I'm an auntie for a week!

[fireheart]

My sister's doing the fake baby project in her Child Studies class.

She brings the baby home next week. We don't know the sex, whether it'll be a girl or a boy.

For the unfamiliar, these babies are-for lack of a better term-basic robots. They're programmed to cry every so often. In the past, the way to stop it was to shove a plastic key in it's back.
Now though, they also require nappy changes, burping, feeding etc. Each of them have a chip in them...but ohhh boy.

Anyone had a sibling with these? How did you deal with it?

[AnaKhouri]

When I was in 8th grade, they gave us a hard-boiled egg for a few days.

Technology has changed so much in 17 years...

(my egg was returned with multiple cracks )

[blas]

My little brother brought "Baby Think It Over" home when he was a sophomore and I still lived at home.

That stupid thing never shut up.

But it really is a good idea for school kids. Unfortunately, teen pregnancy is still an epidemic around here, so nothing really gets through to them.

[fireheart]

When I was in 8th grade, they gave us a hard-boiled egg for a few days.

Technology has changed so much in 17 years...

(my egg was returned with multiple cracks )

My sister had to do that as well. Egg and Baby Think It Over.

Guess what she named the egg?

CHARLIE!

It was met with much "shun the unbeliever, shuuuuun" comments from me.

Unfortunately, it was smashed by her friends.

[boringscreenname]

We had to take those dolls in a Childhood Development class. We had ours for either 24 or 48 hours.

You had to wear a band that was tamper proof, and it had a chip on it. Then when the baby started crying first you had to press the chip into its back. Then you had to figure out if it needed changed, fed, or was just being fussy. The problem everyone experienced is that it didn't recognize the chips very well so a lot of the time people would be trying to tend to it, but it wasn't registering the chip so it kept screaming and there was nothing you could do.

It also had a really floppy head and neck, you could barely move the thing without its head or neck flopping backwards. Then it would start screaming.

It registered any time its head or neck flopped around as abuse, and if you didn't meet its needs within a certain amount of time it was registered as neglect. Supposedly they recorded actual babies eating, sleeping and crying habits then programmed the dolls around them.

A lot of people in my class got really frustrated with the dolls because they weren't reading the chips correctly, and their eating sleeping and crying patterns were just nuts. I actually knew one person who got so fed up with it, she just stuffed it in a closet until it was time to return it. I hated the thing too, but now I have a real baby that's much easier to tend to.

[Kyree]

I did that back in high school. We actually had the dolls for 7 days. Monday - Monday. From Monday - Friday the dolls were off, but we still had to carry them around everywhere. They had them turned off for the school week so they wouldn't disturb other classes. But after last hour on friday, we got two diapers, and a bottle, and the teacher turned it on to a random baby setting.

When it cried, you had to try changing its diaper by taking the one it had off and switching it with the other, making sure a certain part of the diaper matched up with a part of the doll. Or you had to hold the bottle to its lips until the doll was finished 'eating'.

And it had the flappy head, so you had to hold it just like it was a real baby or it'd record abuse. Too many of those and you'd fail the project. It also recorded how long it cried before you got to it.

One kid got expelled because he though it'd be fun to steal one of the dolls during school and throw it out a window. He wasn't so happy when he got the very pricey bill for the doll though....

[fireheart]

Kyree, ours are pretty much the same. We're actually borrowing them from a local high school, but if the baby is broken, or the items it comes with...

For the unfamiliar, the total cost is $1600.

The school, back when the babies just had the key, provided clothes and a carrier if you wanted it. Now my sister's gotta provide a 000 size outfit (she's using an old one of hers) and a bag for the supplies (ditto).

One of my friends, when she did the project with the Key Babies (the ones where you shoved the plastic key in the back) took it to her archery meeting. Her parents were involved, so she couldn't leave it alone.

Someone wanted to tie it up to a target and shoot it.
Someone wanted to stab it. (It's PLASTIC!)
Someone wanted to burn it.

I felt sorry for my friend...as for my other friend, HE had fun with it. He even got to act as spokesperson for them when we did the travelling show for the primary school kiddies. (and I also discovered how to stay "the chocolate monkey stole my underpants" in German)

[Becks]

It was met with much "shun the unbeliever, shuuuuun" comments from me.

And this is why I feel love towards you.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I did that in high school but we just used whatever doll we wanted. I used my Cabbage Patch Preemie.

[fireheart]

She's getting it today....