Me and my wife's first child Elena was born this past Saturday 9/13. Such a crazy experience. 8 lbs 2 oz and 19 in long. Labor took about 16 hours altogether, but my wife only had to push for about 22 minutes. I appreciate the advice in this thread. I've had a chance to read some of it, and can't wait to learn through trial and error how to be a good dad. My first struggle is I watch her constantly while she's sleeping. I have a hard time doing anything else because I'm scared she'll stop breathing. I know developmentally as a newborn they can't roll, but I swear that she can while swaddled. Also I fear she'll spit up and choke on it while we sleep and I won't hear it. Did anyone else struggle with this fear? As much as I try to tell myself it's irrational and SIDS is rare, I just can't seem to stop watching her while she's sleeping so I'm not sleeping much myself. Anyway, here's a picture of the little squirt

She will be fine. But if it's keeping you from getting enough sleep, a friend of mine who had the same paranoia ended up getting an anglecare breathing monitor mattress pad thing that would alert her to anything funky going on so she could stop stressing. It might be something worth looking into, because mom and dad getting enough sleep is so important. She is adorable, congratulations.

It's completely normal to do that. I remember every time I'd wake up to go to the bathroom or simply stir in my sleep, I'd walk into her bedroom to make sure she was breathing. It's kind of irrational but I think all parents do it. I've slept in the futon next to her many nights. You could get a monitor or something if you can't relax.

From what I remember just make sure they are on their back and the crib is clear of stuff.

Completely developmentally appropriate (I hope :, I also have a 2 year old). I think the most important thing is to teach her that behavior is not an effective way to get whatever it is she wants.

jay, adorable baby.

WRT your concerns: For the first few months we slept our baby in this vibrating concave bed thing to where it would be basically impossible for him to roll over, especially since he was swaddled. It was also tilted slightly like the ones in the hospital to where if he did vomit I don't think he'd choke on it (he didn't really have any vomit issues though). Neither of us freaked out about him not breathing but occassionally yeah we'd look over if we woke up in the middle of the night. They are so tiny it's hard to tell sometimes if they are even breathing. You can't really hear it or see their chest raise. I definitely remember a few scary moments where I wasn't sure - but I did not lose sleep over it.

This was it:


It came as an attachment to a pack n play it's the thing on the left. We stuck this in our master right next to our bed for the first 4 months, then moved him to his crib in his own room. The thing vibrates and had a couple setting and was so elite. Would definitely recommend.

Yeah since I've posted that she's been a bit better. We've been soothing/talking to her when she freaks out and it seems to be helping somewhat.

It can be really frustrating because I know she doesn't mean it, she's just bored or tired and doesn't want to be in the car seat sometimes. Her screaming in your ear while trying to concentrate on driving can be maddening though.

My wife and I have a real similar Pack N Play and my boy slept in that little bed for a bit, my wife didn't want him sleeping in our bed so we brought the PnP into our room and he slept in that for a month or so till he got moved to his crib. We kept that little bed in the living room and would put him down in there while we were watching TV or something.

We(my wife more than me) were a little scared about him not breathing so we got a video monitor for his crib for like $200, it is worth the money for anyone with a newborn since we still can keep an eye on him now at 8 months.

These guys are so cool!! They are definitely identical imo haha!!

Would love twins!

omg your baby is the man

Seriously I predict the next Brad Pitt right there.

Pics have been shown to the GF, she will melt

I found this thread because my gf just found out she cant have children. For me this was a huge blow. Almost to the point where even though we had been going out for 4 years, and we're still in love it makes me consider whether I have a future with her or not.

I don't know exactly what I'm looking for but I'm just posting here for some sort of response I suppose?

Damn that's tough.

While this is not the life-advice thread, I will say that me and all my friends had this conversation. Strangely, each of us had the same opinion : if we couldn't have kids due to physical issues (eggs/sperm whatever) we all would have been ok with it, but we'd have been a bit sad if our wives wanted them badly. There are always other choices like adoption. My best friend's friend adopted, and they are very happy and satisfied.

Fertility issues are more common than you may think and leaving a girl you really love because of something like that is no guarantee that the next one won't have issues also. Ultimately it's up to you obviously, but personally I'd rather have a girl I'm very happy with as a life partner and adopt than roll the dice.

It's a very personal and difficult decision, I wish you luck.

1 year, 11.25 months old, and still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen (excluding everyone else's kids in the thread, of course)

15weeks and I'm done cleaning up puke. Time to get a dog.

My wife was told she would never be able to have children, due to her having bad endometriosis, among other things. 1 in a million chance is what the dr said. We're expecting our third this March. Hang in there, you never know what can or will happen.

100% this, I would check on him to make sure he's breathing CONSTANTLY, even with the monitor. I would def. recommend getting a baby monitor though (We use the angel care one), huge peace of mind

Really brutal, no one can make this decision but imho in our own personal situation my wife also thought she might not be able to have kids and although we really wanted them, we were definitely going to adopt

SUPER cute, well done sir!

yea mine also has endometriosis, said in 10 years she would def. not be able to have any kids, took us 2 years of casually trying (just no protection) and finally we lucked out . Hoping #2 comes as easily, and I think we'll stop there

haha thanks man! reminds me to do an update, he's 8 months old in 4 days! (those were from 4 months)

Growing so fast it's insane, learning soooo much lately

As usual guys I have a hard time narrowing down pictures, sorry for the overload :-p







Starting to stand up really straight!





probably my favorite picture of him so far, his smile is just awesome in this one


And some videos because we've started to take those too :S!


Him learning to clap (he now does it when you clap, or when you say clap, it's really funny):




He obviously has seen Dad at it a bit too much, this is my friend's setup in our office he's typing on here but I have a pretty loud mechanical keyboard at home and he is OBSESSED with it, loves to just come sit on my lap and hammer away at it and always super intruiged when he sees me typing ;p. I also find it hilarious that he bashes mostly but then like... wiggles his fingers gently as if he's typing, he does this when he tries to shut off light switches and stuff w/us too, just puts his hand there and wiggles his fingers like that. Not enough finger strength yet!

Really cute kid. You sure he's yours?

lol just a little joke we fathers always hear. Still cracks me up though.

Appreciate all of the advice above. I have gotten better though with each day. I can sleep soundly now without constantly worrying about her breathing. It just took me a week or so.

It will take many more (or at least it did for me), but it goes from every 10 min to every 30, to every 2 hours, to trusting the monitor to do it's job, even now though if we're like at a friends and he's passed out in his stroller I still check on him pretty regularly

My son might be asthmatic. I had to rush him to the ER at 5am last year b/c he was breathing 64 times per minute with bronchiolitis. That scared the crap out of me. So any time he gets sick I basically can't sleep b/c I hear him breathing all night and keep being paranoid that it's getting more rapid and I'll sit there and count his bpm. This past weekend he got allergies (same weekend from a year ago episode..) and his breathing became rapid at 11pm on Saturday night and I basically couldn't sleep all night. He was at 42 and the nurse said over 50 is time to go to the hospital. Normal is 30-36 for babies. Luckily, we were able to give him his Xopenex mask and within 20 minutes he was back down to 32 bpm. But yeah, I got like 3 hours of broken sleep that night at most. Driving him 20 miles to the hospital while I couldn't hear if he was breathing back in his carseat was the worst feeling ever. So I don't want it to ever get to that again.

So in general I don't worry about his breathing but if he's sick then I'm basically unable to sleep.

Yeah my kids are 5 (almost) and 2 and we still use a monitor in both their rooms lol. If it brings you peace of mind why not?

As a lurker and having 2p2 as one of my top 5 forums to post on (when I post that is) I just want to leave my mark here and say... I'm in the club.. Grats guys

Congrats as well!