Leaving your newborn child in the care of someone else for the first time probably makes any new parent nervous. However, this dad’s extremely long list may have gone a little overboard… [via 22words]
Neurotic Dad Leaves the Longest Babysitter Instructions Ever
This isn’t funny; it’s neurotic. Stay the hell at home if you think you should micromanage your nanny like that.
Pretty sure this was done more out of humor than neurotic concern. If the father were really being obsessive, he wouldn’t be inserting the bits of humor that he does. I think it’s more likely that he wanted to answer any questions before they were asked. We also don’t know the babysitter’s experience level with infants, so maybe the extensive information was appreciated, if a bit laughed at.
Overboard or not, this is still cute and funny.
I would find this incredibly insulting if I had been hired to watch his baby.
Did someone need to micromanage him to this degree when he first took his child home from the hospital? Like, did he need to be told that if the baby poops it will smell unpleasant?
This is super helpful for someone who’s never had to look after a baby tbh. I don’t think it seems neurotic if the babysitter hadn’t had a lot of baby experience.
This. Nothing in here is overboard if you’re having someone unused to watching a baby watch your baby. However, why anyone would want someone like that watching their baby is beyond me.
Agreed. Or family members. I have plenty of family who have volunteered to watch our baby but haven’t taken care of an infant in more than 30 years.
Thank you for your instructions. If any issues arise that aren’t covered by your bullet points, I will just try shaking the child vigorously and firmly tapping the top of his head.
Har.
Never heat a baby bottle in a microwave. Never. The rest is ridiculously neurotic, but that bothered me a lot.
I left a note similar to this for someone who was watching my senior dog with some health problems when I had to go out of town for an emergency and couldn’t take him with me. The whole thing was in the spirit of humor. My friend thought it was absolutely hilarious because they know I would never have left him with them if I didn’t feel comfortable.
Regardless, I don’t give a crap if people feel this is micromanaging; this is his baby. Dad has every right to micromanage, especially if it’s a new sitter to him. If I was that sitter, I’d giggle a little and then do such a great job that Dad would never have cause to worry about me with his baby again.
What baby only poops every other day?
Yeah, that surprised me. My daughter pooped about every other hour it seemed. I’m sure it wasn’t actually that often, but it did feel like the pooping never ended.
I don’t know why you would need to cut a child out of dirty clothing, though.
I guess if the kid holds it for 48 hours and lets it go all at once scissors might be necessary.
Babies who eat just breast milk often don’t poop daily. It’s normal for them to not go for three plus days, because breast milk doesn’t contain anything that gets wasted. It all gets absorbed by the babies body.
This is the same kind of stuff you’d see in one of those baby books, not neurotic…
this needs to be printed out and handed to new Dads. This is awesome. i wish I’d had this.
A thorough dad taking this much of an interest in actually raising his child is good (and rare, I don’t give a shit what you say). But I’d never in a million years ever leave a newborn with a fucking stranger. He cares so much for the childs wellbeing to write that stuff but not enough to let a stranger care for it. You’re either committed for better or for worse, or you’re not.
I think this demonstrates how foreign and alien his own baby seemed to him when this new father first learned the art of baby care. So he is assuming all folks are as clueless as he was when first introduced to these strange creatures and their mysterious helpless dependent ways. How could a being have been created to be so vulnerable, fragile and inefficient to withstand the elements and survive on its own? Just a miracle that our species even exists…
That’s a good point. I think it would have been made even funnier if the guy didn’t actually have a child and there was an empty cot upstairs . He could have gone out for a few hours, then come home and the babysitter might have said “I haven’t heard a peep!” then you could act all surprised and say “Wow, let’s go check on him” and then completely freak the fuck out and then I haven’t really thought this through at all, sorry, someone else take over.
dear above commenters who are taking this way too seriously: loosen up. It’s humor. He was joking. Please go back to the parenting forums.
Whoever wrote this needs psychiatric help.