Leo was born at 5am on the 20th May, at home (this was an accident but the experience has made me extremely homebirth-pilled). Before that, I was on the minimally-neurotic side when it came to expecting mothers: we purchased a bare minimum of baby stuff (diapers, baby wipes, a changing mat, hybrid car seat/stroller, baby bath, a few clothes), I didn’t do any parenting classes, I hadn’t even held a baby before. I’m pretty sure the youngest child I have had a prolonged interaction with besides Leo was two. I did read a couple books about babies so I wasn’t going in totally clueless (Cribsheet by Emily Oster, and The Science of Mom by Alice Callahan).
I have never been that interested in other people’s babies or young children but I correctly predicted that I’d be enchanted by my own baby (though naturally I can’t wait for him to grow up and acquire the ability to talk, read, and be my husband’s bughouse chess partner). Like a lazy student cramming outside the exam room door, I consumed way more baby-related content over his first weeks of life, which was much easier to internalize when I had a real-life specimen in front of me. My first takeaway was that this was fine. You don’t really need to prepare to have a baby! You can just produce one and wing it!
Of course, parenting involves a lot of learning (which you can do as you go along), and it goes without that saying that all babies and children are different so what works will vary. Nevertheless, babies do have a lot in common with each other (they like to be held, they are often hungry, they can’t solve second-order partial differential equations). Instagram reels about other people’s babies often appear relatable to me.
I will try to summarize what I’ve learned so far in this post. Perhaps this will be of interest to an expecting-parent reader. And if you already have kids, you can tell me what I’m missing!
Stuff I ended up buying and liking
We quickly figured out that leaning over or sitting on the floor to change Leo was no fun. We got one of those easy to wipe baby changing tables for the bathroom which made life much easier when you’re changing so many diapers.
At night, Leo sleeps in a Snoo (a fancy smart bassinet that rocks itself), generously lent to us by our friends Rachel and Austin. But during the day, it’s useful for him to have a safe space to sleep or lie down around the home. The portable bassinet can be easily carried around to different places so that he can be close-by all day.
Leo sleeping in the portable bassinet
See below for the benefits of wearing your baby in a carrier. At the moment I’m using the Beco Gemini carrier.
Makes nursing much more comfortable, especially if you have poor upper-body strength or suboptimal anatomy for the task.
It’s important to get your baby warm and dry quickly after a bath, and I find these more effective than regular towels. They are gentler on the baby’s skin, correctly sized, and have a little hood to keep his head warm. I also place one of these under him when he’s feeding to absorb milk that leaks out of his mouth (strongly recommended unless you want to be cleaning your furniture and pillow covers every day).
Zipper onesies
Zipper onesies are the optimal baby clothing. Easy to put on/take off and comfortable for the baby. Only thing to bear in mind is that you probably want to expose your baby’s feet some of the time so that they gain better awareness of their feet/toes, and many onesies cover the feet. Also it’s not recommended to baby-wear in footed onesies, because they may constrict the feet too much when the baby is in the carrier.
An example zipper onesie
Stuff I ended up buying and not liking
Many newborns enjoy being swaddled for sleep. Leo quite liked it for the first few weeks, and sometimes enjoys it still. However, I found the popular sorts of velcro swaddles very annoying. It’s hard to put them on without him slipping out, and the velcro positioning is unintuitive. I found it much easier to swaddle using a regular swaddle blanket, like the ones they give out in hospitals.
Leo in a regular-old blanket swaddle (we went to the hospital after birth where the nurses were expert swaddlers)
Socks and hats
Being in SF, Leo doesn’t really need socks or hats. It’s worse for babies to overheat than to be too cold, so I generally avoid covering his head just in case.
Babies are super time-consuming
Looking after Leo is wonderful because I love him so much and making sure he is happy, healthy, and developing well is fulfilling and important to me. But going into this I did not expect it to be as time-consuming as it has been. During the day he feeds every 1-3 hours for 30-60 minutes, he’ll need his diaper changed 7-10 times per day, and he’ll wake up for feedings 2-3 times at night. He doesn’t like being left alone for more than 5-10 minutes unless he’s sleeping—any longer and he thinks he’s been abandoned to the tigers or something. Overall I found pregnancy much easier than expected (very little inconvenience or discomfort), birth roughly as expected (very painful but that’s what I was prepared for), and looking after a baby harder than expected (not by much, but certainly more time-consuming). The sleep interruptions are the hardest part. Though I get 6-8hrs of sleep per night, the interruptions make it much less restful.
This should not deter you—unsurprisingly it’s totally worth it! But you may want to reconsider any plans to do cognitive work during the first few months of your baby’s life unless you have a lot of childcare help.
Baby-wearing is almost magical
As mentioned, babies are super time-consuming. It’s hard to get anything done if you’re looking after a baby all day. But there’s a partial solution in the form of baby-wearing. Leo won’t tolerate being left alone in the bassinet for too long while awake, but he loves being carried. This way we can chill for a few hours whether or not he’s asleep.
Sometimes walking with the stroller has a similar effect—he enjoys the motion and relaxes—but it’s less consistently effective than wearing. The only time Leo cries in the carrier is when he is really hungry.
Baby-wearing does have some challenges: it can be a bit straining for your body/back, and it’s a bit of a learning curve to get the positioning right (if the baby has bad posture in the carrier, it can cause injury or even suffocation). But once you get the hang of it you can baby-wear while using your laptop, cooking, doing light chores, going for a stroll, etc.
You can baby-wear a newborn in a suitable carrier although I waited a couple weeks before starting. If you are unsure about your fit, I recommend posting in r/babywearing to get feedback (and watching YouTube videos of people putting on your carrier). So far I’ve been using the Beco Gemini carrier, which is pretty good except for its proliferation of different straps (that are meant to support different carrying positions). I only do the inward-facing front carry and so the extra straps are pure annoyance as they get in the way when I try to put the carrier on. I have recently ordered a WildBird carrier that looks simpler to try and fix this.
Breastfeeding is nontrivial
Before having a baby, I was surprised that many women chose not to breastfeed—surely it’d be easy and natural given we’ve evolved to do this. Sadly, this is false. It’s often quite challenging to get started—both you and the baby struggle for weeks to get the technique right and it often hurts for a long time. Holding your baby while nursing also takes some level of upper-body strength that I don’t have (I really regret neglecting weight training now), making the use of pillows for positioning indispensable.
The evidence on breastfeeding being better than formula-feeding is pretty mixed. Many studies are heavily confounded because breastfeeding mothers have a systematically higher socioeconomic status. Personally, I fall back to my own prior that it must be better, even if studies struggle to measure a big effect. Not everything is easily measurable. Even if I’m mistaken about long-term effects, there is stronger evidence that breastfeeding strengthens a baby’s immune system when they are most at risk from getting ill, and helps regulate their circadian rhythm.
Your baby may refuse the bottle
I want to get Leo used to drinking from a bottle occasionally just in case I need to leave him with someone else for a while or am in a place where it’s difficult to breastfeed, but so far he gags at the sight of a bottle. I thought most babies would be fine drinking from a bottle but apparently many refuse and need to be gradually introduced through many attempts. (I assume this doesn’t apply if a baby is exclusively bottle-fed from birth.)
Bathing a newborn was easier than expected
I was nervous about giving Leo his first bath, expecting him to cry and struggle. But actually, he really enjoys the water and totally relaxes in the bath. No problems there!
Babies love faces!
After a few weeks, Leo became fascinated with faces. He likes staring at people intently, following them with his gaze. I tried showing him toys and other objects but nothing interests him nearly as much as faces. This is completely standard for babies as part of their social development.
Leo isn’t upset by loud noise
He can hear totally fine, but he doesn’t freak out from alarms and other loud noises at all, which surprised me. He’ll occasionally startle in response to a noise but this will happen with noises of all loudness levels, not particularly for very loud noises.
Probably X is normal
I’ve asked an LLM/google “Is X normal for newborn babies” for many values of X and keep finding out that yes it’s normal (obviously you should repeat this for your own baby, it’s good to be safe). Some examples:
Weird sounds during sleep (grunting, whimpering, snorting…)
Sticky yellow/white stuff around eyes
Eyelashes stuck in eyes for a long time
Dry/flaky skin
Occasionally green poop
Visibly pulsating parts of skull
Palpable ridges on skull
Small blisters on lips
Cold feet and hands
Wanting to feed every hour
Consider having a kid (or ten)!
It’s an amazing feeling to create little guys (or girls) who resemble both you and your spouse.
Thanks for sharing!
Enjoyed reading this (and found it insightful!) even though it will be a little while before I have my own kinderlach. Mazel tov to you and Arjun, baby Leo is such a cute little guy!!!!