Baby Tips

¶ The Most Important bit of Advice

It’s okay to let the baby cry.

This post was prompted by a friend asking for advice you don’t typically find in books and the like. This is actually something that basically every resource will mention, but it’s worth emphasizing. It’s okay to let the baby cry. Crying is only a very noisy signal that something might be wrong, and (although your instincts will scream otherwise) it doesn’t always mean there is something you need to or are able to fix.

In the hospital, there was an instructional video they made us watch, called something like “Don’t shake the baby”. But the video’s actual message was “if you’ve checked that the baby is okay, and you’ve placed the baby in a safe location, then it’s fine to leave the room for ten minutes to take a breather”.

There’s a very small list of things that can be bothering a newborn. If they’re fed, if they’re safe, if their diaper is clean, etc., then it’s probably gas and there’s not much you can do besides mention it to the doctor. Sometimes a baby just cries and it’s important to accept that.

Later, when the infant becomes a toddler, crying will sometimes be a social behavior - a bid for attention. When my son cries now, I carefully check him for injury, and then if he’s fine, I ignore him. It may sound cruel, but I am very literally following textbook advice here. (It’s important to also give him lots of attention whenever he does something cute.¹ Basic operant conditioning stuff.)

¶ 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 reasonably for them to do so as they age²).

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. Let them sleep there alone if they’re not. 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. 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 kid.

Also, my kid really likes moving things around on shelves. If yours is like mine, a baby-accessible shelf is really handy. Either this kind of tray-based organizer or something like an Ikea Kallax with really deep big cubbies does well to give him space to play around with organizing his toys.

¶ 4b. Teach him to pick up one thing before he moves onto the next.

Much less overwhelming for both you and the baby.

¶ 5. It’s easier to teach him what to do instead of what not to do.

Concrete example:

Our dishwasher automatically opens when the cycle is done and can’t be closed for several minutes. It was an ordeal to stop the baby from sprinting over and trying to grab the cutlery.

Instead, I taught him to close the dishwasher himself. I turned it into a little game where I opened and closed an empty dishwasher to show him how to do it, heavily praised him when he closed it successfully. Now we set the dishwasher to run at night. First thing he does when he wakes up is run over to close it himself.

¶ 5b. When he’s getting in the way, involve him in the process.

Babies love to copy everything you do. If you’re trying to get something done with the baby nearby, he’s going to want to get involved. Give him a keyboard to type on when you’re typing, that kind of thing.

¶ 5c. Pilot him like a robot.

This sounds silly, but if I need to teach him something specific, I just grab his arms and gently guide him through the task. He automatically picks up things you bring his hand near.

(Well, first I tell him to do things, with words. This has a surprisingly high success rate given that he can’t talk. But the robot programming works well as a second option.)

¶ 5d. Do NOT teach him how to tear paper.

For the love of God, do not teach your baby how to tear paper. If possible, do not let them see anybody tear paper. Put presents in a bag. It’s really cute to have a baby open a Christmas present by tearing off the wrapping paper, but infants do not understand context.

Probably he’ll learn how to anyways.

For similar reasons, we never plug/unplug wall outlets while the baby is in the room. He figured out how to plug usb-c cables into phones (which can actually be very helpful) and I am terrified of the day he realizes that other types of plugs exist.

¶ 6. Long-sleeve bib.

Looks like a raincoat. Really simplifies cleanup after meals.

¶ 7. Corner tables at restaurants.

Instead of keeping him confined to a high-chair, we’ve had success just sort of blocking him into a corner with chairs. 🤷‍♀️