A number of people have asked? informed? me about visiting once the baby comes. Based on the advice I have gotten from women who have been through this before me (see–I do actually listen to advice sometimes) I am going to structure how this works formally and in advance so that I don’t have to negotiate with everyone individually.
-You must set up a time in advance and be punctual. No dropping in because you are “in the neighborhood.”
-During the first two weeks visits will probably be restricted to 30 minutes. After that an hour, maybe an hour and a half until I’m feeling better.
-If you want to come over you need to do something helpful. Bring food. Start/fold a load of laundry. Do dishes.
-I will not be up for being a host and I’m going to be less than thrilled about Noah doing it.
-Soft voices. I’m actually pretty sensitive to noise in general and I’m willing to bet that when I’m adjusting to listening to a baby crying a lot of the time I’m going to be extra fussy on this one. If you see me cringe when you boom out the start of a sentence, please self regulate to a softer volume.
-Leave your drama outside my house for at least the first month. I love you. I will return to listening to other people’s issues after about a month. I will be sleep deprived and probably anxious as I try to figure out what a parent is supposed to do with an infant and I’m always over-sensitive to other people’s emotions.
-Please don’t tell me what I “should do” with the baby. If I know you have parenting experience or even a bunch of siblings there is the possibility I will ask for advice–don’t offer it unasked though. 🙂
-If you have been sick in the past week don’t ask to come visit. The kid will be around for years to come and I promise that you will have lots of chances to bond later. 🙂
See. I’m not rejecting *you*. I’m not being mean to *you*. 🙂
I’m thinking about printing this and putting up on the front door as a reminder.
Many, many kudos to you for this.
For my reference, and others, are there any particular foodstuffs you both like which I could make to bring by? I’d be happy to cook a batch of yummy stuff for you guys in the first couple of weeks to make your life easier, if I only know what would work well.
ooooh… Good point. 🙂 We both have fairly broad palates and it is easier to be definitive on the stuff we don’t eat. Things to avoid: cilantro, onions, and I don’t eat raw tomatoes (Noah likes them though). It’s probably a good idea to avoid super spicy as the Lizard is starting to breastfeed. I hear that can cause problems.
Preferences: we both lean strongly towards chicken over other meats as a general rule. We are both huge fans of potatoes in just about any form. I am really into noodles of just about any kind. 🙂 We both seem to like stew sorts of stuff. Oh you who are ethnically Jewish… kugel. OhMyGod it’s good. Especially with apricots. *swoon* 🙂 (There’s a chick who probably won’t read the comments who used to bring this to scene events all the time. I had a hard time not stealing it when it arrived at events.)
We aren’t huge on beans in general, though lentil soups tend to be really good. We aren’t huge vegetable eaters though Noah likes far more of them than I do. I don’t really eat bell peppers but a well prepared squash (which I totally don’t know how to do) is often very tasty.
Is that a good starting place?
That’s very useful, thank you. 🙂
I have my mom’s regular kugel recipe, I think, but have never made it. I can try one, maybe. Alternately, the one I have made and love is more like dessert. With brown sugar and pecans (or walnuts) and maraschino cherries to give you an idea. Would that be tasty to you as well?
The one I’m thinking of is definitely a dessert. 🙂 *swoon*
Sounds awesome!
yah, kugal comes in two basic varieties, sweet and savory. Most people are more experienced with the sweet type
Probably also want to steer clear of anything strongly oniony or garlicky for a while. (My sister’s babies both had colic that was made *way* worse by these.) Some nursing moms also report problems with strong-tasting vegetables like cabbage, but if I remember correctly you’re not fond of that sort of thing anyway.
If you have any friends who homebrew, and if you’re not being completely rigorous about alcohol, a few bottles of homemade beer are a great gift for a nursing mom — the brewer’s yeast is really good for you and the light hit of alcohol helps the letdown reflex.
Strangely enough, cabbage is one of the few vegetables that I like a lot. I’ll try to keep in mind that it might be one to avoid. I don’t do onion in general and I’m really a wuss about garlic so that should be easy.
I’ve been stocking up on lambic. It’s this awesome fruity beer. In general I’m not super fond of beer, but this stuff is great. I’ve been thrilled that Whole Foods has had apple every time I’ve been there lately. I buy out whatever they have each time. 🙂
(Definitely not going to freak about alcohol. I’m not a drunkard, but there are a lot of benefits to moderate consumption.)
As a testimonial, I had very few encounters with foods that seemed to negatively impact the baby. One exception was a particularly gassy batch of split pea soup on about day 4, but I think we’ve done fine.
My personal theory on foods and breastmilk is two fold: 1) if it affects you significantly, it might affect the baby; 2) if you’ve been eating a varied diet already (one that includes spices/cabbage/whatever), the baby is already acclimated to your intake. Case in point: people say spices/strong flavors might affect the baby, however, cuisine like East Indian is nothing BUT spices and strong flavors, and I’m pretty confident that those moms don’t go on a plain rice only diet when they have a baby. Whatever you’re used to is fine.
I ate (and continue to eat, and ate pre-pregnancy) a ton of spicy things/mexican food/indian food. I think this introduces baby to a broad spectrum of flavors via breastmilk, and may help with being less picky about food later on. My baby ate hummus the other day. And pickled onions. And lox. Not all at once, mind you. And loves burritos. Soooooooo……yeah.
That’s been overall my theory. I have not given up my vindaloo or spicy curry. 🙂
I just read that your point #2 is mostly correct. Some flavors and odors cross into the mother’s amniotic fluid, as well as breast milk, so the baby has already been exposed. If you’ve noticed a lot of kicking or movement after eating something, you may want to hold off on that while breast-feeding.
(The book is “what’s going on in there”, and it’s basically a child neuroscience primer.)
no fish right?
True, no seafood of any kind for me. 🙂
Brilliant. Do you mind if I copy you?
Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Outright theft is even better. 🙂
Awesome. Consider it stolen!
Another one I remember from back then: If you’re uncomfortable watching me nurse the baby, please wait a month or two to come by, or be prepared to sit in another room with a magazine while I do my job.
*grin*
Given how few of our friends haven’t seen my boobs I’d be surprised if that came up. 🙂 But good point.
You should totally post that up. Number it, too, so you can say “sorry, clause 3” and kick them out. 🙂
oh!
brilliant!
“sorry: clause 1 and 6 – you must die.”
hey!
since your doing so much laundry anyways,
and are pretty used to the whol “poopy thing,”
how about some skid-marked shorts to rinse out?
we allowed *nobody* to visit
for the first 6 weeks except
family members and
then on a very very very tight schedule/timetable.
of course,
our kids were preemies
with monitors
and all that stuff.
so we were pretty controlling on their environment for about a year.
still….
having a kid’s like going from zero to a thousand in 3.7 seconds.
who the fuck needs back-seat drivers, eh?
*nod* Our kid is apparently going absolutely full term. I would be far more controlling of preemies as well.
One thing to keep in mind is: we don’t have family who will visit and only a very few people will be willing to drive to our house for a 30 minute visit. This is going to keep most people from being that interested. 🙂
more than anything,
we just didn’t want peepholes even touching our kids.
for our care
we were rewarded with almost a whole year
with no kiddie colds.
(you haven’t lived until you suck a 4-inch-long snot outta yer kid’s headbone)
Maybe I missed something but are you registered someplace? Something you need for the baby? With 2 jobs and moving in less than a month stopping by is hard but I’d love to get you something……
Maybe some dessert stuff that you like that I could just drop off? Brownies? Cookies? Preference?
Our registry has been completed for a while now. 🙂
We both like brownies. 🙂
GRIN
When’s the lizard due? I do want to meet it before I leave for Germany, and you leave for the East. I’ll be leaving June 19th.. I hope we can work something out before then! :]
Yaaay lizard! 😀
The Lizard could choose to arrive any day between a few days ago and 2 1/2 weeks from now.
Due to housing market issues we won’t be moving this summer like we hoped. Ah poop.
You rock. and yeah, I told everyone who visited that I’d put them to work. For example, one of my first visitors typed up my birth story while I dictated.
As far as cabbage, my baby objected violently when I ate cauliflower curry, and I had my husband at the time taste, and he said he could taste it!
I’m so happy for you – and proud of you – and sad that I can’t be one to follow the rules of visits.
Please tell me you have a plan for photos? I know it’s wrong to pressure you at all, but I want to see – already. 😉
How about rules on early phone calls? I would never call if it would potentially interrupt you, so unless I’m told it’s okay I won’t do it. (i.e., tell me you won’t answer the phone and I can still leave a message – if that’s true)
Seriously, you rock. Noah is awesome, and with both of you as parents you have one lucky kid.
I don’t actually have a plan for photos. I assume that some will be taken because we keep the camera on the counter. Maybe I can ask one of the midwife assistants?
Yeah, I’m not going to be jumping for the phone for a while. It will cheerfully roll to voicemail if it is inconvenient for me to answer it.
I am glad you are comfortable enough to set up boundaries.
Sending you support
This was a really great idea – but I really shouldn’t be surprised that you thought to do it. You’re good about figuring out what does and doesn’t work for you.
If I were making up a list based on stuff I learned from my newborn experience, one thing I would add is limiting the amount that Lizard gets passed around. That tip came from the Head Nurse in the Nursery at the hospital. She says people are so enthralled with the idea of holding the new baby that little kidlet ends up getting sore from all the handling — even to the point of feeling bruised.
We almost broke Clause #1 this weekend. We were down in Sunnyvale for NWLC, and I almost buzzed you on the way back up 880 to see if we could drop by. But I fell asleep before we even got to Milpitas, so that didn’t happen.
I totally stole the idea from a message board. 😀
Fair enough. I don’t anticipate many people actually caring enough to show up so I don’t know that we will have a problem. But it’s good to consider, thank you.
Well this weekend it would have been fine. It’s ok to drop in on me most of the time. It’ll be less good when I’m frazzled and taking care of an infant. 🙂
Awesome! 😀 I think you should totally post these, and numbering them is a grand idea, as well!
I never understood why/how people could be so intrusive (especially under the guise of helpfulness) in such close personal times such as birth and death. Support me from far away, man. Don’t you know that hanging around is just adding psychological stress and responsibility to me?
Totally post-worthy and will save you a lot of breath!! 😉
It’s good that you’re setting boundaries. 🙂 Better that you’re telling folk about them in advance – go proactivity!
Also, I wanted to pass this on: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/baskin.asp
Find a B&R tomorrow? 😉
oooooh. I just might. 🙂
My midwives actually sent us home with a xeroxed front door sign indicating the birth info, telling people to limit their visits, and with a bunch of options to check of things we’d like done when people did come for a visit. Have I mentioned how much I loved my midwives and my whole pregnancy/birth care experience? 😀
I barely let anyone hold Frogling for the first three weeks. Immediate family only, and with a glare of doom demanding that they wash their hands immediately prior to handling her.
I think its GREAT to set your boundaries ahead of time, and make them extra broad. You can always pull them in closer as you get comfortable with the reality, but I was very, very happy to have my buffer zone in place. And REALLY glad we had told people they werent’ allowed until about 3 weeks after the due date….considering she came almost two weeks late!