LegendofJoe
Member
Just found out this morning my wife is pregnant, I've got a loooot of prep work to do because I know close to nothing about raising infants. Does anyone here have any experience with books, manuals, classes, etc.?
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Newborn Baby-GAF: Sleepless Nights Deluxe HD Remix
- Thread starter Adam Prime
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You'll be fine. You're pre programmed to raise an infant.
VanMardigan
has calmed down a bit.
Really happy that my third child was born almost full term and my wife is able to breast feed. She is producing enough milk that I'm going to start giving my two year old some milk too. He only received a small amount before my wife dried up.
marvelharvey
Member
Very cute, looks like he's enjoying myself.
My first born is almost a week old now and we're almost ready to go home. Sadly, we found out he's got VSD (a small whole in his heart) but thankfully the doctors think it should heal naturally in a couple of months.
Question: the doctors advised my wife to stay in the hospital for 8 days, is that normal after a c-section? Before moving to Japan, I was in the UK and the NHS chuck you out after a couple of days, which is the kind of service I'm used to. So 8 days seems a little too long... but I've no idea, this is all new territory for me.
Of course, she elected to stay in their most expensive room, so I can fully understand why the doctors want to keep her in for as long as possible. Me, cynical?
My first born is almost a week old now and we're almost ready to go home. Sadly, we found out he's got VSD (a small whole in his heart) but thankfully the doctors think it should heal naturally in a couple of months.
Question: the doctors advised my wife to stay in the hospital for 8 days, is that normal after a c-section? Before moving to Japan, I was in the UK and the NHS chuck you out after a couple of days, which is the kind of service I'm used to. So 8 days seems a little too long... but I've no idea, this is all new territory for me.
Of course, she elected to stay in their most expensive room, so I can fully understand why the doctors want to keep her in for as long as possible. Me, cynical?
viciouskillersquirrel
Member
It's different after a C section. My wife stayed a week in hospital and wasn't allowed to drive for a month. It's major surgery, especially if she wasn't full term, and can mess you right up.
marvelharvey
Member
Thanks for the info. Happy to hear that my cynicism was unfounded.
With c-secs, it's the old "an oz of prevention is worth a pound of cure". You really can't take things too slowly or be too cautious. While 8 days is a bit more than I've heard from friends who had c-secs, it's only a day or two more. Glad to hear the heart issue should be minor!
VanMardigan
has calmed down a bit.
Its 2:48 in the morning and my baby's eyes couldn't be more wide open. Its going to be a doozy, lol.
Tilt baby's head upside down. Apply saline drops to nose. Suck snot out with a Nose Frida. Profit!
viciouskillersquirrel
Member
There are many people online who are crazy anti-vaxers and promote homeopathy. Treat their opinions with the contempt they deserve and listen to your doctor.
No-one knows anything but you'll surprise yourself how quickly you become an expert.
Hats the gift a baby gives to you - you discover more about yourself, for better or worse.
Just don't forget, it's a team effort. You, wife, baby.
That said, DO be proactive when you can, don't let things just come.
Ditto on all this. I gotta say it was weird how much is instinctual, even as a man.
And 100% take care of your wife, physically, mentally, everything. If she is well, then it makes taking care of baby that much easier.
Captain Tuttle
Member
Listen to the doctor. Besides having bigger liability issues than anonymous people on the internet they have gone to school for years and years.
Of course, if you don't agree with the dr get a second opinion (from another properly trained dr)
Good stuff!
God, I'm so terrible at the iPhone keyboard. Dies it gave a worse touchscreen or something?
Dammit.
I mean, haven't you tried wearing your kids in your head? Very fashionable.
Most days!
Captain Tuttle
Member
You mean stay-at-home parents? Yeah, I've been home with my kids (6 and 7) since the first one was born in 2005. They're going to be in school full time after the summer so I'm looking to get back into the workforce though, my time at home is done. I had a good time doing it though, no regrets and I think my kids are better off for it.
My wife is. She goes crazy stuck in that kid reality some days.
People need some time on their own sometimes, but parenting is pretty relentless.
Good luck to you guys!
Has anyone let their baby cry themselves to sleep? Our daughter is 9 weeks old today and she won't take naps. At night time, she has for the past week (except Saturday night) slept 5 hours (roughly) for her first sleep, gets up eats, and sleeps for about another 2-3. She doesn't nap! She will only sleep for 30 minutes if we get her to and usually we have to take her for a car ride to get her to sleep (and even then it's 30 minutes) and even talking her for a walk in her stroller the nap only lasts 30 minutes..
This makes it very tough for me and my wife to get anything done like cleaning the house, cooking dinner, sex, or anything. Today, we put her down at 12:15 pm and said we'd let her cry until 1:00 pm. we have a neighbor who said they did this with their 9 month old and it worked.
we haven't had sex since October of last year and the doctor gave us the okay for sex starting today so we really want her to take a nap.
This makes it very tough for me and my wife to get anything done like cleaning the house, cooking dinner, sex, or anything. Today, we put her down at 12:15 pm and said we'd let her cry until 1:00 pm. we have a neighbor who said they did this with their 9 month old and it worked.
we haven't had sex since October of last year and the doctor gave us the okay for sex starting today so we really want her to take a nap.
Captain Tuttle
Member
Welcome to parent hood.
9 weeks seems a little young for sleep training.
We used this book with some really good success.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060742569/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Yeah, sex is pretty non-existent for me, even 7 months later...good luck with that.
We never let ours cry more than 10 minutes in his crib without going in to soothe him, but that's just a personal choice. Some days where he hasn't had good naps, he really does just need a solid 10 minutes of tears and then he's out for hours.
Wife got an IUD inserted 6 weeks after the birth and our sex life went right back to normal. I'd highly recommend if your wives are up for it. You don't have to put up with all the gross hormonal side effects of the pill.
Wife got an IUD inserted 6 weeks after the birth and our sex life went right back to normal. I'd highly recommend if your wives are up for it. You don't have to put up with all the gross hormonal side effects of the pill.
No napping is not necessarily unusual. With our twins it was almost guaranteed one would be awake at any given time at that age. Now they are almost 4 months and its easier on us because they can entertain themselves a bit with toys or other things.
Our Elena loves to swing in one of these, so we put her in there and she can be out like a light, or at least is content to look around for 30-45 minutes until she falls asleep. Jack ont he other hand does not like swings but likes these vibrating bouncers . So we put him in there and he is fine. Or they both like to lay on the play mats. Or sometimes they just want to be held for a bit.
And we learned to let them cry it out at night, but be attentive during the day after 5-15 minutes of crying. It makes getting things done difficult, but that's parenthood. And we got back "into the bedroom" after about 7-8 weeks. It took a bit for my wife to recover post c section and hormones were crazy. But all is well now.
We used a book called 'the sleep sense system', but yeah, we didn't start until around 6-8 months (it's all a blur now, lol).
I've talked about it a bit in this thread already. I'm not mining a quick-fix guy, and as a scientist I'm always skeptical of claims. I always read such guides as just that - guides. I read them, consider the ideas and incorporate what I feel makes sense.
A lot of people dismiss it as 'crying it out', but that was the least of the ideas I found useful. In the sleep sense program (and note it was more about having your baby go to sleep through the night or on their own - so more applicable to older babies. New horns have to feed periodically, no getting around that if they are hungry. And you may find something applicable to naps), the concept was about training a baby to go to sleep on their own.
This meant not allowing you as a parent to be an assistance tool to sleep. That is, no rocking, no nursing TO sleep. The idea was that babies WANT to sleep, and if they learn that they need you to do so, of course they will cry to get you to get them to sleep.
And they will never learn to do it on their own, this more crying. Like a trade off - a short amount of intense crying during training to have them not cry all the time for possibly up to years.
The key tools involved:
Set up a rigid routine for sleep time so baby knows sleep time is coming. This is important - you can imagine playing with baby then all of a sudden they are in their crib and forced to sleep. It's jarring. The routine should be followed rigidly for the short term to have them realise bed time is coming. Not too long that they forget the routine and not too short that it is too sudden. We made ours around twenty minutes and involved playtime followed by a story, then nursing then crib.
Put baby in the crib AWAKE. this is so they learn to fall asleep themselves. Again the emphasis in removing you as an assistance sleep tool. This WILL lead to some crying initially. That can't be helped. The book tries to allay some fears about this by saying that babies cry, that's what they do. Is it harmful? Who knows, but in future your baby will cry about all sorts of things, so a short term of crying during training is worth the trade off of years of it later if sleep is never learned. For example, your baby may want to do something dangerous or eat something not healthy for them. You don't let them, instead choosing to have them cry. No matter how much they cry, you won't cave. Same thing, essentially.
Anyway, those are the key concepts. I may not have explained them as convincingly, but my point would be to read stuff like this, but with a grain of salt and take from them what you will. Be smart about it, and absorb the key concepts and modify it. It is important to actually read the book because skimping on the fundamental ideas mean it might not work and then you ARE putting your baby through unwarranted stress.
Our antenatal group used this and everyone who did seemed to get good results, at least for our purposes, which was to get baby to sleep through the night. In fact the book itself claims a 100% success rate for the author (of course, they would say that).
We did that kind of training with our baby around 6-8 months. She was a bit of a fussy sleeper before, tough to go to sleep (could take over an hour pf soothing, for example, wake up throughout the night, etc), but after one week of the training she was sleeping 10-12 hours through the night. Any interruption to that, 99% of the time she would just go back to sleep herself within 10 minutes.
Sure enough, maybe she was just ready to do it and it was going to happen training or not. However, we still gleaned some really useful concepts about training our child to sleep. We took the core concepts and used them to figure out what we were perhaps doing wrong and modified the 'program'.
Of course, new newborns are different. They get hungry every three hours and you have to feed them. But perhaps you can start with some basics such as not lettin them fall asleep (if possible - I know it it's easier to, and sometimes during parenting the easiest path can be the most rewarding one) while nursing to start cementing the idea that they don't need you as a tool. I dunno. Like I said, read stuff like this or get impressions and take the concepts in mind during your parenting.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Well to be fair a lot of parents would kill for a 9 week old that was sleeping a solid 7 to 8 hours with only one feeding in between. I think the aim is for something like 11-15 hours sleep a day at that age. If she is getting 4-5 half hour naps a day then she is at least sleeping enough. Might suck for you but there probably isn't a magic bullet to make her naps longer. If she is only sleeping 7 - 8 hours a day then it might be worth talking to your pediatrician.
we are really happy with her. it just becomes very hard during the day because we don't know what to do with her. she won't take a nap, she'll start crying and be fussy unless we hold the pacifier in her mouth. Last week we could take her for a walk in her stroller and she'd nap/be calm but that stopped over the weekend. She'll usually take a nap in the car but gas is way too expensive. we don't know what sort of activities we can try with a 9 week old because they're still so new.
my older sister has a 1.5 year old and she said sometimes we just have to let them cry and they did it to their son at 6 weeks. my parents said they started about the same age as my daughter. We just are at a loss of what to do. She won't play on her jungle mat dangle thing, or her bouncy chair, so we're lost.
Dang, 7 month old killing us tonight...she's been stuffed up and she flips out when we put her in her crib. Complete meltdown....took 20 minutes to calm her down and get her smiling again.
Put her in the crib and she rolls over within 3 seconds, starts screaming again. Ugh...
Is she manipulating us? Letting her cry for a few min.
Put her in the crib and she rolls over within 3 seconds, starts screaming again. Ugh...
Is she manipulating us? Letting her cry for a few min.
Just a preamble, take all of this with a grain of salt...every baby is different and I'm far from the perfect parent but this is just based on my experience after three kids.
I don't personally think there's any point to letting them cry that young. 9 weeks is too young to be manipulative, something is up. Most young babies cry because when they wake up they are alone and no one is around. They are used to being totally enclosed in a small space and being able to hear their mother's heartbeat, etc. For each of my kids they didn't move into a crib in their own room until they were 3-5 months old. Before that they either slept in our bed (with a co-sleeper thing) or in a bassinet right next to the bed.
My kids for the most part also didn't take naps in their crib/bassinet for the first few months. I would usually put them into a baby carrier (Ergo baby ftw) and wear them while I do chores around the house. Being in a baby carrier was insta-sleep for all my kids.
You're not going to be having a lot of sex for the next few months, take what opportunities you can, lol.
My daughter is now about 6 months old and sleeps pretty good at night in her crib- usually around 10:00 pm to 10:00am getting up once to feed. She'll usually take 1 hour nap and one 45 minute nap during the day.
Holy canoly. Our 4 month old boy is getting up 3-5 times between 8pm-7am. I'm jelly.
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
Update time! Twins are fucking hard, man. I was lulled into a false sense of confidence with my four year old and forgot how difficult living with a newborn is. I was home on paternity leave for the first two weeks so I was able to help my wife with nightly feedings. Good thing I was because we both were rusty. After my two weeks were up my mother in law moved in to help. She'll be here for about a month and she's been a godsend. I am able to sleep through the night and help out with the 5ish am feeding before I head to work.
So as far everything, difficulty of raising twins and being totally out of practice aside, has been great. We are getting into a routine with feedings, changings, and keeping our four year old entertained. Speaking of our four year old, he's been great with the little ones. He's eager to help us out with the babies and chores around the house. He's a proud big brother and introduces the twins to everyone that comes over.
That's about it. The twins are going in for a check up tomorrow so I'm anxious to see if they have been gaining weight. They lost a few onces from birth to their first check up but both have been eating like champs so it shouldn't be a problem.
So as far everything, difficulty of raising twins and being totally out of practice aside, has been great. We are getting into a routine with feedings, changings, and keeping our four year old entertained. Speaking of our four year old, he's been great with the little ones. He's eager to help us out with the babies and chores around the house. He's a proud big brother and introduces the twins to everyone that comes over.
That's about it. The twins are going in for a check up tomorrow so I'm anxious to see if they have been gaining weight. They lost a few onces from birth to their first check up but both have been eating like champs so it shouldn't be a problem.
Yeah they need to feed often at that point. But at some point, around 6-8 months if i remember, they actually don't need the feeds anymore and you can be proactive at getting them to sleep through the night.
Proactive is a key point we learnt. Sure you can just wait for it naturally to happen, in the meantime training them to NOT sleep trough the night, but you them have to be willing to possibly put up with it for a LONG time. A guy I used to know at work was still dealing with night time wakes at like 18 months or something.
Marty Chinn
Member
If you want to be jealous, one week before our girl turned three months, she was sleeping 8 pm to 7 am without waking up. =)
Wow! No wonder you say newborns are easy
Actually, I kind of agree with you now. But only on theory. Newborns are sort of less to deal with, true. However, something that is left out of the equation, but is so so important is that newborns can come with new-parents.
That is, when you're dealing with all f this with NO clue what to do, it's extra tough. Just ask anyone here who are first timers. Like I like to say, parenting isn't just about the children, but about the parents too. We're all learning.
As the kids grow older, they change rapidly, suddenly, and often. That's why it always seems tougher. It's always a challenge.
Agreed with this, I actually did an approach like the one you described above to get my daughter to sleep when we moved her into her crib at about 5 months old.
BaronLundi
Member
Our daughter has been sleeping from 9pm to 7/8am without waking up ever since she is 2 months old. She's 8 months now and she has never really sletp during the day though. Still I prefer it that way !
Oh, and letting a newborn baby cry him/herself to sleep is terrible advice. At this age there are no whims and no need for any kind of training. If the baby cries then something *is* wrong whether you can identify what it is or not. But even if you don't, reassuring him/her is essential to build trust. Don't forget that for a baby minutes can seem like an eternity.
The sleep rythm will fall into place eventually - by itself. It may be a matter of a few weeks or a few months. But it will, provided that the baby feels safe and trusts the world around them.
Oh, and letting a newborn baby cry him/herself to sleep is terrible advice. At this age there are no whims and no need for any kind of training. If the baby cries then something *is* wrong whether you can identify what it is or not. But even if you don't, reassuring him/her is essential to build trust. Don't forget that for a baby minutes can seem like an eternity.
The sleep rythm will fall into place eventually - by itself. It may be a matter of a few weeks or a few months. But it will, provided that the baby feels safe and trusts the world around them.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
And I thought I was lucky that my 3 month old daughter is sleeping from midnight to 7am without waking up 90% of the time.
My daughter goes to sleep from about 10 pm until 3 am, after my wife feeds her she sleeps until about 7 am, and then fed again until 10 or 11am with more sleep. We tried getting her to sleep at 8 but there is too much light for her.
Marty Chinn
Member
It happened fast for us. She was born in mid April, so this was around the beginning of July. She went from waking up multiple times a night to feed and then suddenly only needed to wake up once in the middle of the night to feed. That lasted about a week and after that week of waking up once, she just slept completely through from 8pm to 7am. It was summer too so it was still light out but no issue at all. It's more of an issue now that she's 2 so her bedtime has increased to somewhere between 8:30 and 9 now. Also a few months ago, she stopped waking up at 7 and started to wake up at 6, so that sorta sucks when we had this 18 month period of sleeping solid through the night, but I know we're lucky; extremely lucky that she likes to sleep. Napping on the other hand was a pain for a long time.
Spectrum128
Member
Well our nine-month old boy is now crawling, and this morning at 4.15am we went into his room after he'd started crying. Little guy was standing in his cot having pulled himself up the side. Ruh-roh....
Duane Cunningham
Member
That formula thread in OT reminded me I'd been meaning to drop by here and join the club for a while now.
My wife and I just had our second kid about eight weeks ago. Our son, Arlo, is 23 months. Here he is:
He's a good kid. He loves to draw, obviously... that last picture is what I came home to a couple of days ago X)
I can't believe how quickly he's become a toddler. Two years ago, I had no idea about any of this stuff. He was just a tiny, vulnerable little baby, and now he's this big shot. I can't tell you how proud I am of him. He's crazy smart, too... he just loves letters and books. He actually could verbally identify capital letters really early. Probably at about 17 months or so when he knew them all. Now that he's 23 months, he knows the lower case ones too, and sings some chunks of the alphabet song. I dunno, we didn't drill him on that stuff or anything, he was just always into it.
Now he's "swimming" at the pool (well, wading and splashing), climbing on equipment at the park, etc. It's crazy. It feels like yesterday he was just a newborn spitting up and constantly crying (his digestive system took a bit to come online).
Meanwhile, we have a new one now, spitting up and crying all the time, haha. This is his little sister Juniper:
She's eight weeks old. So far so good. I feel like we know how to approach it better this time, but it's definitely challenging having two. She does NOT like to be put down. Ever. He was kind of the same way for the first few months. My wife stays at home with them. She quit her job when Arlo was about 9 months old. It's tight, but we can more or less kinda sorta afford it.
He just recently switched to one nap during the day and seems to be doing well with it. And he's slept all night since he was oh... one or so? She sleeps in our room. We moved him out into his own room at six months, so that's probably what we'll shoot for with Juni, too.
Anyway, thought I'd introduce us all and join the thread.
My wife and I just had our second kid about eight weeks ago. Our son, Arlo, is 23 months. Here he is:
He's a good kid. He loves to draw, obviously... that last picture is what I came home to a couple of days ago X)
I can't believe how quickly he's become a toddler. Two years ago, I had no idea about any of this stuff. He was just a tiny, vulnerable little baby, and now he's this big shot. I can't tell you how proud I am of him. He's crazy smart, too... he just loves letters and books. He actually could verbally identify capital letters really early. Probably at about 17 months or so when he knew them all. Now that he's 23 months, he knows the lower case ones too, and sings some chunks of the alphabet song. I dunno, we didn't drill him on that stuff or anything, he was just always into it.
Now he's "swimming" at the pool (well, wading and splashing), climbing on equipment at the park, etc. It's crazy. It feels like yesterday he was just a newborn spitting up and constantly crying (his digestive system took a bit to come online).
Meanwhile, we have a new one now, spitting up and crying all the time, haha. This is his little sister Juniper:
She's eight weeks old. So far so good. I feel like we know how to approach it better this time, but it's definitely challenging having two. She does NOT like to be put down. Ever. He was kind of the same way for the first few months. My wife stays at home with them. She quit her job when Arlo was about 9 months old. It's tight, but we can more or less kinda sorta afford it.
He just recently switched to one nap during the day and seems to be doing well with it. And he's slept all night since he was oh... one or so? She sleeps in our room. We moved him out into his own room at six months, so that's probably what we'll shoot for with Juni, too.
Anyway, thought I'd introduce us all and join the thread.
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