It’s so easy to judge, until you’re the one being judged. And it only took me three children to learn this truth. I wish I had learned to be non-judgemental earlier in life. It would have made everyone’s life so. much. better.

Dude. She was fast asleep and horizontal in her stroller every time I saw her when it was dark.

Also, Vivi loves her Auntie LaLa. She told me.

Yes, I I kept my babies out late on a regular basis. Got lots of comments for it too. But you know what? Both of my kids didn’t sleep until about 1am, whether they were at home or not. Besides, babies sleep anywhere when they’re tiny. LOL

Oh god, thanks for reminding me of one of my first totally and utterly offended moments as a mother. This past new years eve, when my daughter was 11 months old, we walked her just down the street to a party at a good friend of ours’ house. This couple had a four month old, and there was also a 2 year old in attendance. For a combination of personal and religious reasons, absolutely no one in attendance drinks a drop of alcohol. So essentially, we were all just there to play with the kids and enjoy our first new years as parents together. Our daughter fell asleep around 10 or 11 like she always did at that age, dozed in the newborn’s room while we rang in the new year with the younger, still awake babies, and I scooped her up in the ergo to walk her the whopping 10 minute stroll home by 1 am. Sounds reasonable, right? Well we happen to live downtown in a big city, so the streets were packed with drunken college kids (unfortunately, (or fortunately, who knows) my daughter happens to have been born to a pair of hipster 20 somethings, so the drunken college kids present during these events seem to feel the right to comment on our parenting) and I was stopped by 4 separate people on the way home to inform me that it’s sick to keep an infant up till 1 so I can go party. You know, we’re all probably guilty of thinking or saying these things before we have kids, but especially as a young mom who seems to get double the unwarranted criticism, I think we all need to be more open to childless folks about the realities of parenting. It seems everyone has a glossed over mentality of what’s appropriate for other people’s kids until they have to deal with these situations themselves. And yes, I still stare at my 18 month old almost 24 hours a day. I’m mushy enough that I stroke her hair and basically chant ‘I love you’ on a loop when she looks sleepy to ensure that the last thing she hears at night is that her mommy loves you. Big old sap here.

As long as the baby is still getting rest, comfortable and happy does it really matter what time it is?

We take trips to the drive-in with our daughter, half way through the first movie she falls asleep and we get to enjoy a double feature. I see it as a win win!

People are dumb. You know what’s right for your sweet baby girl and I didn’t see Vivi drinking a beer… so… I’m thinking that it’s all under control.

Boo to the judgers.

My ex-husband and I both worked 2nd shift when we had our 2 kids- so they were on a second shift schedule. The both slept 10 to 12 hours a night, but it was from 1 am until 10-11 am. We ate breakfast when other people were eating lunch, we ate lunch when everyone else was eating dinner and grandma would feed them dinner around 8 pm. They would run around her house and play until we got out of work around 9 or 10 pm.

So, we were your typical family. We ate at least 2 meals a day with our kids. We would go the the park almost daily before work. And if we had to grocery shop with toddlers, there really was a HUGE benefit to shopping at 10pm on our way home for the night. No running into other carts, choice parking and friendly, fast check outs.

But ohhh… the judgement. That was horrible. We were actually yelled at by old ladies in stores. We had a man in a diner tell us we were horrible parents for keeping our kids out past 9.

When we were able to transition to normal day jobs, it took a week or two to adjust their schedules… but they have never been worse for the wear.