Cheers for all the advice. I honestly haven't a clue what to do with babies. Never been around them much at all. The first two months sound frightening now that it's up here in front of me.
Was daunting for me too, but once you get underway it's not that bad.
My wife breastfeeds our 5-month old daughter, has fed her nothing else. She went back to work a few weeks ago and pumps throughout the day, bringing milk home.
I've inadvertently become the milk monitor. I make up the bottles at night and get her clean pumping bottles ready. The next day I make sure she has everything before she goes to work. We have a morning checklist on the wall and I make her go through it, making sure she has everything from her phone [she's notorious for forgetting her phone] to her work badge, the pumping bottles, everything. I pack the pumped milk in the cool bag and drop the wee one off at daycare. Occasionally the missus drops her off, but it's more convenient for me since our daycare is only a few blocks from my work.
We're quite lucky in that our daughter started sleeping through the night after she was about a month or two old. I think the breastfeeding had a lot to do with it, and we're quite rigid in our routine. As soon as the clock strikes 7:30pm I get the bath ready and bathe her, the wife feeds her on the boob for a top-up before bedtime, then we shut her in her room and she usually goes to sleep fairly quickly. In the beginning we let her cry it out for about ten minutes before deciding there was something actually wrong with her (usually still hungry) and feed her again before putting her down again.
At first we were writing everything down and recording exactly when she ate, peed and pooped, but eventually you develop an instinct for it. The daycare people are very good about documenting all her activities, so when we pick her up we know exactly when to feed her and how likely it is she needs changed.
Can you get nappy service where you are? We have diaper service here and it's a godsend. We were doing cloth diapers at first but the company lost their lease on the cleaning facility (probably overwhelming the city's sewer system) so now we do compostables. But it's very handy having the soiled ones picked up and the clean ones dropped off at our door. Shame about the cloth diapers being discontinued, they say it makes toilet training easier when that time comes.
But as I say, it seems like a lot to remember at first but you soon get the hang of it. Just take one task at a time. Best of luck!
