Here are ways Jewish congregations around the country are observing Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur this year, from pretaped shofar blasts to webinars on how to make your own altars.

What you’ll need to have on hand for the early days with your newborn:

Feeding

If you’re breastfeeding, you don’t really need any equipment.

Some nursing mothers like to have these items:

• Lots of bibs
• Burp cloths
• Breast pump
• Milk storage containers (here are some essential safety tips on storing breastmilk)
• Nursing pillow
• Nursing bras (if buying before baby is born, buy one cup size larger than your pregnant bra size)
• Breast pads (disposable or washable)
• Lotion for sore nipples

If you are formula feeding:

• Lots of bibs
• Burp cloths
• Bottle and nipple brush
• Formula (be sure to check expiry date and note the lot number in case of recalls)
• Thermal bottle carrier

 

 

Diapering:

If you are using re-usable cloth diapers:

• Several dozen (4 or 5) cloth or re-usable diapers
• 8 waterproof covers
• Changing pad
• Baby ointment or other barrier cream to prevent rash
• Snaps, Velcro or safety pins to secure re-usable diapers
• Disposable wipes or a couple dozen washcloths for cleaning baby’s bottom

If you are using disposable diapers:

• Two boxes of newborn-size diapers (it’s better not to buy too many in advance in case your baby is large or grows quickly)
• Changing pad
• Baby ointment or other barrier cream to prevent rash
• Disposable wipes or a couple dozen washcloths for cleaning baby’s bottom

Clothing

• 8 undershirts or onesies (mix of short-sleeve and long-sleeve)
• 5 nightgowns (for use until the cord falls off)
• 8 one-piece stretchy sleepers (go for ones with zippers; new moms swear by them!)
• 5 pairs of pants
• 2 newborn hats
• 8 pairs of socks or booties, to wear with nightgowns and outfits
• 2 pairs of scratch mittens, to keep baby from scratching his face
• 2 cardigans or jackets, more in winter
• Bunting bag or snowsuit for winter baby
• Laundry detergent for infants
• 4 outfits for dressing up (optional)

Blankets

• 3 large cotton blankets
• 8 receiving blankets (they also make handy burp cloths)

Bathtime

• 1 plastic infant tub (or use a large dishpan in the sink, or take baby in the bath with you)
• 12 washcloths, not used on baby’s bottom
• Baby soap or cleanser
• Baby soft-bristled hair brush
• 3 soft-hooded towels

Bedtime

If you are using a crib:

• Approved crib and crib mattress
• 3 waterproof mattress covers
• 4 fitted cribsheets
• 4 light blankets that fit in the crib
• Sleep sack

If you are co-sleeping:

• Firm mattress (not a waterbed)
• 4 fitted cribsheets
• 3 waterproof pads to place under baby
• Light comforter (keep away from baby’s head)
• Sleep sack

Other necessities

• Approved infant safety seat for car
• Stroller that reclines so newborn can lie flat
• Nail clippers or scissors
• Bulb syringe for suctioning mucous
• Baby thermometer
• Eye dropper or medicine spoon
• Medication in case of fever
• Baby monitor

Nice-to-have items

• Change table (or just use change pad on top of dresser or bed)
• Rocking chair for feeding and swaddling
• Playpen
• Sling or baby carrier
• Diaper bag
• 1 or 2 change pads
• Plastic hangers for closet
• Sun shade for car windows
• 2 or 4 pacifiers (if you choose to use these)
• Rattles and other baby toys
• Mobiles
• Night light

Read more:
Five things your baby doesn’t need in the first year
7 ways to save money on diapers
11 best baby registries

The post Newborn checklist: Everything you need before your baby arrives appeared first on Today’s Parent.

Aaron and Tillie are strangers, until they meet on a bridge. Bill Konigsberg’s new novel explores where four different plotlines could take them.

“Marlo has been sleeping in her crib for over 30 MINUTES. I feel so alive…. Wait, do you think she’s still alive?” I sent my husband this text in a fit of disbelief when our daughter was 10 months old. She wouldn’t nap for more than 20 minutes when placed in her crib, so we’d spent the entire winter taking turns babywearing her for three back-aching 90-minute naps a day. Which means we spent the winter doing little else but obsessing over our baby sleep schedule and napping our daughter, no matter the weather.

This is not how I’d imagined my mat leave. I’d pictured my friends and I, all home with new babies, bringing our bundles to the brewery, strolling them to the farmers’ market, and forming our own team of tiny, unsynchronized swimmers at the community pool.

And for the first few newborn months, we were lucky: Marlo was a shockingly good sleeper who slept from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. most nights and snoozed not only through brewery visits, but also through two cross-Canada flights and the house-rattling renovations next door.

But then, at around four months, she started to fight sleep as if her UFC belt were on the line. I knew this was the four-month regression, when her sleep cycles would change forever, waking her up every 90 minutes or so. It was now my job to teach her how to self-soothe through those wake-ups and put her on a proper sleep schedule.

So I dutifully read all the baby sleep books, usually when I should’ve been sleeping. (“Sleep when your baby sleeps” should be at the top of the Things Not to Say to a New Parent list.) Instead of being a comfort, these books—combined with copious googling—kicked up a squall of anxiety. Not only because every expert makes a reasonably compelling case for his or her very different approach, but because they suppose that you, the parent, can crack the code to your baby’s sleep if you just find the right combination of total darkness, optimal room temperature, gentle white noise, time between sleeps, soothing shushes and pats and developmentally appropriate cry-it-out sessions.

9 reasons sleep training didn’t workThe stakes felt astronomically high, because I knew—from reading all the books!—that a baby’s brain development happens during sleep. That’s the one thing the sleep experts agree on: not getting enough sleep is bad for a baby’s brain. One of the more vivid cautions comes from Marc Weissbluth, the author of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: “If your child does not learn to sleep well, he may become an incurable adult insomniac, chronically disabled from sleepiness and dependent on sleeping pills.” I pictured future Marlo downing Ambien with vodka and telling her therapist that her mother never managed to get her to nap for more than 20 minutes at a time.

The development of another human’s brain is a massive responsibility that makes every midday snooze fraught, particularly when almost all sleep schedule experts drill into you that daytime sleep begets good nighttime sleep. So basically: bad nap, bad night; bad night, bad nap again; and on and on until, apparently, your sweet babe is an Ambien-addicted insomniac who won’t return your calls. This is the kind of circular thinking that led my husband and me to babywear Marlo for naps-on-the-go, multiple times a day. She was waking up three or four times in the night, which was why we were desperate to “fix” the nap issue.

This is also how I ended up ankle-deep in snow, in my socks, last February, having gone out the front door of our house and walked around to the back door to avoid creaking the 100-year-old wood floors outside Marlo’s room. And how I ended up perched on a structurally unsound Ikea dresser tinfoiling the window of an Airbnb to block out any light.

It’s also how my mat leave friends and I ended up trapped in our own solitary nap jails. Unable to sync naps or leave our homes for long stretches, we didn’t do much brunching. Instead, we texted—mainly about naps:

“Are we still on for tonight?”

“Hope so, but it depends how this nap goes. If she doesn’t nap, tonight will be a shit-show.”

When we finally did get together, we talked nap math: When did your baby go from three naps to two? Is the 2-3-4 nap schedule really as magical as people say it is? How many hours does yours stay up for before the first nap? We couldn’t help ourselves: The shape of our days, and often our sense of parenting failure or success, hinged on how many winks our kids could catch.

My husband and I talk about having a second kid, and I have to confess that I don’t dread the nine months of hormonal havoc, or even labour. I dread the naps.

So what would we do differently next time around? The changes that would improve our lives most tangibly are tweaks to our perspectives:

Expectations vs. reality

Take whatever expectations you may have, whether about midday brunches or napping while your child naps (LOL), and stuff them in the Diaper Genie, along with the pre-baby bras you used to wear. Your new job is full-time sleep custodian. It’s an important and exhausting job that will consume a lot of your energy. Accept it.

Don’t devote every waking moment to baby sleep schedule research

Make a no-nap-talk rule for when you hang out with other new parents. It’s beautifully bonding to commiserate, but enabling a mutual obsession isn’t. Read anything other than sleep books (or just choose one science-backed book, commit to it, and spare yourself the endless googling of “help + baby won’t nap”).

Train someone else to help out

Get your kid comfortable with a partner, relative or babysitter who can put her down for naps, so you can go on vacation once in a while. (And by “vacation,” I mean escaping to a movie matinee where you can order nachos and forget about naps for two hours.)

Know you’re doing your best

Try not to stake your self-worth as a parent on achieving perfect naps, because so much of it is out of your control anyhow. Maybe your kid’s early wake-up was caused by the sliver of light seeping under the door, or maybe not. All you can do is provide a safe and comfortable environment with consistent opportunities for sleep, and trust that your baby will figure it out in her own time. She will sleep eventually. And so will you.

Read more:
The drowsy-but-awake baby sleep advice is pretty much BS 
Got a baby with serious bedtime FOMO?

The post I had to stop obsessing over my baby’s sleep schedule for my own mental health appeared first on Today’s Parent.

On this week’s episode: Dan and Jamilah are joined by Elizabeth Newcamp to answer a question from a mom with sons who is bothered when people ask her if she wants a daughter. While she loves having boys, the questions are annoying because, deep down, she thinks having a mother-daughter bond would be nice. They also answer a question from a mom looking for an appropriate way to ask parents if they keep guns in their house before letting her kids go over to play. For Slate Plus, Dan, Jamilah and Elizabeth play Would You Rather—parenting edition! Sign up for Slate Plus here.

Recommendations:

Dan recommends two games good for gaggles of tweens and teens: Exploding Kittens and You’ve Got Crabs.

Jamilah recommends facilitating time between your kids and your child-free friends. 

Elizabeth recommends starting a book of centuries, a living document where you and your kids can fill in important dates. It helps your kids understand where they fit within a larger timeline. You can also download a free version to fill out.

Join us on Facebook and email us at momanddad@slate.com to tell us what you thought of today’s show and give us ideas for what we should talk about in future episodes. Got questions that you’d like us to answer? Call and leave us a message at 424-255-7833.

Podcast produced by Rosemary Belson.

Hosts

Jamilah Lemieux is a writer, cultural critic, and communications strategist based in California.

Dan Kois is an editor and writer at Slate. He’s the author of How to Be a Family and the co-author of The World Only Spins Forward.

Elizabeth Newcamp is a traveling mother of three boys who chronicles her misadventures at Dutch, Dutch, Goose.

 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beginning as low as 500 meters, the higher the altitude, the shorter the babies’ length at birth and the slower their growth up to 5 years old.

Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (or PMADs) affect as many as one in seven women with kids. We asked psychiatrist Ariel Dalfen, head of the Perinatal Mental Health Program at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, to explain the symptoms.

Is it just “the baby blues?”

Symptoms of the baby blues:

Feelings of worry, sadness, moodiness, fatigue and irritability in the first few weeks after giving birth. Typically these symptoms are mild and develop within a few days of delivery and may last up to three weeks. To differentiate between the baby blues and PPD, look at the time and the intensity, says Dalfen. If the symptoms last longer than two to three weeks or they become more significant and affect the mother’s ability to take care of herself and her baby, these could be signs of PPD.

How common are the baby blues?

The majority of women—about four in five—experience the baby blues.

Treatment for the baby blues:

Most moms don’t need treatment beyond rest, reassurance and a strong support network.

What is postpartum depression?

Symptoms of postpartum depression: 

Recognizing the signs of postpartum depressionLoss of pleasure or lack of interest in activities; low energy or persistent fatigue; crying; feelings of guilt or worthlessness; poor concentration; poor decision-making; sleep and appetite changes; intense anxiety or agitation; irritability or anger; feeling overwhelmed; or thoughts of harming self or baby. PPD can start within four weeks and up to one year after giving birth. Women with a personal or family history of mental health issues; women with a lack of strong social support; and women who have undergone other major life changes around the same time as giving birth are most at risk.

How common is postpartum depression? 

Between 10 and 16 percent of new mothers will develop a form of PPD.

Treatment for postpartum depression: 

Medication, therapy or a combination of both. Additionally, here are three helpful online resources for postpartum depression support.

What is postpartum anxiety?

Symptoms of postpartum anxiety:

Excessive worrying; feeling like something bad will happen; racing thoughts; and sleep and appetite changes. Postpartum anxiety is a general term that includes several conditions. Post-partum onset panic disorder is characterized by panic attacks that last for 15 to 20 minutes. Women with postpartum OCD have intrusive thoughts or images related to the baby; repetitive behaviour to reduce those fears; and hypervigilance in protecting their baby. Postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can develop in women who had a traumatic labour. (Irritability, hypervigilance, intrusive thoughts and difficulty sleeping are indicators.)

How common is postpartum anxiety?

Approximately 17 percent of new mothers will develop a form of PPA.

Treatment for postpartum anxiety:

Medication, therapy or a combination.

Read more:
Postpartum anger is the red flag no one is looking for
Parenting through severe postpartum depression
6 ways to support a mother who has postpartum depression

 

The post What’s the difference between postpartum depression, anxiety, and the baby blues? appeared first on Today’s Parent.

How parents can distinguish between hand-washing that is a reasonable reaction to a real threat and something more concerning.

On this week’s episode: Dan and Jamilah are joined by Care and Feeding columnist Nicole Cliffe. They answer a question from a mom whose brother’s suicide attempt is causing her to reevaluate her son’s relationship with his uncle. He’s recovering, but can she trust him to look after her eight year old? They also answer a question from a father whose kid regrets choosing an iPad over a Switch. Should he just break down and buy the Switch? And how can he teach his son that getting the next shiny thing doesn’t necessarily make you happy? For Slate Plus, special guest and Slate staff writer Ruth Graham discusses her parenting dilemma that included a highly anticipated trip and… barf? Sign up for Slate Plus here.

Recommendations:

Dan recommends two Oscar nominations for your tweens and teens: Knives Out and Parasite. Jamilah tossed in the Oscar-nominated short, Hair Love. Many art-house theaters screen the Oscar nominated shorts; so go see them in person.

Jamilah recommends Trader Joe’s cauliflower products. Cauliflower au gratin, great! Cauliflower tot casserole, delicious! Plus, you don’t really have to cook.

Nicole recommends Contigo water bottles for kids, which comes in blue and orange.

Join us on Facebook and email us at momanddad@slate.com to tell us what you thought of today’s show and give us ideas for what we should talk about in future episodes. Got questions that you’d like us to answer? Call and leave us a message at 424-255-7833.

Podcast produced by Rosemary Belson.

Hosts

Jamilah Lemieux is a writer, cultural critic, and communications strategist based in California.

Dan Kois is an editor and writer at Slate. He’s the author of How to Be a Family and the co-author of The World Only Spins Forward.

Nicole Cliffe lives with her husband and three children in Sandy, Utah. She is the co-founder of the Toast and has written for the Guardian, Christianity Today, New York, and the Morning News.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As I lay in my hospital bed, a confusing chart stared me down. I was a first-time mom and the maternity ward nurses had left me with a white board, a dry-erase marker and a wailing newborn. I was told to nurse him every two hours, and to record the time of each feed, as well as the details of every diaper change. Instead of following my baby’s natural hunger signs, I was obsessed with this odd schedule that made me too anxious to sleep. Instead of watching my son for hunger cues, I was watching the clock.

 “A healthy baby will tell you when he’s hungry,” says paediatrician Rob Everett, the medical lead for paediatrics and mother and baby care at BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre in Vancouver. Whether your little one is breastfed or bottle-fed, parents should follow a newborn’s lead. “The goal is to try and pick up on signs that the baby wants to feed before he gets hungry and starts crying, because then it’s actually much more difficult to get him to feed.”

Baby hunger signs

Infants actually display hunger in three different states of wakefulness (but they don’t necessarily happen in a sequential or chronological order). There’s the transition state: the simple act of waking. Then there’s the “quiet alert” state, when they give early hunger signs, followed by the “active alert” state, when they are basically yelling at you, in the form of crying.

In the “quiet alert” state, infants become more physically active, stretching and stirring. You may notice your baby open their mouth and begin to root, turning their head to one side as they start nuzzling and moving their chin, mouth and nose around (as if they’re looking for a nipple or a bottle). They might put their hand to their mouth or suck on their fingers. It’s also common to see them smack their lips and stick out their tongue. Babies will latch more easily—and nursing is likely to go more smoothly—if you start the feed at these first indications of hunger.

It’s important to catch these “quiet alert” baby hunger signs before your newborn enters “active alert” territory. If you miss these cues, the window between “quiet alert” and “active alert” becomes very narrow. They may learn to skip the “quiet alert” stage altogether and go straight to “active alert,” crying for your attention. But if you tend to start a feed when your newborn is in a calm, “quiet alert” state, they may develop a bit more patience, explains Everett.

Once your little one begins to cry and fuss, they’re often agitated and may turn away from the breast or the bottle. (Essentially, they’re “hangry.”) Their face may also turn red as their breathing quickens, and their movements become more frantic.

“A crying baby is burning a lot of calories, and that can tire them out very quickly,” says Kathryn Hayward, a certified lactation consultant and assistant professor of nursing at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “So the infant can go from crying to exhausted, and [could fall] asleep without feeding.” If you’ve missed the first baby hunger signs, Hayward recommends calming your infant down before frustration builds. Take the time to engage in some skin-to-skin, to cuddle and to speak soothingly to them before trying to nurse or give a bottle again.

Is it OK to let a newborn cry?

Comforting and feeding on demand is your best bet at this young age. Once a baby is a bit older, some controlled crying may be part of your sleep training approach. But a baby younger than four to six months should not, generally, be left to cry for extended periods of time. Talk to your paediatrician about your baby’s temperament, feeding habits, sleep patterns and weight gain before considering sleep training.

Following your intuition

Calgary mom of three Asma Salman says that for her, learning her babies’ hunger signals came down to experience. She remembers being in the hospital after the birth of her eldest and feeling overwhelmed by all the information thrown at her. She’d downloaded an app that timed each feed and reminded her which breast to nurse from. But once she realized how much anxiety it was causing her, Salman deleted the app. “The minute I stopped overanalyzing it and just relaxed, listening to my kids became easy-peasy,” she says.

When does breast milk come in? Here’s what you need to knowAfter giving birth to her third child in four years, Salman has learned to trust her intuition and pay close attention to her babies’ cues and body language. Her little ones all shared the same kid of funny, grumpy expression of irritation, which let her know that it was feeding time. “As new parents, we’re so stressed about everything. But it’s biological. We were designed to do this, and babies are born ready to suckle,” she adds.

What about the saying,“Never wake a sleeping baby?”

If your newborn is content to snooze for more than four hours without waking for a feed, does that mean you should let sleeping babies lie? Not quite. In the first few days of life, infants should nurse on demand, and at least every three or four hours, to signal the mother’s breasts to produce milk. But Everett says that healthy babies will eventually fall into their own rhythm. He recommends that for the first month, parents should aim for a minimum of eight to 12 feeds in a 24-hour period. They don’t need to be spaced apart at perfectly even intervals. The feeding pattern may look different for each child: Some babies might sleep for a longer stretch during the day, then cluster-feed small amounts throughout the evening, which is also completely normal.

How do you know that your baby is full?

If you’re unsure of whether your baby has fed enough, Hayward recommends keeping an eye on their fists, wrists and arms. When a newborn is ready to feed, they’ll often have tight fists, and their elbows will be bent and pulled in toward their chin and mouth. Once they begin feeding, you’ll notice their fists begin to unclench and their wrists and arms will unfurl and become more relaxed. If your baby falls asleep while nursing but isn’t fully satiated, they’re likely to tighten up again as you try to unlatch them from the nipple. (That’s an indication they’re still hungry.) Change your baby’s diaper and try to stimulate them a bit before initiating feeding again.

Once your baby is gaining weight steadily and has a healthy number of wet and dirty diapers throughout the day, he’s probably fine to wake on his own schedule. (If you’re lucky, you might get a longer stretch of sleep.) At some point, your little one will, eventually, learn to sleep through the night. (It could happen naturally, or—more likely—you’ll have to work on this skill together over time.) But it’s always best to check with the doctor or midwife who’s been carefully following your baby’s growth and progress.

Read more: 
7 breastfeeding tips every nursing mom has to read
3 signs your baby is going through a growth spurt

 

The post How do you know if your newborn is hungry? Watch for these signs appeared first on Today’s Parent.