I was talking to Amy yesterday and I realized that we have a lot of friends who are either currently pregnant or just had a baby (congratulations!). One of the things that gets really, REALLY old is parenting advice that goes something to this tune:
Random Person: Oh, you're going to do that with your kid? Well, I love my kid so we do this instead.
Me: Really? Okay well thanks for letting me know that you think I don't love me kids.
Anyways, in lieu of advice, here are some resources Amy and I used that we found really super useful:
1) The Wonder Weeks App. It costs 2 bucks, it's available for Android or Apple, and it's amazing. Turns out that almost every baby has mental leaps in their development around the same times and during these leaps they will do their best to break you like a Kit Kat bar (Good luck during week 5, we've been there). The app lets you know what to expect during the leaps, what mental abilities they'll start displaying after the leap, and a handy chart showing how close your child is to the next one.
2) The five types of Baby Cries. Turns out babies can communicate what they need. This was very helpful because it let us address what they needed instead of blindly guessing. Here's a short summary of the 5 types of cries, but the Oprah video in the link gives a good example of how the cries sound.
- Heh - Baby is not comfortable (Too hot, too cold, dirty diaper, foot stuck, Timmy fell down a well? Who knows, babies are a mystery, but it's definitely something)
- Owh - I'm sleepy, the sound is made as a reflex when the baby yawns. On our second it usually comes out like oo-wha
- Neh - I'm hungry. When the baby get's hungry they have a sucking reflex so their tongue goes to the roof of their mouth making the "N" sound
- Eh - Baby needs to burp
- Eair - It's a deeper sound than the other cries and means baby has gas. Sometimes accompanied with baby pulling their knees up or pushing down with their legs.
3) Cutting out dairy. Okay, okay, this one is half advice, but it really is just meant as a resource for your benefit. My first born was borderline colicky. He was not happy about being out of his perfectly regulated, feed on demand, water bed womb and made sure everyone knew it. After 2 months of misery for all of us, Amy read that some kids are just sensitive to dairy introduced through momma's milk.
She cut it out of her diet and shortly there after first born's gas problems disappeared, he stopped crying non-stop, it was wonderful. If you got a kid who won't stop crying, it's worth a shot to cut our dairy, but a word of warning. It is in stinkin' everything.
It is crazy hard work to get dairy out of your diet. And no sooner are you successful then you go out to eat and the cook in the back is too lazy or incompetent to realize that it's not enough to not put anything dairy on the skillet when he makes your meal, he has to clean the skillet or work area prior to making your meal and now you got a kid who won't stop screaming, his poop is mucousy, and his mother is contemplating beating someone within an inch of their life with a spatula.
Well that's it. Good luck and remember, you can survive this.
Well that's it. Good luck and remember, you can survive this.
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