Any thoughts or advice for a first-time parent?

In My Humble Opinion
61

[ul][li]You cannot spoil a newborn.[/li][li]Feed one end, clean the other, hug the middle.[/li][li]Read to them. Yes, before they can talk. It doesn’t have to be baby books - I read the newspaper to my son.[/li][li]If anyone offers to babysit, smile and accept enthusiastically.[/li][li]If anyone offers advice, smile and do what you think best.[/li][li]The one thing everyone says, no new parent believes, but is true nonetheless - you are going to miss these days when they are over, and they are going to be over way sooner than you think.[/ul][/li]
[QUOTE=Girl From Mars]
The days are long, but the years are short…
[/QUOTE]
And the decades are even shorter. My son will be 25 in a couple of weeks, and my daughter is 23 and planning her wedding.

Sigh.

Regards,
Shodan

62

[quote=“Shodan, post:61, topic:707726”]

[ul][li]You cannot spoil a newborn.[/li][li]Feed one end, clean the other, hug the middle.[/li][li]Read to them. Yes, before they can talk. It doesn’t have to be baby books - I read the newspaper to my son.[/li][li]If anyone offers to babysit, smile and accept enthusiastically.[/li][li]If anyone offers advice, smile and do what you think best.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]

I second all of this! But especially the reading. We’ve read to our kids almost every night from day one. At 7 and 9 they are both reading on their own (although they started at different ages), but we keep on reading. Right now, they keep insisting I read a very dry history of the LEGO company, which is actually a bit excruciating to read aloud.

Also, to find reading material, go to the library. Early and often. They are no strangers to screens, but I think instilling in them the value of books has helped inoculate them a bit to a culture obsessed with the moving picture.

Finally, be willing to apologize to them when you are wrong. It’s easy to fall into a role where you are in charge and can do no wrong, but nothing could be further from the truth. Show them that it’s OK to mess up and important to own up when they do.

63

Oh, and swaddle that shit. Swaddle it good and tight. They like it and it’s like a miracle.

All the best stuff is the little cheap stuff. I mean, I love our expensive stroller, there’s important stuff that costs. But this little bouncer thing? 23 bucks? One of the best things we bought. It was the only thing that would shut him up sometimes when he was still really little. Now that he’s bigger he adores that zebra. The ducky and elephant can both go to hell but the zebra… It’s easy to wash, too. Much easier than the far more substantial (albeit also useful) Rock n’ Play. And when we had to give up and go to formula the best thing in the world turned out to be this pitcher - the people I know who got that Keurig-like thing for formula are always bitching about it. We love the little pitcher.

Oh, install the car seat now, too. My husband probably thought I was silly for doing it so early but if I hadn’t he’d have been installing it in the hospital parking lot or something, and he’s not very good at things like that. You never know if your plans are all going to be dashed to hell like ours - 35 week emergency C section.

And if you’re having a hospital birth, take everything in that room that isn’t nailed down. You paid for it. Diapers, stuff like that - we were syringe feeding at first so we made sure to grab a ton of those - make sure your wife nabs extras of those huge mesh underpants, too.

64

Make sure to stop by your local police or fire station to ensure that it’s installed correctly. Most of them aren’t.

65

Swaddling is awesome, but just a note that you should swaddle with their legs up like a little frog. Your mother will likely look at you like you’re bonkers and tell you you’re doing it wrong. But we’ve discovered that swaddling with the legs straight leads to problems with hip development sometimes.

66

Talk through your general parenting philosophy with the other parent, and iron out any major differences as soon as possible.

Make it clear to your child that a decision by one parent is a decision by both. (“Don’t ask me if you can do something if your mom already said no.”)

Strive to be consistent, firm and calm.

One or two swats on your child’s bottom, as a last resort when talking to the child or time-outs just aren’t changing behavior, can do a world of good.

Start reading to your child as soon as possible.

Keep a plastic bucket in the child’s room in cold and flu season. Cleaning barfed-on carpet or rugs in the middle of the night is no fun.

Reward good behavior; punish bad.

By both word and deed, let your child see what values are most important to you. (For me, it would be helping other people, valuing learning, reading for pleasure, being tolerant of differences, loving my country and trying to leave the world a little better than I found it).

Don’t make threats lightly, but if you do, follow through on them. The child must know you mean what you say.

From a very early age, present your child with several options in small matters and let him or her decide (“Would you like to wear this shirt, or that one, or that?” “Would you like hot dogs, hamburgers or tomato soup for dinner?”). Each of the options should be something you’re comfortable with. Kids like to feel they have a little control over their destiny, and I’m convinced it helps build critical-thinking skills.

Give your child increasing responsibilities around the house as they get older (walking the dog, setting the table, putting away the dishes, changing the cat litter, etc.).

Praise your child only when it’s warranted. Empty praise is soon valueless.

Love your child but don’t try to be his or her best friend.

67

I followed the Boards advice to get this hammock-like crib, and an excersaucerinstead of a playpen.
Our kid loved those, but every kid is different.

It is useful to sign up for a free newsletter like the one at babycenter. Advice at the precise developement milestone moment you need it.

68

Something my wife and I did with our kids was to not force them to eat/clean their plates. We both have weight issues now, and we decided we didn’t want our children following in our footsteps. So we told them to eat until they weren’t hungry and then stop. And no nagging at them to finish what they put on their plate.

Also, we had a rule that they had to try one bite whenever something new was served. If they didn’t like it, we thanked them for trying it and moved on. I can definitely say dinner was much less dramatic than when I grew up. And I hope the kids will keep the good habits they have displayed so far.

69

When your husband says “I put my finger in his mouth when you were gone to check on that tooth he’s working on and he screamed for a solid hour straight!”

… don’t immediately put your finger in the baby’s mouth.

70

My best advice is: always be on the same page, in front of the kids. Don’t ever let the kids play you against one another. If a kid asks you for something, make sure he didn’t go to your co-parent first and get refused. You two are a team.

Any disagreements, discuss away from the kids. If the decision you disagree with has already been made, support it to their faces.

Another important bit of advice: Don’t let a day go by without spending at least some time alone, bonding with your co-parent as an independent adult. No matter how hard it is to find that time, no matter how exhausted you two are, making the effort will pay off.

71

*Most *of them like it. One of mine really didn’t. If they don’t, you’ll know. Don’t fight it.

One thing I learned from visiting my new grandbaby (and checking it out online) is that it’s normal for new mothers to have crying jags. DIL had never been a crying sort of person and it was sort of freaking her out. The tears came with the feeling that she was a complete and total failure with the baby and that she was letting everyone down.

According to the Mayo Clinic and other sources (DIL trusts the Mayo Clinic and is a very fact based person) up to 80% of new mothers get the baby blues and it usually lasts about two weeks. It doesn’t always include crying, but that’s not uncommon. Crying jags and feeling like a failure does not mean that you’re doing anything wrong.

If it lasts longer than two weeks, if it’s constant rather than coming and going, and if there are other red flags, it may be postpartum depression, which you should talk to a doctor about. But crying jags and feeling like you are doing it wrong isn’t postpartum depression, especially if you’e getting no sleep those first two weeks. It will get better.

72

That’s good advice. I got crying jags as well, though they weren’t tied to any real emotion. They are a product of hormones going crazy. It’s totally normal in the first two weeks.

If you need to do any travelling, do it earlier rather than later. A six month old is actually pretty portable. When they start reaching toddlerhood, they get a lot squirmier and a lot more opinionated.

73

I read about a yard of baby books and did a lot of cross referencing. Also I got a lot of the infuriating vagueness out of the texts (baby books are full of words like “regularly”“not too often” “once in a while” and “not too long”). I condensed my advice in this checklist for when a baby cries. About five new parent-sets said they loved that list.

What to do if baby cries?

If a baby cries for longer then four minutes, and the crying increases rather then getting less, baby wants to tell you he has a need. Try this list.

  1. Loneliness/boredom. Baby wonders where you are and if you’re still near. If he lies in his crib, rock him gently and talks softly. If that doesn’t work, pick up the baby, hold him against your chest. Walk around with him, or put him on your lap. Another thing many babies love is to put the baby’s arms and head over your shoulder and stand facing a window while gently patting his back. Being upright will help with gas, being patted helps with everything, and babies are intrigued by the light/dark blurry spectacle of leaves in front of a window. Another favourite is carrying the baby around in a sling or on your arm in the superman / tiger in a tree hold

  2. Baby needs to burp. If the baby’s mouth is open, and her tongue is up near her palate? Then she needs to burp. If her tongue is down, it is more likely hunger.

  3. Baby wants to suck. With one finger, gently stroke his cheek right beside his mouth. If he turns his head and grabs your finger, he is hungry. If the baby responds less strongly, he might just want to suck. Try putting in a pacifier. If that keeps doing the trick, let him fall asleep with the pacifier in. It will fall out harmlessly once the baby is asleep. if baby spits out the pacifier after a few sucks, he is likely hungry or something else is the matter.

  4. Hunger. If the baby has raised one or two fists up near her head, and brings her own fist to her mouth and sucks it, and then lets go again, or turns his head towards your finger if you softly stroke his cheek near his mouth, and it’s been more then two hours since the last bottle, try to feed him.

  5. A full diaper. Smell the diaper for poopy smells. If poop, change the diaper. If the diaper is full of urine, you won’t smell it, as baby urine, especially breast-fed baby urine, hardly smells. Instead, feel to make sure. A diaper full or pee is fat and sits like a big wad between baby’s legs. An empty diaper is flat.

  6. Baby is too hot/cold. Don’t take yourself as measurement of hot and cold, (“Sweetheart, put on a coat, Mommy’s cold!”) Your baby might have totally different preferences. Feel with a finger in the back of his neck. If the back of his neck is sweaty, baby is too warm. Also feel his forearms and hands. If those feel cold to your touch, baby is cold.

  7. Bowel cramps. Ask the nurse or an experienced parent what to do. A harmless method that often helps, is massaging the babys belly with a warm hand and a bit of pressure in a slow clockwise motion. What also helps, is taking the babys temperature anally. That way you can also see if the baby’s got a fever, and sometimes the act of putting in a thermometer helps. But get instructions on the how from an expert first.

  8. Baby feels a bit unwell and/or is too tired to sleep. This can happen especially after a busy day full of impressions. A warm gentle bath will help. This is also where putting the baby in something that moves (a car, a stroller, a rocking crib) and riding him around will help . A friend of mine put the baby in her stroller and drove the stroller back and forth over her floor, and over a few cables on that floor.
    What can also help, counterintuitively, is to stop trying to console the baby and just let him alone to cry himself to sleep. Imagine yourself when you’re too tired to sleep and just when you’ve almost managed to fall asleep, someone touches you and asks if you’re allright. Don’t try out the "let her cry out"method for longer then ten minutes, if it works it will have begun to work within those ten minutes. And only if you’ve tried the other solutions on this list first.

  9. If nothing on this list helps, ask your doc.

74

Where was this advice when one of my brothers peed the bed at least three times a week! Oh man…
Not a parent, just a co-parent, elder cousin and, uh, no-so-voluntary child-herder since a young age. Get to know your kid; they come with built-in personalities, peeves and preferences. Parenting books may have been written by people who know a lot about the Standard Child*, but they do not know your kid. Know your kid, work with him.

  • One of my brother’s teachers liked to use a Standard Monkey in his problems. Students would sometimes ask “but what is the Standard Monkey like? Big, small, male, female? Is it a baboon or a gorilla?” “It’s Standard.” Your child is not Standard, and neither a baboon nor a gorilla.

But please, also teach them to discuss, and let them know that you two get in agreement: you weren’t born that way. I used to think my parents were an inverted Hydra, two bodies but one head - knowing it was not so could have saved my brothers and me a lot of bad times.

75

If you are thinking of using disposables –

Most of the messes small babies make are small messes. There may, or may not, be a lot of messes, but they will probably be small. or even several small messes at the same time, or a medium mess spread out into several small messes.

Cloth diapers are excellent for this. Just really great to have around. We had a double size stack about 2ft tall, and you just grab a couple, use them, cycle them through the wash.

In retrospect, I’m surprised that paper towels/napkins weren’t equally useful, because that is what I’ve used for every other stage of my life, but they weren’t. If you happen to be using cloth diapers, you’ll have them around. If you aren’t, get some anyway.

76

WTF?

As someone who works in the field of driver training I have got to ask where this comes from? The worst parents I have to deal with are the idiots who seriously think I can take a kid out in a car for 6 hours and teach them everything they need.
Heres a tip, get them driving go carts and manual quads growing up, it will make the whole car thing a billion times easier down the road…and time spent behind the wheel is probably the biggest factor in safe driving, as in the more time spent with the parent and instructor the better off they are when on their own.

77

Over 30 years ago we used a diaper service, since the place we are living was tiny and we had a small portable washer and drier which were illegal in any case. Cloth diapers are not only good as diapers but also as burp cloths.
Maybe cloth diapers today but after a few years we moved to disposables since even doubled diapers were not doing the job.

My oldest took forever to feed. We had a music stand which let me prop open a book to read while she drained her bottle in half an hour of delicate little sips.
Made me a lot more patient at 3 am.

78

Actually my first one was a lot more difficult than the second. She slept in a crib in a tiny room, when I patted her to sleep and started to leave, if I stepped on a loose board she’d be right up. The second slept through anything. The first took half an hour for a bottle. The second three minutes flat. The first went through a period of waking up and crying after she started sleeping through the night. The second never.

Just another reason to not worry about advice - the stuff that works for one baby might not work for the other.
Also why you shouldn’t be surprised if they go to different colleges.

79

And the worst parent I had to deal with was the one who tried to teach me to drive. We, honestly, never got over it. Horrible experience. I did not get my license for eight years after that. Horrible.

I am not alone, either. Most of the people I know hated - hated - the experience, as the parent or student or both.

I stand by my recommendation, get some one else to teach your kid. Uncles, older cousins, grandparents, or even professionals such as your self.

80

Oh yes. Luckily an older baby can learn to hold his bottle himself. Kid likes the control and parent likes to have a free hand.