Any last-minute advice for a third-trimester preggo?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I thought of another one. After the baby is born, when those well meaning people say vaguely, 'Call if you need anything…" say, “How about I put you down for bringing dinner on Thursday then?”

Be specific about what you need and tell people.

Most people sincerely want to help but don’t know how. The #1 most helpful thing anyone did after I had my first baby and was overwhelmed was come to my house and wash all of the dishes that had piled up in the sink.

Forget buying those cute little baby boodies, ask people to help you with choses in those crazy first weeks.

22

Our first turns 2 next week, and she has a sister on the way in 2 months.

Sleep, rest, relax now - you’ll need it later. Ditto on the yoga…I gotta do that. I liked the video by Kristen Eykel. I think ivillage at one point had some clips.

23

Thank you. That’s the nicest compliment anyone could give. We’re trying to do as you suggested: don’t sweat the small stuff. The family has been warned that we might not leave our house during the holiday nor are they allowed to visit because we want to get a good start on screwing up our kid all by ourselves. Unfortunately, most of the family thinks that’s exactly what will happen (husband’s singing the theme song to Flipper right now, so they’re probably right), but at least it will be fun ride.

I thought of something else no one told me about. Nightmares. Sure, it’s one thing to dream about rolling over on the baby, but my gosh where does the mind come up with some of these horrible scenarios? Leaving the baby in the ice cream freezer at the grocery store? Trying to pick up the baby and its head falls off? Breastfeeding the baby only to realize that my body’s pumping out sewage? Losing the baby and then finding him flapping in the wind on my neighbor’s flag pole? I told my mom that I was concerned about her passing her mental illness on to me just to find out that the bad dreams will probably stay around for as long as I’m a parent. Great. Nasty hormones, but it’s just subconscious worries that you’ll mess up. No big deal - you won’t really misplace the baby or harm him.

24

I wish someone had prepared me more for the emotional rollercoaster in the weeks after birth. All those hormones must make you temporarily insane - I cried at every little thing after my son was born. At one point, I even called my OB and he told me that everything I was experiencing was normal.

Oh, and if you’re not totally in love with your baby from the moment he/she is born, it’s okay. If you don’t fall in love immediately, you will soon, so don’t feel guilty if you don’t get the warm fuzzies as soon as your baby is born. A lot of people may think this is cold - after all, the representations we’re given of new parenthood are mostly positive; however, having a kid is hard. Even harder is that mindset change you’ll experience, going from being your own, independent person to someone who now has someone else’s more paramount needs to consider, all in the matter of a few hours. One moment, you’re pregnant, the center of attention and can do whatever you want whenever you want; the next, you have no personal space, no sleep (and no expectation of sleep) and are no longer the center of attention. It’s tough. But definitely worth it.

25

Good point. I didn’t know how crazy your hormones get after you have a baby. Even if you don’t have postpartum depression, per se, you may still be kind of bonkers. The whole lack of sleep thing doesn’t help.

You’ve heard this before, but I don’t think you can truly prepare yourself: the first few weeks with a new baby are HARD. You’re not sleeping, you’re breastfeeding around the clock, you’re getting used to a brand new role and learning how to deal with a brand new person. Don’t try to be superwoman! Let the house be a wreck. Eat a lot of take out. Try to rely on family and friends for as much help as they can provide. And keep in mind that the hard time passes really quickly (though it doesn’t seem like it at the time).

As a friend of mine (now a mother of four) told me, after about six weeks with a new baby, you’re ready to chuck the kid off a balcony. Then she finally smiles at you. Great moment, and so so worth it. Good luck!

26

Okay, gotta share this now. I was paranoid about the kid - my first, all alone (sob). I managed fine and luckily had my folks’ support. Mum was the one who watched me put the kid to bed the first time and then led me out of the room leaving my baby a whole fifteen metres away!!!-

  • a few months down the track, I’m fine and manage to get us both halfway down the country to visit the folks at their place. Mum takes the kid shopping with her, only by this stage* she’s* so paranoid about leaving the kid behind - she leaves the shopping instead!
27

My advice to you is more about the never-ending list of “material things” that every magazine, newspaper, leaflet, book, website, manuscript, movie, tv show, advertisement, radio spot, public speaker, well-meaning friend, bookshop, toystore, department store, and neighbor will try to sell you.

You don’t need 90% of any of that crap.

Put down the goddamn baby magazine “must have” lists (which are compiled mostly to appease the goddamn magazine sponsors, not you!) and throw the Sunday advertisements in the trash. These are targeted at new parents (such as yourself) who believe that all parents buy all this crap because baby needs 1,000 little whiz-bang gadges. Hint: They don’t. And those parents that do buy into this myth later learn what I just told you before:

You don’t need 90% of any of that crap.

Baby does NOT need an Acme Whositwhatit, nor an electric thingamagic from Blamo! Baby will live without all that “Top 5 Stuff to Buy NOW!” as featured on the front page of GullibleNewParent Weekly Magazine, and baby will similarly be just fine without 96 new blankets in every imaginable color.

When it comes to material things, there’s very little material things that baby will actually need for the first 3 or 4 months (until YOU decide what baby should have or not have). Looking back on my own children recently, here is a short list of material things that we couldn’t live without:
A baby bed (crib) and sheets
Blanket
Onesies (can never have enough of these!)
Diapers (and wipes)
Car seat
Pacifier

Everything else, as they say, we could live without.

Being a parent is one of the greatest responsibilities and greatest joys in the world. God bless you and your new baby!

28

Two books were my salvation, Vicki Iovine’s Girlfriend’s Guide to the First Year (during the worst of my post-partum depression I cried and read and cried and read) and Harvey Karp’s Happiest Baby on the Block.

I have twins, so Karp’s baby-soothing advice was mucho needed and for us it worked. My parents, who were accustomed to letting babies cry it out, were amazed.

Try techniques that appeal to you, if they work - great; if not, you’re free to change your mind and go another direction. You can always change your mind.
Beyond that, I say just take it ONE day at a time. :cool:

29

This illustrates my theory - by the 40th week of pregnancy you are so uncomfortable labor is a welcome relief.

My advice for late pregnancy is to take things even easier than you think you should. It’s hard work hauling around an extra person inside you.

Also, enjoy the quiet. Once the baby is born you’ll miss it.

Having had 3 - with all variations of anesthesia from general anesthesia C-section to not-even-an aspirin home birth - my advice is to not psych yourself out with the labor pain. What worked best for me was visualization. I read a thin paperback describing what to do which I can not remember - but basically you come up with an image that helps you ride out the labor. For me it was the image of a rose bud opening into a flower.

30

I’ve only done hospital births (first a c-section, but second was unmedicated VBAC, almost a car birth!) so I’m not sure what the midwives provide, after the birth you’ll need some giant size pads. I wasn’t expecting so much lochia. Witch hazel wipes are awesome and the peri bottle a life saver (it sprays water so you don’t have to wipe your tender parts)

Good luck, I hope your birth experience goes smoothly.

31

There was a quote I read somewhere, and I can’t remember where or recall enough of the key words to find it, but it’s something along the lines of:

“When a child is born, two people come into being. The child, and the mother. Because the mother did not exist before, either.”

Some women slip right into the role, but for others (like me) it takes time.
If you’re one of those for whom it takes time, don’t fret; you’ll get there. :slight_smile:

32

Go to the hospital, dammit. Part of being a parent is to make choices that benefit your child and not yourself, so your desire to give birth at home should not trump your baby’s desire to be as healthy as possible. Sure there’s a low risk of anything going wrong, but the person who will feel the brunt if thing’s go wrong doesn’t get a say in your decision to stay home.

My baby was one of the small percentage that inhale mucuniom (sp?). She had to have her lungs sucked out seconds after her birth. I wouldn’t trust a midwife sticking a tube into my child’s lungs, I want a real pediatrician doing something like that. Good thing we were at the hospital and the pediatrician was in the room when the baby came out.

I fully realize that this is unsolicited advice, and I don’t care if I get pitted or yelled at by a mod or whatever. Your kid may thank me for it.

I hope everything turns out OK.

33

During your third trimester and after the baby is born, be careful of your back. During pregnancy, hormones cause your joints to get looser (to prepare for the flexibility needed to birth the baby. It’s easier to sprain an ankle or a knee during that time. After the baby is born, the muscles in the abdomen are looser and weakened for awhile. So you may call on your back strength more. And you suddenly find yourself doing this strange maneuver while placing and removing the baby from the car seat; a bend, twist, lift movement that is a good way to strain your lower back. Be aware of your back when you are carrying the baby, especially when you stoop, bend, twist and lift.

34

Hospitals are not statistically safer for low-risk births. I wouldn’t worry about these comments – they are made by people who haven’t done the research you have done. On advice-- I found this to be very true:

Congratulations and good luck!

35

It’s quite telling that the only hospital advocates in here are male. Somebody needs to explain to the male half of the race that pregnancy is not a disease and childbirth is not a “procedure.”

I had one hospital birth and one at home–anybody wanna take a guess on which one produced the 100+ stitches in my perineum and a watermelon seed baby that shot out propelled by a pitocin augmented contraction and was nearly dropped by the attending personage? Yeah.

Home baby was 1.5 lbs bigger than hospital baby, as well as two weeks past due, no tearing whatsoever and I didn’t have to fight like a wildcat to prevent the silver nitrate and circumcision. It was a much easier labor at home, too, without hordes of students trooping through my room trying to do pelvics every five minutes and attempting to slip demerol into the IV bottle. I had chocolate cake right afterward, no way to get THAT in a hospital–bastards… :stuck_out_tongue:

36

My son will be one in January. And it was just a couple of days ago that I got Leo fed, bathed, bottle, teeth brushed, and in bed without a small catastrophe in the middle somewhere.

So if it takes some time to get the mommy thing down, it’s no big deal. Amass your support system and make sure you can call on them.

The hard and fast rules of “no bottle past one!” and so on are not really hard and fast rules. If you feel like your child is not developmentally ready for the challenge of change by a certain prescribed age, remember that you are in charge. You can leave things the way they are and re-evaluate in two months if you need too. Don’t stress and listen to your gut.

37

There’s a whole lot of issues here that need addressing:

1: Meconium is just shit, literally: it’s the first bowel evacuation/s of a newborn babe.

2: The reason why babies do a last minute crap in-utero and THEN take a big gasp is mostly due to foetal distress: for whatever reason, the pre-born baby lacks oxygen. Either the placenta is not doing it’s job properly during labour, or the baby is under ‘stress’ from erratic and/or incompetent contractions and/or structural problems in the birth canal. Any number of problems, many of which can be diagnosed pre-birth, but some that can’t. And SOME are due to the nature of birthing in a hospital environment, with all the added interventions and dramas that ensue.

3: All trained midwives are perfectly capable of suctioning a newborn for meconium inhalation. I think you will find that most paediatricians would feel demeaned by the task and would defer to the nearest nurse to do the deed anyway. :smiley: IOW, I’d rather a midwife do it than some precious Dr with a shit-phobia!

Have your baby wherever you feel most comfortable. As I’m sure you’ve found, good pre-natal care is the very best indicator of the issues you will have in birthing. Just have a good time, and don’t forget the PHOTOS!!! :smiley:

38

Last trimester? Enjoy your independence. Find something you really like to do to occupy your time, because I promise it will be the longest 3 months of your life. The giddy anticipation of your little one turns into “I’m so uncomfortable where did my feet go what the fuck is going on with my boobs where’s the bathroom” when the baby packs on those last pounds.

39

Those books on child care? Read them now. In my third trimester, I didn’t read beyond birth, and I regret taht, because after birth there is very little time to read. After birth, all you will have time for are reference books to look up stuff like “fever” or “baby acne”. :slight_smile:

Also, buy nursing pyama’s, now. You have to bare your boobs 12 times a day in the first weeks. If that causes to much fuss and stretching, you just won’t bother anymore. With nursing pyama’s you can at least walk around the house dressed like a human being.

Start a website, for instance on facebook or on live journal, where you or your husband puts up the news and pictures. If you don’t. you’ll be swamped with calls at the moment you and your husabnd are the least equipped to deal with them.

40

If you buy Dr. Sears’ Baby Book you don’t have to actually read the whole thing - it’s got a great index and very calm medical advice. Excellent stuff, saved my ass at 3:00 a.m.