What do you do with your baby?

[ann_of_loxley]

So - what do you do with your baby?

I feel like I should be doing something with him when he is awake but hes only a month old!

Of course I talk and sing to him a lot. I wear him a lot too and just get on with doing things around the house.

But what else?

I can't help but wonder what other cultures do with their babies. We are a society surrounded in plastic stuffs and sensory overload. Buy buy buy all this latest stuff for your baby... Its not all neccisary is it? Surely the family living in a mud hut doesn't have all that stuff. I have the best of both worlds - so what then?

[jess5377]

Originally Posted by ann_of_loxley

I wear him a lot too and just get on with doing things around the house.

That's pretty much it.

[busymama77]

Originally Posted by jess5377

That's pretty much it.

Yeah, I agree. When W was that age, he slept SO much and nursed SO much - that was our day. When he was around 3 weeks old, we went on walks just about everyday. That broke up the routine a bit and gave me a bit of a break from being inside the house all day.

[Nicole730]

at that age, just wore baby and nursed/slept with baby

[CrazyCatLady]

Lot's of wearing them while you do your thing around the house. When you get tired of wearing them, mabey put them in a bouncy seat where they can watch you do stuff like fold laundry or whatever. Lot's of walks either in the sling or stroller.

I remember that feeling of needing to "do something" with them. But you don't, not yet anyways. They just want to be with you at this age.

[BetsyS]

I remember that feeling, too.

And, soon, that little baby will be demanding that you DO SOMETHING WITH ME, MAMA!, so it does have a natural end.

Enjoy your time with your baby! Put him in the sling/stroller, and walk around to a bookstore and look at magazines. Find a moms' group that you like and enjoy. Develop routines for keeping house so that it's second nature and doesn't take too much time from your toddler. Sit on the couch and nurse and watch him sleep. Just enjoy it. It goes really quickly.

[SaoirseC]

Some of the babywearing/extended nursing cultures don't even recognize babies as people and thus the mothers don't talk to their babies nor attempt to make eye contact, so I wouldn't really worry about that. Just do what you feel like doing with your baby. When you're tired of smiling/cooing/singing/making faces/reading/etc. strap him on your body and go for a walk or whatever you would be doing. Find some other mama friends to be around, this can be a lonely time when your LO is so demanding but gives little back by way of interaction.

[Jaesun's Dad]

Talking and singing is great. That's still mostly what I do at four months. DP does the hard job of nursing so I try to do a lot of the more active activities. He likes it when I clap my hands and dance. I often sit him where I can stand in front of him and dance around while I sing and clap and snap my fingers (side note: He is absolutely fascinated by finger snapping I think he's trying to figure this out already! Good luck with that kid .. haha ... but he LOVES it) if I run out of things to sing I start doing jazz-trumpet or bass guitar lines. We had fun yesterday when I had Emeril on mute and I was "singing" the closed captioning ~~now we throw in a little garlic, oh ... yeah ... oh ... my! Look at that ... now some jalapeno ... and salt and pepper ... oh yes ... yeah baby, lookin' good~~ he grabs at a few simple toys now, and I love reading Dr. Seuss to him (we both adore Oh the Thinks You Can Think) but I haven't gone out and bought any Baby Einstein this or that nor do I really buy into the idea at this age. I might do things like hold up a shoe, say "shoe" and then put it on, showing him "daddy WEARS his shoe" then the same with glasses, then we put on his socks, Jaesun WEARS his sock! Not that I expect him to learn from it, but does it hurt? We're putting on our shoes and socks anyway, why not?

I think just do what's natural, and your baby lets you know what they like, what they REALLY like and when they're "meh ... that's cool, but can we go back to that BINGO song now?" I don't think we're "depriving" them of anything by now rushing out and spending hundreds of dollars on "brain development" gimmicks. Contrarily, I think they're probably better off without it.

Some of the babywearing/extended nursing cultures don't even recognize babies as people and thus the mothers don't talk to their babies nor attempt to make eye contact

Wow ... ten seconds after he was born as they were suctioning him out I swear he made eye contact with me and he's never stopped since. He makes eye contact clear across the room, even a crowded room he can pick out mom or dad. I don't know of anyone that ignores their little ones so, thankfully. That's sad.

[sunshadow]

A lot less than I did with his sister! Being born second is hard. At least he is mellow and happy with the attention that he gets, which usual involves whatever I am doing with dd while holding him. He is enthralled with dress up dolls!

[sugarpop]

I remember feeling like I needed to do something with Sophia, especially after the inlaws told me that she was bored and needed to be stimulated. Silly in laws! Now I have an 8 month old who does require the stimulation and constant interaction. I love it now, but sometimes I wish I had enjoyed the quiet stage, the one month old just enjoying the world and the touch a bit more. I worried way too much about what I was "doing" with her. Everything is new and is stimulation, your normal day is "doing" stuff with the LO. Just think if you went from issolation to chillin in your moms arms...bouncing, flashing, noisy things probably wouldn't be needed. Just moving and swaying, touching and listening and cooing and watching is quite a bit of activity!

[SilverFish]

we do very little. the first 6 weeks you're just trying to get by and figure things out, so just nursing and changing diapers takes all of the day, and anyway, they're always asleep if they're not eating or crying, so you don't even think about doing anything else, but then slowly you get better at the baby care, and they're awake a bunch, but still not that interested in or able to "do" things , where i think the boredom sets in a bit.

i think that feeling was compounded in our case because she's such a mellow baby that she'll literally hang out by herself for ages. so i'll put her down and go sit down at the computer to do something, and suddenly it's a 1/2 hour later and we haven't really "interacted" at all... it's not quite that bad i guess, she's lying next to me and staring at her mobile or the weird shadows on the wall, and listening to my music or to me yakking away to myself, but it does sometimes feel like i should be more proactive.

[coldandsleepy]

We walked ALL the time. Literally hours every day. He loved the wrap and the motion. I read grown up books out loud to him... it was more for me than him, but he liked the sound of my voice.

We also got into the habit of going to the coffee shop for about an hour every day. It's been a consistently nice thing to do... at first because he'd always sleep there and I could read, and now because he likes to look at people and the baristas love him and will come play with him and stuff so I can have a minute to myself.

Try to relax and enjoy this phase of having a baby. I really think the first couple of months are more about getting through it than about doing anything in particular with your baby.

[camilla's mommy]

Enjoying while planning!

Everyone is right--enjoy this time of quiet bonding.

As a planner though, I have found that as Camilla makes her way through the stages of her babyhood it is helpful for me to think about what I want us to be able to do "next." So when she was a month old we went for walks (and jogs) in the stroller everyday with the purpose of making sure she would look forward to this once she was able to really enjoy it. She has never fussed, and we still go every day.

She is getting more mobile now (barrel rolling as opposed to crawling, which is just too cute) and I've started putting her in a play yard when I shower. Even though it isn't necessary yet, I want her accustomed to it. She loves the newness of it now and plays with her toys happily, but I'm sure she would hate it if I waited and once she was really mobile I stuck her in there. But hopefully she will get used to playing in there for 10 or 15 minutes at a time so that I can grab a quick shower without any crying.

I guess what I'm saying is that every single minute is so much fun. As long as you're enjoying what you do together, your baby will too! Just keep in mind that if there are things you want your LO to do in the future, start early.

[Plarka]

Active Baby, Healthy Brain by Margaret Sasse has good ideas and the book goes up to age 5 and a half.

[SaoirseC]

Originally Posted by Jaesun's Dad

Wow ... ten seconds after he was born as they were suctioning him out I swear he made eye contact with me and he's never stopped since. He makes eye contact clear across the room, even a crowded room he can pick out mom or dad. I don't know of anyone that ignores their little ones so, thankfully. That's sad.

I could be making vast generalizations here, but it could have to do with a high infant mortality rate. If you faced a 50% chance that your babe was going to die before age 1 (and this was "normal"- not because of some sort of special situation like a rare disease), how easy would it be to bond with each new babe? And I don't honestly remember what the IMR was in that specific culture (or where I read about it for that matter), but the IMR was high.

Sorry, this is going really OT.

[Carhootel]

I remember feeling like ds must be bored but really, we would do skin to skin if he was awake, and try to get him near some natural light, also - the black/white infant stim stuff was a big hit with ds when he first started having some quiet alert times. Good luck!

[lkmiscnet]

Get your LO used to some tummy time--maybe 15-30 minutes per day while awake. I didn't do that for the first 4 months or so and my DS took longer to have good head control, roll over, and to sit up. He hated tummy time when I started him on it, and I didn't want to just have him cry on the floor, so I would only do it for a few minutes a day. Sometimes he would fall asleep for naps when on his tummy and he did nap much longer in that position. I did watch him carefully during those naps though.

Because he hated tummy time, I would put him on my belly and let him learn to lift his head, push up, etc. which he liked much better. It was better than no tummy time.

I held my new baby all the time too! But, because I was mostly laying down with him on our sofa (letting him nurse and nap), and our home is not large, I didn't do a lot of walking around with him (with his head above my shoulder) to enable him to develop neck muscle strength to get good head control early on. First time mom mistake...if I knew then what I know now.