Don't Shake Your Baby!

I'm not sure when the Public Service Announcements started around town about not shaking your baby, but they're on billboards everywhere! I mean, doesn't this seem like a pretty obvious thing not to do? I thought so, until I was talking to a certain dear guy friend of mine. He's turning 35 this year (it should be pretty obvious to figure out who he is based on this, but I don't want to out him on the Internet), has never been married but has been dating a lovely girl for the past three years (she currently lives in the Big Apple).


Anywho, last weekend after a few of us went out to dinner, we went back to F.'s place to drink some wine (well, except for me). I'm not sure how the conversation started, maybe I mentioned that I missed running or something like that, but F said, "Don't worry, you'll be running with your baby soon, right?" We all stopped what we were talking about to hear more. I said, "Well, yeah, I guess so, eventually." F replied, "What I mean is, you can get one of those baby carriers that you strap to your chest and go running." At this point, everyone started laughing: "F! You can't run with a baby in a baby carrier! Haven't you seen those billboards that tell you not to shake your baby?" F. paused for a second and retorted, "Well, can't you just strap the baby's head in place?" One of the other guys shouted back, "With what? Duct tape?!" He just laughed and shrugged his shoulders. I've been laughing about this for days every time I think about it!

Of course as funny as this was, it did illustrate the fact that for the most part, we're all pretty clueless when it comes to caring for a newborn. Which brings me to our Newborn Care Class that we took on Wednesday.

We were each given a newborn "baby" to practice diapering, swaddling, and breastfeeding. It was a bit strange to hold a plastic baby up to my chest, and I don't know if it was my belly in the way or the fact that the baby had very hard rubbery legs, but it was not comfortable at all! Particularly the so-called football hold, where the baby is cradled on one side with your arm. Our little test baby just jabbed his hard, little feet in my ribcage - ouch! Now, we do have a whole class (our last one!) devoted to the subject of breastfeeding, so maybe they'll give us something softer to use? A girl can dream, right? Oh, and I actually had an "F" moment myself when it came to the breastfeeding. The instructor asked us why we had to insert a finger in the baby's mouth in order to get her to unlatch. My response: because the milk will just spray everywhere like a broken faucet? WRONG! Everyone laughed, including myself because really, the image of me spraying everything in sight like a sprinkler is hilarious. No, I was assured, very few women make milk of the Ol' Faithful quantity. Instead, you have to unlatch the baby to stop the feeding because oftentimes they literally will just hang on forever, milk or not. And you know, at some point, you'll probably need to use the bathroom or eat or do something other than being a milk machine.

Other than my totally clueless statement about breastfeeding, most of the newborn care was fairly straightforward. Learning how to make baby into a little burrito (aka swaddling) was very helpful! Chris was a champ at pretty much everything, even the breastfeeding demonstration. I'm of course kidding about the last part, although the instructor did say that newborns will pretty much try to latch on to any nipple in sight, regardless of his milk-making ability.

It was a pretty fun night, even though I came home completely exhausted. And even more exhausted at the thought that a newborn should be fed 8-12 times a day at the beginning, or every 1 to 3 hours. Wow. I guess I really will just be a milk machine for quite some time.