Baby 101

On Saturday, Anthony and I attended our first baby/parenting related class. It was through the educational  division of the private hospital that we're expecting to deliver at. This was 1 of 3 classes that we'll be attending with Anthony attending 2 of the 3 as I spared him having to go to the Breastfeeding class. This particular class was the Postnatal & Early Parenting class that lasted just a little over 3.5 hours. Nothing like watching 13 pregnant women go racing to either the restroom or to the snacks area during the break. All 13 father-to-be were in attendance too so it was a pretty full house.

It was quite informational even the 1980's short video that shows how babies will look when they first pop out. I think they intentionally showed the worst pictures (like bruises, birthmarks, initial deformities, etc) and worst case scenarios. Anthony and I stole a lot of grimacing glances at each other with practically every picture.  The midwife (extremely commonly used here, to the point where you're actually likely to have a midwife delivery instead of with your OB at the hospital) kept stopping the video to point out that it's usually never this bad. I think it's time for an updated video.

All the hands on were actually geared towards the fathers with many of the questions/answers for the mums. Anthony practiced how to wrap and hold a baby to bathe them, putting on a diaper (to which he promptly said, "go see Mommy to get fixed" and shoved the doll my way), putting on a "jumper" (or as we know them as onesies), and two different ways to wrap/swaddle a baby. Considering he still has limited use of his right arm because of a bicycling versus car accident (will blog about that at another time), he did very well!

There were two particular areas that we found amusing and contrasts how different the Australian culture is to the American one. The first being that they are obscenely serious about their "capsules" or as we know them as car seats. They're adamant that you have them properly installed by people that specialize in installing car seats. When the midwife asked how many people planned on installing the car seat themselves, aside from Anthony raising his hand, I think only one other father did. Apparently everyone else is paying people to install it "properly." I don't recall a single friend or family in the States mention getting a car seat installed by a third party. I can understand the importance of installing it properly but does it really warrant paying somebody to do it for you? What happens when you have to remove it and put it back in??

The other area was the discussion of temperature, specifically how much clothing for the baby. Since the majority of the those attending the class are due in October, it's still an in between month where it can still be as cold as winter or it can start to warm up. Quite a bit of time was dedicated to this topic. I don't think it's as "big" of an issue in the Sates because we all regulate the temperature in our house with this great invention called central air conditioners and heaters. When the midwife asked how many people had central air conditioner or heater, we raised our hand along with 2 other couples. Mind you this is out of 13 couples in the class. Then one of the couple says, at night we turn it to 10 degrees Celsius (that's 50 degrees Fahrenheit!!). I think Anthony and I both let out a choking sound. Which of course drew everyone's attention to us so Anthony says, we usually keep it around 21 degrees Celsius (69.8 degrees Fahrenheit, but even then we're bundled up in sweaters). Somebody piped up and said "yeah, but that's in Fahrenheit" and we said, "uh, no, that's in Celsius."  That apparently drew some surprised looks and sounds. The same couple says during the day they'll turn it up to 17 degrees Celsius (62.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to which we responded, "well, we turn it down to 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) sometimes" and the class erupted into laughter. But really, we were flabbergasted.

During the break the midwife put on, quite loudly, a sound file of a full on upset baby crying. I think she left it on for about 5 minutes. I think Anthony was ready to throttle somebody. Although he did manage to ask where we can get that file to play it for our dogs. Everyone laughed and Anthony had to say, "seriously, we want to play it for our dogs." That prompted a brief discussion of how to introduce a new baby into the "pack." One suggestion was to bring home a worn clothing and a used diaper from the hospital before we bring the baby home......yeah, I'm really not sure how well that is going to go down with Anthony riding in the car for about 45 minutes with a poop filled baby diaper.

We learned about watching for signs of communication even as early as a few hours after birth. Which after watching a video, actually made quite a bit of sense. Most people assume babies don't communicate yet so you don't look for it but if you're patient and watch for it, babies start responding to Mum and Dad as soon as they have the little bittiest of alertness in them. There's a bit of a delayed reaction and you can't try to communicate when they're sleepy or milk drunk but it's there. Hopefully we'll remember this lesson and give it a go when our little girl is born.

The midwife brought out a doll that is suppose to be an anatomically realistic baby with the correct weight distribution, loose neck, the gap in the skull, floppy/heavier arms and legs, etc. The doll was around 6.5 lbs and we were surprised how heavy that felt in a baby. I was already imagining how tiring it would be to carry her around! I can understand when people talk about mommy arms though, it's like perpetual weight lifting!

We survived our first class and both learned quite a bit. Anthony and I nudged each other a lot with "are you ready for that?" and I have a feeling Anthony's frequent remark to the practice doll of "go see your momma" is going to be happening more often than not when the real baby arrives.

- juli