Babies

September 13, 2023 [#baby]

These are a few loosely organized notes around rearing kids.

Preparation

Things to buy for baby

Things to buy for mom

Get feeding automation as that’s a big time saver
Get passport for baby: easy forms and can apply at the post office. Hardest part is taking the baby passport photo
Tummy time can begin. Expect more head movement and neck strength

Debug order: burping, holding, diapers, feeding
Shop for day cares
Companies might give a some free back-up care days every calendar year (e.g. Bright Horizons) – use them to socialize the kid

Buy high chair. Can feed them with one hand in there and easy for them to fall asleep in upright position (so don’t need to burp).
Lots of eye contact, curiosity and weirdness.
Get used to using laptop or phone 1-handed. Helps to have a bit of productivity while feeding or putting to sleep.

Things to pack when taking the kid out on stroller: small mouth toys, formula bottle, blankets, grocery bags.
Need lots of tummy time until they know how to roll by themselves.
Major QoL improvement: teach baby how to hold milk bottle himself: shake it in front of them, have them grab it, then guide into their mouth. Reinforce.
Major QoL improvement: have baby sleep in it’s own crib instead of your bed, because it’s hard to sleep when you’re paranoid about accidentally rolling onto them while sleeping.

Should build routines such as napping 3 times during the day. In terms of food, just feed when hungry because it’s too hard to keep track of that. They reach for bottles aggressively when hungry.
Do not underestimate how long it takes to put them to bed. Prepare accordingly.
They’re much more active at this point and start to become mobile, so it’s good to check on them every few mins.
Behaves like a cat: makes cat sounds, tries to knock anything over as soon as it’s within reach, rolls around all over the place at night, grabs cables and wires like a ninja.

Always breaks your heart to see your kid cry and not be able to do anything about it. Is this temporary pain worth it? Maybe. It might actually be harder mentally on the parents than the kid.
By 9 month, they often have strange anxiety, so the dropoff is rarely smooth.
By second day, he stops crying more quickly, so that’s reassuring.
They seem to forget all about the day care by the time they get home.
They also seem to be more active and determined after a few days of day care.

Honesty: when a kid wants to look at something, they look. Then they look away when they don’t care about it anymore. As adults, we’re conditioned to look at people’s faces even if we’re not that interested in the face itself, and it’s considered rude to look away. Kids don’t have that filter. Conversely, we’re conditioned to not look at certain things, whereas kids don’t have that filter either.
Most agonizing moments: (1) when spouse is in labor with kid. The pain looks immense. (2) when kid gets sick with fevers and vomiting for the first time. It’s hard to see them in pain and not being able to do much about it.
Compression: learning is like lossy compression. You take in a lot of data and compress it into something smaller. Then you can recall it later. Having a child is also like lossy compression: they’re born with a lot of embedded data from the parents, and then they slowly decompress as they grow and learn.

Rotation of “words”: Dodo (points), Jojo, Duoduo, Mama, Papa, Dada
Walking with at least 1 hand held. Should practice walking more as it promotes height gain. [Real self walk Oct 14, 2024]
Switched from Formula to Organic Whole Milk (avoid antibiotics). Should switch to leaner milk later as it might become too many calories.
Knows how to operate switches on toys to turn them on.

Feels like they’re becoming sentient. Randomly learns how to put tubes in order.
Can walk with 1 hand held.
Harder to feed. Much more easily distracted.
Still very consistent in sleep and wake up times.

First time I actually feel like they’re fun
Walking a bit and learning more complicated toys much quicker
Seems like they sort of understand what you’re saying to them but not able to form words yet
More random crying, whining if they don’t get what they want

Walking independently
Throws tantrums more regularly but seems more that he does not realize he does not need to go to max intensity to make any request
Has separation anxiety from mother
Very into animals, especially lions and animals while they’re eating food
The kid’s presence is felt much more. They’re more like a person now, especially since they can wake up from a nap and walk out of the bedroom themselves.

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Entertainment: Children’s Museum like Brooklyn’s is good for music shows and some interaction with toys
Costco: Lots of books, plushies and toys to choose from that are affordable.
Some PTSD from hearing babies cry randomly (even in YouTube videos).

Sharp with eyes to locate random things that he wants. Pulls up next to you often randomly holding things you wouldn’t expect (i.e. Airpods case that you left in some obscure place).

Seems every time my kid gets sick (which so far has only happened twice), I get the same thing but for 3x longer.
If he pukes for a day and is sick for 2 days, I puke for 2 days and am sick for a week.
First words: Apple, Duck