The Top Ten Things They Don't Bother to Tell You in the Baby Books

Baby care books are an excellent reference guide, especially for first time parents. However, there are some things that they neglect to tell you about in those handy little gems. Here is a list of ten things that they neglect to mention, but every parent learns sooner or later.

1. Contrary to what every baby book you will ever read tells you, all babies do not sleep sixteen hours a day. My son seems to need less sleep than most adults I know. He can take a twenty minute power nap during the day, and be ready for action well into the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes I wish I had half of his energy.

2. Solid foods are not just for eating. You can wear them, you can throw them, you can even smear them into your skin as if they were some oddly colored, foul smelling body lotion, and best of all, you can use them to create abstract art on your walls. My son taught me these things. In fact, we revisit this lesson on a daily basis. It is one of his favorites.

3. Your baby WILL roll off the couch and or bed at least once. It doesn't matter if you never take your hands or eyes off of them, they are still going to do it. Its like some sort of magic trick they perform. And when it happens, you will cry harder and longer than they do. You will also call every person you know, and each one of them will reassure you. But you are still going to feel like a failure as a parent. The baby however, won't even remember it happened after five minutes.

4. The harder you try to keep them away from something, the more they are going to want it. If you don't want them to touch the remote control, don't take it away, this will make it their life's mission to get their fingers on it. Simply hand it to them, they will throw it on the floor and move on.

5. Another baby food tip. If you think it looks unpleasant when it goes in, wait until it comes out. You will see colors you didn't know existed. And they stain. I have yet to find something that will remove fluorescent anything from the backside of baby clothes. Typically your favorite ones, because that is just the way it seems to work.

6. Speaking of baby clothes, they will outgrow them overnight. Particularly if you have an adorable outfit you can't wait to put them in if the weather would just cooperate. Something that fit two days ago will suddenly be too short and too tight.

7. Disinfecting wipes are going to become your new best friend. You will wipe down every surface you and or the baby comes into contact with, multiple times, every day. They still aren't going to stay clean, but you will feel obligated to try.

8. It doesn't matter how many times you vacuum in a day, or how clean your floor appears to be, once they start crawling, they are going to find all kinds of little treasures in there. Sometimes, if you are fast enough, you can keep them from putting whatever they found in their mouth.

9. It doesn't matter how many brightly colored, musical, educational toys you bought. They are going to want things like empty water bottles, keys (yours, not the brightly colored plastic ones), cell phones (ditto on the keys), and paper. Babies seem to love to 'chew" on paper. Apparently these every day items are much more fascinating that hundreds of dollars worth of toys could ever be.

10. And probably the best and most important thing the baby books don't mention is how important that little life is going to become to you. They will be your everything and more. You will experience feelings and emotions you didn't know you were capable of on levels you didn't know existed. And the one thing that is certain, everything will be worth it at the end of the day when you get your sloppy goodnight kiss.