Before you start reading this post, I want to make a suggestion: If you are a “baby person” (i.e., you “just can’t get enough of babies,” “could’ve had 10 babies,” “never tire of babies,” then this post is not for you. In fact, you might want to go ahead and navigate away from this page now…
For the rest of you, this post might be for you. Sure it’s not a very popular/PC/cool thing to say, but the fact of the matter is, babies are boring, yep B-O-R-I-N-G. I’ve felt it myself, and I’ve heard others admit it too. It can be tough to stay excited and engaged around a baby (especially if you are with them for hours on end). Yea, they’re cute and cuddly, and they are surely a lot of work, but they’re not very stimulating and typically prefer doing lots of nothing – which means you as the caregiver do lots of nothing, too.
So, does it make you a bad parent if you:
1. Think your baby is boring
2. Check the clock every 2 minutes to see how much more time you have to be with your baby alone
3. Wish their infant stage away so that you can just play catch already?
NO! NO! NO! Definitely not!
And, does it make you a bad parent if you:
1. Don’t like making baby talk
2. Don’t know how to play with a 3 month old
NO! NO! NO! Definitely not!
Luckily, babies are super forgiving and can be entertained in lots of ways…and they don’t all involve Baby Einstein videos and rattles. It’s important to talk to our babies and we all know reading to them from a young age is what we are supposed to do. But no one ever said what the reading material had to be. So why can’t it be things like US Weekly, The Shabby Chic Home, or Sports Illustrated (just random examples, of course)? And my idea of quality baby time definitely includes walking the stroller down the street or through the mall so that mom (or dad) can get some exercise.
So, if you’re bored by your baby, know that you’re not alone. They ARE boring. But they’re wonderful, too. And as anyone who has had a baby can tell you, they do grow up and get more interesting and intellectually stimulating – you might even yearn for those baby days when you had nothing but time. Or maybe not – and that’s OK too.
Thanks for posting. This is just what I needed to read today. My baby is four months and some days it seems we are just in countdown mode until her dad comes home from work. (Don’t worry baby, in x # of hours your dad will be home and you’ll have some one to play with)
Thanks for commenting, Emily! Glad the post was helpful. I love your description of “countdown mode” – I have been there many times!!!