first day 1 and then 3 minutes,…

I think this speaks to how when learning a concept, just having it framed in the right way can really help.

I’d heard of the Ferber method before and we tried it a bit to no success. But just hearing the same idea framed as “the parent checking back in regular like a metronome”, rather than “the baby needs to learn to self settle” just clicked in my head.

Thanks for the tips, will keep trying this and see if it sorts out the late night wakes too.

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll favourite this :-) Maybe even add a bookmark for it, filed under a new tag: bragging_rights ;-) But please remember I did not come up with this, see sibling comment (pjgalbraith). It seems the method is called the Ferber method although I learned a modified version from what I found when I looked it up[1]: the way I learned it was to increase by two minutes each day, not more, ie first day 1 and then 3 minutes,…

I think this speaks to how when learning a concept, just having it framed in the right way can really help. I’d heard of the Ferber method before and we tried it a bit to no success. But just hearing the same idea framed as “the parent checking back in regular like a metronome”, rather than “the baby needs to learn to self settle” just clicked in my head. Thanks for the tips, will keep trying this and see if it sorts…

Seems like you already have the most important part settled from the start: you care about the child :-)

And, since you mention it: like a metronome is a good way to think about it. I used to use a digital timer or a phone but anything with fine grained resolution is fine I think, the point seems to be to be predictable.

Also I try to remember to point out that I go back also if the kid doesn't cry.

Some people think if the kid is silent then they are about to fall asleep and we should not wake them.

In my experience if the child feels safe they fall asleep with no problems even if I walk in and out.

On the other hand, if they haven't fallen asleep that will teach them that if they don't cry I won't look after them, at least that is what I think.

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#364
post #25
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working on the inputs to mine for over four years now and it still hasn't picked up "blow nose!"

Strange, I would've expected blowNose() would be inherited from the parent.

Every time we try and call the function, it either throws an ERR::ScreamingFit or just flat out crashes. Something about "illogical fear has occurred" and then you have to wait 30 minutes to tray again

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah finally moving away from monolith to microservices and handing over all those tasks off to someone SmallChildAsAService 2.0

I'm disturbed by the complete lack of any sort of ChildFactory in the comments.

Or indeed the Build Process. That's usually the most engaging part for me.

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kid (~2 years) prefers to eat food they like the taste of most. Turns out that they prefer the sweet tastes of biscuits and even bananas etc to broccoli and carrots. They'll whinge and whine about being hungry, so you offer them some peas or avocado or something and they will literally push it out of the way, look you straight in the eye, and tell you about how hungry they are (...but not hungry enough to eat the…

I can understand peas, but avocado is fatty indulgent wonderful food. Not liking avocado is absurd. It's like not liking peanut-butter. Side-note: I learned the most grotesque aberration that shows how the U.S. is orders of magnitude into complete dysfunction: there's something called "diet peanut butter" (learned about this because of a warning I saw online not to give it to dogs). WTF is "diet peanut butter"???? Pe…

> Not liking avocado is absurd. It's like not liking peanut-butter.

I'm not American but I hate both. They're bland foods.

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