:baby_symbol: Parenting advice - you're gonna get hit



  • When my eldest was little, the only time I got sent out in the middle of the night (to an all-night Tesco's that was full of fathers in similar situations) was to buy cabbage.

    My partner's nipples were very painful from breast-feeding and everyone recommended half a cold cabbage. Add me and her to the people who recommend it.

    Beyond that, the most useful things we bought were slings (she loves them and they are very practical) and some sort of roll up changing bag with pockets for nappies, wet wipes, etc. Very useful for shopping trips, park time, etc.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @coldandtired said:

    Beyond that, the most useful things we bought were slings (she loves them and they are very practical) and some sort of roll up changing bag with pockets for nappies, wet wipes, etc. Very useful for shopping trips, park time, etc.

    My wife bought me one of these:

    https://www.diaperdude.com/

    A diaper bag that is not flowery and pastel and girly. Highly recommended. Also recommended, checking the contents of said diaper bag before you leave the house. My wife would constantly replenish her diaper bag from mine, leaving me without some critical bit of stuff while out and about.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    My wife would constantly replenish her diaper bag from mine, leaving me without some critical bit of stuff while out and about.

    😆


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    It might be funny to someone else, but it was not funny to me when driving home with an infant screaming in the back seat because they have a dirty diaper and I was out of diapers.

    The wife and I had a serious talk after that... ;)


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Polygeekery said:

    The wife and I had a serious talk after that..

    Yeah, I would have been pissed. We had a single diaper bag, IIRC. I can't remember what it looked like except for not typical.



  • @abarker said:

    Nursing is not should not be a replacement for self-soothing, so I'm not sure what your point is.

    Do I have to know what my point was? ... sheesh... I was hoping you were keeping up for us all.....

    Let's try this one: "correct or not, that's what happened in our house, and I never had to go through weaning the first two from thumbs or pacifiers - which I think I'm thankful for."

    I don't pretend this particular observation should be dogma...

    unlike changing tables or those stinky diaper genies, but nobody agrees with me anyway...

    :pout.cob:


    FWIW its COB for me, so any non-responsiveness on my part is also non-editorial.

    Bye all, enjoy the baby talk...



  • This post is deleted!

  • kills Dumbledore

    Some good advice in here. I think I'll use this thread for spamming all my pregnancy related news from now on


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Jaloopa said:

    I think I'll use this thread for spamming all my pregnancy related news from now on

    @Magus has a topic you could use for that.



  • All I ever wanted was to be left alone in the status thread!

    *Exits stage right, bawling at the top of his lungs*


  • kills Dumbledore

    That thread is one of those ones where I know what most of the words mean but have no idea about the sentences



  • @Jaloopa said:

    sentences

    Not word know.



  • More unsolicited advice...

    @ijij said:

    Unsolicited advice:

    a) The bit about getting the baby's room ready? Do that. You won't get another chance. You don't have to put up MLP or Dwarf Fortress wallpaper or anything, but do what you're gonna do ahead of time.


    Definitely this. Having a child makes you realise how much time you used to have. I found that it was best not to plan to do any task while you were looking after the baby. If you get time, great but there's a good chance you won't.

    @ijij said:

    II. Pick a back up name in case the kid doesn't look a "Galahad" when you see him/her the first time. Related, thinking about naming him Galahad? No.

    In Australia at the moment there seem to be two trends which I personally think are bad ideas...

    1. Officially giving your child the diminutive version of a name (e.g. Charlie) rather than the full version (i.e. Charles).

    2. Given your child a well known name but spelling it wrong. I've seen a Shivawn. (Wait or it.....)

    @ijij said:

    \4. Changing tables suck. Too much reaching around and twisting, etc., just sit on the floor, put down a pad, plop the kid on his back facing you, and do the change. Kid can't fall off the floor. (Protip - obviously don't do this in a public bathroom).

    I have actually done this in a public toilet stall in Santa Monica but it was the start of the night and spotless. I was doing the usual chat to keep the baby occupied..."That's it. Right pants down... Ooh that's a stinky one. Let's just clean that up. Right, almost finished....there we go all done."

    The look on the face of the guy at the urinal was priceless....



  • @Polygeekery said:

    Ask your friends for advice on bottles, pick one type, and buy a lot of them.

    Totally agree (we went with Tommy Tippee) as we found the fewer variables the better when trying to feed. Same with formula if you use it - pick a brand and stick with it. Also, if for whatever reason you use formula, don't let anyone make you feel bad about it.

    Put me down as a +1 for the change table. All the stuff where I needed it to be and easy on the back.

    @Mikael_Svahnberg said:

    We used to boil the water in the evening and prepare packages with formula for the night, then just re-heat to 40 degrees C, pour in a prepared package, shake, and plug in. Much easier to do while still half asleep.

    Definitely this. Nothing worse than having a crying baby while you wait for the kettle to boil...then cool...before feeding.

    @ijij said:

    Quiz: do you put the um, Discourse-d diaper near the kids head (ick) or near the feet (zoom to floor!, also ick).... FLOOR IS EASIER!

    A good trick is to seal up the nappy with the straps so you end up with it all self contained. Have a small bin next to the change table. (No sense having a large one as the bag needs to be emptied frequently as you can imagine.)



  • @Rhywden said:

    If you buy pacifiers buy more than one. Best if you buy all of them. They are either jinxed so that they disappear at the most inopportune moment or designed thusly that they have a self-destruct mechanism which turns them to dust come nightfall.

    Our older boy loved his dummy. He would wake up crying and all you had to do was put the dummy in and he went back to sleep in (literally) 5 seconds. But he only liked one specific brand - no others would do so we stocked up and had them stashed strategically so we knew where they were at 3am.

    The younger boy had them a little but would use any brand and was much more take it or leave it.

    As for weaning him off (which we were worried about) we just did it one Xmas. The logic being we both had time off if he couldn't sleep and we had some good opportunities for bribery. As it happens it was easy... he had a few times during the day when he asked for it but we deflected him.



  • There is a bitter tasting nail polish that you are supposed to use to stop biting your nails. We used it on our eldest girl when it was time for her to stop using her thumb. At first, she was so desperate that she licked it off, but after we talked to her she stopped doing that. The polish reminded her when she stuck in her thumb without thinking, and alltogether stopped her from using it at night.

    All in all, it took two or three months and then she was thumb-free.



  • @Mikael_Svahnberg said:

    There is a bitter tasting nail polish that you are supposed to use to stop biting your nails. We used it on our eldest girl when it was time for her to stop using her thumb.

    I am aware of that stuff. My cousin's daughter likes it, so it was a total backfire there. Have to give it a shot on my youngest and hope the bitter preference isn't a recessive genetic trait.



  • Oh, well. If all else fails, I can send over a few cans of rotting fish for you to try. ;-)



  • @RTapeLoadingError said:

    A good trick is to seal up the nappy with the straps so you end up with it all self contained.

    Not just a trick, this is as necessary as Source Control.... But you've got a few things to take care of before you can release your hold on the child and wrap up that bad-boy (the nappy not baby).
    [You don't put that bottom back into production until its clean - like Code Review]

    I found this easier to do while not worrying about the top-heavy wiggling screaming thing (baby not nappy) from plummeting to the floor.

    In hindsight tho', don't try my strategy if you have wall-to-wall carpeting! Worked for me since we have wood floors - even apocalyptic diapering problems can be corrected with a little sanding and varnish.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @RTapeLoadingError said:

    I have actually done this in a public toilet stall in Santa Monica but it was the start of the night and spotless.

    We always had special disposable pieces of paper to put down for places like that (to include stuff like the floor of someone's house, when that was how things went).



  • Lets see as of 15h hours ago Jaloopa was still with us... OK

    MORE!

    IX. You will receive unsolicited and unwelcome advice. This is not a reflection on you....

    C:> The baby's car must have the largest possible rear door...
    You will either be taking that Belgium'd car seat¹ in and out or strapping him in a million times in the next several months and years...
    It is really unpleasant to do this on two hours of sleep, in the dark, with him crying and snow working it's way down your backside...

    ¹ I do recommend the infant car seats with the base that stays in the car - if possible, get a base for each car the baby will use.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @ijij said:

    if possible, get a base for each car the baby will use.

    We bought a Mazda MX5 to replace my crashed motorbike, no back seats so at least 9 months before it'll be travelling in that (or disabling the passenger airbag, which doesn't make much sense). People think we're idiots, even when they know we already have a 5 door sensible car



  • @Jaloopa said:

    Mazda MX5 Miata

    Corrected for the Americans among us ...



  • @Jaloopa said:

    they know we already have a 5 door sensible car

    Then none of this is new to you...(see my point IX. above ;) )

    I just remember looking with pity at the all the minivan drivin' folk and thinking "Loozer!" - then I had kids and even our sedans were annoying as heck to get them in and out of....



  • @accalia said:

    I like being able to give the kids back when i'm done.

    One thing I'm looking forward to about being a grandparent. (In a few years, at least, I hope. Both my kids are still in college and unpartnered; not an auspicious time to be starting the next generation.) Sick, tired, cranky? Back to Mom and Dad. :)



  • @ijij said:

    when they hurl on you, it's not as much

    Buy cloth diapers. Not for their butts (though you can use them for that, too, if you want to). Fold a clean one in half and put it on your shoulder when burping or cuddling them; it will (usually) protect you and your clothes, and they're really easy to wash (obviously, since they're made to absorb worse messes than that).



  • @Jaloopa said:

    Currently scouring ebay/freecycle/etc. for stuff,

    Just make sure everything you get is up to current safety standards.


  • Garbage Person

    Meanwhile I'm here going "Fuck yeah I'm a single unattached race car driving fool. Sure I'll buy a second completely impractical sportscar!"

    Y'all don't know what you gave up for that whole family biznezz.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Weng said:

    Y'all don't know what you gave up for that whole family biznezz.

    Trust me, I do. It sucked to give it up, but now that I am on the other side of things...it is so worth it.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    Also, get grandma to come over and go have a date night. You are parents first and foremost, but you also need to be husband and wife.

    We did this, but not enough. And much less when Grandma wasn't available any more (health); the babysitter typically cost more than the date itself.

    @Polygeekery said:

    If I kick back on the recliner with my son, I will fall asleep within minutes because that's the only chance I've had to sleep in the last 24 hours.
    FTFY ;)


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @HardwareGeek said:

    the babysitter typically cost more than the date itself.

    Yep. $15/hour is the going rate around here unless you can find a high school girl that you would trust enough.

    @HardwareGeek said:

    FTFY


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @HardwareGeek said:

    because that's the only chance I've had to sleep in the last 24 hours

    Also, it does not help that we had a client have a major hardware fuckup. I have been telling them for a year that we needed to step up the backup routine, and that we had a machine that needed rebuilt because the previous IT company fucked it up so badly that it literally would not back up. The only thing that we were able to kludge in to place was some crappy robocopy scripts that had to be babysat.

    Well, last week the feces hit the airmover and now we must do all the things. Now there is money in the budget for all the shit we have been wanting to do. Now it is priority #1.

    All of this has caused us to look like rock stars though. We have mostly kept everything up. Very minimal downtime. Very little data loss (1.5 hours of work was lost, they were looking at 10 days as their onsite IT let backups lapse for that long). I wonder if we will still look like rock stars when they get that 5-figure invoice tomorrow morning?

    TL;DR, newborn in the house plus major SNAFU at a client, I sleep when I can.



  • @boomzilla said:

    if you were smart enough to think ahead and get your supplies together before you start changing the baby, no twisting was required.

    Occasionally, however, a second clean diaper is unexpectedly needed before you finish getting the first (formerly) clean one on. If you're not careful, this may require you changing yourself as well as the baby. 😮

    Pro Tip: Cover the baby with the new diaper as you're removing the old one. If the baby soils the new one during the process, at least it won't squirt you. Yes, I learned this the hard way.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Polygeekery said:

    $15/hour is the going rate around here unless you can find a high school girl that you would trust enough.

    :giggity:



  • @Mikael_Svahnberg said:

    We started a diary.

    Good idea. I wish we had done this.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    Well played sir, well played.



  • /me enters thread without looking at title by mistake
    /me blanches

    /me flees



  • @RTapeLoadingError said:

    A good trick is to seal up the nappy with the straps so you end up with it all self contained.

    This. Fold it up into a packet, and use the straps to hold it closed. Still icky (on the inside, unless you had a real blow-out), but the odor is mostly contained within. As for disposal, it's been something like 17 years since my youngest was in diapers, so my memory is a bit vague, but I think we just had a waste basket (with disposable liners) with hinged lid, and emptied it often; I know we didn't have a Diaper Genie or anything of the sort.



  • @ijij said:

    that ■■■■■■■'d car seat

    Things may be better these days, but back when my kids were in car seats, it was impossible to install one correctly. Automobile seats (the ones built into the car, not the infant/child seat you're trying to install) are made to be comfortable for people to sit on; this is in perfect contradiction to being able to install an infant/child seat securely. You'd have to be an 800-pound sumo wrestler to compress the upholstery enough that the infant/child seat wouldn't move when you pushed or pulled it.

    @ijij said:

    the next several months and years...

    If you live in a jurisdiction that requires kids to be X age and (rather than or) Y weight in order to legally not be in a car seat, these limits will not coincide. I think my kids were 3 or 4 years past the age restriction before they met the weight requirement (especially my son, who's skinny as a beanpole).



  • @Weng said:

    Y'all don't know what you gave up for that whole family biznezz.

    Sure we do, and I would give it all up again.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    $15/hour is the going rate around here unless you can find a high school girl that you would trust enough.

    I'm not sure where you are, but IIRC we were paying that for a high school girl 20 years ago. We did use an older, grandmotherly friend a few times. I don't recall that she charged us any more, but it didn't work out too well. We came home one time and found the kid(s) in bed (good) and her on the computer without our permission. I checked the browser history and didn't find anything inappropriate, but that's when I put a password on the home computer. I can't remember whether it was her or a high school girl we came home and found her boyfriend there with her without our knowledge or permission. Uh, no.

    And 0300Z read-only time... Twiddle thumbs...


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @HardwareGeek said:

    I'm not sure where you are, but IIRC we were paying that for a high school girl 20 years ago.

    😐

    @HardwareGeek said:

    We did use an older, grandmotherly friend a few times.

    😣

    @HardwareGeek said:

    I don't recall that she charged us any more

    😖

    @HardwareGeek said:

    but it didn't work out too well.

    :giggity:

    Filed under: [url]Sorry[/url]



  • This thread made me glance through the first diary again. We actually started it before launch day, so there are things like lists of things to pack in the carryall, and even (ick) timestamps of all the labours from when the water broke and until they were no longer separate events.

    Some advice emerging from my reading:

    • Pack as if you're going to run a marathon. Plenty of energy drinks, chocolate, and other favourite candy.
    • You are going to bring the baby home too. Don't forget to pack clothes for it.

    Looking back, boy were we naive. I think we were pretty well prepared (mentally as well as in terms of equipment) for having a baby, but we somehow forgot that you also get to keep the baby. There is the moment when we came home and were finally able to wave goodbye to the grandparents, we sit down in the couch, look at each other and say

    "What do we do now?"

    Later on

    "They forgot to include a user manual to this baby"

    Even later

    "How can society be so irresponsible that they let someone like me leave the hospital with a baby!?"



  • @Mikael_Svahnberg said:

    "They forgot to include a user manual to this baby"

    There's a book, What to Expect the First Year, that we found pretty helpful, but nobody ever wrote the ones for the second, third, etc. years. (AFAIK. If they did, they did it too late to be useful for us.)

    @Mikael_Svahnberg said:

    timestamps of all the labours from when the water broke and until they were no longer separate events.

    I was fairly active on USENET misc.kids when my daughter was born. Somewhere out there on some archive is the story of my (ex-)wife's almost 36 hours of labor and emergency C-section. As someone whose wife is going to go through labor soon-ish, @Jaloopa doesn't really want to talk to me about that. 😨



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    There's a book, What to Expect the First Year, that we found pretty helpful, but nobody ever wrote the ones for the second, third, etc. years. (AFAIK. If they did, they did it too late to be useful for us.)

    We've got a couple of those. These books raise a lot of controversy here, as they always seem to contradict each other and people use them as bibles. We got one book from each camp and read them intelligently instead. However, these are the equivalent of going to stack overflow and asking for help -- your specific model and make is not covered by them.

    @HardwareGeek said:

    36 hours

    :hide:

    Our first was 30 hours and was utterly exhausting. I remember in the end I saw that my wife was so exhausted that she just couldn't push one more time. I told her "Come on! It's like you're not even trying!". That made her mad enough for the final push.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Mikael_Svahnberg said:

    Pack as if you're going to run a marathon. Plenty of energy drinks, chocolate, and other favourite candy.

    When it got close to "go time" at the hospital with our first, the nurses made me order some food as I had not eaten in probably 12 hours. Shortly after the food arrives, the doctor does also. She checks my wife, says she is ready to go and turns to me and says, "You finish your food, I am going to go to the nurses station and do some paperwork real quick. When you are done eating, come get me and we will have a baby." I start to put my food to the side and she tells me to finish eating, she did not want me to pass out and bust my head open on the floor. I believe her exact words were, "I don't want to have to stitch up both your head and her vagina tonight."

    I wolfed down my food and went and got the doc. I was glad I finished my food because as I have said before: If it is your wife and your child, it is beautiful. If not, it would be like attending an alien autopsy.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @HardwareGeek said:

    36 hours

    @Mikael_Svahnberg said:

    30 hours

    Our first was approximately 12 hours of labor in total. Only an hour or two of that was hard laboring.

    Our second that was just born...90 minutes from "I don't feel so well, my stomach feels funny" to baby crying.



  • :-) I was, in fact, suggesting to pack these for the wife, but yeah, make sure you get some food as well.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    They would not let her eat, due to there always being a possibility of C-Section.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @HardwareGeek said:

    36 hours

    Friend I mentioned earlier took four days

    @HardwareGeek said:

    Things may be better these days, but back when my kids were in car seats, it was impossible to install one correctly. Automobile seats (the ones built into the car, not the infant/child seat you're trying to install) are made to be comfortable for people to sit on; this is in perfect contradiction to being able to install an infant/child seat securely. You'd have to be an 800-pound sumo wrestler to compress the upholstery enough that the infant/child seat wouldn't move when you pushed or pulled it.

    Was there isofix in those days? It's meant to make the whole car seat thing a bit easier

    @HardwareGeek said:

    Pro Tip: Cover the baby with the new diaper as you're removing the old one. If the baby soils the new one during the process, at least it won't squirt you. Yes, I learned this the hard way.

    I have two brothers. My mother reckons baby boys deliberately aim for cups of tea when they get the chance


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