expecting baby in Jan

[Bugbait]

Congratulations! Get ready to say goodbye to a full nights sleep for a while.

Buy several different brands of nappies to try. Each baby fits and reacts differently. Huggies gave our baby nappy rash in less than an hour of use. Tesco nappies are great value but didn’t fit too well (leakage). We settled on Pampers and have used them ever since. Buy loads once you determine the most suitable. You can go through about 8-16 a day for the first few months or longer. Have a few tubs of Sudocrem or equivalent on hand too.

If feasible, do the same with bottles. Different bottles and teats are best for different babies. We started on Dr Browns but after a while switched to Phillips Avent , back to Dr Browns for a bit, and back to Avent again since. It can affect how gassy they get at various periods of early development. Our baby was hard to burp up for the first few months.

Buy loads (10+) of baby grows. You will always need more as they can leak a lot initially – turbo poo!

You will only use the Moses basket for a couple or few months at most. Consider a second hand one or a travel cot. We used a Samsonite Travel Cot with replacement underlay (standard one is a bit crap) instead of a basket.

Wipes can be good but if your little one has sensitive skin (ours had full body eczema for months) you’ll need loads of cotton balls.

Have formula on hand in case breast feeding doesn’t work out as you imagined/planned. Don’t buy “pre-made” as it’s a complete waste of money, just get powder. Breast milk generally takes a few days to kick in. Although your baby can survive perfectly fine without food for the first few days, for your sanity you may want to “top up” (still let them suckle on breast to stimulate) with formula. Our first 2.5 days (after a 51 hour labour) would’ve been far less hellish if someone, anyone would’ve given us this advise! Top up = happy baby that’s more likely to sleep, even if it’s for short periods. A one hour nap is heaven during this period.

Common sense is really the key at the end of the day though.

[g8ina]

Gin, vodka, whisky, paracetamol, earplugs, a good big fat novel.

For the baby, its a shame they dont still make the old fashioned gripe water, it worked miracles.

Not too much activity stuff in the bedroom, no flashy lights, music, or anything to distract baby at bedtime, you need low impact stuff. Try this : http://www.babycentre.co.uk/baby/sleep/bedtimeroutines/

I think all other points have really been covered.

Congrats and good luck !

(my three are all growed up now, so my input is from like 30-35 years ago).

[Steve A]

Firstly, Congrats

I would highly recommend buying some sleep ..... whilst you still can

[live2give]

congrats, scary times!!! lol

[Tumble]

For the baby, its a shame they dont still make the old fashioned gripe water, it worked miracles.

Oh but they do, Sir. We used it for our spawn -it works really well, but it's got gin or something in it, so you can't use too much of it.....

[Moby-Dick]

Oh but they do, Sir. We used it for our spawn -it works really well, but it's got gin or something in it, so you can't use too much of it.....

goes well with tonic

[smelly]

Just as an update she's going to be a girl

Took 3 scan dates and numerous tries each time to do all the measurements and to discover that it's a girl.

[oolon]

Think what you will need when you get home, its easy to rember nappies, car seat, clothes, I am sure your partner will want to breast feed, however that does not necessarily work right for the first moment.

Make sure you formula, breast pump, bottles and a feeding syringe available 1 month BEFORE due date, our daughter arrived 1 week early did not take to breast feeding right away, lost to much weight. I had to go out to get that stuff on new years day when EVERYTHING was closed. I got Boots to let me in as a pharmacy emergency (they were closed). A very helpful man stacking shelves advised me what to buy. I can't thank the staff and boots enough for taking pity on me. As the chemist lady said, with a new born everything is an emergency for her.

These are what I got on the new years day :-
Boots sell syringes for feeding.
Tommy Tippy closer to nature Bottles. (atleast 4 perhaps 8).
Medela brest pump
Aptimil 1 formula

You can boil things for 5 minutes (if you have a big pit) to sterilise things we preferred that to the microwave ones that did not seem to do a good job.

A new born is a treadmill, they can take an age to feed and by the time you have finished you have to start again.

[Lee H]

We had everything ready 2 weeks before Hayden came and decided on the Dr Brown bottles for feeding her. They ARE very good and Hayden never had any problems relating to wind or colic. Start now by taking advantage of the offers at places like boots/tesco and asda to stock up on nappies and wipes as you can never have enough of any of these.

My sorta step-grand-daughter is now using the same brand of bottles and she too has no issues with winding or colic for that matter and everyone I know who used these bottles has rated them highly indeed

[Bugbait]

We had everything ready 2 weeks before Hayden came and decided on the Dr Brown bottles for feeding her. They ARE very good and Hayden never had any problems relating to wind or colic.

While I agree that the Dr Brown’s are very good, it does depend on the child. We alternated between Dr Brown’s and Philips Avent during the first 3-4 months before settling on the Avent bottles (less maintenance and easier to use) as our son’s digestive system matured. During the initial months each brand and associated teat size was better at various stages of his early development. He was a bit harder to burp from an early age though. So like nappies, I suggest trying a few brands to see which is the most suitable (and it could easily change month to month).

[Zak33]

even if she's gonna breast feed, buy about a dozen small baby milk cartons. (SMA or similar)

You see, and you don't know how this feels yet..... when baby is hungry, every two hours, but mum is so tired she might die.. and needs more thabn 20 minute sleep in one go, having a small amount of pre made baby milk, is great.. Dad gets to do the feed, and mum gets much needed sleep. Mine needed feeding every two hours, but the actual FEED took up to an hour... so there is literally no rest for mum

The baby won't miss out on the breast milk nutirents... she's still there, boobs in tact, sleeping..

A second important thing is A SECOND KETTLE.

IF you're gonna make your own baby milk formula, even used along with breast feeding..... you need to boil fresh water and let it cool before making mik.

Sounds easy... right?

So how do you make a cup of tea or coffee while the kettle takes 2 hours to cool?

Argos/Tesco £5 kettle.

Lets face it.. .. it's hardly wasted money.... it's a spare for later in life

And advice I got from our own DR.... the HEXUS boss... who has NO kids himself, but who bought nice presents for various people with kids.. and who found one present above all got big thanks from the parents...

a kids sleeping bad. Dreambag is a popular brand. Not for the first few weeks of babies life... but in 3 or 4 months, when they're too big for the moses basket... kids sleep really well in a sleeping bag with poppers over the shoulder cos they cant wiggle out from under it.. not like blankets

Once again.. ebay for those.. machine washable... awesome things

And lots of our love to you and your missus.... take care

[Sair33]

Muslins, Gina Ford's Contented Little Baby Book, and a Post Natal group (not just for the advice but an amazing support network and friends you will keep for years!)

[Zak33]

/\ my missus.

she;s right..... post natal group and ANY local baby groups...

two of our best friends (now) were met in the local village hall at a baby meeting in our community. Even in towns.. like ours.. not rural villages, look for them, break out of your/her comfort zone to go along and say hello.

[HalloweenJack]

support your partner - whilst baby needs attention so will your better half , the little pressies , brekfast in bed , running her a bath etc.

for baby? you`ll be drowning in baby grows as everyone buys them for you , i have 4 kids - youngest is 2 1/2 and all are fantastic.

if you want to breat feed , it can and does hurt for the first few days - my wife had mastitus with the 4th - so much so she was in tears and stopped feeding alex at 4 days and went to formula;

as for formula - to be honest avoid SMA - all 4 of my kids got `clogged up` with SMA , cow and gate (and before that farleys before heinz got there hands on it) is so much better.


the only tip i can give you is this:


learn to burp baby (and learn the cries - feed me cry is different to i want a hug) - most things like `colic` can be sorted by burping baby properly - when tapping his/her back you can hear where trapped wind is (it sounds hollow) and burping/moving /massage will get it out far better than any wierd concotions.


edit:

and as mentioned above

something like

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.207-3510.aspx


are amazing , stops you worrying when baby kicks the blanke off