3 Pesky Parenting Problems With No Solution

Babble has compiled a helpful list of parenting problems with no clear solution.  I'm a big fan. With all the advice coming at you from different directions, it's nice to know there are some areas where even the experts are in the dark. It's comforting in a strange way.

So, if you can't find the answer on Google or through your local mom group, perhaps it's just one of those pesky problems with no solution.

For instance…

1. Getting a baby to sleep through the night.

With three children, I’ve had three very different babies when it comes to sleep habits. I’ve had one that slept well since day one and the other two who loved to keep me up at night. No matter what I tried, what book I read, what gadget I bought, what advice I received (or even what a sleep trainer told me to do) — none of it worked.

I’ve come to realize that some babies just like to wake up in the middle of the night. Some need the comfort of being with a parent. Eventually they realize that sleep is a good thing and start sleeping through the night and most of the time it’s not because of what you did or didn’t do.

2. Preventing public tantrums.

If someone had a way for this to never happen to me again, I’d give them all of the money in the world. But alas, I haven’t found that person and it happens to all of us. Our kids see something in a store that they like, you say no, and their whole world falls apart right there for all to see.

You can walk away and pretend like you don’t know them, you can give in, you can attempt to put them in the cart to get the heck out of there … but I guarantee no matter which path you take, that won’t be their last tantrum in a public space.

3. Biting.

My son is a biter. He bites a lot in our home. Thankfully he hasn’t started doing it out in public just yet. I’ve asked friends, polled Facebook, talked to his pediatrician … but none of their advice has worked. He’s still biting.

Thankfully a lot of the people that have offered advice have also told me that either they bit when they were young, or their child has done the same thing and eventually they got over it. It’s just another phase that some kids go through and there ain’t a lot we can do about it.

If anybody had a real method for getting babies to sleep through the night that worked 100% of the time, there'd be a lot of empty shelves at Barnes & Noble. The reason these books do so well is because sleep-deprived new parents are willing to try just about anything for some relief from the exhaustion of having a new baby.

I've yet to hear any really great suggestions to avoiding the biting stage or overcoming it quickly. Thankfully, we've survived that one and come out on the other side. However, when my son was in the biting stage, even my mom eventually admitted she was out of ideas. My mom is never out of ideas about how to parent the kids. She was stumped.

As far as preventing public tantrums… there's no way around that one either. That's why you're getting those knowing glances and sympathetic looks from the other moms in the Children's section. We've all been there. Best of luck.

So, if you've been up all night googling parenting articles about how to stop your kid from chomping on his playmates, I hope you found some helpful tips. But if all the advice fails to work, just remember that it's on the list of problems we just don't have a really good answer for. Sorry.