I am the Professor of Nipple Confusion

We went to another child class this week. "Happiest Baby on the Block. "

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Three hours I’ll never get back.

The highlight of the class happens before it even starts. All the couples are waiting and this last couple scrambles in, searching for a seat. The wife is a pretty good-looking woman. The husband is a pretty ugly man. I mean really ugly.

I look at Brooke. I know she is thinking the same thing. She’s too respectful to say anything.

“That guy is doing pretty good for himself,” I whisper. “He probably makes good money.”

She retorts: “I bet a lot of people say that about you.”

Touche.

The woman teaching the class came off as kind of a New Age baby guru. She said she teaches a “hypno-birth” class. I assume that involves hypnotizing mom so the birth goes smoothly. I’d rather have an epidural.

She said this class would be based on treating the baby’s first three months like she was still in the womb. She said a year in the womb would be better than nine months for the baby and we, as parents, need to make sure she lives her life as closely as possible to what it was like in the womb.

O…K. Although, I CAN understand why the baby might like three more months in there. Every morning, I want three more hours of sleep. I imagine the feeling is similar.

She talked about different techniques for dealing with children, not putting your baby on a schedule, ALWAYS responding to your baby when she cries and that there is no possible way to “spoil” a baby.

Yeah, right.

She’s probably the kind of mom who allows her children to run around the restaurant screaming when people are trying to eat. Wouldn’t want to hurt their little feelings.

I remember reading the same thing about puppies. “They’re too young to understand, so don’t try to train them until they are a year old.” Well, at about six months, my Vegas decided to eat the baseboard while I was at work. When I got home, he got the whipping of his life. Guess what? No more baseboard eating.

To this day, eight years later, I can walk near that spot on the baseboard and say, “Did you do that?” and he will lower his head and sulk to a corner out of my eyesight. Too young? I don’t think so.

My plan is to have my child sleeping through the night at about three weeks, potty trained before she is 2 and enrolled in early college classes by 9.

But my wife believes the baby peas and carrots Miss New Age is dishing out. She insists we will respond EVERY time the baby cries. But she once insisted we’d always eat dinner on the dining room table – the same one that now serves as her scrapbooking center while I eat my meatloaf on the couch during another King of Queens re-run.

Miss New Age also said a baby is really supposed to cry only about 30 minutes a day.

Miss New Age also said a baby is really supposed to cry only about 30 minutes a day.

Miss New Age also said a baby is really supposed to cry only about 30 minutes a day.

Maybe if you say it enough it will actually come true.  

She speaks in a monotone voice – with little interruption -- for the whole three hours. She tells us there is no such thing as colic, but then hands out a sheet with “Reasons for Colic.” Go figure.

She says a child’s cry has been proven in studies to be similar to an electric shock for parents. Good thing I am old and hard of hearing. Good luck, Brooke.

She did have some information that I found interesting. Apparently, babies like to fart. She said some of those grunts and faces they make are just them having fun cutting the cheese. Or, they are simultaneously using their stomach and anus muscles – a difficult thing for them – as they learn to poop.

Finally, Miss New Age was roping the dads into the conversation.

She did tell us that the babies actually taste and grow to like the foods the mom eats because it flows to them in the breastfeeding process. Moms have to beware of things like caffeine. I think Brooke had visions of kicking her Starbucks habit back into high gear, but those grand triple-cafe lattes will have to wait.

Good thing I am not doing the breastfeeding. Quarterly sales for the Cincinnati offices of Chipotle and Snappy Tomato Pizza would hit rock bottom if I had to cut out junk food. Or, I could just risk it and Sydney would develop an addiction to cheeseburgers before she was out of size S diapers.

Do diapers come in S, M and L?

During the class, we learned about a Dr. Karp from UCLA and his method for calming crying babies. I can’t remember all the details, but it involved wrapping your kid up in a blanket like one of those mini-hot dog appetizers you get at a party. Miss New Age said this gave the baby the security it felt in the womb.

She showed a film of this Dr. Harvey Karp in action. I swear, this guy was a child whisperer. He would take these crying, screaming kids, wrap them tight in a blanket, hold them in his arm and whisper “shhhhhh” at them for a few seconds and they would grow as happy and content as Paris Hilton in a Prada store.

This guy was amazing. But I couldn’t help wondering if this was like one of those advertisements where they show you a huge, juicy burger with colorful garnishes but when you show up to eat it you find a dry burger, about half the size, with wilted lettuce. How many babies DID NOT stop crying and never made the movie?

The class also dealt with things like nipple confusion and sleep deprivation, which Miss New Age accurately pointed out is a form of torture in many countries.

She’s really selling this whole parenthood thing.

Nipple confusion is the ONE THING I knew more about than Brooke going into this pregnancy. I had read a sliver of information on it in some humor book on pregnancy. Turns out the book was not that humorous, but it gave me a leg up on Brooke when it came to the complexity of various nipples.  

Don’t think I don’t lord this over her whenever I can.

Brooke: “Honey, we’ll have to introduce food to Sydney slowly and one at a time so we can determine food allergies.”

Me: “Sure honey, but the real key is that we don’t get her confused about your nipple, the bottle and the pacifier. This could cause her to not feed properly and she will slowly starve to death without us knowing it. Good thing I am around to tell you these things or our baby would never make it out of diapers.”

Brooke is never amused when I do this. Nor does she really appreciate my knowledge of nipple confusion.

In the end, this was another one of those classes I am not sure had great value. I think I am going to sink and swim on my own when it comes to this baby thing. Good thing I am a couch potato. Everything I really need to know about babies I am pretty sure I learned watching TV.