What Do I Need to Get Ready for My Baby?

Hello Dear Readers!

I hope your 2013 is off to a great start. I made a dedication instead of resolutions. Here it is:

More veggies
More patience
More breathing
More fun
More peace
And all the snuggles I can get away with.

So far I'm doing pretty well except maybe for that second line... ah well. More breathing.

So my hair stylist is pregnant - yay! And like many expectant mamas, she is asking what she can do to prepare for birth, for motherhood, for breastfeeding. I get this question a lot. I remember thinking getting ready for Robert was essentially a shopping list. Which, forgive me, is very Southern California. Well, to be fair, it's very yuppie America. But if I could go back and whisper in newly pregnant Suzi's ear, I would say:

Less stuff. More help.

Seriously people told me, and I totally did not believe them, that you need no actual objects for a baby. The more reasonable ones admitted you need diapers and a car seat. But other than that, almost everything is optional, or can be improvised, or borrowed, or will be given to you as a gift. I think we have bought one garment for Jackie, and she's 16 months old. What I REALLY could have used was more carry-out dinners, more grocery delivery, more house cleaning, more hold the baby so I can catch a shower or a nap (that's a post-partum doula you want for that last one). More massage, more therapy, more reassurance. A good network of friends and family can provide a lot of it. But let's face it, people are busy, people are spread out, and family, loving though they may be, do not always add more help than stress. So here is my shopping list for what you will need after the baby comes:

• Diapers. I like cloth, but use spozies (disposables) at night and for travel. I am not going to judge you for filling up a landfill if the idea of washing diapers makes you want to cry, although it was easier than I feared, and there are cool trials like this one at Jillian's drawers. Some mamas get oddly obsessive about cloth diapering. I can't understand caring so deeply about that end, but clearly I am obsessed with the other end. Whatevs. Just keep in mind, it's just poop, it washes out, and really you are about to be more intimately familiar with another person's elimination than you ever dreamed. Message me to complain any time. I'm here for you. I will say, if you go spozies, please consider chlorine free. Chlorine is nasty stuff, and your baby's reproductive organs are right there. You may have noticed.
• Car Seat, visit with CPST to learn how to use it right. Seriously I don't care what a genius you are and how carefully you read the manuals to your car seat and your car. Work with one of these people. Some shocking number like 95% of car seats are being used incorrectly. Make your partner attend the session, and anyone else you are going to let drive your baby around. Modern car seats are amazing and can save lives and spines and stuff. I'm babbling. But seriously, do it. Do it now.
• Lactation consultant. Meet her, make sure she seems reasonable and sympathetic. You want a very well trained (IBCLC) cheer leader who is on your side. Notice I didn't say on your baby's side. You and your baby are on the same side, and sometimes that doesn't look quite like we imagined. It's important to feel encouraged and supported and maybe even pushed but not judged.
• Birth Doula. I forgot this in the original draft of this post. How could I forget the birth doula? Good gravy. I have it in mind to craft a birth-specific post with much more detail, but let me say, having a doula in attendance at Robert's birth was a HUGE HELP. I have never heard a mama say she regretted a penny spent on a birth doula. (In retrospect, with three midwives, I probably didn't need one for Jackie's birth, but I loved having her there.) Birth is very intense, and probably totally unfamiliar to you. Having someone who knows a lot about it and is totally on your side no matter what is a lifesaver. Birth doulas are associated with faster, easier labors, fewer surgical births, fewer complications, and less wigged out partners. My second doula has a pretty funny story about a fifth baby being born in the car and the husband being totally freaked out.
• Post-partum doula(s) - note some of these superheros will WORK NIGHTS. Imagine a trained professional who loves babies spending the night at your home, diapering your baby, helping you latch and breastfeed, and baking in your kitchen for you. It is SHEER GENIUS.
• Babymeal/help schedule. Have your BFF do this for you. S/he will email the list you give them, and use a service like google calendars or babymeal or something (I can't remember, google it) to make sure that folks sign up to bring you dinner, maybe do the dishes, play with your older kiddos or take the dog for a walk.
• House cleaning service. Maybe just for three months, maybe forever, or increase the frequency of a service you are already using. I would do at least every two weeks.
• A will and life insurance. This was my nesting instinct. If the big God Forbid hits, our kids are SET. Although I will say that getting life insurance while pregnant is a little tricky, it's doable. "But I'm not gonna die." Yeah, you are. Hopefully not soon. But anyone can wander in front of a stampeding rhinoceros, and you don't want your little blessing paying the price for your delusions of immortality.
• Babycarrier. I love these things. I have something absurd like four, and if you count all the ones that I have tried (borrowed, resold, etc) it gets up towards a dozen. That's silly. But check them out, they are awesome. So snuggly. Help the kid nap while you can get up and make yourself a cup of tea (presuming your partner is in the shower, otherwise s/he should be making your tea. Or the pp Doula. Whatever.)
• Stack of books, a kindle, and/or a subscription to Netflix or Amazon Prime. You're going to be awake at weird times. It's best to try to rest but if you can't or baby won't let you, occupy your mind so you aren't just thinking about the fact that it is a bummer that you are awake at 2 a.m. Also NPR was most of my adult company sometimes. I listened to a Canadian news show in the shower at 11pm a lot for some reason.
• A bit of 'tude: Get ready to tell people to bugger off. Or more politely, thank you for your opinion. Or my catch line, "I am the mama. My word is law." But your instincts are amazingly informative, and lots of well meaning people may question them. Just because it's your mother-in-law or pediatrician or pastor does NOT mean they are right. Particularly about breastfeeding.
• Reality check. You are not going to learn a new language and redecorate your house on your maternity leave. Stop it. Your job is to rest, heal, get to know your little miracle, and learn to breastfeed. That's IT. EVERYTHING else is someone else's job. Cooking, cleaning, managing visitors. Everything. Partner can't cook? Partner's job is to coordinate deliveries, get every takeout menu for a mile radius, find people who want to help you cook. Partner's other job is to help you breastfeed. Diaper baby so you can stay in bed. Bring you a glass of water and a snack. (Although I am a huge fan of putting a big water bottle and a banana next to the bedside so I'm ready to go, but who knows, maybe you'll have a hankering for a granola bar at 3am while junior is slurping away.) This is a once in a lifetime (your baby's lifetime!) opportunity to rest, bond, heal, and fall in love. Don't mess it up for yourself by feeling guilty that baby's clothes aren't neatly folded and organized or that your hair is not beautifully coiffed. And don't stress about how long it takes to lose the pregnancy weight. Might be a year, might be eight weeks. Just keep nursing and add back some gentle exercise as soon as you can. Eat well and healthfully and remember biology is smart and that weight is there for a reason (so you can turn it into breastmilk!)
• Extra credit: Cord Blood Banking. I very very very much believe in banking your baby's umbilical cord blood and tissue. Especially since one of my favorite people's first born came down with baby cancer (seriously what force is more evil in the world than cancer that is specific to babies?) that could have been treated with stem cells. (The baby is fine, by the way, he's pushing five years old and he's turning out like you'd expect coming from his brilliant, feisty parents. Meaning, awesome.) This is not a cheap option. To me, it was worth it. I figured if we needed them we would gladly bankrupt ourselves to get them, so let's save them now when it's merely spendy. But easy for me to say, we're relatively well off and terrible at budgeting. That said, please consider it. If you decide you really don't want to spend the money or can't, you can still donate the cord blood and cord tissue to research or for people looking for donors to treat an illness. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to painlessly and non-controversially harvest the most amazing cells that can seemingly do anything. Please consider it. We did it with both kiddos (and yes, supercrunchy parents, Jackie's midwife let the cord stop pulsing first and we still got a great collection.)

Hey, Suzi, you forgot these things:

• Crib: No I didn't. Totally optional. I wish I'd never wasted the effort. Robert wouldn't sleep in his, for eight months he would only sleep in his car seat. I was freaked out and asked the pediatrician about it. He said, "Huh." I said, "Is that a problem?" "Well, you're going to have a problem when he outgrows the car seat." So yeah. Crib was like a staging area for laundry. I will say, though, that a pack-n-play can make a handy safe place to stash the kiddo so you can pee with both hands free. And then with Jackie, we bedshared. WOW. HUGE difference in tired level. As in, I was WAY less exhausted. I so, so, so wish we had not had bad information about bedsharing when Robert was born. It's miraculous. Here's some information about it. There's lots of IF YOU BED SHARE YOU WILL SQUISH YOUR BABY BULLSHIT out there. That's true, if you are drunk off your ass or on a squishy couch. Educate yourself and make up your mind with that information. And BTW, that whole, if we bed share I'll destroy my intimate relationship with my partner nonsense? Is nonsense. First off, you don't get to have sex for a while. Second, you probably won't want to for a while after that. And third, if you and your baby are well rested, you're more likely to have energy to get amorous. 
• Jungle-theme layette with matching crib sheets, mobile, rug, diaper bag, and coasters. Just unnecessary. If having cute stuff like this makes you happy and you have the cash or your friends and family want to buy it for you, go nuts. But I say save the money to hire help. This stuff gets outgrown in ten minutes, and pooped on, and etc. Hand-me-downs, Craig's list, gifts, etc. work great, you can still have cute, fun stuff, and your dollars can go where they will make a more lasting difference in your warm memories of dreamy new baby love. You do need a diaper bag. But an old backpack will do fine, if you don't want to get a new one.
• Sleep trainer. Sleep training is nonsense. I realize that is a controversial statement. But seriously sleep is very kiddo specific, it is a moving target, and your baby's appetite and sleep patterns will move faster than a Brownian particle for possibly up to TWO YEARS. or more. The idea that a four month old should be able to sleep through the night alone in a crib has no basis in biology or medicine. If you're too tired to deal you need help with the work in your life, not a sleep trainer. You will both get more rest if you breastfeed on early hunger cues, sleep when the baby sleeps regardless of daylight, and ask for more help. People set mamas up for huge dissatisfaction with their baseless assertions that their babies shouldn't make a peep for eight hours straight at four months of life. More likely they will go through a growth spurt and want to eat all night. Denying them food at that time can impede their growth and will make you absolutely miserable, NOT more well rested. Also newborns are nocturnal. Just go with it. I promise it's easier this way.
• Stroller. I love my strollers. But if you turn into a big babywearer you don't really need one. My favorite ones are the ones that you can snap the car seat into and out of. That way if baby falls asleep in the car you don't have to wake baby to go into the grocery store. DO NOT BALANCE THE CAR SEAT ON THE GROCERY CART. We LOSE babies this way. If you don't have the stroller and baby is sleeping, put the car seat in the cargo area of the cart, so it can't tip. You can pack an impressive amount of groceries around the car seat (we know from first hand experience) and you get cute comments like "what aisle are those on?"
• Nursing bras/clothes. I love these and have a gazillion of them. But you can fake it with camisoles and layering.

Now here's the Learn list:

• Childbirth class: I love love loved hypnobirthing. Hypnosis is basically really deep meditation, so let go of those weird ideas of being brainwashed into clucking like a chicken. But there are a lot of great classes out there. Know where there are NOT a lot of great classes? At hospitals. They're all this goofy hybrid of stuff that might work with what the hospital's insurance folks will let them say. I'm open to hearing a counter example but I suggest finding an independent practitioner (midwife, doula, etc.) teaching a class.
• Prenatal Breastfeeding Class: So, this is very important, but it will NOT really help you latch, I think. It's just hard to learn to latch without a baby. So don't get frustrated when baby shows up if you still need coaching on latching. What it WILL do is prepare you for how breastfeeding works and all the "booby traps" out there that undermine women in their efforts to breastfeed. The most shocking one is highly trained medical professionals. They are NOT trained in breastfeeding. Which is appalling. But you and your partners can prepare yourselves to face the booby traps with information and confidence and stand up to the well meaning, ill informed doctors and nurses who may try to tell you that you have to supplement because your breasts aren't like a faucet ten minutes after the placenta comes out.
• CPR with Child and Infant CPR: Hopefully you will never need to use your CPR skills. But I can almost guarantee you that you will need the choking rescue skills. I think I've done choking rescue on Jackie 8 times. Having the proper training helps you to stay calm and do the right thing faster, which makes it easier on everyone.

And lastly, books. There are too many. I'm not going to go into them all. I will say that it's important to remember that any idiot who can type 300 pages can get a book published (okay, okay, professional writers, I know it's not always that easy). There is no requirement that the information be correct, helpful, or even interesting to get it published. So if something strikes you as nonsense, for pete's sake don't waste more time on it. A couple of favorite breastfeeding books are "The Nursing Mother's Companion" and "Mother Food." Worth a peek. Also not books but very helpful are Best for Babes and Kellymom's websites. Oh and Dr. Jack Newman. The only man I trust on breastfeeding. I feel strongly that it's hard to be worth listening to if you haven't done it yourself. But this guy is an exception.

But there is one I feel very strongly about. Remember Robert's was an over-medicalized birth that turned surgical, and Jackie was a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) in a birth center with midwives. So I know of what I speak. Read this book: Ina Mae's Guide to Childbirth. Make your partner read it. I told Matt if he didn't read the entire chapter on "Sphincter Law" he couldn't come to the birth. (He read it promptly.) Seriously this was such a forehead slapping aha moment for me, it was life changing.

And of course you need a copy of Goodnight Moon. Go board book version, it'll last longer. Trust me.

This is the biggest adventure of your life. I can't think of anything more rewarding, miraculous, humbling, amazing, and worth while. Try to relax and enjoy.

Much love,

Suzi