THINGS YOU WILL NEED
Start
saving your
old worn out
knickers now instead of throwing them away. You will need at least
8 pairs for after the baby is born. You will use 2 fat maternity pads every hour or so for the first
week even for a Caesar you will
bleed a lot and you will inevitably
leak onto your knickers at some point, so you don't want new ones, and
no G-Strings. The bigger and baggier the better, especially in summer as it will help avoid heat rashes if they are not tight. The extra space taken up by the pads I found made the legs a bit tight and I did get heat rash a few times, and frankly you are uncomfortable enough without adding to it with that.
Emallunger pram instead of a bassinet and even a cot for
several months will help
save space and money. A friend of mine still uses her's and her baby is in size one clothes and is 10 kg's You can't have them
sleeping in it at night
after they start
crawling though. You really do need a cot by then (
approx. 9 months). You can wheel it close to your bed for night feeds, It is very solid and has excellent suspension
THINGS TO TRY FIRST There are 2 different sorts of clips on
Maternity Bra’s. I find the
press clip harder to use than the
hook clip. Try on one of each in a change room and
open each side using one hand only, buy the one you can handle in this way the easiest. Breast Feeding
You may choose not to
breast feed of course and that's up to you. There's
pro's and con's for both, but
don't be bullied and you do what's
right for you, everyone's got an opinion on this, you are the one who has to do it for months and months. l will say that there are heaps of ways to breast feed (positions to try) and it is a major money saver as a tin of
formula is over
$15- (over here anyway) and will last just over
a week, also I have found (along with many others I have spoken with) that it is the best diet I have ever been on. The weight just falls off you regardless of what you eat I have collar bones I had forgotten I owned and have lost several chins I apparently didn't need after all. My arms are half the size they once were. So I'd advise you give it a go for the first couple of weeks for the weight loss alone, your child gets an immune system boost because she gets it from you, they SAY it makes your child smarter, but my niece and nephew weren't breast fed for long if at all & they are far from intellectually challenged. Mum's friend, was adopted & never breast fed & he's a Professor, so how they came up with that theory I don't know.
The immune thing makes sense to me, but the intelligence thing I think they say just to scare you into breast feeding. I read that when you are prego take ample supply of
vitamin C and Omega 3 fish oil and that makes them
smarter. All these things are in
Blackmores Pregnancy & Breast Feeding Formula(in small amounts) I took an
extra Foliate Tablet a day (and still do) as I found MY finger nails broke & were weak when I didn't, the baby was taking it all, leaving none for me. You probably know you need to take
Foliate prior to conceiving to avoid Spina Biffida. I was taking
Aloe Vera juice (10ml once a day) for 2 weeks
before conceiving. I think that helped rejuvenate my OLD eggs (mid 30’s). This is just my thoughts though. Don't take it when you are pregnant, but if you have trouble conceiving, give it a burl, (and save sperm up for the week you are trying to conceive as it does make a difference in how much you get way up there.)
WISH LIST
Back to feeding. Even if you are going to bottle feed you need to be able to nurse the baby. (you can have babe in the pram and feed but you will miss out on big time bonding.) So I do recommend you spend a few feeds a day actually nursing. Which brings me to my next suggestion.
There is a breast feeding or
Nursing cushion available. I forget what it's called exactly, but it is shaped like a Doughnut with a bite taken out. You put it around your waist and then you can rest your arm on it with the baby on your arm. It will be a lot easier and more
comfortable for you as you don't need to actually
hold your
arm up, it is fully supported. This I think you should put on your recommended presents. (Make one, otherwise you get more clothes than your child will ever wear & you have to go out & buy things like this that you could actually use on a daily basis.)
I also suggest you add a
baby bath support seat (AU$25- From Target). It is a ramp shaped seat that will fit in a baby bath. It means you don't have to support the baby with one hand whilst washing with the other. Great for nervous daddy’s too who may be intimidated by new bub's size. When child is older (sitting up stage) you can get other sitting up right seats that have suction ,cups & you stick in regular bath and same applies, just gives you hands free washing ability. I also ysed both out of the bath ramp on play mat for a different perpective on toys. sit up one on kitchen bench as a quicker solution to strapping into high chair if just need 2 hands for something quick. You can never take your eyes off for a second though with either of these. They are not drown proof devices, they are bathing aids and that's all. Babies have drowned with them, when parents have left them unattended, so NEVER leave them alone in them.
Bouncers, are soooooo great, they are light and can be moved room to room with ease, bub is comfortable in them. I got two. One was a
quilted padded modern cloth one and the other the
crotched kind, as it is VERY hot in summer when bub was born, I liked the crotched one for air circulation though it was straight on an angle so I couldn't put her in it straight away, she just bunched up at the bottom like a sock full of wet sand. The modern one had a dipped seat in it which meant she had a bit of support when she really needed it and she LIVED in it for the first 6 weeks at least.
Play Mats
Are also invaluable, portable and I have 3. I have one in the lounge one in the Family room (open plan with kitchen) and one in the car (you never know) I got ALL of mine from Op-Shops, they are all machine washable and I give my daughter bum free time on them with a towel underneath her. If you can't find any 2nd hand, pop it on your wish list. The toy gym parts are usually removable and interchangeable.
Bath time
Be really organized. Have
towel spread out and ready.
Fresh nappy wipes and bum
cream ready with
clothes. Have
bath filled with the bath oil (or what ever you're going to use) in it and the bath support seat all good to go,
before you have
baby in the
bathroom and undressed.
Warm up the
bathroom with a heater or by running the shower on hot before hand. (You or partner showering first is a great idea.)
Babies are
used to being around
37 degree's as that's what your body temp is when you are carrying them, so they
don't appreciate being cold for a second.
The bath water needs to be your body temp. You can drizzle some on your inner forearm or elbow first (because your hand can get used to the heat when you are swirling the water around). You can get
baby bath thermometers I got mine from the Supermarket for under AU$3.00. You just wave it about and it has Too Cold Warm, just right and Too Hot on it, which really takes any kind of guess work out of it, it’s shaped like a fish.
Popping a face washer over a
bathroom or kitchen sink plug and another as a head rest makes a much quicker and easier bath when they are really little. You don't need to muck around with a baby bath etc. I'd not worry about a baby bath just use basins and then the big bath when they can sit up on their own. Just make sure the sink is clean. In view of Australia's drought conditions, I did use a baby bath which I sat inside the big bath up until my daughter was 14 months old. It used less water and was possible to be thrown on the garden when we were done.
THINGS I DIDN'T KNOW
Babies lose the
skin they had in the womb, so when they are
peeling as though sun burnt, don't panic, it's normal and will go on for about 7-10 days, just after that finishes they get milk spots.
Milk Spots: These can vary in degree's of severity. From just a couple of spots in the T-Zone to all over the face and under the chin (that's what we had), that lasts about 3 weeks. It's the babies system getting used to your milk as it's been getting nutrients via umbilical cord before now. Also if you switch to formula don't be surprised if they make a brief reappearance, it's another getting used to thing and lasts much less and appears heaps less severely.
You should be changing
6 wet nappies per day. That's the general rule of thumb to know that your baby is getting enough to eat. If baby doesn't do anything but sleep in the first day of life, don't panic, this is apparently very typical behaviour. Initially baby poo will be thick and black and very, very frequent. Buy cheap nappies such as Baby Love or home brand for this period. You don't leave them on long enough to test miraculous absorption, they get pooed in instead.
When your
Milk comes in "You will
wake up leaking", after a day or so their poo becomes yellow-ish and a bit less frequent. Then every 4 days , then you'll panic because it's been over 6 days. We have gone 11 days, I have heard that it is not uncommon in breast fed babies for them to go up to 24 days. If it does bother you get some "Baby Prune Juice" this is already diluted and comes in a little jar found in the baby food section of your Supermarket. Dilute that 50/50 with cold boiled water and give baby 40 mil's once a day. Routines after the first 3 months change with increasing regularity with every passing month.
I have found that especially around
teething time (approx. 6 months on) their
routine may as well be written in quick sand for all the structure it has. No sooner have you struggled through a week changing them into something livable then you have a week of regularity and then, bang out of whack again. This is a great time to ring friends and take them up on their offers of help. Just so you might get a few hours sleep during the day here or there, or get to the shops or do any number of things you have found it impossible to achieve with a bunged up routine wise baby. I am told this too shall pass, I am still waiting.
LEARNING
Balancing bub on your knees facing you and playing games and singing songs even for an hour a day. I have found was great for teaching my daughter enough balance to be able to never require pillow support. When I tried her out sitting on the floor for the first time, she just wobbled a bit, but sat up like a pro. We just placed pillows around in case she got tired and threw herself back, which did happen, but she increased her sitting time by about 10-15 minutes daily.
I have my daughter
saying ”UP” & “Bottle” at just
under 8 months of age. This was done through a
lot of repetitiveness and for example I didn't pick her up until she at least gave it a decent go at saying up, with in 2 hours she was saying oop (like oops), now it varies between UP and UPA, but at her age I think it’s marvellous that she can actually tell me what she wants. Same with the bottle, I can now ask her “Do you want a bottle” and if she does she says Berble, if she doesn't she generally makes a big show of turning her back on me…..no ones perfect. She also says nah for No and Yeah for yes, these she seems to have picked up all on her own, as she did with Ball which she calls Bull. I think it’s a matter of getting the learning juices flowing and with the smallest amount of time and patience you can be communicating with your child sooner than you might have thought. I hope this has at least been interesting if not helpful to somebody out there facing parenthood for the first time. I originally wrote this for my sister who isn't pregnant yet but has the desire to at least think about it happening in the near future lol.
(September 2006) (
