Raph's Website » Advice for new parents

Advice for new parents

December 8th, 2006 (Visited 8872 times) Tags:

Friends of mine just had a baby (congrats, Scot!). As I was composing my generic email with congratulations and advice, it occurred to me that I have written this same email a dozen times now, and should just post it. So here it is (written for a boy baby because that’s what Scot and Anita had):

Congratulations!

My advice:

Sleep whenever the baby sleeps. You will be tempted to catch up on housework when the baby is sleeping, or catch up on work, or read email, or whatever. This way lies doom. Sleep whenever the baby sleeps. This is the single most important piece of advice I can give you.

If someone offers to help out, tell them that what you want is a precooked meal you can keep in the freezer or fridge.

Putting the baby in bed with you is no big deal. You will not roll over and squish him, don’t worry.

Prepare to awaken in the middle of the night in utter panic for no apparent reason and rush over to check that he is still breathing. It just happens, it’s an instinct. Just check him and go back to sleep. You will not be able to sleep until you do.

Any time the baby is crying, check the diaper first, try burping, then try feeding. It doesn’t matter if you just checked the diaper, burped, or fed the baby. You will save yourself time if you do this every time.

Expect that your single friends and your childless friends will hang out with you less. This is just how life is (babies are only charming to non-parents in fairly small doses). You will soon acquire a new social circle made up of parents.

Babies are mostly made of rubber. Your instinct is to treat them as incredibly fragile. Babies are not actually superfragile. Otherwise, there would be no human race. So, of course, don’t shake the baby, don’t drop the baby, etc. But you don’t have to treat him like he’s made of crystal. (By the second baby, you’ll treat them more like a sack of potatoes ).

Freezing pacifiers so they are cold when he teeths is an old trick. So is testing temperature of milk on your wrist — if you can feel it when it lands on the inside of your wrist, it’s too warm or too cold. Swaddling is amazing. Cloth diapers are great burp rags and lousy diapers. Mothers are good sources of these tricks.

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Sierra Kilo » Raph’s Advice wrote on December 8th, 2006 at 12:22 pm:

[...] I plan on putting these to good use fairly soon. I’d also like to teach/learn a little bit of sign language so that the kiddo can learn to communicate before she can speak. My boss did this and says his daughter would sign a bit and help them figure out what she wanted. [...]

Second Life Herald: December 2006 wrote on December 9th, 2006 at 8:50 pm:

[...] Usually infants are over the colicky phase at 3 months, but it can drag on for 3 years…Raph Koster has some advice for new parents this week — your faithful correspondent swears by the vacuum cleaner. [...]

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[...] Raph Koster recently gave a friend of his some Advice for New Parents. I link it here mostly because I want to bookmark it for later, but also because gamers crack me up (”Frozen Bagels are great for teething,” Prokofy Neva says). [...]

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Second Life Herald: wrote on November 10th, 2007 at 6:46 am:

[...] infants are over the colicky phase at 3 months, but it can drag on for 3 years…Raph Koster has some advice for new parents this week — your faithful correspondent swears by the vacuum [...]

Ethic said on December 8th, 2006 at 11:03 am:

As a parent of two kids, I agree 100%. Right on the money.

Allen Sligar said on December 8th, 2006 at 11:17 am:

Awesome advice, every one of them is so true….I’ll add a few:

1. Simethicone drops are the best medication ever invented, once the baby moves to baby food, they will cry randomly for no apparent reason, this is usually why.

2. Figure out how and where the baby likes to sleep, and let them sleep there, my daughter slept in her car seat, which was in the crib, next to the bed, for the first 6-8 months. wierd, but hey 8 straight hours of sleep is like heaven.

3. Baby’s like the sound of heartbeats, this is why they will stop crying and go to sleep on your chest.

4. They dont come with an instruction manaual, every baby is different in temperment, if you make a mistake you are not a bad parent, just a new parent.

5. When they are a toddler, and small child, quite suddenly and without warning you will channel stuff your parents said to you, things you swore you’d never say. But sure enough your mom or dad’s voice will be comming out of your mouth….its quite unnerving.

6. Remember to call your own parents, thank them for all the crap they went through raising you, because now you know exactly how it feels. (this is also a good way to get them to babysit

7. Dont forget to take personal time and couple time (sans baby) after the 6 month nesting period is over, its healthy and good for your relationship.

8. Take a picture of your babys hand in yours, (it makes for a cute photo) so that when they’re 4 and acting like a 4 your old you can remember how small and cute and non verbal they once were…

9. If you have a daughter, you will understand just how good the Disney marketing machine really is….there are 5 different princesses each with ther own color…nuf said.

Grimwell said on December 8th, 2006 at 11:37 am:

Excellent advice above. I’ll throw in one tip for now that I think is very important:

1. Silence is not golden! Your baby will sleep if you have the TV on. Your baby will sleep if you have the radio on. Your baby will sleep if you talk to your parents on the phone (to thank them). Your baby will sleep in your arm while you play a Korean MMO (one handed gaming at it’s finest). Your baby will sleep while your six friends who are over playing D&D are laughing out loud because of something funny. Your baby will sleep despite the noise!

Too many people make the mistake of cocooning their newborn in a word of silence… and it becomes habit forming so that when your kid is a toddler they do insist on silence to sleep — which means misery for the parents. If you put your kid to sleep with a radio, expect them to do that for the rest of their lives.

So I guess that’s two points of adivce:

2. You create your childs first habits, choose wisely! Whatever routine you create, whatever expectations you create (I always get a bottle after my bath, etc.) — Understand that you are carving rules in stone!

Congratulations Scot and Anita!

Grimwell said on December 8th, 2006 at 11:48 am:

Oh, and this baby kit proved beyond value for us with our kids — to the point that we gave it to everyone we knew that had their first baby… it’s good stuff.

Grimwell said on December 8th, 2006 at 11:51 am:

http://www.thefirstyears.com/products/product.asp?pValue=3383

Link didn’t work last time, so paste it in.

Rufus said on December 8th, 2006 at 11:59 am:

We’ve been using cloth diapers from day 1 except at night times. I’d swear by them over the disposables any day. We went about a week with the disposables and by god if that wasn’t the only week we’ve had trouble with diaper rash.

My top advice I give out is this, though: Talk to your child, constantly, even when you know they can’t *really* understand you, from day one forward. Repeat, repeat, repeat, exaggerate. They learn language a lot faster this way (as well as the sound of your voice).

Joel Martinez said on December 8th, 2006 at 12:28 pm:

Sack of potatoes … HAHA … so true

Prokofy Neva said on December 8th, 2006 at 12:51 pm:

1. Sleep when the baby sleeps — hell yeah. And keep a little mirror by their beds to test their mouths if they are still breathing when you wake up in a panic. You absolutely cannot smush them while they are sleeping, but they can roll off a bed, so just put your bed next to their crib with the side down.

2. Everything works once on babies; nothing works twice. Especially stuff your parents and friends tell you, so be sure to quote this proverb to them so they get off your backs.

3. The vacuum cleaner is the single best treatment for colic — bar none. Turn on the vacuum cleaner in one room. Hold the baby upright on your shoulder and sort of dance around him with the vacuum cleaner on, patting his back, coming closer or farther away to the vacuum cleaner. White noise somehow overloads their senses or something but then helps then integrate; he will be off like a switch in a minute, no crying, fast asleep. Ok, now you have another problem: the sound of a vacuum cleaner, which your neighbours may not like. Too bad. You’re going to be sleeping in a minute, too.

4. You can never burp a baby too much — ever. 45 minutes — could be nothing. Never hesitate to try — an hour.

5. Breast-feeding is a learned behaviour. Do not be afraid to learn it and discuss it. It is not learned within 3 days. They need to learn it, you do, too. Put them under your arm, football-style. Put a pillow to hold your arm. Use the rapid-arm movement method to smush them on to the breast so that their mouth is wide open. This position prevents soreness and also helps ease them and keep them from distractions. The cradle position is the single hardest position to learn for this vital activity. Keep trying, don’t give up, it’s worth it, they will never have ear infections if you can stick it out. You don’to need milk to make milk. Drink water. Drink Fenugreek tea, you’ll have more milk than you know what to do with.

6. Frozen bagels are great for teething.

7. If the baby won’t take a bottle while the mom is gone, have the other care-giver put the mom’s nightgown nearby to fake the baby out.

8. Did I mention vacuum cleaner? still running? Neighbours angry? Ok, try the more quiet but still-effective hair-dryer. Other white-noise options include: the FDR highway at rush-hour; washing-machines; breast-pumping machines; the early albums of Vladimir Vysotsky.

9. Never listen to other people’s advice — it’s your baby.

P.S. Simethicone is an utter, complete, stupid, waste of money and time, and only designed to make new parents feel like they are “doing something”. Try the vacuum cleaner.

Michael Chui said on December 8th, 2006 at 4:02 pm:

Wait, which part of that email doesn’t apply to girl babies?

Rufus said on December 8th, 2006 at 8:35 pm:

After attaching the vacuum’s suction hose to my daughter’s aft nether regions and coming up with lackluster results (and quite a bit of screaming), we decided to go the Simethicone route until we could safely give her acidophilus with more solid food. She had honest to god gas, not colic of any form, and a noisy vacuum didn’t do anything. The drops killed her gas problems and still do on rare occassion and way past the colic/vacuum does anything but scare her stage.

Prokofy Neva said on December 9th, 2006 at 8:15 am:

You don’t vacuum the kid — did I explain? You just turn on white noise, which helps reorganize their immature nervous systems. And the noise doesn’t scare them — because you aren’t standing right next to it. I learned this tried-and-true tradition from others, who swear by it — as I do! When you have colic for *11 months* you’ll try anything.

Simethicone is silly — expensive, runs out quickly, and does little good. If it works for you, use it, but I have been in numerous parents groups over the ages and found that most people say it’s a racket.

In fact, if your kid can’t be burped and brought out of a gas attack, what’s cheaper and much less chemically is to take a simple non-aluminum and as simple formula as possible antiacid tablet or liquid (Tums, not Rolaids) and dilute it in water — and give them a tiny fraction of a teaspoon.

Rufus said on December 9th, 2006 at 6:58 pm:

I know… I was just being sarcastic — it’s the only way I could figure a vacuum could solve a gas problem.

Our pediatrician suggested it and a $4 bottle lasted for 4 weeks. I don’t think that qualifies as expensive or runs out quickly and we could no longer feel the rumbling in her stomach nor the distention that was present before the drops. And yes, we were extremely effective with the burping as well, it just wasn’t enough.

Prokofy Neva said on December 9th, 2006 at 8:36 pm:

I won’t know what country — planet? — you are living on, but in New York, these miniscule bottles of simethicon that you use up in about 2 sessions of colic are like $4.95 a pop or more. That’s why I went with the vacuum cleaner. Simethicone does not treat the underlying condition, which is an immature, disorganiced nervous system.

Janey said on December 11th, 2006 at 9:50 am:

This is a great entry.

I have 11 more weeks to go.

Allen Sligar said on December 11th, 2006 at 9:52 am:

@Prokofy

Simethicone (both adult and baby version) work pretty well for gas in my experiance. But hey you know:
“9. Never listen to other people’s advice — it’s your baby.”

Oh so true.

Also it should not suprise you that medications are way more expensive in NYC, EVERYTHING is more expensive in NYC than elsewhere. I mean when a watered down well scotch on the rocks costs 15 bucks you know your in an alternate universe, or getting robbed in NYC. God forbid you order a blue label…I only made that mistake once, and the worst part is it was still watered down….

I think at the time (3 years ago) I was paying 1.99? for the drops…sorry Prokofy move to CA (besides the weather is better

Advice for new parents

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