The New Father. Armin A. Brott
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Get some time alone with the baby. You can do this while your partner is sleeping or, if you have to, while you send her out for a walk.
• Control the visiting hours and the number of people who can come at any given time. Dealing with visitors takes a lot more energy than you might think. And being poked, prodded, and passed around won’t make the baby very happy. Also, for the first month or so, ask anyone who wants to touch the baby to wash his or her hands first (warm water and regular soap are fine—stay away from antibacterial soaps). Babies’ immune systems aren’t ready to handle the day-to-day germs we deal with.
• Keep your sense of humor.
Pets
Don’t expect your pet to be as excited as you are about the birth of your baby. Many dogs and cats do not appreciate their new (lower) status in your house. To minimize the trauma for your pet (and to minimize the chance your pet will do something to harm the baby), try to get your pet used to the baby as early as possible.
You can do this even before the baby comes home by putting a blanket in the baby’s bassinet in the hospital, then rushing it home to your pet. It’ll give Rover or Fluffy a few days (or hours, at least) to get used to the little interloper’s smell.
“Homewrecker!”
YOU AND YOUR BABY
Within a few minutes after we’d brought our first daughter home from the hospital, my wife and I looked at each other and almost simultaneously asked, “Well, now what are we supposed to do?”
The things I mentioned back on pages 28–29—holding, talking, changing, bathing—are even more important now that you’re home than they were at the hospital. In addition, there are a few things you need to know about at this stage:
• Dressing your newborn. This isn’t going to be easy: her head seems too big to go through the appropriate openings in her shirts, and her arms are so bunched up that they may refuse to come out of the sleeves. Doing the following should make getting dressed a little easier for everyone involved:
• Roll up the sleeves, then reach through and gently pull your baby’s hands through—it’s a lot easier than trying to shove from the other side.
• Buy pants or overalls whose legs snap open. Some manufacturers make baby clothes that are absolutely beautiful but impossible to put on or take off. The snap-open legs also make diaper changing much easier—you don’t have to remove the whole outfit to access the diaper.
• Forget the clothes and keep her in nightgowns, but make sure you get the kind with elastic at the bottom and not string, which can be a choking hazard. You’ll have to go back to real clothes with separate legs if you’re putting the baby into a car seat or stroller.
• If she can’t walk, she doesn’t need shoes. It’s not only a waste of money, but confining your baby’s feet in a hard pair of shoes all day long can actually damage her bones.
• Mani and pedi. Your baby’s flailing arms and amazingly sharp fingernails are a bad combination, particularly around her eyes and face. Some clothes come with extra-long sleeves that can be folded over to keep the baby from scratching her face. But you should still learn how to do manicures.
• First, collect all your supplies: blunt-tipped scissors and a nail file (regular nail clippers are too big).
• Make sure your baby is fast asleep—trimming grain-of-rice-sized nails when she’s awake is going to be nearly impossible.
• Then, take one finger and gently pry it away from the fist. Push back on the pad of the finger so the nail sticks out a little bit more.
• Trim the nail by cutting straight across.
• File the entire edge of the nail, especially the corners.
• Repeat with all ten fingers.
When you get more comfortable with this process, you’ll probably come up with a routine of your own. I’ve found, for example, that cuticle scissors work a lot better than ordinary baby-nail-trimming scissors. And I like to trim all the nails on one hand and then go back and do the filing. A few of the new dads I’ve interviewed have admitted that they’d occasionally bitten their baby’s nails. Hey, if it works and it’s not dangerous, knock yourself out.
Because your baby’s fingernails grow so quickly, you’ll be doing this every two or three days. Toenails are a different story—you won’t need to trim them more than once or twice a month.
Have Some Fun
During the first few weeks, forget about football and chess. But try to spend at least twenty minutes a day (in five-minute installments) doing something with the baby one-on-one. Chatting, reading aloud, rocking, making faces, experimenting with her reflexes (see pages 60–61), or even simply catching her gaze and looking into her eyes are great activities. Here are a couple of ground rules:
• Take your cues from the baby. If she cries, looks away from you, or seems bored, stop what you’re doing. Too much playing can overstimulate your child and make her fussy or irritable, so limit play sessions to five minutes or so.
• Schedule your fun. The best time for physical play is when the baby is in the active alert state; playing with toys or books is fine during the quiet alert state (see page 26). Also, choose a time when you can devote your full attention to the baby—no phone calls, social media, or other distractions.
• Be encouraging. Use lots of smiles and laughter as well as verbal encouragement. Although the baby can’t understand the words, she definitely understands the feelings. Even at only a few days old, she’ll want to please you, and lots of reinforcement will help build her self-confidence.
• Be gentle. Sudden movements, bright lights, and loud noises (especially sneezes, slamming doors, car alarms, and obnoxious cell phone rings) can scare her.
• Watch her head. Because babies’ heads are relatively enormous (one-quarter of their body size at birth versus one-seventh by the time they’re adults), and their neck muscles aren’t yet well developed, their heads tend to be pretty floppy for the first few months. Be sure to support the head from behind at all times, and avoid sudden or jerky motions. Never shake your child. This can make her little brain rattle around inside her skull, causing bruises or permanent injuries. And never throw the baby up in the air. Yes, your father may have done it to you, but he shouldn’t have. It looks like fun but can be extremely dangerous.
Different Isn’t Bad, It’s Just Different
From the moment their children are born, men and women have very different ways of handling them. Men tend to stress the physical and high-energy, women the social and emotional. Your baby will catch on to these differences within weeks, and she’ll start reacting to you and your partner very differently. When she’s hungry, she’ll be more easily soothed by your partner (if she’s breastfeeding), but she’ll be happier to see you if she wants some physical stimulation. Don’t let anyone tell you that the “guy things” you do are somehow not as important as the “girl things” your partner may do (or want you to do). Ultimately your baby needs both kinds of interactions, and it’s a waste of time to try to compare or rate them. Just be gentle.
Feeding Your Baby: Breast versus Bottle
It may seem hard to believe, but as recently as a few decades ago, breastfeeding was out of style and most new moms were given a wide variety of reasons (by their doctors, of course) not to. But today you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the medical community who doesn’t agree that breastfeeding is just about the best thing you can do for your child. Here’s why:
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