Zippers

If I could pass on only one piece of information for raising a baby - up to 10 months old - it would be zippers. Avoid snaps, buttons, Velcro and elastic at all costs. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to snap 17 buttons on a screaming, crying baby on 4 hours of sleep. I can vouch that the quality of your life will improve in direct proportion to the number of zippered garments your child wears whereas the rest of this post has no basis outside the previous 10 months of experience with my unique child.

The advice you get from others - including me - is useless and invaluable. It's useless because they've told you something that worked for them, for their baby, on that particular occasion and does not apply in a bazillion other cases. It's invaluable because you might be the bazillionth case. For this reason you need to seek out information from others. The more advice you get the more likely you will be able to apply it. Many times advice can easily - sometimes rightly - be perceived as critisim. Don't take it as criticism.

Parenting is not a twelve hour job. You do not have the right to a full nights sleep.

In parenting, consistency is important but rationality is paramount. Try Ferbering, Babywise, Dr. Sears, etc. Don't bet all of your chips on anyone of them. Be flexible enough to abandon your strategy and start over. Pick and choose the parts that work for your child.

Babies haven't learned consistency. Just because they ate every two hours for three months doesn't mean that today they won't want to eat every 45 minutes.

Your child is going through a growth spurt. It ends when they are twenty.

The first 24 hours are magical. The baby sleeps for most of them and hasn't learned true hunger. Savor all 24 of them.

Get out as much as you did before your baby was born. Go shopping, to dinner, on hikes, and visit your friends. It's twice as much effort and half as much fun but still very worthwhile. Make sure not to overdue it.

Your kid is the cutest. No matter what they looked like when they were born. Keep taking pictures. You'll have 1582 pictures from the first three weeks and 50 from the the next three months and it'll be work to get those. After the first four months they don't change as rapidly so get in those daily shots.

Your baby is smarter than you think. They learn from watching you. They are trying to learn the routine. Read to your child. As long as they aren't crying they enjoy it. Even if they don't pay attention to you, pay attention to them. Let them play. Parents and other adults teach children by interacting with them and, most of all, allowing them to play.