Daddy’s Girl

Everyone's child is wonderful but I must say, Fin is an absolutely beautiful little baby. That outfit totally reminds me of Toby from the movie Labyrinth. :P

Well, that gave me a smile on a morning when I needed it, but, as I was reading that blog, one question kept reverberating through my mind. How on earth did you take that photograph? Both hands are on the baby and I don't get how you could've balanced it for a timer shot.

PJW

Hey - you and Fin even have the same hair style! :)

I'm expecting my first baby in a week or so... do you have any reflections/tips on early parenting (first 3 months) that might come in handy?

innit great?
I stayed at home with our first baby the better part of his year, I absolutely loved it. - Now I´m back to work, Marek´s at preschool during most of the day and my wife is with Elena (9 months) during the day. - Fortunately I also can work from home, so they´re always near :))

Jane, I just did a write-up of of tips for a german whose wife will give birth in a couple of weeks time, gimme some time to translate it, if you don´t mind...

regards
Matt

I love that picture... I had the mental image of you holding a camera between your teeth, and clicking the picture off with your tongue. Needless to say, I have a lot of faith in your abilities...

So, what kind of comic books are today's babies reading? Nothing involving ducks, I hope...

Baby tips:

- baby blues: accept it. The "high" of giving birth is larger than life (apparently stronger for women than for men ;), so you have to come down eventually.
Don´t worry, a couple of laters you laugh about those uncontrollable sobs :)) - It helps if hubby stays at home the first week

- If you breastfeed her/him, it can happen that for a week (!) no poop comes, because it gets absorbed 100% by the babies digestive system (mother´s milk is perfect) - nothing to worry about.

- In case of stomach cramps, or lots of farting or other digestive problems: There´s tea, and then there´s tea: contents should be anise, fennel, caraway and camomile (ideally all four, but any combinations is OK). Now, you should always go for tea bags, to be found in health food shops or pharmacies, never for the powder or granulate (those usually contain 95 – 99% sugar – no good)

- A stomach massage can also be helpful, select you preferred massage oil approved for baby´s delicate skin (if baby is lying in front of you make circular movements clockwise, you can apply some pressure)

- the first couple of months finding out why baby is crying is usually try & error: diaper full, hungry, sleepy, sore butt, usually one of these four

- Regarding the bottle, three caveats:
If you use plastic bottles, they can feel perfectly warm to, although the milk is hot – be careful not to burn your baby

Lumps of not fully dissolved milk can hinder milk-flow – always shake vigorously

Be careful to use the correct sucker (is that the correct word?!) if the opening is too large and you feed milk, baby might choke, the other way round nothing gets through when feeding when feeding mash or mush (or whatever is the correct term :)

- When preparing the bottle, these milk powder boxes usually say: “use boiling water” to which I agree, in order to kill all germs. But that makes the process quite labour and time intensive, so we found a short-track: Fill the bottle about one third with mineral water (w/o gas; mineralwater should be quite germ free) add powder, add about one fourth boiling water, shake vigorously, then add mineral and or boiling waterin such amount to obtain the perfect drinkable temperature.

- Over here, in Germany, where we grew up and our first one was born, you usually do not apply oil or powder or cream or whatever, the current ideal is to just let it be unless something sore / rash etc develops…

- When baby´s butt gets sore: In severe cases, when your normal cream doesn´t help, nystatin-cream (fighting yeast infections) did do wonders with our babies. Speak with your doctor before applying this. More info here:
http://breastfeed.com/resources/articles/thrushinfect.htm (warning, this is a medical site and in some images of a female nipple are shown – I couldn´t care less but I don´t want to offend any political correct, brain-dead idiot)

- When bathing your baby: The current ideal in germany is to bath it once a week, and then only in clear water (which is OK in winter, as they sweat little, and any soap attacks baby´s sensitive skin.). – In summer more often (now, living in Spain, with every summer day close to 100 F, every day bathing is due.

- when bathing II: be especially careful cleaning and drying all the folds at your baby´s neck. I was really surprised to see so much excess skin there :)

- something I would never had thought about: Marek had a preferred side to lie on (on his right), and neither my wife nor I gave it much importance: After three months, during a usual checkup, the pediatrician told us that his head was deformed, the still soft bones had adjusted to the onesided “stress” and the right side of his head was flat, while the left was well rounded – looked really weird. Fortunately through special baby gymnastics on one hand and “high-tech” positioning him at night (i.e. a rolled towel in his back in order to keep him lying on his left side) on the other, this deformation vanished within a couple of months. No problem whatsoever.

- perambulator – you probably bought one already, if not, I have the perfect recommendation (Australian make)
www.bertini.com.au
YMMV, but what do you have to consider:
- 3-wheeler topple over easier (once your two year old wants to climb in on its own
- steerable wheels make for easy navigating
- large wheels make better stability and easier pavement “climbing”
- large stable net or basket underneath.
- foldable
- as long as baby still lies on its back, a complete horizontal orientation

More practical for you would be a system, where you can click the car seat into a “wheeler”, but that´s really bad for baby´s back – as the bones are that soft, it won´t cry, but you´ll do damage to it´s skeleton nonetheless.

The only reason for me not buying this stroller was not being able to find a retailer in germany :(
I testdrove it though, cause a friend wasn´t as nitpicky and bought it in Netherlands, and was really happy (and still is). – I love it.


OK, that´s it, hope you found something useful, sorry for the lengthy posts, I already cut it down ;)

all the best,

Matt

Sounds like an excellent schedule, you're definitely the kind of person that deserves the rest and time with your daughter.

Yay! Fin pic. :D

You know you want to put up more of the cute little one. One where you and she are out on a daytrip would be splendid.

Teach Fin to be forgiving of people's imperfections because you are going to be a hard act to follow for her future beaus.

I have twin grandsons and I just love it when I make everyone go away and it is just me and the boys. Danny and Alex continue to amaze me at every turn. We'll play blocks or throw balls (in the house). So, I totally understand the feeling you have when it is just you and Fin. There isn't anything like the way I feel when it's just Danny, Alex and Nana (me). The three of us are like a special team, but then Mom, Dad and Grandma come back and the fun's over!

That's awesome, sounds like you're having some quality time with your daughter :) My question is, when is she going to write her first book?

The father-daughter resemblance is uncanny.


I know I'm the millionth person to say this.

It's kool-aid you can't un-drink, Max. Was there even a point to life before fatherhood?

Messes with your opinion of your OWN parents, too, doesn't it?

That's great. And I'm jealous. I work a lot more hours to earn the bread that takes me and my daughters to the park to launch rockets or to the pool to cool off.

Nice pose, Max. Training her for a future career as a superheroine? ;D

fin must be very powerful--it takes serious might to turn a satirist into sweetly gibbering goo :-)

Put a smile on my face : )

WINTER?!!!!!!!!!
Crazy Australians and their backwards weather. How are you supposed to celebrate Christmas when its 90° outside? What does your wife do for a job anyways?

if you're taking care of the baby, is your nanny your editor? :)

babies are funny. that's all i have to say.

It does sound like quite an honour. I hope to be a father someday too. Someday soon, actually. I imagine teaching him or her all about the things I've learned so far, but I'm also hoping that he or she will teach me a few things, too. Such as how to see with the eyes of a child again. Good luck with fatherhood. Thanks for the great writing and a great blog.

Thanks to Matt for those tips. My baby arrived on Tuesday August 8th - a boy, Hugo, weighing in at 3.54 kg. One thing with being in late pregnancy and then having the kid... you don't get much time to use a computer! So far, the 3 hour feed regime is exhausting, but extremely rewarding. Just when our tiredness and frustration reaches it's peak, he does something cute or funny (like a yawn or a really loud fart) and then we are suddenly laughing our heads off.