A Day About Baby

This week we attended our first baby-prep class. It was called "Knowing Your Childcare Options." The instructor had every nanny & childcare certification available. She had years of experience as a nanny, baby-sitter, mom and childcare consultant. She helps people find daycare and knows every childcare provider in a 100 mile radius. We sat in the class for two hours while she imparted her vast knowledge on us. We came away with a good idea about nanny care, au pairs, grandmas and college students. The only bad part of the class was the lady sitting next to me who smelled like ass.

Yesterday I had coffee with, Terri a "soccer mom." She is the mother of one of the girls on the soccer team of 6th graders I coached in the fall. She is a pediatric nurse and works at the hospital where I'm delivering. Terri is awesome and wonderful and knows everything. She told me about the best pediatricians in the area; we discussed doulas, pregnancy massage and some top secret stuff that will save me from lots of pain. I love (love) Terri.

Today we spent another 5 hours at the hospital in a class called "A Day About Baby." It seems like a lot of time, but the instructors are good about packing a lot of information into a short amount of time. The ladies who instruct are experts and certainly know their stuff. It's almost a prerequisite that they have more than two kids.

The instructors have degrees, are up on the latest research concerning their designated topic and they have experience. They were clearly into their jobs and took an interest in us as their students. Many of them gave out their phone numbers saying to call them with ANY questions, which I was impressed by.

The topics today were
"How do newborns look?"
"Bathing Your Baby"
"Diapering and Swaddling"
"Childcare Options" (which we skipped since we already had that class)
"Carriers and Slings"
"Calming Your Crying Baby"

I know it all seems pretty obvious, but if you've never been around a fresh baby, you don't know what a newly chopped umbilical cord looks like, or how to care for it. For years, doctors have recommended cleaning the umbilical cord with rubbing alcohol, but now, suddenly, they have revised their suggestion to cleaning with just water.

In the newborn baby class, they cover all the crazy skin problems and rashes that babies have. The trick is to just let the rash run its course and not to lotion the kid up. Their skin is adapting to the new climate/ environment and needs to remedy itself. Using lotion can actually cause problems.

Bathing baby was pretty basic. One must always have a hand on the kid since they can drown in 2 inches of water. This means that bathing is done with one hand. Soap isn't even recommended until Jr. is a few months old.

Step Up and Wash a Baby!

In the class, each couple was provided a baby doll and gave the baby a bath. Instructions: remove the swaddling, remove the diaper, check the water temperature with an elbow, lay a washcloth at the bottom of the tub, put the kid in the tub, cover the baby with another washcloth to help her retain her body heat, then use a cloth to wash from the cleanest to dirtiest place on the baby. Starting with the eyes, wash gently, then the face... scrub-a-dub the head, neck etc down to the booty. Then back into the dry towel snuggle time, clean diaper and nap!

B did such a great job washing our baby, she smiled the whole time!

Bath Notes
- Keep baby naked for the shortest amount of time possible
- Keep everything within reach and prep bath area (soap, towels etc.) before baby goes into the water
- Put a towel in the dryer to warm it before wrapping baby. (For me this means I would have to wash her in the utility sink in the laundry room.)

My happiest discovery today was that of new alternatives to disposable and cloth diapers. A baby uses 8,700 diapers in its infancy and disposable diapers (depending on your source) don’t biodegrade in landfills from 30 years to ever. This makes it environmentally irresponsible of me to have a baby and it was truly bothering me. The alternatives offered were just too insanely expensive to consider... until today.

Allow me to plug "Fuzzi Bunz" a fleece and plastic, reusable diaper! Sure it costs $18 for each diaper and we have to buy 24 of them and I have to wash them twice (once on cold, once on hot) but they come in pretty colors and the earth will be better off and my kid's ass will be graced only by soft fleece! I love it!

The other diaper advancement I heard about today was that even when old skool cloth diapers are used, they don't put ginormous pins in the sides to secure them like they used to. Instead, they are Velcro’d and then plastic underwear is put over the crap-holder. This seems much safer to me. Less blood. Duh.

And according to my mom who never used pre-treated, commercial wipes (and not just because she was a recovering hippie), if a baby's butt is rinsed in the sink, it's highly unlikely it will get diaper rashes. Go mom!

With her kids, Wonderful Terri made all her own diaper wipes out of paper towels and water with a little baby oil. She pre-made them and kept them in sealed plastic boxes or Ziploc bags. I love this too! The chemicals in wipes are harsh. Pooh-pooh!

So, lots of positive advancements in the world of baby butts!!!

Onto swaddling! I learned that anytime she's not sleeping (on her back always due to SIDS "Face up to Wake up!") she should be upright or on her belly so she doesn't get cradle-cap. Babies have mushy heads until 18-months when their skull finally grows together. They gave us several demonstrations of different ways and products to swaddle chitlens. One was a long piece of stretchy cloth that the mother wraps around her back, over the shoulders and waist to hold the kid in the designated way; in the front- facing in or out, on the hip- at an older age, and on the back. I'm more yuppie than hippie, so I feel more comfortable with the baby backpack which I can wear on the front and of course costs 3 times more than any of the alternatives. (Damn it!)

Allow me to enlighten you. See http://www.aap.org/ for anything health-related for Jr.

Next week we are going to another 5-hour class entitled “All About Birth” which will probably blow our socks off, but it’s all stuff we need to know. I’ve been a Discovery Health channel junkie for months, watching every birth show I can from natural labor, water labor, cesarean to regular birth, including the births where things go wrong. They never show any bad-news babies. I think it would freak the viewers out which isn’t good for ratings.

The countdown is on! My little whipper-snapper weighs almost 5 pounds and is rolling around a lot, which is a bit painful on my back. She’s going to wreak havoc and be so fun! She’s going to be stubborn, like her dad and have a divine sense of humor like her mom.