What Should I Be Doing With My Newborn, Seriously

Oh really? So what did they do for the thousands of years before that inane piece of advice was decreed.

 

This is bad advice. Babies have no business in restaurants, malls, or other places where their screaming/crying interrupts my enjoyment of an outing as an adult. It's selfish, rude, and does nothing for the kid. Don't ask the rest of the world to accomodate your decision to have a baby. It is your responsbility to accomodate the rest of the world.

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Saving for college is a good idea, besides what you are already doing. And outings will be fine as long as you realize the potential nuisance that a baby can create.

 

And, we're off.

 

Talk to her.

Red, white and black colors.

Tummy time every day.

Play music -- the stuff you like to hear.

 

I've started an account for college already. Hell, I was ready to start that in the first trimester.

As for tummy time, what the hell is it? I hear about it all the time. But exactly should she - or I - be doing?

She sleeps and rests tummy down on my stomach/chest.

 

You're a little bit aways from tummy time everyone's talking about.

That's probably 5-6 months (you'd be better off looking in the what to expect when you're expecting book) and all that is involves is putting the kid on its stomach for a short while a few times a day so it can learn to scoot itself across the floor and then crawl.

I know mine didn't like it at first, but once they start inching forward it's worth it ...

 

Next time my 4-year-old decides to be a pain in the ass in a restaurant, I really hope SigR is nearby.

 

Take your kid wherever you want (within reason.) Somehow, I do not know how, adults who object forget that they were once babies and that they are sharing the planet with babies.

You're doing fine. But just cherish holding her, talking to her, touching her, comforting her, letting her know you are there and feeling her sense you there. Everyone says "it goes so fast" and it does. My boys are now 6 and 8 and I do long for those newborn days. Parenting is hard but the rewards are indescribable.

 

Do everything you possibly can to spend as much time with her and also everything you can to remember these days, as everyone has said. My kids are 13 and 9 and I don't think I did enough of either.

Don't go for the baby talk goo-goo gah-gah crap. Use simple, real English w/correct grammar. The more they hear real English, the more likely they're gonna speak it when they finally have something to say.

Some may scoff at that but when my then-three-year-old son was asked by his pediatrician what he wanted to be when he grew up, he replied, "An entomologist. Actually, I'm an entomologist now."

 

Pete,

Sounds like you are doing great. Just keep spending time with her.

I loved rocking my kids to sleep and telling them stories at bedtime.

When they were really young, I would just talk and make up stories. When they got a little older it was simple picture books and before I knew it, it was 600 pages of Harry Potter.

 

Do not, repeat, do not stick her in the microwave at any time.