Sunday, July 29, 2007

Our baby has blue eyes!

Well, our practice baby does!
Scott and I had our first baby class: Baby Basics. And Scott, of course, had to make me laugh by posing her like a fighting baby with her dukes up! :)

It was a really great overview of what to expect from our newborn Gemma and how to take care of her. We talked about:

* What babies look like and what not to be afraid of when they come out (cone-heads, cradle cap, acne, extra hair in strange places...)
* Feeding the baby - both bottle and breast issues
* The 4 states of awareness:
- Full Sleep (I didn't know that babies have 20 minutes of REM sleep before they go into their deep sleep - opposite of adults!)
- Silent Awareness - this is when they do most of their learning/imitating
- Active Awareness
- Crying - Highest Awareness
* POOP! We looked at pictures off all the different kind of poop that we will experience. Yuk!
* How to swaddle - we practiced this quite a bit
* How to bath and dress the baby
* How to calm the baby with the 5 'S''s
- Swaddle - make them into a taco
- Side/Stomach hold - being on their back when they are upset makes them more upset
- Shhhh - apparently they like white noise - it reminds them of the womb
- Swing - weeeee
- Suck - boob, bottle or even finger will do
There is just too much to list of what we talked about. It was good and the teacher's attitude was very open. We look the class at Blossom Birth - and plan to continue there.

We left feeling more educated and with a list of references and stuff to read up on. We felt like we conquered our practice baby.
This past week we also met our pediatrician, Dr. Donna McMillan. She was super easy-going and open to my concerns about vaccinations - thanks Jen & Gary for the recommendation! She was fine with the idea of spreading them out and also maybe not doing some of them. Scott and I need to read up on the topic and decide what we want to do. But it is good to know that she is open to other ideas.

Oh, and this week we had an ultrasound too to see the placement of my placenta. Unfortunately, the tech was not allowed to talk about our results so we'll have to wait until we see the doctor this week for the news. Oh well. I'm still thinking positively. More on this topic next week.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

awwww, she looks just like scott!!

ellie

Jen said...

Gosh I wish I'd known you wanted to see different kinds of poop...we've got lots over here! ;) Glad the pediatrician is working out for you.