Before, During and After Delivery

disclaimer: These are a compilation of letters I've written to friends, or advice from my mother or friends. They are not written by doctors. Be sure to check with your pediatrician for any medical advice. Remember, that all babies are different. What works for one may not work for your baby.

Unsolicited Advice about Labor/Delivery & After
(Things I Wish People Had Told Me)

• BEFORE YOUR NINTH MONTH, go to Target or wherever & stock up on your shampoo, general toiletries, toilet paper, paper towels, &, very important, laundry detergent.  Get at least one box of the extra-absorbent pads for when you get home after the delivery.  You will use it.  For me, the thin pads didn’t work, I had to use the old-fashioned Kotex.
• Babies clothes need to be washed in the baby-type laundry detergent for the first few months.  Their skin is very sensitive & can’t handle the normal laundry stuff. I bought the huge container of Dreft, and I will probably last me through 6 months.  By then baby’s may or may not need it.  My baby will because of his excema, but yours may not.
• OxiClean is your best friend.  Get some. It takes all the stains out of clothes & more.
• BJ’s Warehouse has the best price on diapers, & they honor coupons.  But they don’t carry newborn size.
• Don’t pay attention to what the books tell you to bring to the hospital for you.  Here’s what you realistically need, clothing-wise: outfit to wear to hospital, outfit to wear home from hospital (bring pregnancy-sized clothing, you’ll go down a little, but not enough to wear pre-pregnancy clothes); a robe to wear over your hospital gown, a pair of socks or 2 to wear during labor; slippers; your toiletries; a rice sock (feels great during labor); a sleeper for the baby.  The little sleeper that they give you at hospital is normally too big and is just a little onesie.
• The hospital will give you disposable undies (they are almost like mesh undies) plus the mambo-size pads for all the gunk after the delivery.  Use them.  You don’t want to mess up your own stuff.
• You will leak stuff for several weeks after the baby is born.
• Amniotic fluid can stain.  Sit on an old towel on your sofa, in your car, & put one under your fitted sheet on your side of the bed. 
• If you go for a late ultrasound & the dr. tells you that you have a lot of amniotic fluid, then you’ll be like me & gush when your water breaks.  Or, it might just be a leak.
• If you think your water is breaking & it smells like ammonia, it’s probably urine.
• Bring snacks to the hospital.  The food at mine was terrible, the nurses warned us not to eat there.  Poor hubbie ran out to get takeout for me at every meal except breakfast.
•  Remember to buy not only a going home outfit for her, but also a picture outfit.  The hospital photographer will come in before you leave to take her picture.  I only brought a going home outfit, so he had to take his newborn picture in sleeper. 
• Check with the hospital ahead of time & find out what’s in the little gift bag they give you when you have the baby.  One hospital here gives out thermometers, but mine didn’t.  Wish it did. At our local hospital, they will give you a bag as a gift from the Similac people, and it has a cooler for bottles, a coupon, and other goodies
• Put the baby in the nursery at night while you’re in the hospital.  They’ll still bring it to you every 3 hours to nurse, & you can get some sleep. I tried, but my baby was too fussy at the time, but if you can, it will be a life saver.  You will be so tired during the day from taking care of the baby and visitors that you will need your rest whenever you can get it
• Steal the blue bulb aspirator if you have to.  The ones you buy are terrible. At our hospital, they will give you everything that you used for the baby in the room, and they bulb they use at the hospital is the best.
• If you deliver vaginally, after the delivery you will probably have hemorrhoids (they don’t bother you after the swelling goes down) & lose bladder control (it takes a while to get that back). They will give you some stuff to use for hemorrhoids if you get them, so you don’t have to buy your own

FEEDING & SLEEPING & BABY STUFF

• Babies are very noisy sleepers after the first 2 weeks. You definitely will want to invest in the Little Noses saline drops.  Babies have a lot of excess mucous in their noses from the delivery, so if definitely helped him.  I didn’t think to buy it.  My friend bought me some as a gift, and when I got home with the baby and he was so stuffy and after using the drops, he was much better.
• If you breastfeed, get some Lansinoh cream (makes your nipples feel better) & the thin breast pads.  You will leak breastmilk when you least expect it. My breast leaked like crazy starting the first week.  Also, if you nipples do get sore, using plain old breastmilk and airing them out helped so much.
• Gerber makes these hot & cold packs for the breasts (you can get them at Target).  Get them.  They are incredible when you become engorged; or use a bag of frozen peas.  The engorgement lasts about 2 days.
• Your breasts will swell to the size of watermelons when you are engorged.  You’ll probably want to sleep in a nursing bra at that point, the support helps a lot.
• Get at least 2 good nursing bras – don’t skimp on the price.  I recommend the Medela or Bravado bras.
• If you breastfeed, read “The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding” and/or “The Breastfeeding Book” by Martha Sears.
• Take advantage of your lactation consultant in the hospital.  It’s even better if your pediatrician’s office has a lactation consultant on staff.
• The baby might need a nightlight in the room.  It made a big difference with my baby for her to sleep. It is also useful for nighttime feedings.
• Get a pack of Pamper’s Newborn diapers; they have a notch cut out for the umbilical cord stump.  With the Huggies, you have to fold down the diaper so it doesn’t rub against the stump.  Pampers also run larger than the Huggies, which is good if your baby has chubby thighs. Newborn Swaddlers also have the cut out for the umbilical cord stump.
• You will get a ton of coupons & samples in the mail.  Save them.  You never know when you might need them, or have someone in your life that could use them. Believe it or not, if you don’t use the formula coupons or samples you can sell them on eBay!
• The baby will sleep non-stop for the first 2 weeks.  This is normal.  Then they wake up & parenting begins.
• Read Dr. Sear’s Baby Book.  He has a gently way of explaining everything.
• Listen to your instincts about your child.  I did, & we found out why our baby was crying all the time.
• Babies have definite preference.  If you are going to give them a bottle, you might have to go through several different kinds before you find one they like & that fits them.  We went through 3 different kinds before we found one that worked well. Definitely don’t buy a lot of bottles of the same kind until you find out which they like.  You should consider registering for the starter kit for Advent, Playtex, and any others just so you don’t waste money on ones that they don’t like
• Same for pacifiers. If you decide to use them, try several different kinds.  We found one that our baby will take consistently, but then the next month he didn’t want it.  I’m thinking of using all the “unacceptable” ones as decorations for Christmas.
• The angled bottles really do help for gas.
• Get on the boards at babycenter.com & drspock.com.  They are full of useful info & you won’t feel alone. There are also several yahoo groups. Ones that I found helpful were: first-time-pregnancy, first-time-parents, and first-time-nursing (all yahoo groups)
• Take lots of photos.
• Sleep when the baby sleeps. Easier said than done, but definitely try
• Don’t feel bad about limiting your guests & asking them to leave.  Explain that you & the baby have to get some rest, but you appreciate them coming by.  Most people understand; only idiots get insulted at that.
• It’s normal to feel jealous about other people holding your baby, esp. in the first few weeks.  This gets better as you get better. It was hard for me to even see someone else change him.  But, you will get used to it once she doesn’t seem so fragile
• Expect to have the baby blues after you get home.  If you start crying all the time for more than a few days, you might have post-partum depression.  Call your dr. immediately & ask for chemical intervention (meds).  There is nothing wrong with that, & you & the baby will be much better for it.
• Your husband and/or family members needs to wait on you hand & foot the first 2 weeks.
• If people offer to help, let them.  They can cook or bring food, do the grocery shopping, run errands.
• Get a cleaning service to come in every 2 weeks if you can afford it.  You don’t need to be cleaning when you should be taking care of the baby & you.
• Keep all your medical receipts for you & the baby, including prescriptions.  You might be able to take the med expense off your taxes.
• They don’t start enjoying mobiles, gyminis or anything until they hit 6 or 7 weeks, so you don’t need to run out & buy them yet.

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