One hundred percent this. I look back on it fondly, but once all the family and doctors and nurses are gone and you're at your house with the wife and a newborn alone it all hits you.
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ParentERA |OT| What To Expect When You’re Not Sleeping
- Thread starter Hollywood Duo
- Start date
One hundred percent this. I look back on it fondly, but once all the family and doctors and nurses are gone and you're at your house with the wife and a newborn alone it all hits you.
I swear I'm the only one in this thread that got home away from the doctors and nurses and we both were just relieved we'd finally be away from them all. The hospital fucking sucked. They wouldn't leave us the hell alone for more than an hour or so. We couldn't sleep at all, and they really didn't help a ton most of the time. Some consultations were nice, but that was like 3 of them over the course of the 3-4 days we were there.
Does anyone have any experience with persuading a small child to wear glasses? My little girl is 21 months old and we found out yesterday she needs some. We took her to an optician to try some on and she was not at all impressed with the idea. They had some flexible plastic frames with a stretchy strap which helped a bit, but even then she basically pulls them off as soon as we put them on her.
My little girl wears them, it helps that I do too.
We got some children's books to read at bedtime that talk about it in a positive way, just showing her the pictures of children with glasses having fun with other kids helped a little.
Also we arranged play dates with other kids going through the same thing, or that had siblings with glasses, do you have like a local family group Facebook page or something where you could ask if anyone is in a similar boat?
My wife and I welcomed our first, a daughter into the world on Sunday the 28th. We've gone through two miscarriages and we're finallly parents and to be here now thinking it would never happen. It's the most amazing thing.
Got to the hospital around 7:15 AM (she let us sleep one last full night...how nice)...labor was progressing nicely but then kind of stopped. The nurse with us was ending her shift at 7PM and was determined to be there with my wife for the birth. She was born at 7:37. The nurse stayed even though she was off the clock. I was going so stir crazy in the hospital especially since our daughter had to be admitted to special care to monitor low glucose levels. I couldn't wait to get out of there....but then when you're home...it's like ahhh ok what do we do now!?
Got to the hospital around 7:15 AM (she let us sleep one last full night...how nice)...labor was progressing nicely but then kind of stopped. The nurse with us was ending her shift at 7PM and was determined to be there with my wife for the birth. She was born at 7:37. The nurse stayed even though she was off the clock. I was going so stir crazy in the hospital especially since our daughter had to be admitted to special care to monitor low glucose levels. I couldn't wait to get out of there....but then when you're home...it's like ahhh ok what do we do now!?
It's the best rationalization for staying at home and doing nothing while you obsess over how many times a baby pees and poops :P.
Congrats!
I was terrified of leaving the hospital. We were like "oh shit oh shit oh shit what do we do???" And then you get home and just kinda wing it.
A few days in we were finally like ok, ok, we can do this.
When we brought my daughter home, I had let our neighbours, a house with a couple in late-middle age and two teenage sons, know the week before. After two days of little sleep and lots of panic, the parents had gone off on holiday and the boys decided now was the time for a series of extremely loud parties, with the speakers right next to the partition wall. I remember storming over in my dressing gown at 2am, after finally getting the baby and my wife to sleep, only to have them constantly woken up. I must have looked like a zombie. Fortunately they were really good, their parents hadn't reminded them and they'd just forgotten. We laugh about it now but as I was shambling up the driveway, the older one dropped his beercan, clearly twigging what the issue was, and dashed inside to cut the music as his brother said 'are you alright mate?' I think I was on the verge of just collapsing in a heap in front of them. Three years later him and his gf are our most reliable babysitters :D
We actually freaked on day 2. My wife and I were so sleep deprived (she went into labor and 9pm and delivered the following day at 4pm) that we called my parents the second day we were home and said "we need you to pick up these 5 things for us and come over and watch the baby so we can sleep". They happily obliged. We slept from like 11am until 5pm.
My parents offered this but since our little one was breastfeeding it wouldn't have made a difference. He would need to eat at least every 2 hours. And the only day they could come was the day they warned us would be his most ridiculous cluster feeding day of the first weeks.
We told my parents to stay away so we could get some fucking normalcy for a bit after the long hospital stay.
The first week of his life I got about 20 hours of sleep total.
Hilarious. We had some childless neighbors who liked to throw outdoors tiki parties. I had this vision appear more than once of me shooting flaming arrows into their house at 10pm at night.
At what age did most of you wean your children off of the pacifier? Our pediatrician said that our son should be off of it by the time he turns 2 which is in 4 months. We tried to do it last week, but he throws a huge fit and now works himself up to the point that he makes himself throw up. We ended up giving the pacifier back to him, and we're both frustrated about it.
My brother and sister-in-law just weaned their 2 year old off the pacifier by putting a hole in the tip with a needle. Apparently it becomes less satisfactory for the child to suck on, and they become more pliable to having to give it up.
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I just read about that, and will give it a try today. Thanks for the tip.
Every kid is different.
We were lucky, our daughter was very pacifier focused the first ~3-4mos, she needed it to sleep and calm down, it was very helpful for us. But, around 4ish or 5ish months she started consistently sucking her thumb, and then she just dropped the pacifier progressively. We got rid of our pacifiers a month or two ago as she's just a thumb sucker. IT's a mixed bag, of course, we cant' take her thumbs away when she gets too old like we could a pacifier (.. well maybe..), though at the same time I'm not keeping myself up at night to keep a pacifier in her mouth next to her crib...
She doesn't suck her thumb as much as she used to, now mostly just at night, when she's upset, or a few other times, like randomly in the morning when I'm showering she sticks her thumb in her mouth and rubs her head, or at swimming lessons when we do the "on your back" time, she basically starts to fall asleep..
There's a lot of pacifier strategies online for working with it and starting to treat it like a special reward. So, like, they get the pacifier when going to sleep as a special treat, or after something special, and then slowly weening that back. Taking it away completely will probably be pretty frustrating (like... if I came into your office and just took off all of your clothes and was like "HEY MAN DEAL WITH IT, DOCTORS ORDERS"), but slowly coming up with "pacifier time" and "non pacifier time" and ramping up the non time, ramping down the time. I think my sister (who's a pediatrician) had a strategy with her son that he got pacifier time after dinner and when he was sitting down, but when he was up and about he couldn't have it... And then when he was pretty much weened off of it they "lost it at a hotel, sorry buddy..."
Generally, I think the hard rules with pacifiers are overblown up to a certain age, like 3 or 4. After 3 or 4 you can get issues with dental and speech development, and the pacifier might be an indicator of another issue like emotional neediness or something but not the actual problem itself. I guess if you can get your kid off the pacifier by 2 then it'll be good to not deal with that with a 3 or 4 year old, but I don't think it's like some hard sell must be solved by 2 , either.
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My 7 month old son started to figure out using his arms will allow him to crawl. It's an army crawl but he's on the move now if he sees something he wants. It's already started with items in the TV stand.
It begins!
With ours the army crawls started just before 6 months and real crawling plus standing himself up on things happened a couple weeks later.
Oh man - now you have to move everything out of his standing reach...and start to bolt heavy furniture to the wall. And don't forget all the corner protectors!
Yeah I've started to think about the TV stand and the TV itself.
Luckily the only other thing is probably the wine bar since we have a smaller place we don't have a lot for him to get into.
We're 3 weeks away from our due date, but one of the first items I bought for the baby was a baby fence. It's supposed to be used to create a walled off space for your baby to stay within like for a backyard situation... But instead we're going to use it to create an enclosure for the TV/TV stand/game consoles...
Got it at Baby's R Us for cheap before they closed.
Did anyone here do baby sign language? If so were there any words you found particularly helpful? We've done "please," "all done," and "thank you," so far and it's seems very helpful.
We did it with my son. In addition to the ones you mentioned, we taught him "more," "water," "milk," "food," and "help.". That last one helped diffuse a lot of frustration when he was struggling with something. Definitely fun to see him pick it up. There were a few other words we did as well but those are a good core you can use to cover most basic needs.
Wait that's real?
I thought baby sign language was a joke from that awful Ben Stiller Meet the Parents sequel.... How's this work?
10 days from the due date of my first child. I'm getting nervous now... Every time my wife calls instead of texts my stomach drops into my feet...
Yet she's had no contractions at all so far, not even the Braxton Higgs kind...is that normal?
Completely legit and highly recommended. An infant will be learning "baby signs" and not real sign language (though you can develop it into full sign language with time if you knew how).
Babies get hand and arm coordination much sooner than speach skills, so they can communicate easily with their hands and fingers earlier. It's pretty cool watching your kid making signs and knowing how to better serve him/her. Google it. It's all about a lot of repetition and intentional teaching but it worked for my son.
I never had any at all. I didn't even get any hints with #2 until my water broke and then the contractions started. It's nothing to worry about, and hearing what it was like for other women, I'm glad I didn't get any.
Thanks! I only worry that she'd literally never not say "more" lol.
And yeah, baby sign language is real. They do some of it at daycare and I've probably got to get in on that to reinforce at home.
My sister (daycare worker) taught my daughter the sign for 'more' in about 30 seconds and it got a lot of use. Frequently with no context (she hadn't been having any of a thing immediately prior to the sign) leading to no small frustration on either side.
My partner didn't until labour happened.
We taught my daughter a handful signs and by far the "more" sign was used most frequently before she was verbal, with "all done" coming in a distant second.
I've gotten very mixed results with more. Sometimes my kid does it after prompting, but he rarely does it himself. But at this point he's old enough to verbally communicate, so maybe signing is moot.
The problem is that he minces the pronunciation in very inconvenient ways. He says "more" as "mo", but says "no" as "mo" with a slightly different inflection.
Clear as mud lol.
She mistook her labor pains for a stomachache due to lactose intolerance. We only realized it was labor once we timed it and realized the pains were coming very regularly, and then were both like "oh shit it's go time".
If you don't have one yet, get a contraction timer app on your phone. You'll need it.
The problem is that he minces the pronunciation in very inconvenient ways. He says "more" as "mo", but says "no" as "mo" with a slightly different inflection.
Clear as mud lol.
It can be. My wife didn't have much warning either.
She mistook her labor pains for a stomachache due to lactose intolerance. We only realized it was labor once we timed it and realized the pains were coming very regularly, and then were both like "oh shit it's go time".
If you don't have one yet, get a contraction timer app on your phone. You'll need it.
+1. My wife and I were frantically checking the app store for a good one when we thought she was going into labor. Not an ideal time to app shop!
We're in labor and admitted to the hospital on apparently the worst day...a holiday.
Everyone decided to deliver today and they're playing musical delivery rooms. Lots of code blues and code reds...
Y'all... I...can...hear... everything from the other rooms... The movies do not do this shit justice. 😧
We decided to do this why?
Everyone decided to deliver today and they're playing musical delivery rooms. Lots of code blues and code reds...
Y'all... I...can...hear... everything from the other rooms... The movies do not do this shit justice. 😧
We decided to do this why?
Hahaha yeah....
The shit women go through to give birth is fucking nuuuuuts.
Hope things go well for you and especially your wife. Even if things do go well recovery is going to be rough. Be prepared to be there for her!
My wife put up with labor for 13 hours before getting the epidural... And the baby came 5 hours later. She put up a good fight, but once that epidural went in, she was a different person (in a good way in that she could talk to people).
And now we have a brand new baby girl! Ellie.
She was born at almost 2am, and 12 hours later, she's about 200% more cute.
I'm probably scarred for life seeing some stuff, but thankfully the epidural made it so my wife wasn't hollering in pain like I had been hearing from other rooms all day.
What a day. I'm ready for a shower and a nap.
And now we have a brand new baby girl! Ellie.
She was born at almost 2am, and 12 hours later, she's about 200% more cute.
I'm probably scarred for life seeing some stuff, but thankfully the epidural made it so my wife wasn't hollering in pain like I had been hearing from other rooms all day.
What a day. I'm ready for a shower and a nap.
OP
OP
Thanks!
No naps though, constant visitors...it's an endless party in this post pardum room...😒
Ahh! This is the quote I've been waiting for! 😂
Actually, my wife was insistent on the name. But I love it.
Didn't realize that we had a thread like this...
Our newborn is now two weeks old. And yeah, sleep has been a struggle. She has some good nights and bad nights — everything was smooth last night (feeding, diapers, burping etc) and tonight it's all kind of fussy and energetic.
We do rounds, so some nights I may stay up all the way until 5am to take care of her.
I'm not defeated, but it's cetainly a difficult and trying times!
By the way, does anybody use those Scandinavian cardboard boxes as their bassinet? The baby is already constantly knocking her arms into the walls. It kinda feels too small. I don't know how people use this for multiple months?
Our newborn is now two weeks old. And yeah, sleep has been a struggle. She has some good nights and bad nights — everything was smooth last night (feeding, diapers, burping etc) and tonight it's all kind of fussy and energetic.
We do rounds, so some nights I may stay up all the way until 5am to take care of her.
I'm not defeated, but it's cetainly a difficult and trying times!
By the way, does anybody use those Scandinavian cardboard boxes as their bassinet? The baby is already constantly knocking her arms into the walls. It kinda feels too small. I don't know how people use this for multiple months?
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Kick them out and tell them when they can come back.
Yeah we intended to use one, but ended up co-sleeping a lot instead. Ours was more than large enough for her (something like this). Some people probably use sleep sacks, swaddling the arms.
Our friends did for ages, but their kid was a level 0 potato baby. Thing grubbed it (swaddle/ish) till almost 13 months.
Congrats, btw!
Yesterday was 1 month for our newborn, and she celebrated by projectile pooping all over her changing table and the wall while I was changing her bleary eyed at 5AM before I went to work. Shit was literally running down the wall! Fun times!