Altacct
1mo ago
We’ve discussed sleep training but have decided against it for now mostly because we don’t think it will work with our current setup (which will be changing in a few months, anyway) or baby’s personality/development level. I also don’t know if I can stomach cry-it-out while he’s this young.
Most of the sleep advice out there now says to wait until 4 months to do any sort of sleep training.
Altacct
1mo ago
Thanks. I keep hoping we get lucky with the next one because the chronic sleep deprivation is a killer. Every night I hope is the night he’ll sleep 4 hrs uninterrupted but unfortunately it hasn’t happened yet. But I keep reminding myself it will happen one day…even if it’s in 2 years(!) :/
Altacct
1mo ago
Nearly 4 months in with our first so I’m far from an expert but this is very relevant to me right now. Some thoughts:
We limited visitors to just my mother in law (whom we live with) and my husband’s siblings for the first 2 weeks. I cannot recommend this enough. Everyone and their neighbor wanted to meet our baby but entertaining guests while I was bleeding, in pain, and could barely get out of bed was the last thing I wanted to do newly postpartum.
Hopefully your wife will have an easy pregnancy and delivery but be mentally prepared for things to go off plan. My labor and delivery was basically exactly the opposite of what I wanted and postpartum recovery has been waaaay more difficult than I could’ve anticipated. Pelvic floor therapy is a thing and your wife doesn’t have to “just live with it” if she has issues. Try to be supportive and understanding and do as much as possible with housework and the baby.
One thing I wish I would’ve done while pregnant was the whole freezer meal prep thing. Having healthy food to eat while breastfeeding and recovering from delivery is really helpful to me physically and mentally but can be hard to prepare when I’m home alone with baby all day.
Every baby is different. Try not to compare your baby to your friends’ babies too much, especially when it comes to sleep. Our baby is not a good sleeper and my husband and I are still taking it in shifts every night 4 months out because our little one is up every 1-2 hrs. I’ve had people tell me that he’s probably cold, hungry, sleeping too much during the day etc., and no, he is not, he’s just a crap sleeper.
Newborns will basically sleep anywhere but around 6-8 weeks they will “wake up” to the world and you’ll need to actively start trying to put them to sleep. This seems like a no-brainer but babies change and develop so quickly that sometimes it can be hard to catch up with their changing needs. Now that hubby is back to work at the end of the week he comes home and says it’s like trying to relearn the baby all over again because the baby is so different and doing different things.
This might not apply to you and your wife but postpartum hormones are no joke and in my experience it was really hard for me to not be overprotective of the baby, especially in the first couple months. It was really difficult for me to hear him cry and not “take over”. The best thing I did was let my husband learn to soothe the baby in his own way because now he can actually help but it was hard to give him that space.
If your wife plans on breastfeeding it might be a good idea to introduce a bottle of expressed milk once or twice a week. We did not do this and now our baby won’t take a bottle so when we have a sitter we’re limited to 3-4 hrs away.
Breastfeeding can be really hard even when everything is going well.
Facebook marketplace is a goldmine for used/secondhand baby items. Some things you need to buy new (car seat) but most can be bought used super cheap and are in really good shape because babies grow out of things so quickly.
Altacct
4mo ago
Only 6 weeks in with our first so I have no personal experience but my brother has 3 under 3. All of them (including the 6 month old) sleep independently in their own rooms through the night and I’m pretty sure my brother and sister-in-law did Ferber method. Can’t say I’m a fan of the idea but if I’m still only getting max 3 hr stretch of sleep at night in 6 months I may be singing a different tune.
Altacct
1yr ago
You might have already come across this but we found this website to be reassuring regarding the risk of miscarriage: https://datayze.com/miscarriage-chart
Congratulations and I hope everything goes as smoothly as possible for your wife in her pregnancy!
Altacct
1yr ago
How have you/your partner been handling the pregnancy so far? I’m nearly through the first trimester with my first and it’s honestly been a lot more challenging than I was expecting. Due to a myriad of symptoms I’m struggling with some of the basics like hydration, good nutrition, keeping my prenatal down, and exercise, let alone optimizing for higher IQ.
My husband and I skimmed through Emily Oster’s Expecting Better but didn’t find it particularly enlightening (though better than the average What to Expect When You’re Expecting type book). If I find anything better I’ll let you know.
Altacct
1yr ago
My sister-in-law takes her daughters (ages 2 and 11 months) to the children’s museum about once a week. I think their yearly family membership costs less than $200 and the museum changes the “exhibits” up every few months. I’ve been to two different museums with them now and have been impressed by both of them. Jungle gyms, arts and crafts, water tables, instruments, microscopes, light tables, the last one even had bunnies and chickens.
Also libraries often have children’s programming like weekly story times where they read to and do activities with the kids. Typically free.
I also felt/feel totally blindsided by pregnancy and more specifically, postpartum, after having my first 5 months ago. I couldn’t walk for 3 weeks postpartum due to the pain and dizziness and I still can’t have sex without extreme pain. I just saw the GP due to the bleeding and pain after sex and was basically told “that sucks”. Seeing the pelvic floor PT is helping but, anyway, what I actually wanted to say is that I haven’t shied away from talking about my experience. We’re the first in my husband’s circle to have children and I don’t want any of the others to feel as blindsided as I did.
We were having a family meal a couple of months ago during which my husband was wearing the baby. One of the middle-aged women made a comment about how she wore her baby all the time and it was so helpful/nice and my husband replied that it was a shame I couldn’t do it. After which I admitted that the one time I tried I basically peed myself which was met with silence…so yeah, it does make people uncomfortable but I do think we should talk about it more.
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