Deemed Useful

Notes for the benefit of future breeders. First in a series?

1. Little blankets, often called receiving blankets (not the larger blankets discussed earlier) are insanely handy. But only if they're absorbent flannel, which grabs spit-up milk. The slick satiny blankets let that stuff run right off onto your pants. Baby puke still smells like puke.

2. Observation: newborn baby doesn't like being laid down to have his diaper changed. It's disempowering. It makes his face red. Thus: putting newborns babies in things that involve pant legs is counterproductive. Pant legs are for walking; newborns don't walk. (Some baby clothes have pockets. Babies don't keep things in their pockets!) The system of elaborate snaps that's needed to furnish the illusion that your baby is about to amble off for a bipedal stroll in the park just about triples the time required to access that key item -- the diaper -- thus tripling a key quantity -- the baby's rage. Baby gowns are way, way faster. (Just as it says in the books, we change the diaper 10 to 15 times a day.) The onesy, despite our fond hopes, doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense at this age. It leaves their legs totally exposed, and so their feet turn blue. Rage builds, face turns red, etc., etc. So you just end up wrapping them in another layer (see item #1, receiving blankets), and then you might as well have put them in a gown in the first place.

3. Swaddling seems to work. You bind their little arms, and they can't gesticulate with them like they'd like to, so they give up and settle down. Sometimes.

4. Having a laundry machine on the same floor as all the mess is about the best thing ever. The yuppies are dead-on about this one.

blwh