Leaving Baby With The Grandparents: 1st Child Vs 3rd Child

Video perfectly captures the differences between leaving your first baby overnight — and your third

A video making the rounds on Facebook totally nails the differences between leaving your first baby with the grandparents, versus your third. Prepare to die laughing. And nod your head in total agreement.

Bunmi Laditan, the hilarious mom behind Honest Toddler, filmed a parody of herself leaving her first kid with the grandparents overnight and then, her third. Although it’s clearly a bit of an exaggeration, minus a few of the more outlandish requests, this isn’t at all far from the truth. Here is the hysterically on-point video.

She begins with the baby clutched to her chest, WEARING HER of course, and rattles off a laundry list of information for the grandparents that ranges from mildly paranoid and obsessive to totally absurd. A few highlights:

We’re staying away from fruit juices or any kind of fruits at all because, POISON!

We don’t do any screen time including televisions, phones or windows with a particularly strong reflection.

Here’s a burner cell, I went ahead and just got this for you. It’s pre-programmed with all of the important phone numbers. Mine of course, the pediatrician, osteopath, homeopath. I’ll be Face-timing you on the hour and pick up or else, I’ll come over!

Oh, you got a car seat? What is that, 1950s Graco? Uh uh, no, I’m gonna take that with me!

She’s coughing! We might have to cancel this whole thing. You know what? I’m gonna stay.

Sound familiar? Let’s move on to the third baby. You’ll notice a slight change in tone. And the fact that she’s sitting in her car ready to shove the kid into grandma’s loving arms.

If you don’t mind, I’m going to keep the engine running. I actually have a date with a bottle of Chardonnay and Netflix.

FYI, all he’s had to eat today are chocolate chips so you might want to feed him, I dunno, you do you.

As far as screen time goes, please no more than 18 hours a day, ok? We have standards.

If you guys want to go anywhere, I picked up a car seat for you. It was in a house fire, but it’s fine.

Oh yeah, his favorite foods right now are chicken nuggets and sugar cubes.

Before I forget, he actually has a cough right now. It’s pretty bad and probably contagious. But I’m treating it with positive thinking.

If you have any kind of emergencies, please do not hesitate to call….911. My phone’s actually going to be off, so just call for an ambulance and I’ll meet you at the hospital when I get there.

If you have more than one child, chances are excellent that your standards have also “relaxed” a little. When you have your first baby, all outings are comparable to a NASA shuttle launch. You can’t leave the house without 10 tons of crap in your diaper bag, you research everything obsessively and you definitely panic about leaving your baby with the grandparents for the first time. With any kids you have after that?

Not so much.

There’s something to be said for the way a parent starts to relax after they’ve had more kids, or after they’ve been parents for a while. New parents can be paranoid, controlling, obsessive and totally convinced they know everything when it comes to the care and keeping of their precious angel. And I’m not sitting here from on high condemning them — I was absolutely one of them.

I remember stuffing my daughter’s diaper bag for a trip to the grocery store as though we were about to trek through outer Mongolia. I remember our first post-baby date night where I collapsed into tears in a restaurant bathroom talking to my mom on the phone with my baby shrieking in the background. I was utterly certain no one could care for her the way I could and that any deviation from my strict instructions would result in some kind of total disaster.

Now? My kids are six and eight. They stay overnight at my parents’ house regularly and I honestly have no idea what they’re fed, what they watch on TV, or whether they go to bed before midnight. Moreover, I don’t care. As an experienced parent, I’ve come to realize that being relaxed is the way to go. Having time to myself is amazing and I’ll be damned if I’m going to turn it into a total shit-show by bombarding my parents with ridiculous “rules” they must follow. It’s out of my control for a little while — and I’m more than good with that.

Being a first-time parent is mentally exhausting, but we’ve all been there. Once you’ve had time to settle into your role a little, it can be liberating as hell to let grandma take the reins for a night.

Even if that means a steady diet of SpongeBob and sugar cubes.