Babies
Preparation
Things to buy for baby
- Stroller (doubles as car seat and bassinet)
- Changing board
- Consumables (diapers, wipes, formula)
Things to buy for mom
- Maternity pads
- Ice packs
Labour Day
- Pack clothes, pillow, sheets for hospital stay
- Drive to ER and use the valet parking
- Make sure you have a car seat installed
Post-Delivery (in hospital)
- Three days of not much sleeping
- Help the mother with recovery and daily things
- Learn how to feed baby and change diapers
First two weeks
- Be ready for more sleep deprivatation (2-3 hour sleep cycles)
- Figure out a rotation plan for taking care of baby
- Bring baby to pediatrician for checkup
By first month
- 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
By second month
- 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
By third month
- 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.
By fourth month
- New sounds and noises.
- Gets more picky and fussy about food and sleep.
- Hands start to change in terms of how they grab, every day.
- Responds to toys and sounds.
By fifth month
- 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.
By sixth month
- 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.
By nth month
- Rapid progress in mobility: crawling, standing, walking.
- Hard to keep up with things. Definitely need to investigate getting a nanny.
First try of day care
- 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.
Realizations
- 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.
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