Unprofessional Parenting

As the arrival of baby #2 approaches quickly I’m having nervous flashbacks from when my son was an infant. Offers to “help” are rolling in but as I recall during my last infant period the offers to help were rarely helpful. Almost without exception all those well-meaning folks who visited to “help out” actually made my life more difficult.

For those who have been in this situation I’ve put together a quick list of what is NOT helpful to someone with a baby:

• Don’t arrive offering to help and then ask to be served food/drinks. You are welcome to what is in my refrigerator but assuming I’ll get it for you in my post c-section condition is only going to be a disappointment.
• Arriving with a meal and wanting to sit down with us immediately and eat it isn’t helpful. Consider how wacky our schedule is - we may not even be hungry - and while we thank you for the food, trying to force us into a sit down meal probably won’t (or can’t) work.
• As an attachment to the above point: If you do eat or drink at our house please don’t leave dirty dishes, soda cans or beer bottles lying around for me to clean up. This happened to me several times. In a couple of cases the dishes didn’t even get to the sink but were left with the remains of the meal on my dining room table. Thanks.
• If you need to rearrange my furniture - please put it back! I have eight very heavy dining room chairs around my table and a certain visitor had a habit of moving them around the house and not putting them back. The same goes for heavy ottomans or end tables.
• If I am nursing please don’t barge in and ask to “give me a break” by holding the baby immediately. Are you lactating? If not then the answer is no.
• Don’t wake up the baby to take pictures of him. NOT HELPFUL.
• Please don’t offer to diaper the baby if you are going to tell me the way I do it is silly. I had to change tons of outfits after well meaning helpers informed me that pointing his “boy parts” down was unnecessary during diapering. Thanks for getting me peed on - sometimes there is a method to my madness.

Boy, that got long fast! My anxiety level is definitely ratcheted up at this point so I know I’m being a little whiny here but I’m preparing for several months of no sleep so cut me some slack please. As a follow up I will post a list of what is helpful for tomorrow - just so I’m not accused of being totally negative all the time!

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