Deeply Unqualified Parenting Tips
/Hello everyone! Remember when I made a post about Business Tips for Business You, because if I can Business anyone can Business? You were there, I was there, our businesses were there. How is your business going?
Oh. I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps if you’d listened to my tips.
But today, we are not here to talk about business! Today we are talking about Parenting Tips for Parenting You, because if I can Parenting anyone can Parenting*.
Yes, ok, I only have one baby and I’ve only had her for a month, so I have no idea what I’m doing - but then again, this is not so different to my Business Tips.
Yesterday I lifted up HER butt to put on a new nappy and she did a poo in midair. PARENTING!
I only ever had one business** and the baby is going better than the business ever did; the midwife’s notes in the Baby Book*** say that she is “absolutely thriving” and my accountant - who is, of course, the midwife of business - would certainly never have said that.
*one day I will combine these two ideas into a deeply irritating LinkedIn post: ‘Born Agile: What Modern Workplaces can learn from the Intuitive Behaviours of Babies.’
**I just remembered that this isn’t actually true. I had two businesses, but one of them was a not-for-profit and, well, it didn’t.
***the Baby Book is a book where midwives and doctors and so on make notes on how your baby is going. There are also many pages of helpful advice, like “If you are giving your baby a pacifier, do not dip it in honey,” which is a solid tip but raises some questions:
Who are these people who are honeying up their pacifiers?
Why would you want your baby to be any stickier than it already is?
Why, out of all the breakfast spreads, is honey the one of choice? Why not marmite, or butter, or jam?
Given that marmite, butter, and jam are not listed, is it OK to dip your pacifier in those?
Do not dip your baby’s dummy in jam. There you go, that’s the first piece of advice.
YES, EVEN IF THE JAM IS ORGANIC
Anyway! On to the Parenting Tips!
1. Beware the Terrifying Bellybutton
This isn’t so much a tip as a heads up to mentally prepare yourself for the Bellybutton Times.
A NICHE PUBLICATION FOR THE SOPHISTICATED NAVEL APPRECIATOR.
Did you know that these days, they don’t tie a nice tidy knot in the umbilical cord when the baby is born? Instead, they leave the cord attached for a couple of minutes so it can deliver oxygen while the baby gets their tiny head around taking actual breaths, and then they bob it off about 4cm out and pop a clamp on it.
(The cord, not the baby’s tiny head. Something went grammatically wrong in that sentence.)
YES, EXACTLY LIKE THAT.
The cord stays on until it falls off by itself a week or two later, so for the first weeks of your baby’s life, you will be confronted with The Terrifying Cord every time you change a nappy, which is 8-12 times per day.
A lot of times to come face-to-face* with the Terrifying Cord.
*as it were
It’s terrifying for two reasons, and the first reason is that it is really gross. I won’t tell you about it but you can google it if you like. I would recommend that you do not.
RURAL READERS MAY LIKE TO RECALL DOCKING THE TAIL OF THEIR PET LAMB.
Added to your natural fear of touching The Gross Cord is a new fear that you will accidentally bump the cord (very likely) and it will fall off (relatively unlikely) and the baby’s insides will all come out (deeply unlikely and possibly physically impossible, but that won’t stop you worrying about it).
Once the cord falls off, you might think your worries are over! But no. If your baby is in the 20% of babies that have a herniated bellybutton - like the Milkmeister was - then every time they cry you can have the fun of worrying that they’ll cry too hard and accidentally turn themselves inside out.
The physicians among you may have realised that this is not how bellybuttons work, but again, that won’t stop you worrying about it.
YOU CAN ALSO WORRY THAT THEY’LL GROW UP AND GET ONE OF THESE.
2. Beware the Tiny Baby Nails
Did you know that newborn babies have a thing called the Moro reflex? This happens when the baby eats too many Moro bars and - no, it doesn’t, it’s a startle reflex they have from birth and this picture explains it better than I ever could.
“I NEVER GET THE CHANCE TO DRAW HANDS!” CRIED THE DELIGHTED ARTIST
Part of the Moro reflex is that after flinging their arms out like a Pentecostal preacher, the baby will bring their hands up to their face and accidentally scratch themselves with their tiny and surprisingly sharp baby nails.
The Baby Book will advise you to trim and file your baby’s nails, and not to cover them in jam. This is great advice but it’s hard to trim the Milkmeister’s nails when she is constantly making tiny fists and waving her arms about.
Many places sell adorable little baby mittens that you can place on your adorable little baby’s hands to protect her adorable little baby face, but sadly your baby will hate these mittens with the fury of a thousand adorable little baby suns.
WHICH IS TO SAY, ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS THAN SHE HATES HER HAT.
“FUCK HATS!” - THE MILKMEISTER
Thankfully, they make onesies that fold over into a mitten at the end of the arm-hole!
Buy yourself some of these onesies. Save yourself the mitten grief.
Save yourself the indignity of being the only person in your antenatal group who posted a baby photo where the baby has socks on their hands.
THE SOCKS STAY ON BETTER THAN THE MITTENS BECAUSE OF THE GRIPPY BIT THAT GOES AROUND THE LEG. YOU CAN THANK ME LATER.
3. Beware the Naked Baby
To paraphrase Sun Tzu, a naked baby is an armed grenade.
The other day I was in the process of changing the Milkmeister’s nappy, and she began yelling about something or other.*
As a Nurturing Mother™ and also as someone who did not want to be shouted at for the entire duration of the nappy change, I picked up the bare-butted Milkmeister for a reassuring cuddle. This was a mistake - I knew it at the time - and as I lifted her aloft I thought “this is risky business,” right before she shit all over the floor from a great height.
It did calm her down though, so on balance I suppose that’s a win.
Never underestimate a naked baby.
* probably ‘WHY IS MY BUTT COLD’ or ‘IT HAS BEEN THREE HOURS SINCE I ATE AND I AM STARVING TO DEATH’ or ‘NOT ENOUGH JAM.’
4. Stay Ready, So You Ain’t Gotta Get Ready
This is the most important advice of all my unqualified advices, and it comes to you via the unlikely medium of Will Smith:
DID YOU THINK WILL SMITH WOULD BE IN THIS BLOG? NEITHER DID I. NEITHER DID HE.
Staying ready means having everything to hand at all times. Essentially you are trying to stay one step ahead of the baby. This sounds like it would be easy - who can’t outwit a baby? - but is not easy because the baby is a tiny unpredictable lunatic.
However, it’s very easy not to stay ready. You are tired - so very tired - and the baby has just fallen asleep, and it occurs to you that instead of opening the new packet of nappies and restocking the nappy bin*, you could sit there and watch Taskmaster for just a few little minutes.
No! No no! In this moment you must listen to Will Smith.
KEEP THOSE BABY’S NAPPIES IN THAT f— NAPPY BIN!
All the Taskmaster in the world won’t help when it is 2am and you have an angry baby who is taking being bare-assed as a personal insult, and instead of swiftly renappying this baby, you are fucking about trying to remember where you put the new packet of nappies.
Stay ready, so you ain’t gotta get ready.
And that is the end of this instalment of Parenting Advice.
*or washing the bottles, or putting a new mat thingy on the change table, or putting a new burp cloth next to the bassinet, or making sure there is a pacifier covered in jam and ready to go.