Where do babies sleep?
Things I don’t know about newborns could fill a book, and indeed, it has filled many. I even read through a quite a few of them before the birth, but there’s a lot of information that just didn’t strike me as important during pregnancy. However, once the baby arrives, there’s a lot of questions about what’s normal and why the baby does things.
- One of my favorite things in the first few days was the Moro reflex. You know that feeling you get when you’re falling asleep and you feel like you’re really falling and startle yourself awake? Babies get that all the time, and it causes them to throw their arms and legs out with an “oh crap!” look on their face.
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Body hair – Neither Kim nor I are very hairy people, but Geneveve was born with fine hair on her shoulders called lanugo. Weird
- Breastfeeding can be really, really hard – and I’m not even the one doing it. I swear all you read about before birth is how great breastfeeding is. How did I gloss over all the difficulties that can arise?
- Cloth diapering is easy. I thought changing diapers would be difficult. Somehow it’s just not. It sounds way harder than it is. We had disposables in the birth center the first few days, and they’re only marginally easier than cloth. I can’t believe people would spend so much money on something that produces so much disgusting trash when cloth is so easy
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Sleep really is hard. I heard it probably more than anything else: sleep while you can. Hearing about it doesn’t prepare you for it. I did all nighters in college, but that really doesn’t compare to a baby keeping you up for most of the first few weeks.
- Babies don’t smile for a long time. The first few weeks anyway. They really should, because once they do, it makes up for a LOT
- Sleep sounds. I wasn’t sure the baby slept the first few days because she made little squeaks the whole time she slept.
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Some bars don’t allow babies. One of our first outings we wanted happy hour nachos from the Night Light. We thought nobody would care about a baby, especially if we sat outdoors. Worked for the dog. What I’ve gathered is that some bars allow babies at certain times or certain areas. So far we’ve had success with the Lucky Lab before 9pm and Hopworks in the restaurant area.
- Bouncing – babies frickin love it. I never heard of my vestibular system before looking into why they love bouncing
These are just a few of the wonders you discover about babies only by experiencing them. Some things are fun to discover, some not so much. There’s more new discoveries happening per day in my life with this baby then has happened in quite some time. It certainly helps me understand the lives of parents better than I ever did before. Thanks parents. It’s hard work.