Baby Classes Round 1

Well, tonight was the first night of baby classes.  There are about a half dozen of these we'll be doing over the next four months.  This one was Basic Baby Care.  Call it ground zero.  This is for people whose only experience with children consists of wishing the crying baby's parents would remove them from the restaurant.  I will soon be on the other end of it I suppose.

At any rate it was quite informative.  Here are some of the things we learned:

Newborn babies' poop doesn't smell for the first couple weeks.  I like this.  At least they ease you into it.

There is actually a medically accepted way to carry the baby that resembles carrying a football.  The baby is face down on you forearm, head in hand. They actually referred to it as the football carry, or football position.  I guarantee that at some point in the first four months there will be a picture of me holding the baby in this position, giving stiff arm in perfect Heisman form.

According to our class, between 99 and 100 degrees is how hot you want the water you are using to clean you baby.  Nice to know there's some wiggle room on that.

I can expect to deal with between eight and 14 diapers of poop per day, some of it runny, some of it semi runny.  I suppose that will give me some idea what it is like to be A-Rod's PR guy.

It is, apparently, a universal truth that if you have a baby boy, you can expect to recieve a faceful of tinkle on a fairly regular basis if you aren't careful when you're changing them.  You aren't entirely safe with a baby girl either.

The secret to calming a crying screaming baby is not, as it turns out, bourbon in the bottle.  The most current craze is "The Happiest Baby on the Block".  I don't remember the guy's name right now, but he was about what one expects a baby specialist to be, really nice, kinda hippy-ish, and truthfully kinda creepy on camera.  His method however - the five S's: Swaddle, lay on the Side, Shhhhhhh, Swing, and Sucking (a pacifier, for the kid) - looks like it may be a godsend.

So all in all it was pretty informative.  This whole thing is looking like it may be difficult and frustrating, but I can only think none of that will matter when that little baby looks up at me and smiles.  I'm a pretty lucky guy.