Baby Shower

This week I went to a baby shower for a teacher friend of mine. It was so much fun to see Julie's excitement as she talked about preparations for the birth of her first child. She was so thrilled with each gift she opened, and it was interesting for many of us with older children to see how baby supplies have changed since I had a baby in the house. 

When she opened the baby-wedge thing designed to keep the baby on his back as he sleeps, I remembered how my babies slept on their tummies. They were spitters after all, and I couldn't risk them sleeping on their backs and choking to death. Now tummy sleeping seems to be a dangerous practice. It's a wonder my kids survived!

The gift I brought was something that didn't exist when my kids were babies. It's a cover for shopping cart seats and restaurant high chairs. The fabric covers the edges where a baby often puts his hands. I remembered to myself how all three boys would lean over and suck on the handle of the shopping cart at Fareway.  Ugh !  How did they live to see their second birthdays after ingesting all those germs!

As an additional "gift" to Julie, we were all supposed to write down a piece of advice for her from our years of parenting experience. My advice was for her to keep the baby monitor out of her bedroom. Having the monitor next to her pillow will ruin those precious few hours of sleep by hearing and worrying over each little squeak and grunt. After all, when a baby needs to be fed, he will make his needs loud and clear! 

As the party continued, the conversation turned to the newest standard for baby sleeping arrangements...to keep the infant in the parents room, next to the bed, for the first six months of the child's life. Apparently this is supposed to reduce the likelihood of death due to SIDS. Many of us reacted with surprise and disbelief to hear that this is the new accepted practice.

After the party, I wished I could tear up the page of "advice" I had contributed . Becoming a parent is hard, but it's even harder when you get conflicting advice from well meaning friends and family members who had their babies at least a decade before.  I remember the frustration I felt when  helpful people urged me to feed my baby boys rice cereal sooner than the doctor advised because that's what they did back in "their day"? 

When I saw my friend the next afternoon, I knew I had to apologize if our good intentions and conversation made her feel confused. Then I couldn't resist giving her one last piece of advice. I reminded her that I (and all those veteran moms at the party) got experience through a lot of trial and error. We all made mistakes and did the best we could with what we had and what we knew at the time. I urged her to simply listen to her doctor and trust her gut. 

My friend may have picked up some baby-care tips at the shower, but I learned something that day, too.