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Use a big enough swaddle blanket and it’s a lot easier. Many of the ones sold are too small.
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Oct 10, 2025 01:39
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:You’re not supposed to let their arms free when they’re real little and the speed swaddles with the Velcro never sat right with me but I am in fact a swaddle pro I loving HATED one of the velcro swaddles, i think it was Halo but not positive. Garbage zipper and it never quite went around right. Theres nothing more infuriating at 3:47am than a bad zipper on a screaming infant. We had another that was good, gonna have to dig then out again and maybe order some more.
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Oct 10, 2025 01:40
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nobody ever says this but babies kinda look like aliens the first week or so, their face is swollen, their body is converting from aquatic to air breathing, their legs are gonna be bowed, they are literally learning how to breathe (and keep breathing) so they might randomly stop breathing, that's normal (but if it bothers you obviously check with a doctor). babies don't know how to focus their eyes so they might (will) go crosseyed or have a wandering eye (or both) . all of this will sort itself out in like 6 months also babies have red spots, those 99.99% of the time go away. ours had one on her eyebrow and neck until she was 7-12 mo until told otherwise, YOU are in charge of 100% of diaper changes. no exceptions it's ok to tell the invasive nurses who wake you or your wife up to come back later ask for the lactation consultant early and often fed is best, don't be afraid to supplement with formula or banked milk. if your wife is adamant about breastfeeding then follow her lead but if the doctor says it's time to supplement, you should pay attention to that your wife is going to flip out over something and probably say something insane like your trying to kill/steal the baby: we let these things go, she's gonna say something unforgivable, this is actually forgivable. just walk out of the room, let the nurses know you think your wife needs some space, maybe text her mom/sister/emotional support friend and tell them to call your wife bring two sets of phone chargers and cables, with extra extra long cables, hospital beds are very wide and tall bring granola bars when your wife orders food, tell her to order two meals, 'for her' if the kitchen bills a meal for you, insurance won't cover it prune juice is good, as much as she can drink she might not be able to pee or poop for several days, this is normal they're gonna give your wife morphine, this might lower her heart rate like crazy low, i think my wife's heart rate hit 18 at one point but was closer to 24 steal all of the c section diapers, the magic words are "this crazy guy on the Internet told me the mesh post partum diapers are amazing and you should help me steal as many as we can carry" and they'll know what you're talking about the nurses totally hooked us up, we had two carts to go out to the car, one with our bags, one with free new parent schwag the first six weeks are gonna be rough, but you'll come out the other side just fine don't hesitate to get the ball rolling on postpartum counciling/medication asap based on some of your posts, don't sleep on that tl;dr it'll be fine
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Oct 10, 2025 01:41
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Yeah anything in the room got billed to your insurance already so you oughta take it. With swaddling you can manhandle em a bit. They’re not that fragile, they’re designed to be squeezed through a lil tube. Bigger swaddles are better. Newborns make the worst noises in the world and it typically does not mean they’re dying. They mainly don’t die on their own and if they do it’s quiet.
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Oct 10, 2025 01:46
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:You’re not supposed to let their arms free when they’re real little and the speed swaddles with the Velcro never sat right with me but I am in fact a swaddle pro The newborn sleepsacks don't let their arms out. They are perfectly acceptable straight jackets.
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Oct 10, 2025 01:49
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Hadlock posted:they're gonna give your wife morphine, this might lower her heart rate like crazy low, i think my wife's heart rate hit 18 at one point but was closer to 24 On this they will likely insist repeatedly, even if your wife has told them there is a family history of opioid abuse and that she absolutely does not want them and has refused them in writing. They will even ask you again alone once she’s asleep. It’s definitely possible to use non opioid pain killers successfully even if there was a c-section. It means timers and taking alternating doses of ibprofin and acetaminophen. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Oct 10, 2025 |
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Oct 10, 2025 01:54
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yeah as any grandpa on the planet will tell you, "if they're crying, that means they're still alive" it's harsh but extremely true listening right now to my 5yo downstairs in the living room bawling her lungs out, probably about something tv related. not worried in the least, she's alive and I know where she's at, and based on the type of cry she's not bleeding out also agree, babies are more durable than you think. moms were a lot more careless 1000 years ago and society has made it to this point with them rolling off tables, chairs couches etc countless times (don't do this, I'm just saying they can generally survive this stuff) also babies are largely cartilage, it doesn't really start turning into bone until they're like 6 months, and doesn't finish for years, this is largely why they're so wobbly learning to walk and terrible penmanship, their tendons are anchored to wobbly rubber effectively if your kid has a dent in their head they can fix that in fact if anything is wrong they have a procedure for that, literally a million babies are born every day, some even during car crashes or on airplanes there's a playbook for everything, it'll be fine
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Oct 10, 2025 01:56
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Bar Ran Dun posted:On this they will likely insist repeatedly, even if your wife has told them there is a family history of opioid abuse and that she absolutely does not want them and has refused them in writing. They will even ask you again alone once she’s asleep. yeah my wife came home with a bottle of hydrocodone 16 pills or something, after day 2 she decided she didn't need them anymore and we flushed them immediately. you do not want to get fired for opiate abuse a month after having a baby because you thought you'd try one recreationally that said morphine is extremely effective
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Oct 10, 2025 02:01
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Wife needed a little formula help before milk started really going a month or two in. We lived entirely on similac samples from the hospital and our pediatrician, she didnt even take any from her own works samples. Dont be shy, just ask for them. Theyre super convenient at 3am or when out and about. Much more so than the precious tiny amount of milk that can be left out for more than xxx minutes. Also if you have a mini fridge put it by the bed if you dont wanna walk the pumped milk alllll the way to the fridge at night. Dont use a makeup fridge though the condensation tends to leak.
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Oct 10, 2025 02:01
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Hadlock posted:also agree, babies are more durable than you think. moms were a lot more careless 1000 years ago and society has made it to this point with them rolling off tables, chairs couches etc countless times (don't do this, I'm just saying they can generally survive this stuff) Yea nah 1000 years ago women got pregnant 12 times and 2.1 kids made it to reproductive age
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Oct 10, 2025 02:04
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smallpox other childhood diseases, lack of antibiotics had a lot to do with that. pertussis that one that starts with a T etc etc, exposure. there's a lot of things worse than being droppedCarForumPoster posted:Wife needed a little formula help before milk started really going a month or two in. We lived entirely on similac samples from the hospital and our pediatrician, she didnt even take any from her own works samples. Dont be shy, just ask for them. Theyre super convenient at 3am or when out and about. Much more so than the precious tiny amount of milk that can be left out for more than xxx minutes. you can just buy them from Amazon or Abbott directly we're not due for a couple more weeks but I've already started getting it delivered and I've got six cases now, it doesn't need to be refrigerated like normal milk for baby #1 we got them trained from birth to drink it room temperature which was amazing there was just a stack of cases of the stuff ready to go, no warming it up or taking up room in the fridge/freezer
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Oct 10, 2025 02:22
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Actually having the baby in a hospital is like 90% of the success though. Home births are fine until they aren't, and then things go south fast. Non-delivering partner is on 100% baby duty aside from breastfeeding except by request. No complaints. Some hospitals have a policy of promoting exclusive breastfeeding and won't offer formula (for supplementation or otherwise) until you request it. But once you do they'll usually bring in a ton. So put in the request early so it's there if/when you need it. Similarly, lactation might not show up until day two and my experience is that supplementing during the first week (especially first 24 hours) isn't going to make or break breastfeeding in the end (that's often due to other reasons), but supplementation may very much facilitate sleep for everyone during that time. Similar advice for epidurals but that's not relevant here.
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Oct 10, 2025 02:35
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ExcessBLarg! posted:but supplementation may very much facilitate sleep for everyone during that time. I'm pretty sure being on room temp ready to feed formula is 85% why we were able to get 8 hours of sleep a day. being able to pop a bottle in their mouth and start feeding at 100% flow rate immediately and then roll over and go back to sleep generally meant nobody woke up enough to not go back to sleep I'm sure breast feeding is amazing but as a dual income household, premix is basically impossible to beat for many reasons, the immune boosting of breast milk exists but it's not as large as they allude to
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Oct 10, 2025 02:43
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Hadlock posted:I'm pretty sure being on room temp ready to feed formula is 85% why we were able to get 8 hours of sleep a day. being able to pop a bottle in their mouth and start feeding at 100% flow rate immediately and then roll over and go back to sleep generally meant nobody woke up enough to not go back to sleep Formula fed babies do tend to sleep better, I'm told. That said there are plenty of reasons to breastfeed. Its recommended for those many reasons.
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Oct 10, 2025 02:46
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Yeah do whatever makes mom happiest 8 hours of quality sleep 7 days a week is what happened to make my wife happiest Breastfeeding is also good
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Oct 10, 2025 02:50
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CarForumPoster posted:Formula fed babies do tend to sleep better, I'm told.
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Oct 10, 2025 03:06
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ExcessBLarg! posted:That's probably statistically true but I think any specific baby is a crapshoot. I assume you meant that literally, too.
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Oct 10, 2025 03:15
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ExcessBLarg! posted:That's probably statistically true but I think any specific baby is a crapshoot. Our kid does a mix of formula and breastmilk so I can vouch for the difference once the specific baby variable has been controlled. He sleeps a lot longer after a formula bottle than a milk bottle, I think it's more calorie-dense per oz and less easily digestible than mom's milk, so he stays full longer
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Oct 10, 2025 03:30
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You could say we sleep well at night with the decisions we've made  Temperament has a lot to do with it too I'm sure, my wife and I are not super excitable people, and we are always late everywhere because we overslept, that was the remaining 15%
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Oct 10, 2025 03:34
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Count Roland posted:My wife's scheduled c-section is coming up in a few days. Any advice for the father for while I'm at the hospital? I will be supportive of my wife and learn how to change diapers and the like while she's bed ridden. I'm not sure if I want to look behind the curtain. Other than that, I don't really know what to expect. Lot of good advice already. I'll add a couple things. Use the maternity ward's nursery as much as they let you. Your time in the hospital is going to be crazy, and you want to get as much sleep as you can before they make you pack up and leave. I've heard the first three months of baby's life referred to as the "fourth trimester" because it's a big adjustment period for everyone. Mom recovering from major surgery; baby recovering from being pulled out of a constant, warm embrace; and you trying to help two emotionally wrecked humans. Give everyone and yourself a lot of leeway. You will all be sleep deprived and on emotional rollercoasters. Enjoy the highs, and weather the lows.
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Oct 10, 2025 03:36
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ninjahedgehog posted:Our kid does a mix of formula and breastmilk so I can vouch for the difference once the specific baby variable has been controlled. He sleeps a lot longer after a formula bottle than a milk bottle, I think it's more calorie-dense per oz and less easily digestible than mom's milk, so he stays full longer when my first kid was in the NICU (she was fine) the night nurse told us newborns have to expend a lot of energy for nursing. so formula is more energy dense not because of anything in the formula itself, but because it just falls into their stomach and they don’t spend half (or whatever) of the energy they eat just on the act of nursing itself. so anecdotally, both our kids nursed but had extra bottles of pumped milk or formula before bed and I definitely believe it helped them stay fuller longer and sleep longer at a stretch
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Oct 10, 2025 03:44
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ninjahedgehog posted:Our kid does a mix of formula and breastmilk so I can vouch for the difference once the specific baby variable has been controlled. He sleeps a lot longer after a formula bottle than a milk bottle, I think it's more calorie-dense per oz and less easily digestible than mom's milk, so he stays full longer Combo feeding is the best. I mean, go to formula-only if you want to, but I honestly think breastfeeding-only causes more problems than it helps (assuming you're not able to pump and store a surplus supply) and it feels like sacrilege to act as if combo or formula-only feeding isn't inferior to breastfeeding-only. So much time with newborns is just feeding them - if only one of you can feed them, I don't care if the other person is washing bottles or changing diapers to offset the work...it's never going to be equal, you can't leave the baby or sleep enough if you are its only source of food, and the bonding/labor is unequal. Our pediatrician recommended combo-feeding at our first visit and we did it didn't look back. You get benefits from even some amount of breastfeeding, and even a lot of the more chill lactation consultants and breastfeeding advocates encourage you to try breastfeeding at least sometimes rather than demanding it exclusively like LLL and a lot of social media pages. That said on formula - free-flow bottles get a bad rap, but if your newborn is losing weight or gaining too slowly then they're better to use at least for awhile. We used that Pure Bliss formula, which was $30/can but is supposed to be higher quality. CarForumPoster posted:I loving HATED one of the velcro swaddles, i think it was Halo but not positive. Garbage zipper and it never quite went around right. Theres nothing more infuriating at 3:47am than a bad zipper on a screaming infant. When I could find Halo sleepsacks with the two-way zipper, that was the best. I've stuck religiously to Halo sleepsacks. My 3-year old still wears Halo wearable blankets, but I'm pretty sure he's about to grow out of their biggest size. On child size and clothing talk - my 3yo is starting to measure around average percentile for height and weight, but before he was a larger kid for his age. He was born at 93rd percentile, dropped all the way down to 2nd percentile because of eating difficulties with those Phillips Avent bottles, then lurched back up. Regardless of other growth, his head has always been huge. I'm having boy/girl twins in December, at 28 weeks now, and I feel a little guilty because we saved all of our firstborn's clothing and toys and gear since he was born and I'll be surprised if they get much of anything new for the first few years. Almost everything we've bought for them thus far has been thrift store or Facebook marketplace, and knowing now that we can just buy whatever as we go and that we already have preferences, it's hard to feel as motivated to really stock up or give friends/coworkers/family any kind of baby registry (I wish we could just ask them to buy formula cans). Mostly we're just been trying to hunt down twin-specific gear secondhand. Growth-wise - at my 27.5 week visit the boy (baby A) was measuring 9 days ahead and the girl (baby B) was measuring a day ahead, so I'm expecting he could likely be larger than average for his gestational age by the end. Mistaken Frisbee fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Oct 10, 2025 |
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Oct 10, 2025 03:47
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Carrying on with feeding stuff. Some good and or bad news. At some point your baby might start getting milk drunk. They will just slam a bottle or gulp hard on the boob, then almost immediately pass out. First you might worry. Then you'll have the hope that this means you just give them a bottle, a quick burp and boom sleep/put down is solved. Sorry but this phase lasts days, maybe a week. Don't get used to it, but of course capitalize and try to go immediately to sleep as well. Emphasis on immediately. It's not time to unload the laundry, it's not time to clean or get to chores that aren't related to feeding or keeping baby alive. It's time to sleep. If possible the best is to take bespoke shifts. Make sure you and wife have a sleep mask, earplugs, noise cancelling headband, white noise machine, whatever. You go to battle and she sleeps. At some point you get relieved. If you are both trying to stay on at all times (which is lovely, and I know twins) you won't make it through 2 days. There are phases you will pass through on the understanding of that loving cursed advice "Sleep when your baby sleeps" Pre baby- "yes sure that sounds like clear logical advice, I will do that" Baby here -"how the gently caress do I sleep when baby sleeps, it only sleeps for 30m max, mostly when held, or in a stroller, or whatever else, I need to do all my chores and there is no time, this quip is from an idiot with brain damage!" Some future point - "I understand. To sleep when baby sleeps I must shed all previous notions of what else I need to accomplish today, and I must be ready at all times to just lie down. Even small naps add up"
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Oct 10, 2025 04:13
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I played a lot of Hades when the kid was 2 and I was on paternity leave Kiddo would pound down one bottle, immediately pass out, play one "run" of Hades; 45 minutes later wake up ready for bottle #2 rinse repeat Hades 2 just hit v1.0 I've timed this perfectly  The other benefit of bottle is both partners can take part in feeding, and if Mom wants to get out of the house and drink a bottle of wine with her mom away from the family she can just get in the car and spend the night over there. No preplanning, no milk banking, just go Hadlock fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Oct 10, 2025 |
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Oct 10, 2025 04:22
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edit: quote is not edit
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Oct 10, 2025 04:24
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Count Roland posted:My wife's scheduled c-section is coming up in a few days. Any advice for the father for while I'm at the hospital? I will be supportive of my wife and learn how to change diapers and the like while she's bedridden. I'm not sure if I want to look behind the curtain. Other than that, I don't really know what to expect. My wife had a c-section after 12 long hours of labor (turns out the little guy's head was too big to fit through my wife's hips), and it was one of the most fascinating and surreal experiences I've ever been a part of. There's lots of good advice already, but I'll throw in my two cents. Ask your wife what music she'd like to listen to while having the surgery and tell that to the nurse before the procedure. The surgeon put on ELO for my wife, and it definitely helped relieve a lot of the stress for both of us. You dont want to look behind the curtain, trust me. The surgeon will ask if you want to cut the cord, and you can do that in front of the curtain so your wife can watch if she wants to. When your little one cries for the first time, you will cry. You'll also be the one handling the baby until you both get into the post-op room, so you'll have a lot of initial time with your little one. What made my experience extra surreal was that my wife was calmly chatting with me while the surgeon was giving out instructions and guiding a surgeon in training how to do c-sections, so I got to hear a play-by-play of exactly what was going on behind the curtain. After that is going to be a whirlwind of activity. Sleep when the baby sleeps and make sure your wife gets enough to eat. Your wife will need a lot of help doing basic things as she recovers and starts to get back on her feet, including showering and changing underwear. Be willing to do anything she asks, and do not even try to crack a joke about it. She's going to go through some really severe hormone crashes that can last for days or weeks, too, so give her a lot of grace if she gets mean or sad or anything out of the blue. If you are not certain how to do something, ask a nurse. They'll show you how to do pretty much anything, including bathing, and are a wonderful resource. Don't be afraid to call them at any time, either! I'll also second the recommendation to take advantage of the night nursery if you're able. Our insurance wouldn't cover it, but we decided to do it anyway, and it was an honest to god lifesaver. Getting in a solid nights sleep while your baby is being taken care of is absolutely invaluable. Your time in the hospital will feel like an eternity but also like it went by too fast, but you both will pull through! Feel free to ask any more questions if you have them!
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Oct 10, 2025 04:58
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Chance posted:"I understand. To sleep when baby sleeps I must shed all previous notions of what else I need to accomplish today, and I must be ready at all times to just lie down. Even small naps add up" Yeah you definitely have to lower your standards for a while. Your house is going to look like poo poo. It will be suspicious/problematic if your house *doesn’t* look like poo poo. It’s far more important that you sleep.
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Oct 10, 2025 05:06
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Necronomicon posted:Yeah you definitely have to lower your standards for a while. Your house is going to look like poo poo. It will be suspicious/problematic if your house *doesn’t* look like poo poo. It’s far more important that you sleep. We went ham with prepared frozen meals for number 2 which saved a lot of time cooking and cleaning up. Likewise the dryer got used and abused even when it was sunny enough for hanging out washing. Number 1 got let off the leash for screen time but we are slowly reeling that in as number two gets close to 14 weeks.
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Oct 10, 2025 05:12
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Necronomicon posted:Yeah you definitely have to lower your standards for a while. Your house is going to look like poo poo. It will be suspicious/problematic if your house *doesn’t* look like poo poo. It’s far more important that you sleep. Yep I forget what we ate, it was covid so we got whatever I bought from Safeway wearing an n95 mask. It was a mix of frozen food, requested fresh veggies and fruit by my wife, and whatever her mom brought over twice a week. Mostly ate garbage but it worked and got us through Your house is going to be a disaster zone If you can at all afford it, hire a cleaning service now, get the deep clean done now before the baby comes, have them come weekly. Debt finance that poo poo, put it on a credit card for six weeks, whatever it takes. Life is REAL hard the first 3 weeks, by week 5 you mostly know what you're doing, you can probably cancel or at least discuss cancelling the cleaners after week 6
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Oct 10, 2025 05:36
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The hospital was relaxing. We had taken some prenatal lessons (recommended here), se we weren't flying completely blind. The midwives clearly had a kind of teaching schedule. Day 1, they change the nappies; day 2, you watch, they change; day 3, they watch, you change; day 4: you're on your own. They're on call as well. When C-section pain was keeping my better half awake, relief was just a bottle away. When the minimonster was waking up every hour out of hunger as she couldn't produce enough milk, they took over feeding - with a bottle - for a couple of hours. Turned out - day 2 - my better half doesn't produce enough milk, and we switched to bottles without regret. That is, despite the constant stream of "breastfeeding is best" and "how (failed as a mother, subtext) do you feel not giving breast milk" we got from mainly the younger midwives. At home, we had a freezer worth of homecooked meals (though some of it was finished only a year later. We both relax by cooking). House was in decent shape (baby slept best while in movement in a baby carrier), midwives made their (in our country) mandatory visits. Fancy earplugs were our best investment - babies are noisy, even when they don't cry, and especially at night. Don't invest too much time or money in "things for the baby" before birth. The baby might like or hate swaddling, they might like or hate that fancy crib... there's plenty of time to figure things out and buy what you need when you need it. There is a baby bank in the area, where we could borrow things to try them out.
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Oct 10, 2025 06:19
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Count Roland posted:My wife's scheduled c-section is coming up in a few days. Any advice for the father for while I'm at the hospital? I will be supportive of my wife and learn how to change diapers and the like while she's bed ridden. I'm not sure if I want to look behind the curtain. Other than that, I don't really know what to expect. Bring snacks. You're not gonna want to leave. My stomach was in bits that whole week because once I arrived during visiting hours, I wouldnt eat til I got home after they threw me out at 8pm. If you've any baby furniture to assemble do it now maybe. It's nuts knowing your baby is coming in x days, instead of just kind of waiting around for them to decide it's time to arrive. Of course at 1am the morning my wife was scheduled she went into labour anyway and she got to have her section like a hour earlier. Uh what else, you're gonna be doing a lot of stuff as the non-sliced open parent. Like thats probably a given with a vaginal birth too? But yeah, it took my wife only a few weeks to recover but my sister took around 6 months to get right. I think she walked to the end of her road and turned back at the end of month 1. This week for me is a lovely combo of sick sniffly baby and injured wife who's fully crashing out over it. Still taking advantage of the extra space in the house while my parents are away but their imminent return is adding pressure. The baba is mega miserable and is clingy as all hell, he has this awful habit of trying to climb up my leg (and only mine) by hooking one of his legs around mine like he was trying to do a takedown and it freaks me the gently caress out because I know if he hooks it right he's going head first into a desk or a cabinet. So my work has been abandoned for the morning, while we both chill with Ms. Rachel. Between the pair of them I've missed meals and everything this week, havent slept a wink.
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Oct 10, 2025 10:00
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I am a swaddle pro, I can and will very confidently do it wrong, and the fact that it falls apart within minutes is clearly the baby's fault.
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Oct 10, 2025 10:41
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Costco formula was a lifesaver for us. Our kid never figured out a proper latch so we were 100% bottle fed basically as soon as we got back home. Between decreased production and lack of sleep pumping stopped being worth it for my wife. I really appreciated being able to contribute and take night feeds. We also pre-made and froze a bunch of chicken pot pies.
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Oct 10, 2025 11:56
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I'll strongly second telling the nurses to give you some privacy for a while if the interruptions get to be too much. And yeah, load up on all the swag you can get!
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Oct 10, 2025 13:04
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That's one thing you don't learn until you've been through it, is that you can say "no" to almost everything. And you do have to be an advocate for yourself and your spouse. Most of the things they want to do are completely normal and they have your best interests at heart, but push back if you aren't getting good vibes.
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Oct 10, 2025 13:11
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Nocheez posted:That's one thing you don't learn until you've been through it, is that you can say "no" to almost everything. And you do have to be an advocate for yourself and your spouse. Most of the things they want to do are completely normal and they have your best interests at heart, but push back if you aren't getting good vibes. And the corollary, don't let nurses try to pressure you into not doing things like using the night nurse or supplementing with formula or anything else that isn't clearly bad for the baby. The reason we all emphasize taking care of yourself through sleep and breaks is that you cannot be the best parent you can be if you aren't taking care of yourself too. You're going to naturally sacrifice a lot for your kid, but you're still a person outside of your identity as a parent and sacrificing your physical and mental health too greatly will harm your child. Be open and communicative with your partner. Resentment can build up without communication in the first few weeks due to stress and sleep deprivation and a messy house and a crying baby and on and on and on. Being honest that you need help from your partner or even (for things like PPD/PPA, both of which can affect the non birthing partner) a professional will go a long way toward helping prevent problems before they start. e: above all, you're going to do great. Lots and lots of way stupider and shittier people than you have kept their kids alive until adulthood.
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Oct 10, 2025 13:29
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we had a really lovely lactation consultant in the hospital so this is good advice:Nocheez posted:That's one thing you don't learn until you've been through it, is that you can say "no" to almost everything. And you do have to be an advocate for yourself and your spouse. Most of the things they want to do are completely normal and they have your best interests at heart, but push back if you aren't getting good vibes. we chose not to do the night nursery thing and keep KG3 with us overnight, which i think was a good call for us. we had gotten at least a little exposure to having him in the room and the noises and chaos that he would create, while having the backstop of nurses and staff available to us. if we had gone home and that first night at home had been the first night we dealt with overnight baby i probably would have lost my mind. also like all this poo poo that happens right away gets better. everyone will tell you this and you will intellectually believe them but not emotionally because you are In It. that's fine.
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Oct 10, 2025 13:47
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Something else I thought of: if you have relatives who are going to visit and see the baby, don't be afraid to set boundaries with them. Talk to them about how much advice you'd like to hear or even set limits on how much they can hog the baby. When my mom visited us in the hospital, it wound up really upsetting my wife because my mom held him the entire time she was there while my wife really wanted to hold him.
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Oct 10, 2025 14:28
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Nocheez posted:That's one thing you don't learn until you've been through it, is that you can say "no" to almost everything. And you do have to be an advocate for yourself and your spouse. Most of the things they want to do are completely normal and they have your best interests at heart, but push back if you aren't getting good vibes. My wife had to say no to an external version 3 times before they would leave her alone, we had to say no about breastfeeding once but to about a zillion different people before the kid was born. Couple of things with family members wanting him to travel super young or to come and crowd us or stick an oar in, all sorts. You don't even have to make an excuse, just hit em with the big fat "no".
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Oct 10, 2025 14:38
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| # ? Jan 20, 2026 11:54 |
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For sure don’t let people come until some time after the baby’s birth. That’s your time to be a little family. Mom’s parents came like 4-5 hours after birth, which was good but it was really hard to get them to leave. It’s good to set those expectations up front.
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Oct 10, 2025 14:49
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