Unsolicited Advice Part 3: The Warmth

So yesterday's Unsolicited Advice was rather long. I guess I knew this, but didn't fully realize it until I talked to Eric last evening. 

"Did you read my blog?"

"Yeeeaaaah. It was long."

Oh.

To which my response should have been something like: Of course! It's advice! Think about how much I know!

So I was going to write another awesome long Advice today. But we'll save that, and I'll share some short Advice today. This isn't advice that I came up with. Someone told me this early in my pregnancy, and it was pretty much the most useful thing that we did in the first weeks of Emma's life.

Note this:

THIS IS A HEATING PAD.

That sentence is in all caps just to emphasize how much the heating pad will affect your life.

Think this way: 

You're a newborn baby. It's very disorienting. You've left your warm, soft, quiet, rhythmic home and have entered the loud, bright, overwhelming world. This world is, above all, cold.

Pop quiz: where is your favorite place?

On mom. Duh.

Pop quiz #2: what is your most common activity?

Sleeping.

Holding a sleeping infant is the best feeling in the world. However, there are times, especially at night, when it becomes necessary to put the sleeping infant down in order to do things like pee or eat or change or sleep.

Being held in a set of warm, comfortable arms and lying on a cold sheet all alone are two very different things. Very often, the simple act of transfer from arms to crib is enough to wake a newborn up. And really. They don't know that crib is where they're supposed to sleep. Mom is where they've always slept. Surely Mom is where they're supposed to sleep. 

So do this: when you pick up your baby in the night to feed them, place a heating pad in the crib and turn it on. When you're done feeding them, remove the pad and place them in a warm crib. 

Oh my gosh does this make life easier. There's no abrupt temperature difference, the sheets are softer, and there's not as much need to wake up.

Of course, Emma arrived in December, which is much colder than now, which is summer. But I think the theory remains. 

Another thing.

And this one will probably not apply to most people having babies this summer.

Make a warmth plan for yourself.

Unborn babies aren't the only nice warm ones.

If you're pregnant, you know what I'm talking about.

I didn't realize how much warmer than usual being pregnant made me until I was unpregnant. Suddenly I couldn't step out of bed without shivering. Of course, I've always been completely unable to regulate my body temperature. But there were times when Emma was first born that I wore my bathrobe to bed. Getting up eight times a night also is very cold -- if you're like me, the less sleep you get, the colder you are.

Finally I couldn't take it anymore and asked Eric, "when did it get so cold?"

To which he responded, "um. You don't have a person on the front of you anymore."

I don't think I need to tell you how to dress for bed, or anything. You're all grownups here.
(Except this: make sure that if you wear fuzzy socks, you still have enough traction that you don't careen out of bed, slide across the floor, and kill yourself. Because then who would feed the baby?)

But you've been warned.