Baby Tips
Things I figured out about raising an infant. Your mileage may vary.
Advice I Didn’t Get From Books
1. Get a Waterproof mat.
A waterproof floor mat was the single most useful thing we received from the baby shower. (Ours is made of foam and plastic; this is the most similar item I can find from a cursory search on Amazon.)
Until the baby starts actively crawling, it’s a nice safe place to plop him down. I spent a few wonderful months with the baby on a mat next to my desk as I worked from home. After the baby becomes mobile, the mat ceases to function as a dedicated baby containment zone, but still works great as a diaper changing surface.
2. Just put a mattress on the ground.
When the baby is newborn, there’s a sort of optimal crib configuration designed to minimize infant mortality. That’s great for a while. But soon that crib will start to be cramped, the kid will be larger and thus more difficult to set down while leaning over rails, and he might even start trying to climb the rails. Also, they might prefer sleeping in bed with you (and it will become safer for them to do so as they age).
You could fuss around with all sorts of bed-railing-solutions like we did. Or you can just put a mattress on the ground. You can sleep there if they’re fussy. If they roll off, no big deal; it’s just a few inches.
Again, for newborns follow the standard anti-SIDS protocol. But when the baby is less fragile a few months later - bed on the ground.
3. Lazy baby fashion.
I’ve heard the claim that it used to be common for infants of either sex to wear dresses. This seems incredibly practical for the purposes of diaper access, but is unfashionable nowadays for infant boys. An oversized infant onesie with the snaps at the bottom left unsnapped is functionally the same while still falling within modern gendered fashion norms.
4. Try to avoid toy overload.
It’s incredibly tempting to buy every toy you see at the store. But at a certain point, additional toys just create more headache for you without creating additional fun for the baby.