For the first time our class of eight Community and Family Studies students have had the opportunity to look after some “real” babies. PCS adopted four electronic babies that cried, needed feeding, burping, changing and love for a week and left them in the hands of our Senior class. Whilst there was initial excitement going into the project, students very quickly realised how demanding these children can be. Especially at 4am when their baby just wanted to cry.
Students had to document their journey through parenthood and reflect on their experiences.
Bailey and Kyra had baby Richie who was initially our most demanding child and reflected the following: “When recess hit, immediately that baby started to cry and it took me all of recess and most of the third period to calm the baby down. This really indicated that this task wasn’t going to be easy.”
They also said: “It’s about 4:00 here in Parkes New South Wales Australia and the baby has been asleep for about 4 hours straight so far! This is honestly a surprise. I thought that surely I would’ve been waking up at least every hour or two to feed the baby or comforting the baby to sleep.”
Laura noted some thoughts on her experience which were entertaining from an outside perspective:
- Cried a lot more than yesterday
- Struggled today as I didn’t have my partner
- Was very tired today from a long night
- Had a headache
Grace and Chloe’s video diary showed their late night issues and how they managed with baby Leah (see our facebook page to view their video diary).
The CAFS class recognised how difficult life can be with a baby when you are a senior student trying to study and do your own thing and voiced their opinions on caring for another human loudly each day. I think parents can rest assured they have a while before becoming Grandparents.
It was a time for celebration when the babies returned home but some of the students had bonded with their children and created some great memories and family moments. Check out the fun we had in our photos.
