Nothing is more prolific than parenting advice. But why is much of it so obvious and lame? Beats me, but I certainly get a chuckle from the many completely stupid and/or self-evident things told to new moms in the guise of expertise. So much so that I have catalogued several choice pieces over the course of this blog. Read them and enjoy in the Because We Need Advice archives. Because it's really quite amusing to waste time on totally useless parenting tips (especially when you should be unpacking boxes).

Sometimes it's not the advice-givers so much as the advice-seekers that need to get a clue: Pampers.com has an "Ask the Experts page" rife with silly questions from clueless folk. Here are some snippets from their Q and A forum. I took the liberty of ignoring the expert answers here and just giving them myself. After all, I am Crabmommy, Expert Mother and Counselor in my own right...right?

Q: How should I respond when my 7-month-old tries to eat the book I'm reading to him?
A: Wow. This certainly is a key area of concern and I can see why you wrote in. I'd take it as a sign that,  strange as it may seem, your kid might not give a rip about reading at the grand old age of 7 months. Or else he just wants a Cheerio. Probably both. Advice? Blow off the early literacy program. You can always come back to it when Grandma sends him flashcards for his first birthday.

Q: Could the behavior swings of my 2-year-old be due to schizophrenia?
A: More important, could your asking this question be due to extreme neurosis? Get yourself checked out. I'm worried.

Q: How do I teach my 4-year-old daughter not to kiss boys on the lips?
[For this one, I'm actually going to quote the original advice-giver's answer. Because it's utterly priceless. And from an MD no less.]
First, don't freak out. Children's sexual behavior can be upsetting to us, but it's usually innocent exploration. She has seen people do this in the media and has had no indication that it is not usual and acceptable behavior...

"Sexual behavior?"
"Not usual and acceptable...?"
Huh? We're talking about tots kissing here, not third base, Doc! Good LAWD, these people are nuts.

I'll leave you with that one. And Pampers.com, I will be back, for you have many choice nuggets for the Crabmommy to mock. You also have a most promising tab on your website called the Pampers Parenting Institute (PPI). Stay tuned, everyone.

Seriously, how dumb is this stuff? Anyone else got a parenting advice doozy to share? Something totally  lame you were told to do with your offspring?

I'm afraid of flying. With Crabtot, I mean.

Usually I make fun of advice here. But this time I'm asking for it, nay begging for it. Because we're soon jetting off to see Crabgrandma in Africa, and I want to know how I might survive a tot in transit for 2 days. Frankly, I'm looking to knock Crabtot out. Because from the Rocky Mountains to Table Mountain (Cape Town) is not a journey, it's an odyssey. It's the Great Trek.

Given today's wussiness toward meds, I didn't expect my pediatrician to be sympathetic to my desire to submerge the 3-year-old in a sea of Benadryl. But in fact Doc suggested half a teaspoon of Beny, tried in advance to check that it didn't have the reverse effect. Sadly, even a full 5mls just had plum sweet-Fanny-Adams NO effect. To my disappointment, Crabtot seemed utterly herself after Benadryl, entirely undiminished in wakefulness and cheekiness. I was longing to call the doc and ask if a double-dose (that would be 4 x her half-tsp suggestion) could be sanctioned under drastic circumstances. But you can't ask them that because you know they can't answer you.

So next on the test-run agenda is Dimetapp, then something I didn't think was still on the shelves called PediaCare, which I descended on at the pharmacy last week as if spotting a nugget of gold in the sand. In choosing my poisons I'm picking those containing the heartening side effects message "marked drowsiness may occur" as opposed to just plain old "drowsiness may occur." I was also thrilled to see a lovely moon and star on the PediaCare bottle—definitely a promising sign!

Any other suggestions? Anyone heard of Gravol? Any PediaValium out there? Judge away, but how far do you think you'd get with lavender oil on the temples and an Etch-a-Sketch if you were going from Wyoming to South Africa with your crabby tot?

I really do beseech you for advice on how to obliterate wakefulness on a 35-hour trip. Scanning online message-boards hasn't helped. If it's not some Berkeley mom admonishing me for even thinking of doping tots, then it's someone asking how to safely settle her rascal for that dreaded Seattle to Minneapolis marathon. But I want to hear from folks who've taken triplets from Tulsa to Tripoli. I want medical tips from Manitoba-Mumbai or Flagstaff-Fiji tot-toting travelers. Don't hold back. I want your drugs, people, and believe me Crabtot wants them too.

I guess if all else fails I can always hit the mini-bottles of brandy on board. A few shots in tot's bottle (and mine) and it's goodnight. Or at least, a mom can dare to dream.

I'm not a big fan of Dr. Sears. I used his baby book, but I've always found him irritating. He's far too kind, patient, and positive for me.

Sometimes I think Sears and poor long-suffering Mommy Martha had all those kids just so he could use different names in his personal examples. "When our seven year old, Matthew..." and "After our ten-year old, Erin..." I know I'm not the only one to find Sears bugging. I didn't quite go the other way, but I certainly mixed a little Detachment Parenting and more than a few formula bottles into my otherwise swaddling, coddling, "babywearing," breastfeeding BrooklynMama infant days.

Since it's been a while since I checked in with Dr. Sears I thought I'd see what he had to say about tots. As expected, some very patient and positive nuggets are to be found on his website, as well as the totally useless stating-the-obvious tips the experts always insist on giving us. For example:

When you shop with a toddler, be sure she is well-rested and well-fed, and be ready with a nutritious snack to keep her mind off the cereal boxes, lettuce, and egg cartons.... Take your babysling along, or let baby ride in the cart. Have fun and a short grocery list. If you're in a hurry, feeling distracted or stressed, shop without baby.

"Be ready with a nutritious snack to take her mind off the cereal boxes, lettuce...?" What kind of toddler is this? Maybe a Sears toddler for whom lettuce is like, what, a fab treat? Sears, there are these things called cookies. And these things called lollipops and this aisle called Junk. Haven't heard of it? Figures.

"Let baby ride in the cart."Now THAT'S clever!

"Have fun and a short grocery list." A short grocery list? What are you talking about, Doc? You have like, 50 kids so you never have a short list. And I have, like, one, and nor do I. So why are we talking about this?

"If you're in a hurry, feeling distracted or stressed, shop without baby." Let me see, the advice you give me on how to shop with tot is...leave her at home?

On second thought, that's good advice!

Crabmommy bio

Nothing is more irritating than being encouraged to do the obvious by experts. Nowhere is this more prevalent, IMHO, than in the world of learning. In so many ways are we told that we must turn to librarians and other researchers in the world of literacy and pedagogy to help us figure out how to take on that most monstrously important duty of...reading to our children.

Crabtot receives a subscription from an elderly couple to a little magazine called Wild Animal Baby. And while like all publications these days it is pushy about promoting serious learning to the wee ones via the huggability of the natural world (How many lemurs can you see?), Wild Animal Baby amuses Tot, so we tolerate it.

Except for one section. In which some person makes up incredibly dull-witted rhymes every month, e.g.:

I hear the gentle rain pit pat above my head.
I watch the flowers open in my flowerbed.
When the sun comes out and raindrops shine like jewels
I run and jump and splash in all the raindrop pools.

The poems are bad enough, but what really gets me are the advice on appropriate hand movements for each line, and the instruction "Parents: encourage your child to mimic you as you perform the illustrated motions." There is the hand next to the ear for hearing the gentle rain; then the fingers making binocs around the eyes for the watching of the flower and then various ridiculous splashing and leaping motions.

In its earnestness factor, this reminds me of well-meaning librarians who say, at Storytime, "It's a good idea to show your child the front and back of the book, as well as the blank pages before the story starts. I always ask, what color is this? Can you say it Spanish?"

Give me a break. Get me a drink.

Crabmommy bio

It's July 4th. Summer is officially here and I know I have questions about kid safety. Like, is it okay to use my fancy high-altitude helioplex sunscreen on Crabtot, or is the stuff toddler-toxic?...What does a deer tick look like?...Is Crabtot old enough to safely make me a gin and tonic? 

Many questions. Which is why we turn to the experts. It's a pity they so often have nothing very useful to say. For example, here are some shockingly enlightening pointers from the Guide to Summer Health, brought to you by the American Academy of Pediatrics:

* "You know you've overdone the sun when your baby's skin is pinkish red."
No, really? I thought she had to be ORANGE!

* "The sun is strongest between 10 am and 3pm."
Are you sure? I thought kids were most at risk in the early evening when the sun gets all sort of reddish and starts slipping down the horizon!

* "Mosquitoes leave itchy bumps, while a bee sting causes redness and painful swelling."
I'm glad I now know that a mosquito bite might itch. Seriously, who wouldn't know that? IS THERE A PERSON ALIVE on this earth who hasn't been bitten by a mosquito?

* "Leaving your baby alone in the water, even for a second, puts her at risk for drowning. This is always the case in the bath and around buckets of water, but in summer, add to your list: all pools, lakes, streams, and the ocean."
All I can say is, THANK GOD I read this. I mean, like all humans I had heard the one about not leaving the kids alone with an inch of water in the bath. But I didn't know that I should add oceans and lakes to my list. Thanks, docs. You just saved a life today!

* "Water accidents are most likely to occur during the summer."
Now, THAT'S a newsflash. I would have guessed winter for the highest concentration of water-based accidents...All those children licking icicles and needing the fire department to disengage their tongues from the ice! All those toddlers drowning in their hot chocolate!

Please take the good doctors' research to heart, parent people. It takes many years of medical school to bring you the facts. Use them and enjoy a Safety First Summer.

Crabmommy bio

It 's always swell to receive advice on parenting. And nothing could be more helpful than this fantastic pamphlet made available to me through Crabtot's daycare: "Wyoming First Lady's Family Night Presents...The Year of the Connected Family." Quite a mouthful, but wait, there's a subtitle: "A smorgasbord of fun, easy, and practical ways to connect with your family." I decided to read it. After all, it's not every day that you receive advice with the word "smorgasbord" in it.

A smorgasbord indeed. As a result, I have now learned numerous strategies for keeping my family together, such as:

1. "Surprise your family. Declare tonight's dinnertime 'Backward Night.' Have everyone put their clothes on backwards, turn their chairs around backwards, and eat dessert first."
Um. Okay. If you say so, First Lady. I mean, this sounds a little bizarre to me. But if keeping my family connected means eating the peach cobbler in advance of the steak while my jeans-butt gapes over my lap, who am I to say no?

2. "Make Aggressions Cookies."
That's right. When you're feeling ticked off, don't whack your tot like some kind of Crabmomster; make cookies together! (In a nutshell, the point of this activity is to make a very unyielding cookie dough that you and the kids can bash together in rage! Excellent!)

So many top tips...so little time. A last snippet: something called Family Night in which, we are assured that while playing games or reading a book together, "it's okay to be silly!"

Thanks! I needed that reassurance. I didn't know that silliness was acceptable on Family Night. But in Wyoming at least, it is. I can be silly, and that's okay. My First Lady tells me so.

Crabmommy bio

I love to loathe a list that promises to make me a better mom. Or that promises to make my life better as a mom. I came across a good one yesterday in the sort of mag that promises to make us better, peppier, and weirder than all get-out. Here are my favorite "Success Secrets" from "10 Things Every Mom Should Know":

* How to Find a Reliable Sitter
Ask mom friends, neighbors, and your pediatrician's office for recommendations.
Really? These people will help me find a sitter? Wow! Great tip!
The article also advises asking "what if" questions during sitter interviews, e.g., "What if you have to entertain my 3-yr-old on a rainy day?" (Babysitters, if a mom asks you that question, do not mention TV in your answer.)

* How to Clean Up Throw Up
This one lists a variety of vomit solutions for mixed media -- wood, upholstery, carpet.
Let me see. Your kid pukes...and amid the chaos you...go to the computer....or scrapbook...to find that handy vomit tipsheet.
Who are you, Mom? Go away.

* How to Breastfeed Discreetly in Public
This one solicits advice from La Leche league, which promotes carefully draped fabric and slings for privacy ("The fabric will cover you so you'll look as if you're carrying a sleeping baby"). God, I sure wish I'd had this list when I was breastfeeding. I used to bare both bosoms at once...it was so embarrassing! IF ONLY I HAD KNOWN about the draping of a shawl or blanket, I wouldn't have suffered so!

* How to Tell a Great Bedtime Story
Start with "Once upon a time there was a problem in the land."
Now this IS good advice. Add Al Gore voice, make the problem global warming, and you've got a winner -- tot's out in seconds!

Crabmommy bio