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C-Euro
Mar 20, 2010

:science:
Soiled Meat

sharkytm posted:

Especially if they're breastfed, they can go days without pooping. Ours went 3 days at week 3. So long as they're eating and peeing, they're fine.

Yeah he's been exclusively on breastmilk (draft and bottle) since we brought him home from the hospital, eating that pretty well and pissing every three hours like clockwork so I'm gonna give him another day before I start making calls. Thanks.

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Chernobyl Princess
Jul 31, 2009

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

:siren:thunderdome winner:siren:

Did any people here give birth without a partner or support person with you? I'm facing down the fact that I'm in a new state with large swaths of time with no childcare, so my husband may just have to be home with the kid while I'm giving birth. It's freaking me out a bit, so if anyone has tips or anything to share I'd be really grateful

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

I would reach out to your extended family/friend group and see what options are available. People have a way of coming together in times like this

Chernobyl Princess
Jul 31, 2009

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

:siren:thunderdome winner:siren:

It's not that dire... It's just deeply, annoyingly inconvenient. I'm just a little bit too far away from friends and family for them to get here quickly if I go into labor while the first kid is home, but it's close enough that it's maybe just me overreacting.

Specifically I'm about three hours north of my whole network, minimum, but it's also one of the heaviest traffic regions of the country. My parents are both dealing with the recent (like last weekend in one case) deaths of their parents and are distracted and frankly just don't want to be up here. My mother in law is the only healthy member of her family of origin and so can't actually leave the family farm for long. My friends have jobs and can't just come up and hang out while we wait.

I do have some friends who are more like an hour away, but they don't have a car.

So it's not that it's impossible. It's just so inconvenient that I don't think it'll actually work. If I were on the opposite side of the country it would be easier to say "please fly here early." But three hours? Meh. It probably won't be over and done with in three hours. Even though my first labor was pretty short and second labors tend to be even shorter.

I dunno. I'm probably just catastrophizing because it's two am and I can't sleep because someone keeps kicking my diaphragm. Women give birth in war zones and in cow fields. I shouldn't complain about giving birth in a hospital with no support person, because in reality there's the whole fukken hospital of people making sure I don't just die.

It would just be easier if I had some stories of this happening to other people so I could actually recognize that it is indeed absolutely fine and not having anyone there won't be the nightmare I'm afraid it could be. After all, I'll have the internet, I can shitpost through L&D.

Tamarillo
Aug 6, 2009
Well, they might surprise you if you sound them out. I'm only 2 hours away from my family but I still had mum come out a week before I actually ended up giving birth because the false alarms were doing my head in, and my midwife was banging on about second labours being really fast.

I can't speak for labouring alone, but when things went downhill fast for us my husband got sidelined hard by medical staff, and I probably saw him collectively for about 30 seconds between the emergency button being hit and being wheeled out of surgery. It's not quite the same as waiting out contractions, but I had a huge amount of support from my midwife and the medical staff (especially the 2-3 that were clustered around my head, hence husband couldn't get close). I would hope that L&D staff would recognise that labouring alone is probably not how the mother wanted it to go so would go above and beyond to be extra supportive.

2DEG
Apr 13, 2011

If I hear the words "luck dragon" one more time, so fucking help me...
I delivered my second kid alone because a) Covid and b) we were in a new state far, far away from anyone. It went fine. Husband dropped me off about 2 hours into labor and held down the fort at home. It helped that this labor was only 4 hours total and he'd have just been a spectator anyway. Second time around I felt like a total pro so it's not like I super needed the help during the one overnight (asked to be discharged after 24 hours if everything looked good). This is obviously the best case scenario where everything is smooth and complication-free.

C-Euro
Mar 20, 2010

:science:
Soiled Meat
Our son had a temperature of 100.8 F last night, and our pediatrician says that anything above 100.4 requires a trip to the ER, so guess where we've been for the laat eight hours. Big props to the little guy for being a champ through all the poking and prodding by the staff here, all of his tests are negative so far but their procedure is to hold newborns for 24 hours in cases like this :ohdear:

Silent Linguist
Jun 10, 2009


C-Euro posted:

Our son had a temperature of 100.8 F last night, and our pediatrician says that anything above 100.4 requires a trip to the ER, so guess where we've been for the laat eight hours. Big props to the little guy for being a champ through all the poking and prodding by the staff here, all of his tests are negative so far but their procedure is to hold newborns for 24 hours in cases like this :ohdear:

Whoa that’s intense. We had the same thing happen to our son when he was two months old (his temp was 100.3 but the nurse advised us to go to the ER anyway), but they just swabbed him for some viruses and sent us home.

Dazerbeams
Jul 8, 2009

I'm almost 38 weeks now and I feel woefully underprepared for welcoming a new life into this world. At the same time, I have no real motivation to educate myself any further. I took a virtual class series and watched a couple of videos here and there. My mom is flying out tomorrow to help out for the next 2 months. I'm figuring a lot of stuff will be intuitive/learn as we go. Someone tell me if I'm going to be alright winging it or if I need to start cramming immediately.

funny song about politics
Feb 11, 2002

Dazerbeams posted:

I'm almost 38 weeks now and I feel woefully underprepared for welcoming a new life into this world. At the same time, I have no real motivation to educate myself any further. I took a virtual class series and watched a couple of videos here and there. My mom is flying out tomorrow to help out for the next 2 months. I'm figuring a lot of stuff will be intuitive/learn as we go. Someone tell me if I'm going to be alright winging it or if I need to start cramming immediately.

You'll be just fine. Ours arrived at 37 weeks and caught us a little off guard, but by that time I had already burned out on reading and studying newborn care so waiting an extra week or two for delivery wouldn't have really made a difference. It's not really that complicated and you'll learn it on the job once there's a baby to provide motivation.

Chernobyl Princess
Jul 31, 2009

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

:siren:thunderdome winner:siren:

Dazerbeams posted:

I'm almost 38 weeks now and I feel woefully underprepared for welcoming a new life into this world. At the same time, I have no real motivation to educate myself any further. I took a virtual class series and watched a couple of videos here and there. My mom is flying out tomorrow to help out for the next 2 months. I'm figuring a lot of stuff will be intuitive/learn as we go. Someone tell me if I'm going to be alright winging it or if I need to start cramming immediately.

Yeah, you'll be fine. Newborn care isn't hard because it's complex or requires a ton of added info, it's hard because it's the same, repetitive tasks with potentially varied results every day while sleep deprived. The important stuff is

* Safe sleep
* Safe feeding
* Do not shake the baby

Everything else can be googled in the moment.

IceG
Feb 7, 2006

Bigger than Hitler - Better than Christ

My wife is giving birth to our son tomorrow by cesaerean and I just found out this thread exists!

Wish me luck goons, I have also found the parenting megathread so looking forward to posting there. Any last minute tips to help my wife's recovery go better? We will be in the hospital for 5 days for the recovery period.

boquiabierta
May 27, 2010

"I will throw my best friend an abortion party if she wants one"

IceG posted:

My wife is giving birth to our son tomorrow by cesaerean and I just found out this thread exists!

Wish me luck goons, I have also found the parenting megathread so looking forward to posting there. Any last minute tips to help my wife's recovery go better? We will be in the hospital for 5 days for the recovery period.

Pain control is crucial! It’s really important she’s up and walking as soon as safely possible after the surgery, and that requires pain control so don’t be afraid to take the meds. Ask for an abdominal binder if one isn’t automatically provided, that’ll make walking more comfortable. Do the incentive spirometer (deep breathing exercise tool).

Best of luck!

KasioDiscoRock
Nov 17, 2000

Are you alive?

Dazerbeams posted:

I'm almost 38 weeks now and I feel woefully underprepared for welcoming a new life into this world. At the same time, I have no real motivation to educate myself any further. I took a virtual class series and watched a couple of videos here and there. My mom is flying out tomorrow to help out for the next 2 months. I'm figuring a lot of stuff will be intuitive/learn as we go. Someone tell me if I'm going to be alright winging it or if I need to start cramming immediately.

I read anything and everything I could get my hands on before my first baby and while I’m sure it helped somewhat, there’s definitely a point of diminishing returns. And then I was still googling and asking friends about things on what feels like a daily basis anyway.

As long as you know:
-Safe sleep practices
-Proper use of your specific car seat
-There’s no such thing as feeding the baby too often
the rest can be learned as you go

Nessa
Dec 15, 2008

Dazerbeams posted:

I'm almost 38 weeks now and I feel woefully underprepared for welcoming a new life into this world. At the same time, I have no real motivation to educate myself any further. I took a virtual class series and watched a couple of videos here and there. My mom is flying out tomorrow to help out for the next 2 months. I'm figuring a lot of stuff will be intuitive/learn as we go. Someone tell me if I'm going to be alright winging it or if I need to start cramming immediately.

No need to cram. But I do recommend finding an app to track sleep, feeds and diapers. We use Huckleberry. It can be immensely helpful to know exactly when baby last ate, when they last slept and how many diapers they’ve had. Especially when you’re in a sleep deprived state and are trying to parent with your partner. We can both set sleep timers and log diapers so the other parent knows what’s up by checking the app.

It also helped me answer questions about baby to the paediatrician because the app will let you see how much your kid is eating, sleeping and peeing/pooping per day. I don’t know if I’d remember otherwise.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

boquiabierta posted:

Pain control is crucial! It’s really important she’s up and walking as soon as safely possible after the surgery, and that requires pain control so don’t be afraid to take the meds.

Yeah don't be shy about asking for meds. Opiates are really effective but only work for a certain amount of time so they need to be taken regularly the first 30 hours or so, and as long as you quit them on time, really good

Also if they give her morphine (almost certainly) it can have a side effect of making her itchy, that's fine

Tamarillo
Aug 6, 2009
Frozen pads. They work a treat on a burny sore incision when you're getting breakthrough pain and can't take more meds.

GoutPatrol
Oct 17, 2009

*Stupid Babby*

Nessa posted:

No need to cram. But I do recommend finding an app to track sleep, feeds and diapers. We use Huckleberry. It can be immensely helpful to know exactly when baby last ate, when they last slept and how many diapers they’ve had. Especially when you’re in a sleep deprived state and are trying to parent with your partner. We can both set sleep timers and log diapers so the other parent knows what’s up by checking the app.

It also helped me answer questions about baby to the paediatrician because the app will let you see how much your kid is eating, sleeping and peeing/pooping per day. I don’t know if I’d remember otherwise.

Yeah Baby Day book was recommended in the Parenting thread and it (through our kid) ran our life for the first three months. Your brain will be fried, we really needed it.

C-Euro
Mar 20, 2010

:science:
Soiled Meat
+1 for getting some sort of feeding/diaper tracking app, very useful for my wife and I since we split baby-watching shifts overnight. My wife paid for Glow Baby which is fine I guess, she can't share her ad-free subscription with me so I get an ad pretty much every time I log something in it. There's a bunch of apps like this, just pick the one that annoys you the least. We bought the Hatch changing pad/scale that someone here recommended and I know that has a similar app associated with it.

Chernobyl Princess posted:

Yeah, you'll be fine. Newborn care isn't hard because it's complex or requires a ton of added info, it's hard because it's the same, repetitive tasks with potentially varied results every day while sleep deprived. The important stuff is

* Safe sleep
* Safe feeding
* Do not shake the baby

Everything else can be googled in the moment.

Having been a parent for only a scant couple of weeks, this is the crux of it I think. It's less about a sudden shock to your system and more about being ground down by needing to do a little more each day on a little less sleep each day (but even then you can find time for naps).

At our baby shower, a friend of mine had the advice that there's lots of acceptable ways to raise a baby and only a few ways to really do it wrong. Have faith in yourself and in your partner!

sharkytm
Oct 9, 2003

Ba

By

Sharkytm doot doo do doot do doo


Fallen Rib

C-Euro posted:

+1 for getting some sort of feeding/diaper tracking app, very useful for my wife and I since we split baby-watching shifts overnight. My wife paid for Glow Baby which is fine I guess, she can't share her ad-free subscription with me so I get an ad pretty much every time I log something in it. There's a bunch of apps like this, just pick the one that annoys you the least. We bought the Hatch changing pad/scale that someone here recommended and I know that has a similar app associated with it.

Having been a parent for only a scant couple of weeks, this is the crux of it I think. It's less about a sudden shock to your system and more about being ground down by needing to do a little more each day on a little less sleep each day (but even then you can find time for naps).

At our baby shower, a friend of mine had the advice that there's lots of acceptable ways to raise a baby and only a few ways to really do it wrong. Have faith in yourself and in your partner!
We started with Glow and hated it. It's trying to be Facebook. Baby Daybook is great, and we switched on day 5. We've got over 3000 events logged in the past 8.5 months. We started by logging everything and have stopped everything except sleep, breastfeeding, pumping, medicine, vaccinations, and poopy diapers. One recommendation for later, develop a system to track poop consistency. It's pretty important to keep an eye on it when they switch to solid food. We use a 1-5 scale. 1 is diarrhea, 5 is acorns.

My mom always said that your job as a parent is to not screw the kid up. I've found that to be the case. Love them, do you best to address their needs and any issues, and they'll be fine. Parenting is really hard. You'll make mistakes, no one is perfect, and don't read too much advice because every baby is different. They'll tell you when they need something, it's up to you to figure out what it is.


GoutPatrol posted:

Yeah Baby Day book was recommended in the Parenting thread and it (through our kid) ran our life for the first three months. Your brain will be fried, we really needed it.
Absolutely. "When did the baby wake up?" "when did they eat last?" "when was the last diaper?" "did they poop yesterday?"

You will literally not be able to remember.


Nessa posted:

No need to cram. But I do recommend finding an app to track sleep, feeds and diapers. We use Huckleberry. It can be immensely helpful to know exactly when baby last ate, when they last slept and how many diapers they’ve had. Especially when you’re in a sleep deprived state and are trying to parent with your partner. We can both set sleep timers and log diapers so the other parent knows what’s up by checking the app.

It also helped me answer questions about baby to the paediatrician because the app will let you see how much your kid is eating, sleeping and peeing/pooping per day. I don’t know if I’d remember otherwise.
It's invaluable so your partner can rest when they're not on duty.


Oh yeah, remember this: sleep when the baby sleeps if at all possible. You will need every second you can get. It gets easier over time, but try to nap whenever you can.

If you've got family helping out, try to stagger it. Everyone wants to help out at first, but we found that month 2 was really hard because our baby was still incredibly demanding but we had run out of precooked meals and everyone went back to work. A few calls and we had people lined up again, but it would have been better to stagger it at the get-go.

sharkytm fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Apr 6, 2022

BadSamaritan
May 2, 2008

crumb by crumb in this big black forest


A lot of people will say that parenting is hard. It is, but keep in mind that’s not because it’s complex (especially at the beginning). It’s hard because it’s always happening and you’re deeply invested in it.

Also, please remember that, aside from the very basics, parenting resources are also making this up as they go along. There are techniques that may (or may not!) improve your chances, but nobody actually knows the one secret trick to get your 4 month old to sleep through the night, or how to feed your baby so they love every vegetable as a 7 year old. So don’t go crazy with ‘research’- paying attention to your baby’s cues and being consistent will probably pay off more.

Benagain
Oct 10, 2007

Can you see that I am serious?
Fun Shoe
Remember, 100% of kids raised by Italian wolves make it to adulthood, and 50% of them go on to found world-class cities!

IceG
Feb 7, 2006

Bigger than Hitler - Better than Christ

It was an intense day but happy to report everything went well. Pretty crazy to have an actual extra human being in the family!

sharkytm
Oct 9, 2003

Ba

By

Sharkytm doot doo do doot do doo


Fallen Rib

IceG posted:

It was an intense day but happy to report everything went well. Pretty crazy to have an actual extra human being in the family!

Congrats! Welcome baby IceG!

BadSamaritan posted:

A lot of people will say that parenting is hard. It is, but keep in mind that’s not because it’s complex (especially at the beginning). It’s hard because it’s always happening and you’re deeply invested in it.

Also, please remember that, aside from the very basics, parenting resources are also making this up as they go along. There are techniques that may (or may not!) improve your chances, but nobody actually knows the one secret trick to get your 4 month old to sleep through the night, or how to feed your baby so they love every vegetable as a 7 year old. So don’t go crazy with ‘research’- paying attention to your baby’s cues and being consistent will probably pay off more.

Oh God yes. Each individual step is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. It's the "always on" nature that's difficult.

Edgar Allen Ho
Apr 3, 2017

by sebmojo
Hi we just adopted my wife's 17-yo cousin a week ago so he could avoid russian conscription and it's wonderful to be raising my large adult son.

Now learned I pumped one too many loads and my wife is pregnant. How do I babby? What do for pregnant wife? I'm happy but terrified. I did not expect two babies at 29.

C-Euro
Mar 20, 2010

:science:
Soiled Meat
Time to put your cousin to work!

Congrats regardless.

2DEG
Apr 13, 2011

If I hear the words "luck dragon" one more time, so fucking help me...
Read a pregnancy book if you're completely clueless on the process and what the preggo body goes through (my rec is the Mayo Clinic guide, but there's lots of good ones). For your wife, just do what she asks and try not to take stuff personally. Reading the parenting thread was actually really useful for me to prep for all the weird poo poo that kids can do. So far I haven't had too many surprises since I'd already read people's advice on so many situations/problems.

As an aside, I took a break from lurking the Ukraine thread for my own mental health, so I'm really happy to read you got the kid out successfully! I've got an early 20's cousin of my own out near Irkutsk, but my mom hasn't been in touch with my uncle so we don't know what's up with him.

cailleask
May 6, 2007





Newborns can be super easy or super hard or somewhere in between. Being at one end or the other doesn’t meant you’re doing something wrong! Also within a few days to a week post-partum mom may experience a crazy hormone crash and feel, well, crazy. That will probably pass!

ClothHat
Mar 2, 2005

ASK ME ABOUT MY LOVE OF THE LUMPEN-GOBLITARIAT
protip: trust no links I post

BadSamaritan posted:

Also, please remember that, aside from the very basics, parenting resources are also making this up as they go along. There are techniques that may (or may not!) improve your chances, but nobody actually knows the one secret trick to get your 4 month old to sleep through the night, or how to feed your baby so they love every vegetable as a 7 year old. So don’t go crazy with ‘research’- paying attention to your baby’s cues and being consistent will probably pay off more.

I opened this thread for the first time because I’m driving myself nuts with feeding our newborn and this is really hitting me. We had a real rough couple of days out of the hospital before my spouses milk came in where he spent almost the entire time either trying to feed or screaming . We saw his doctor who recommended we supplement with formula since he had lost so much weight, which seemed to work great but now I can’t get him up for any feeding.

We might have him scheduled for feeding every three hours but sometimes it takes two hours to get even half the recommended food into because he’s so sleepy now, then he’s due to be fed again in an hour.

Every nurse, lactation consultant, pediatrician, and book feels like they have a vastly different approach and I can’t figure out who to listen to. We saw a lactation consultant today who I brought up the sleepiness feeding to who just said I needed to use these two types of holds we’d never heard of and then it just won’t be a problem, and just kept talking over me when I asked what to do if it doesn’t work and he’s still sleepy. Now of course trying to feed him and it still takes at least 30 minutes to wake him for feeding, and much longer to get the milk/formula into him unless I’m just pouring it into him. Sorry this is longer than I meant were obviously not sleeping great.

ClothHat fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Apr 8, 2022

cailleask
May 6, 2007





ClothHat posted:

I opened this thread for the first time because I’m driving myself nuts with feeding our newborn and this is really hitting me. We had a real rough couple of days out of the hospital before my spouses milk came in where he spent almost the entire time either trying to feed or screaming . We saw his doctor who recommended we supplement with formula since he had lost so much weight, which seemed to work great but now I can’t get him up for any feeding.

We might have him scheduled for feeding every three hours but sometimes it takes two hours to get even half the recommended food into because he’s so sleepy now, then he’s due to be fed again in an hour.

Every nurse, lactation consultant, pediatrician, and book feels like they have a vastly different approach and I can’t figure out who to listen to. We saw a lactation consultant today who I brought up the sleepiness feeding to who just said I needed to use these two types of holds we’d never heard of and then it just won’t be a problem, and just kept talking over me when I asked what to do if it doesn’t work and he’s still sleepy. Now of course trying to feed him and it still takes at least 30 minutes to wake him for feeding, and much longer to get the milk/formula into him unless I’m just pouring it into him. Sorry this is longer than I meant were obviously not sleeping great.

The correct answer is whatever one works for your baby. There’s no dogmatic true ‘right’ way. I know this may feel glib and unhelpful when you are sleeping deprived and the baby is STILL screaming! But for real - try everything and keep what feels like it works for now. In a month it will be a totally different situation that may need an opposite solution from what works today.

If scheduled feedings don’t work or make sense, don’t do them. If scheduled feedings are the only way he gains weight, then stick to them. If a feed takes two hours right now but he’s gaining weight and you are able to survive it, then it’s okay. This phase will pass!

Tamarillo
Aug 6, 2009

ClothHat posted:

babby feeds like crap
Hi me from two months ago, how are you? Our daughter just never took the recommended amount of formula per feed and wasted a ton. We used bottle nipples that were the next age stage up to pour it into her, because she just got so tired trying to feed she'd fall asleep, and was quick to spill or spit the bottle if we went past her limit. We just had to go little-and-often with her, we reckon she's just got a small stomach.

It's bloody stressful but you will get past it. Our kid's just coming up 3 months and is only now able to handle 140mL/just under 5oz at a meal. Sometimes she only manages ~600mL ish a day, other times she nails 950mL. We just allow ourselves to be guided by her appetite and feed her on demand, in her case scheduled feedings actually lowered her daily intake. She's still happy, healthy and growing like a string bean albeit is now closer to 50th percentile for weight instead of ~98th.

Emily Spinach
Oct 21, 2010

:)
It’s 🌿Garland🌿!😯😯😯 No…🙅 I am become😤 😈CHAOS👿! MMMMH😋 GHAAA😫
We had the exact same issues with sleepiness and not waking up to eat. I don't even remember what we did that worked though. Sometimes changing her diaper would, I think? People kept suggesting skin to skin and I was like, that puts us both to sleep. We managed to keep her on her growth curve though, even if that curve stabilized at around 10th percentile rather than the 60th she was born at. (Although now at almost seven months in, according to the hatch scale app, she's up to 19th.)

I think focusing less on recommended number of ounces or mls (as appropriate) and more on whether she was acting hungry, gaining weight or at least not losing, or seems dehydrated or still jaundiced, helped us? I was also trying to mostly breastfeed so it wasn't like we could count the ounces, since we didn't get the scale until a month or so into it. Honestly at this point it's mostly a blur, although I do remember a couple of hormone induced feeding based meltdowns on my part.

Chernobyl Princess
Jul 31, 2009

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

:siren:thunderdome winner:siren:

ClothHat posted:

I opened this thread for the first time because I’m driving myself nuts with feeding our newborn and this is really hitting me. We had a real rough couple of days out of the hospital before my spouses milk came in where he spent almost the entire time either trying to feed or screaming . We saw his doctor who recommended we supplement with formula since he had lost so much weight, which seemed to work great but now I can’t get him up for any feeding.

We might have him scheduled for feeding every three hours but sometimes it takes two hours to get even half the recommended food into because he’s so sleepy now, then he’s due to be fed again in an hour.

Every nurse, lactation consultant, pediatrician, and book feels like they have a vastly different approach and I can’t figure out who to listen to. We saw a lactation consultant today who I brought up the sleepiness feeding to who just said I needed to use these two types of holds we’d never heard of and then it just won’t be a problem, and just kept talking over me when I asked what to do if it doesn’t work and he’s still sleepy. Now of course trying to feed him and it still takes at least 30 minutes to wake him for feeding, and much longer to get the milk/formula into him unless I’m just pouring it into him. Sorry this is longer than I meant were obviously not sleeping great.

...we had a major issue with this. We were staying up at absurd times trying to get him to drink from a bottle, from the breast, from syringes that we'd drip down our fingers to strengthen his sucking reflex... the only thing that ended up helping was getting his lip and tongue ties zapped. Which sucked for everyone at first, but once he was actually able to put his mouth right, eating stopped being a massive fight to keep him from getting exhausted in the middle of it.

We had a bunch of people tell us that the lip tie wasn't the issue, the tongue tie wasn't a problem, he'd figure it out, it would be fine. And maybe it would have been eventually. But we were rapidly approaching unsafe parenting because of lack of sleep on our part, like falling asleep while holding him, forgetting to turn off the stove (great fun when it's gas!), and just constantly fighting with one another because we couldn't emotionally regulate anymore. Maybe better parents than us could have toughed it out and not had to zap their kids mouth, but holy poo poo, everything got easier once we did it, and we could actually enjoy being parents.

It got harder again when it was time for sleep training, but that's just how babies do. Good luck, remember that there's a ton of right ways to raise a kid and only a very few wrong ones, and most of those are super obvious to anyone with a functioning moral compass.

C-Euro
Mar 20, 2010

:science:
Soiled Meat
1. Am I killing my baby if I don't get the breast milk that I feed him up to room temperature? I like to keep it in the fridge until right before I feed him, and he seems to have no qualms about drinking it chilled.

2. I feel like I'm spending a lot of time every day washing, sanitizing, and drying bottles and breast pump equipment. Is that business as usual? Any time I bottle feed the kid I'm doing it from a clean bottle, both for easier measurements and because my mom got it into my head that a bottle's going to start growing bacteria if you use it more than once between washes.

sharkytm
Oct 9, 2003

Ba

By

Sharkytm doot doo do doot do doo


Fallen Rib
If your baby will take it cold, give it to them cold. Less work for you, and the baby will be fine. Ours never cared about temperature, thankfully. Bottles go from fridge to diaper bag to baby whenever he needs one, and it's a godsend.



My wife started out sanitizing everything, now it gets a wash/soak in Babyganics foaming dish and bottle soap, then onto a drying rack. IMHO, sanitizing is way overkill and a waste of time. If your little one is sensitive or has had issues in the past that make you think you need to be more careful, then have at it. We'll use a bottle for about half a day, then switch to a new one for the other half. If we remember and there's one clean. If not, rinse it out, refill and move on. Obviously, if it's actually dirty or it's been out in the sun that's a different matter. You've got to find a balance between perfectly sterile and filthy that works for you. Your kid is literally going to eat dirt and poop and whatever is on your floor, shoes, sidewalk, etc. 2 hour old milk residue isn't likely to hurt them.

IceG
Feb 7, 2006

Bigger than Hitler - Better than Christ

So we had 3 great days in the hospital with the baby but now he had a fever of 39 degrees so they are keeping him in observation for a week, putting him on antibiotics and checking his lumbar fluid?

My wife is in pieces about this as we can't hold him for the next 3 days then can't even see him for 4 days after that when we are discharged. The covid rules in Taiwan are insane. I am only just holding it together.

Anyone know how serious this is? They aren't putting him in icu so that's positive right? Not sure what I can say to my wife as she already fainted this morning from low blood pressure :(

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

You should probably sanitize the gently caress out of everything the first six weeks, and then yeah it's a subjective sliding scale after that. Newborns have poo poo immune systems

Our baby drank room temperature pre mix formula until she was 1 and has been drinking ice cold whole milk since, seems to be hitting out exceeding all her milestone targets, A+ would recommend not warm milk if you can train the baby to drink it. Warming milk sounds like hell on earth. The faster you can get it in their mouth the faster they stop screaming

Her bottle gets a 185f water from the electric kettle each morning and a good scrub, never had an issue with it. Electric kettles rule, especially ones with presets besides "boil" because that extra 22 degrees does nothing but waste time

Good luck

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

39 is 102.2 right? That's high for a newborn but not crazy high. Hopefully they're just doing it out of an abundance of caution. Not being in the nicu is another vote in your favor

harperdc
Jul 24, 2007

Hadlock posted:

You should probably sanitize the gently caress out of everything the first six weeks, and then yeah it's a subjective sliding scale after that. Newborns have poo poo immune systems

Our baby drank room temperature pre mix formula until she was 1 and has been drinking ice cold whole milk since, seems to be hitting out exceeding all her milestone targets, A+ would recommend not warm milk if you can train the baby to drink it. Warming milk sounds like hell on earth. The faster you can get it in their mouth the faster they stop screaming

Her bottle gets a 185f water from the electric kettle each morning and a good scrub, never had an issue with it. Electric kettles rule, especially ones with presets besides "boil" because that extra 22 degrees does nothing but waste time

Good luck

We have a three week old and have been cleaning and sanitizing bottles after every use. Hard part is just making sure we have time to clean and nuke them.

Right after the baby came home we bought an electric kettle that can have different temperature settings, including 60 C at the lowest, which I’ve been using for baby bottles. Cool that down a little and the little spud drinks it right up.

[edit]

Hadlock posted:

I'm not a doctor but I'd advise 75C as there's still some food borne disease that needs that temp (salmonella?), plus you need to account for the bottle pulling down the temp slightly. 60C is about 140F which ought to kill just about anything but I guess I'm just paranoid

yeah I'm a dummy and will up that immediately, even the formula package we have says 70C or higher. not sure where I thought 60 was a good idea besides being cooler quick. luckily the kettle has a 70 setting as well, which remains useful.

harperdc fucked around with this message at 10:18 on Apr 9, 2022

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Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

I'm not a doctor but I'd advise 75C as there's still some food borne disease that needs that temp (salmonella?), plus you need to account for the bottle pulling down the temp slightly. 60C is about 140F which ought to kill just about anything but I guess I'm just paranoid

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