Our Baby News

Big Baby Items to Have at Home

The one purchase that will make your life bearable in the coming weeks and months is a glider or rocking chair. With innumerable hours of feeding ahead of you, have somewhere comfortable to park yourself.

Test drive as many as you need, go with one that provides back support and allows you to comfortably position you and baby for up to half an hour at a time.

Get the footstool, too. Special ordering from baby mega store warehouses often takes eight to 12 weeks until delivery. If you don’t have that kind of time, don’t wait.

The rest of the items can wait for a few weeks: a portable feeding chair (you won’t need this until baby is about four months of age), a baby swing (approximately six weeks), a portable crib (as soon as you plan to head out of town).

Stress and You

Somewhere along the line, a very popular notion has developed that a stress-free life is not only attainable, but that plenty of people are living it.

This is one big load of happy horses.

As a young parent, you have instantly traded one set of old stresses (that you were more or less used to) for a brand-new set of stresses (that you have no idea how to cope with—yet).

You can do yourself an immense favor by adopting the following philosophies and attitudes:

• You were not really that much “happier” or “relaxed” BC (before children). You’ve just forgotten.

• Your goal each day is to cope with the stress each day brings. Not to eliminate it.

• You will, in time, adapt to the new set of stresses of being a parent, and when you move on to the next phase of your life (second baby, school-age kids, new job/home), you will forget how stressful this cycle was.

Bust the Stress, Hot the Diet

When the crunch hits—and you know exactly what the crunch is—your only hope for a moment of sanity is to pig out beneath the temple of Godiva.

No one—least of all your mother-in-law or husband—is going to make you behave. So being a mommy can, at times, require an inhuman degree of inner discipline. Want some rules that work?

• Work your legs, not your jaws. If baby cries all the time, go out for a power walk. Rain or shine. (You’ll feel indestructible if you go out on a rainy day.)

• Front load: Eat a bigger breakfast, a smaller dinner. This better regulates the flow of sugar and nutrients to your body to the more active parts of your day.

A breast pump has to perform a couple of jobs: It has to empty the breast completely, which means that it also has to stimulate lactation, and it must be easy to keep clean and uncontaminated.

A hand pump is the simplest system: two cylinders that fit inside one another and a flange to cover the nipple and areola.

Repeatedly pulling on the outer cylinder creates a vacuum that draws milk and simultaneously acts as a reservoir. It is portable and easily cleaned, but it is labor intensive.

Electrical or battery pumps are more efficient than hand pumps. They can be set up to work on both breasts at once, with less arm work, and can generally produce an equivalent volume of milk over a shorter period of time.

But the energy (and time) you save in pumping will be spent in cleaning more tubes and collection bottles.

IS THERE AN IDEAL AGE FOR A WOMAN TO HAVE A BABY?

Another impossible question because so many factors are involved. In purely physical terms, a woman is probably at her ideal age for giving birth at between twenty to twenty-five but this may not be the ideal emotional age for her. She .may want to establish a career, and her partner may want to set their home on a sound financial footing before starting a baby and that may mean waiting until the wife is in her late twenties or early thirties, sometimes even later. In physical terms, again, pregnancy problems do increase after the age of thirty-five. For example, there is known to be an increased incidence of Down’s Syndrome (it used to be called mongolism) in older mothers (over forties).

For just a small amount of money, only about $30-$40 each, get yourself a back/body massager and a foot massager. The back/body device has small vibrators in a cushion strategically placed at the small of the back, shoulders, and upper thighs.

It comes with settings for low, medium, and high jiggling, and even 10 minutes a day will restore some of your sense of balance. If s like being in a hot tub without having to get into a bathing suit (and with far less maintenance).

The foot massager should also be considered part of the deal. Don’t even try to walk for about five minutes afterward, though. You’ll spoil the effect.

Some disadvantages: They’re a little noisy on the high settings and can cause TV interference.

Back to Work

After six to eight weeks, most moms face the choice of going back to work or staying home with baby. Often, if s a difficult choice for women who don’t want to leave a new and fulfilling phase in their life, only to go back to a job that doesn’t offer the same rewards.

For others, there’s a strong degree of cabin fever (or financial need) pushing them back to a job that is, frankly, just a job. Going back to work is not a ton of fun for these moms, either.

If you happen to be lucky enough to enjoy a challenging, rewarding job, don’t be afraid to own up to it. Motherhood is wonderful and will always be there for you.

But a career outside the home that has given you a sense of purpose, direction, and self-worth ought not to be dismissed either. This creates a constant conflict: regret for the moments you miss as a mom versus regret for the lost opportunities to grow in your profession. Stand by your choice: Nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifice and effort.

My Baby Understands Me So Well!

Primitive reflexes are reflex actions originating in the central nervous system that are exhibited by normal infants but not neurologically intact adults, in response to particular stimuli. These reflexes disappear or are inhibited by the frontal lobes as a child moves through normal child development.These primitive reflexes are also called infantile, infant or newborn reflexes.

I’m going to give away yet another pediatrician trick. If s called the palm-omental reflex.

Press on the palms of baby’s hands with your thumbs and he will reflexively open his mouth (that s the “omental” part). Practice this a few times, it’s always worth a few smiles, and then show off to your friends and relatives by saying: “Look how well my baby understands me!” Then press on his hands, saying “Open big! Open your mouth big!”

This reflex disappears by about two months of age, so be sure to get it in early, or at least videotape it.

You Are My Sunshine
An I-love-you song, and every mom should have at least one I-love-you song for her baby.

You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are gray
You’ll never know, dear
How much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away

Some women have none at all; others have a lot. It depends on two factors. One is the hormones from the adrenal gland which affect the deep elastic layers beneath the skin, and can cause stretching that breaks down the skin over it in such a way that a weal, bright red or liverish in colour, appears. This is common in girls at puberty, as their breasts start to grow, and may also appear over the hips and buttocks. In pregnancy the same effect may be seen, and if there is dramatic breast development, as there often is, then stretch marks are inevitable. However, these tend to fade rapidly after the baby is born, and often are virtually invisible by the time he has his first birthday party. Stretch marks on abdomen, legs and buttocks however take much longer to fade and though they eventually become white papery gleams, they may take some years to do so.