Resources that helped me as a first time Parent
We became parents for the first time this year, and I have learned a lot from myself, me as part of our relationship with my Wife, and a lot about being a parent. It is a lot that I have learned so far, but in this post, I wanted to focus just on some of the key resources that have helped us on this journey.
The 5 S’s for Soothing Babies (Video)
It is not a secret that Babies cry, but I was not aware that Babies could also cry for hours even that they are healthy and without any reason, so having the 5 S’s method was a lifesaver, and it works amazingly well.
The Happy Song (Spotify)(Video)
We did not know about this song until a couple of months after our Daughter was born (Thanks Vaneeta!), and it’s just magic; it calms her down, and She also falls asleep to the song. It works interestingly, getting her attention and calming her down when She is in the middle of crying.
Imogen Heap created it in collaboration with Goldsmith University, and the song was scientifically tested at various stages of the process.
We have also shared this song with many of our friends, and so far, everyone has had excellent results, give it a try!
We had a challenging start with breastfeeding and some weight challenges, so tracking diapers and feedings were vital, and doing it on paper did not seem to be the best approach.
After trying many other apps, we stayed with Glow Baby; it has an excellent user interface, easy tracking of multiple things, and it was the only app that we tried that allowed each member of the family to have a separate account. Why is all of this important? Let me give you a recent example:
My Wife went back to work, and I have been in charge of our Daughter during the day so Gabriela can focus. While we don’t log diapers anymore, we do log feedings, so Gabriela can plan her meetings and work time around our Daughter’s feeding schedule.
Our Daughter is not hungry every day at the same time. Still, we know that She is hungry between 4 to 5 hours after the last feeding, so keeping track of this allows me to give Gabriela a heads up that Petra will be hungry soon, change my Daughter’s Diaper on time if needed and check that Gabriela has everything that She will need, this is just one example that we have where Glow Baby has been a fantastic resource for us.
Babies like noise, and in general white noise seems to be good for anyone to sleep (Pink noise is even better). But overall, it helps mask some noise around your house when your baby is sleeping, and when the time comes, you can add it as part of the ritual to put your baby to sleep.
We started using Noizio with our phones and a Bluetooth speaker, but it did not work very well all the time; just imagine that you forget that you have it connected and then you play a video on your phone, you get a call, or you go far away enough from the speaker that the connection is interrupted.
So our friend Jamie recommended Rest+, and we love it because:
- It is very simple to use
- You can control it from your phone
- It has a battery, so if your baby sleeps in multiple places like our Daughter, moving it around without the need for an outlet is great.
Babies like noise; if you read or watched “The 5 S’s for Soothing Babies” you will see that one of the S is Shush, but shushing for a long time is not an easy task. The Baby Shusher is one of those devices that, until you need it, you think that is a gimmick, but trust me, it helps a lot!
