All of this reminiscing got me reflecting on preparing for Collin and all of the "how to guides" we buried ourselves in. We approached parenting like cramming for the GRA. The more information the better- and boy did we consume resources. Books, website, experts, professionals, --you name it, we consulted it. My use of Psych Info and EBSCO Host search engines definitely made use of the subscription. By the time we were heading to the hospital we had all too many gadgets, books and supplies for the baby. We even packed three books in the hospital bag-- you know, in case we had time to read more about what we should be prepared for.
Oh, how little we knew about the adventure to come...
Time?!? What extra time?!? We haven't had 5 minutes to breathe over the course of the the past year, save for vacations and work related trips that I had to take without Collin.
When we were awaiting this little guy I posted a post about baby gear- the good, the bad and the ugly- (my opinion of course), and in some cases, I've totally eaten my words. Here's my revisiting of the post:
First, the top three images in the post, where I made fun of all the "CRAZY" things available to new parents- are all things we now own! Yep, you name them, we have them. We have a swaddle- its for when infants are tiny and need to be swaddled in a blanket- this blanket and onesie in one for convenience. We have snappis- they are the ace bandage-like devices used to connect the sides of cloth diapers (which we use), and we also have a bumbo, which is a soft seat used to help babies sit up before they can do it themselves. Swallowing foot now...
On to the top 10, and the ones that wound up in our house, such as #9, the hooter hider. Well, sort of. I got a lot of flack about this one, as I made fun of it, but I think people didn't gather that I was making fun of the name of the product, not the product itself, so I do indeed have a nursing cover. Mine is from Bebe Au Lait, and is called, appropriately, the nursing cover- not "Hooter Hider", so while I do my share of hooter hiding, its not with a piece of fabric so aptly labeled.
We also found ourselves equipped with #3, a nursing stool. Actually, its a nursing stool built into the footstool for our rocking chair. And, its actually fairly handy, as when I was starting to nurse Collin, dealing with learning the whole process, putting my feet on the stool actually encouraged me to sit in a way that helped Collin latch on correctly-- so its not a total waste. It still seems kind of silly, that is until you put your feet on it as your nursing, then its actually quite nice. A little bit of heaven when all of the universe seems to be testing your pain tolerance.
Lucky for me, the 8 other items turned out to be truly useless or absurd.
But there are a few items that we found ourselves in need of, or hanging on to dearly as reference to good parenting, and now looking back, I wish someone would have pointed me in the right direction toward them...
1. Video Monitor! We have this one:
It lets us see Collin when he is sleeping which is fantastic because our room is on an entirely different floor and I feel much better about knowing when he is awake, restless, or just moving around in his sleep from way up in our room because I can see him. This is one of the few things I wish we would have bought right in the beginning. When Collin finally started sleeping through the night I was one paranoid momma. I wanted to check on him every 5 minutes. Is he breathing? Is he too close to the bumper? Is he warm enough? I nearly kept myself awake every night thinking about all of the potential reasons that Collin might need me, and to be honest, sometimes I still think some of those things- but the video monitor takes me from the range of obsessive-compulsive, to a bit more motherly but neurotic. I love being able to see Collin on the screen early in the morning as he's making sounds in his sleep and seeing him wake up to the sunshine as it creeps into the room.
2. Baby Einstein's Take-Along Tunes
When Collin was very little 0-3 months, and still going through the "adjusting to this world" and crying and fussy a lot of the time this was the only toy that he really liked. He loved listening to the music and seeing the lights. It was an essential piece of our diaper-bag necessities.After about 7 months he wasn't interested in it at all anymore, so we tucked it away, but just the other day he found it near the bottom of the toy bin and started pushing the buttons for music. He seems to like it all over again, which makes it multi-purpose, I guess.
3.Nuks!
We have these and boy have they been a life-saver. I always imagined that I would not give my babies pacifiers. I disliked the image of a toddler running around with a Nuk stuck in his mouth like a plug. BUT, along came reality. A whole two days after Collin was born we were in desperate need of a pacifier. He, according to his doctor and lactation consultant, "had one of the strongest sucking reflexes" they had ever seen. In the hospital, and in lots of books, they preach about not giving any pacifiers until 2-3 weeks to avoid "nipple confusion".
Well, that was pretty much ridiculous in this case. So, two days in we bought about a dozen pacifiers to see what worked. Turns out Collin liked the Nuk brand (which is not the brand I wanted him to like for the record), and they possessed incredible life-saving abilities. Now, 11 months later, Collin only uses a Nuk for nap time and bed time and I have no qualms about giving him one. I wish someone would have said its fine way back when...
4.Good Night Sleep Tight
This book was the perfect mix of Ferber and crazy over-protective mommy. As a nanny I was a perfect ferber-izer. I could get a baby on a sleep schedule in 3 days, max. But here I was, 6 months into parenting without a night time routine that took less than a half hour. We needed to make some changes. After reading an intense amount of literature about the topic I found myself afraid of Dr. Ferber and even more afraid of Dr. Weissbluth and company. I couldn't image letting Collin scream it out. A changed person I am apparently- as a mom I couldn't ferberize my kid for the life of me. This book, Good Night Sleep Tight by Kay West, was the perfect mix of letting Collin learn how to put himself to sleep and me not going crazy and crying on my own as he goes to sleep.
5. The Box Fan
Oh, the power of white noise! When Collin was very small and fussy (again during the 0-3 month phase) one of the only things that calmed him was laying on Drew's arm in the football hold in front of the box fan. He was calm right down and fall asleep or sit happily while Drew held him. We had no idea that the box fan was actually a baby essential.
So all in all, we made the mark on many of the items we had in preparing for Collin, but hind sight is always 20/20. For those new parents out there we hope to help even in the smallest way possible if it helps you feel good about parenting- because as we all know when we begin this adventure is like the blind leading the blind.
Next year we'll revisit the list to see just how we're doing with our parenting skills come 24 months along.
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