Babies 101

Sunday, October 17, 2010

My friend Jú gave me a list of things she wanted me to write about. This is my experience and I often say that yours will be much better and different. The thing about having kids is that you have to do what works for your family. Here's our experience in the following areas:


1.Diapers 101
I have written on diapers before but only about cloth because I was giving it a try. Well friends, I decided to do disposables with the new baby and continue using disposables with the older baby. Our family has strong convictions about the environment but I have a stronger conviction in making my life easier. Adding more loads to my laundry and disposing of poop is just not something I wanted to add to my life. We were really blessed with diapers for both children, so we are using disposables. 

With my first baby, I found out that certain brands worked better than others. With the second baby, whatever brand we have is okay.  We decided to stock up on diapers and keep cloth one for emergencies. I use cloth when I run out of disposables (almost never) and when they have diaper rashes (almost never).
One fun fact about me, I never changed a diaper til I had my first born. It took me a couple of days after the birth to change it because my husband was so excited about helping with him so I said, go right ahead! 

2.Schedule 
As soon as I had my first son I wanted to put him on a schedule. Friends, I tried to put myself on a schedule and wrote about time management for new moms. I stay at home with my son and because it worked for this first time mom, I pretty much let him dictate my schedule for the first 3 months. There are books out there that help you put little bitty babies on a schedule. I read one that used the cry out method in order to teach baby to sleep through the night. I never really had to use it because one night he decided to sleep 7 hours - what a glorious night I had. I learned that my babies do well when they eat, play and sleep. I have friends whose babies slept all night on week 5, some on week 8. My kids usually wait til month 3 to do that. I also learned that babies are predictable. I wrote down the times when my first down slept and made a schedule from there. I made sure there were no naps after 4:30 p.m. so he could fall asleep at a decent time. An important thing my husband and I did was to determine what time the kids should go to bed and stick with that. Babies do well with structure so my job is to make sure they have just that. 

3.Bath time - bath and water temperature & newborns 
My pediatrician told me to wait til the umbilical cord fell before we emerged the baby in the bath water. Before then we just gave them sponge baths. My first one screamed bloody murder when we gave him his first baths. I almost wished he stayed dirty during those times and now he cries when bath time is over. We had a thermometer that measured the water temperature for us with the first born. With the second one (who doesn't scream at all but loves baths) I just measure the temperature with my hand and make sure it's not too hot or too cold. I'm sure the correct temperature is written somewhere or a pediatrician can tell you. With the time and number of children I lost the habit to measure the water temp with a thermometer. 

4.House temperature & newborns
I couldn't find someone t tell me the exact temperature for my house. One wise nurse told me that we tend to do to treat our children how we'd treat ourselves. For example, we don't have central AC at my house, so when I go somewhere that does, I think it's too cold for the babies. In the hospital they keep a close watch to the baby's temp and they'll tell you what an okay temp it is. I keep my house at 70 but this may be too hot for some people. As long as the babies are not too hot or too cold, we're okay. I learned that when you breastfeed is easy to tell their body temps but bottle feeding moms such as myself instinctively do the same. 

Remember that talking to your pediatrician is the best way to get your questions answered. I think they're better than books because a text book doesn't examine my babies.
Riema's Journey said...

nice post!!You are right, you have to do what works for your family.