My wife and have taken (or are signed up to take) a battery of pre-baby classes: Breast Feeding, Baby Prep, Lamaze. And with each class we get a litany of new “do’s and dont’s.” Which, at the time when you’re sitting in class makes sense, but when you get home, you realize you forget — “Oh my god, how many times a day are we supposed to swab the umbilical cord? Did she say to use alcohol or soap and water? What did she say about giving sponge baths? Was it 2-3 a week? For how long again? How much tummy time are we supposed to squeeze in each day?”
It’s crazy. With all these things we are supposed to remember to do, it’s remarkable any baby has ever lived past the 15 day mark when their belly-button chip clip thing falls off. I mean, look. Here’s the thing: we are the end-product of tens of thousands of years of breeding. We are the survivors in a long line of homo sapiens. The majority probably didn’t make it. But we, we are the select few who were strongest. I don’t know how cavemen cut off their umbilical cords, but I guarantee they didn’t have Q-Tip swabs prepped with betadine.
So I woke up this morning with a dizzying array of tasks in my head: if we have a boy, must sponge bath baby in this manner; if girl, then do it in this manner; sponge bath so many times per week; clean the belly button X # of times per day; breast feed this often; get this much belly time; sit the baby up this way; when bathing, hold your hand here; when breast feeding, tilt the baby like so; here’s how you wrap a baby in swaddling; don’t use this kind of powder; try vegetable oil for dry skin; don’t put soap on the baby’s face; clean the bottle like this not like that; fold your diapers this way… ARGH!
On one hand, I’m glad to be taking courses and starting to think about all of this. On the other hand– screw it! I’m starting to feel crushed in the weight of things I’m supposed to remember to do. Just have the baby and let the chips fall where they may. The name of the course we took last night was “Baby Prep class.” Honestly, it made me feel less prepared than I was before I took the class. Oh sweet lord baby jesus — there is so much to be done. So much to buy. So much to prepare still. Heck, I was starting to feel queezy after the first 15 minutes of the “prepping your home for baby” segment of class. (Note to self: Must go to Home Depot and after a short breakdown, must pull self together and start babyfying any corner of my home that is more than a 65° angle, and wrap everything in foam and latch every handle.)
Okay, I’m glad I got that out. There. I feel better. Now, just tell me how often to apply vaseline to my baby’s bottom and I’ll do it. (FYI- every second or third diaper changing.)
