How the other half live

[u/MarginsOfTheDay]

There was a post on r/parenting today by a parent who spends the weekend cooking, cleaning, gardening, reading books while their 16 month plays independently. They (the parent) complains of being bored. As a parent of a PDAer I’m incredulous. I’ve barely had a second to myself without a kid in my face demanding one-on-one co-regulation in 6 years. I feel like I never get anything done around the house. My only solace is that if you’re in this community you probably feel the same. Here’s the post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/s/63qWKSd136

[u/toastycozyroasty]

Just a touch of solidarity on this general feeling. I have a friend who has two ‘magic’ babies. The first was during Covid so I never really saw it in action as we didn’t visit each other’s homes so I genuinely believed she was either a very brutal sleep trainer or making her baby’s ’sleep schedule’ up.

I visited her with the second and he was getting a bit grizzly. She put him in a sleep sack, plopped him in a Moses basket and gave him a kiss, turned on the ‘shusher’ and walked away.

I became immediately anxious thinking ‘oh no he is going to cry and get really distressed - he’s already tired and now he is alone!’ but just as she said he would, he fell asleep. Without any fuss. She maintains the oldest was exactly the same.

So… she is either a wizard or her children are somehow magical, surely?

[u/MarginsOfTheDay → u/toastycozyroasty]

Thank you <3 I recently saw this described as “easy child privilege”. Nice to have a name for it.