Our first year, or how we became moms
Part 1. Pregnancy in a same-sex family Part 2. 38 weeks of waiting Part 3. The birth of our son
With heartfelt thanks for the help, the support, and the wise advice of our friends — wonderful moms: Liudmylka, Katenka, Natasha, and Ira.
Special thanks and gratitude to my dear New York friend, the wonderful mommy Ironka.
On February 14, 2014, at 2:50 p.m. we became moms — our boy Aliosha was born. At first Zhenia was a little offended when, instead of her name, I called her “mom” or “our mom.” In return I very quickly earned the nickname “Mama Alona” — at first it embarrassed me, but before long it became a point of pride.
Choosing a stroller, a crib, and other baby things
A little person needs an enormous number of things — and every one of them has to be comfortable and practical both for the baby and for the parents. In a young mom’s life the stroller, the crib, and the changing table will firmly occupy the priority “work stations” for the foreseeable future. With a first child parents usually buy everything new; with a second they no longer fuss much and may go for secondhand. New is always nice, but it also hits the budget harder. Secondhand always has its flaws, but it is cheaper. Zhenia and I discussed the secondhand option, and at first I even agreed, but since my total need to control everything personally ran straight into having to hunt for used items and drive around inspecting them, I quickly changed my mind and decided that everything had to be new. New you can pick out in a store and order online.
We didn’t reinvent the wheel: while Zhenia was still pregnant we went to visit our friends Katenka and Serezha. Their daughter was a month old, and we came to see the life of new parents with our own eyes. Serezha gave us a brilliant presentation of the stroller he had chosen and bought for his daughter (it was the newest three-wheeled Chicco, a 3-in-1 system) — he showed how it folds, how conveniently and quickly the bassinet swaps out for the car seat, how maneuverable it is. Serezha also added that he had spent a good deal of time analyzing and choosing a manufacturer, and that Chicco, in his opinion, turned out to be the best value for the money. We saw what a crib with a pendulum rocker is (push the crib once and inertia keeps it swinging for a while until it stops — that saves a mom a wonderful amount of time and energy on rocking the baby to sleep), what baby bedding looks like, and what a changing table is for.
Also, a few years ago our friend Natasha had a Stokke stroller — she praised it highly. The stroller really is brilliant: the bassinet the baby lies in sits quite high, so a mom doesn’t have to bend down to her child; the bassinet can be set facing either toward or away from mom, and it adjusts. Excellent handling (we saw it going through winter conditions). Fairly light. On the whole we would definitely have chosen the Stokke if not for one parameter — the price, which was high, too high. Another minus was the absence of a car seat, which meant additional expense.
So we studied the Chicco lineup carefully and chose the Trio Sprint model. Our criteria were: 3-in-1 (bassinet, car seat, stroller seat), compactness (so it would fit into a small elevator), and light weight (so Zhenia could lift it together with the baby, because there were about 10 steps at our building entrance). The Chicco stroller cost 3,500 hryvnias compared with 11,000 for the Stokke. We still use it and we are very happy with it. The only minus is that it doesn’t handle snow and rough ground very well, and the wheels rumble. As it turned out, rumbling wheels are actually a plus while you walk: they lull the baby and distract him from sharp noises. In everything else it is wonderful: light, compact, roomy, maneuverable, with quick and easy mounting of the bassinet or the car seat onto the base with a sleeping child inside. A tip: choosing a stroller matters a lot for a mom, and it has to be comfortable for her. Work out your own most important criteria based on where you live, how you will be carrying the stroller down and up, and what kind of surfaces you will be walking on to the store, the pharmacy, the post office, government offices, and so on. Believe me, the world of stroller-accessible roads is very limited. In our country (our city) nobody thinks about moms with strollers or about the fact that they might need to get around town with one. Underpasses are fitted with extremely awkward ramps that are practically unusable; the situation with steps is the same (they are always different, and going down and up is almost always a problem), as is the entrance to most stores. So when you choose a stroller, test it right away for how much arm strength it takes to push and to carry it, and for going down and up steps. Before buying, try steering different strollers in the store or at your friends’ homes.
On a funny note. We weren’t planning to buy anything in advance, but an upcoming price increase forced us to decide to get the stroller ahead of time. It was delivered on February 13 in several large boxes. I unpacked them, started studying the instructions, and sank into complete gloom — I understood nothing at all, because I had seen this model only once, folded, and in front of me lay a real construction set with a mass of parts whose function was a mystery. I read diagrams perfectly well, but here you had to understand what each part was for, and each manual had 50 drawings in it. I called our friend Natasha; she rushed over with her three-year-old daughter Mashenka and quickly helped me put it all together. Mashenka decided to give the folded stroller a ride and put a rainbow giraffe in it (a gift from our friend Ira, who had crocheted it). We finished late at night, and Zhenia’s contractions started six hours later — that same night. We joked afterward that Alioshka got jealous of Masha over his new stroller and decided to be born quickly to settle the matter 😊
The crib
Our friend Liudmyla, a mom of three, told me that she had raised two of them in a classic wooden baby crib and the youngest in a playpen crib, and had found that solution very convenient and functional. There are a great many comparisons and articles about this online. We visited baby stores, handled various cribs and playpen cribs, and settled on the latter. We were leaning toward Chicco, but Zhenia found a wonderful model, the Graco Contour Prestige. After watching a video about it, I was sold. The price came to around 2,000 hryvnias, which turned out to be much cheaper than a classic crib plus a mattress. We are delighted with the playpen crib we chose! The model is big and comfortable, with sturdy see-through mesh on the sides, and it folds up quickly. It came with a mobile (a musical arm you can hang toys from — that matters for the baby’s development). Under the mattress there turned out to be a vibration unit (you press a button and the mattress starts vibrating; it is a wonderful alternative to rocking); a control panel with several melodies, nature sounds, and even a tiny night-light mounted on the crib rail. All of it runs on batteries, and all the parts connect with the included wires, which are routed out of sight inside the crib’s frame. As a technical specialist, I was completely delighted by how the designers of this crib had thought everything through for the parents and made it safe for the child. And the main thing is that it folds up quickly and compactly, which we appreciated when we took it along on vacation when Aliosha was six months old. Cleaning under this crib is easy too, since its base has two legs on one side and two wheels on the other; you just lift it with one hand and roll it away. All in all it’s not a crib, it’s a flight control panel 😊 We bought the crib a month after coming home from the maternity hospital, because at first Alioshka slept in the bassinet. That was a deliberate choice on our part, since a baby in a bassinet (a confined space) feels more protected and sleeps better — after all, he was used to being in a confined space in his mom’s belly.
The changing table
If Katenka hadn’t shown us what it is and how convenient it is, we definitely wouldn’t have bought one, because we assumed that a “changing table” came with the playpen crib. But at Katenka’s we saw a dresser with a lid on top that folded out into a roomy surface. The dresser’s height is right at a mom’s chest level — easy to lay the baby down, easy to change him, easy to do exercises and massage. It is convenient to keep the essentials on top of the dresser: diapers, powder, cream, petroleum jelly, a first-aid kit, and so on. The rest of the baby things fit neatly into separate drawers, so they are always within a mom’s reach. Our friend Vania kindly gave us the dresser we had picked out as a gift after we came home from the maternity hospital. We chose a Veres changing dresser, 90×90×51 cm, in white (it matched our interior) — smaller dressers are inconvenient.
The first two weeks, or how I spent my mini parental leave
The leave began unexpectedly in every sense. The official version for my managers at work was my sister’s delivery, with no one else to help her. Only under that respectable pretext was I let go without even a written request or handing off my work to colleagues. Of course I had given warning in advance, but nobody knew the exact date. As they told us in our classes, childbirth is a celebration, because it is your child’s birthday. And we finally felt that when the three of us ended up at home. But there was no time to savor our feelings, because there were an enormous number of things to take care of and even more nerves over not knowing, over inexperience and the fear of harming the baby — because the life and health of this tiny little thing depended entirely on his parents, that is, on us. The first question that had to be settled urgently was baby care: when and how to feed him, how he ought to be using the bathroom, how to treat the navel, how to wash his face properly, how to clean his little nose, how to trim his nails properly, when he could be bathed. What Zhenechka could eat and what was better avoided.
During our stay at the maternity hospital we had already gotten a little used to supplementing with a syringe and holding him upright after feedings. The day after we came home from the maternity hospital, a pediatric nurse from the local clinic came to see us. That is the rule: the maternity hospital passes the information to the local clinic, and the doctor is required to check the baby on the second day after discharge. She was an elderly woman who answered all our questions quite kindly and gave us a number of recommendations. She scolded us over the state of the navel wound. I recommend that expecting moms pay special attention to this! By protocol (and our doctors always work by the current protocol), the navel wound is now treated with a product called Oxenicept — at the maternity hospital they made us buy it and spray the navel wound with it (disinfection). Back in Soviet times the navel wound was always treated first with a generous amount of hydrogen peroxide (it softens the wound, so you can remove the excess crusts) and then a generous amount of brilliant green, zelenka (to disinfect). The nurse scolded us for treating the wound incorrectly at the maternity hospital and said it could have led to serious problems. She showed us how to do it properly, for which we of course thanked her.
Since the next day brought another pile of questions, we called a pediatrician out to the house (he had taught at our classes). Again, by appointment. And here it turned out that the two doctors had given us rather contradictory advice, some of it flatly opposite. I decided to call Katenka to ask her opinion and get some advice. For the next month Katenka’s phone number was like 911 for me 😊
A week later we decided to go to our homeopath Yuliia Viktorivna — all the more so since she is a real pediatrician. Our astonishment knew no bounds when Yuliia Viktorivna said a third thing. Once we had thought through who had said what and where their advice had led, we made an unambiguous decision: to listen only to what our Yuliia Viktorivna says. And that was the right decision. Either the parents make the decisions themselves, or you listen to one doctor you trust and who will go on caring for the child. We started keeping a food diary for Zhenia, and also a feeding diary (which breast, pees, poops, supplemental feedings, medications, temperature readings). All the important parameters were structured and closely tracked.
The second hugely important issue, which was being handled in parallel with the first during that first week, was working out the engorgement in Zhenia’s breasts. Aliosha didn’t empty the breast completely, and that quickly led to a problem — her breasts filled up, and blocked ducts and pain set in. We knew the issue had to be resolved in under six hours, or it could end very badly. We had the numbers of several massage therapists from the maternity hospital and the number of a young woman from our classes, but on the very day Zhenia needed her first session, something unforeseen happened. Everyone remembers that clear February day in 2014 when a real apocalypse hit Kyiv in the middle of the day: word went out that there were problems with fuel supplies, and within an hour enormous lines had formed at every gas station. The subway wasn’t running. Another hour and the city was at a dead standstill. I understood that no one would be able to reach us anymore, but I tried to drive out for one woman to Kharkivskyi — an hour and a half later I made it back to my Obolon with difficulty (luckily I had an almost full tank). Zhenia was in a bad way, running a fever. She found a young woman online in Vynohradar, but to try to solve the problem locally, the idea came up of turning to Maternity Hospital No. 4 in Obolon. I drove her there, they tried to massage the breast out, but with no result. I didn’t go inside, because I was in the car with the baby, but Zhenia said her impressions of Maternity Hospital No. 4 were awful. The navigation app gave us hope of breaking through to Vynohradar in an hour — so we went. The woman turned out to be a young mom on parental leave with two children (which is exactly why she couldn’t come to us). On the whole she helped, worked the engorgement out, and told us what to do. So the three of us, as a family, made our own little road rally. That was not the end of the engorgement saga. It had to be done another six to eight times over the first month and a half, but for all of those the young woman whose number we had been given at our classes came to us. She has wonderful hands, she tried to do everything as quickly and with as little pain as possible, and she came the same day we called, once even at 11 at night. In general, the number of a person like that should always be at hand.
For the first two weeks we (I in particular; Zhenia hardly slept at night as it was) woke up at 6 in the morning and went to bed no earlier than midnight. All that time we barely sat down. I took on Alioshka’s morning hygiene (so that Zhenechka could doze at least half an hour), the cleaning (including mopping, as often as possible), and the running around to stores and pharmacies (there was always something else to pick up). The two weeks flew by — all in all it was quite the vacation in every sense. At the turn of the second and third weeks I left on a three-day business trip; there was no way to refuse. That is how my parenting routine began.
A baby’s morning (at 6 a.m.) of course starts with a feeding. After a hearty breakfast the diaper fills up very quickly, and once that is in the works, it makes sense not only to wash his bottom but to wash his face too. Most of the procedures are conveniently done right on the changing table, whose height is optimized for an adult leaning slightly forward. At first (until the navel wound heals) all the procedures are done with boiled water. With cotton pads (ordinary cosmetic ones) dipped in warm boiled water you wipe the eyes, the neck, behind the ears, the fingers, the palms, and gradually the whole body. You can’t undress the baby completely all at once, because he is still cold, so you have to do it in turns. Personally, to establish contact, I remembered a children’s cartoon and chanted while washing him:
“Early in the morning, at first light, the little mice wash up, and the ducklings, and the little critters, and the beetles, and the spiders. And little Alioshyk washes up too, opens his eyes to the sun, and starts a good day.”
Then we made cotton wicks out of cotton wool (thin cylinders rolled by hand, slightly tapered at both ends), moistened them in boiled water, and cleaned his nostrils (breathing is very important for a baby; for quite a long time babies can only breathe through the nose). Of course the diaper was changed, everything wiped thoroughly with wet wipes, then wiped again with cotton pads, dried with a thin flannel, and aired out if needed.
Then the navel wound was treated. We poured a little hydrogen peroxide on the wound, it hissed, then it was carefully cleaned around the edges with ordinary cosmetic cotton swabs and dabbed with brilliant green. A little later a gentle massage of the fingers and palms, and of the toes and feet, was added. All of this took about an hour. Yes, yes — the story is quickly told, but the deed is slowly done. Naturally the baby isn’t thrilled about what is happening and takes it as an invasion, so he reacts accordingly. The task is to come to terms with him and do it “with love.” Emergencies are an unfailing part of every morning, from spilled brilliant green to a peed-on mom. Never mind mom, she’ll dry off — but it means changing all of the baby’s clothes plus the flannel on the table (stock up on a large supply of disposable pads at the start; they do wonders for your nerves). Getting undressed and dressed is a terrible ordeal; you will have it all explained to you in detail as you go.
One of the key objects of parental concern is the bottom, and for boys the scrotum. A red bottom is a disaster for everyone present and endless crying. A red bottom is SOS No. 1. While digestion is settling in, it can happen often. What helps is alternating diaper rash cream (our choice was Drapolene) and powder (it doesn’t have to be a fashionable one — ordinary food-grade starch will do fine) plus frequent, very frequent air baths. Once the navel wound heals, of course, baths with sea salt or herbs, or at least short soaks. In summer this is easier; in winter, in a prefab apartment block, you can’t keep a baby with a bare bottom for very long.
Nails. An adult never even considers that nails could be a difficulty. And what a difficulty they are! Babies’ nails grow very fast: in two or three days the nails already stick out one or two millimeters past the edge of the nail bed. Since the nails are thin, they are very brittle. And you can’t explain that to a baby. He is used to moving his little legs and arms actively in his mom’s belly and goes on doing it outside, so he can easily give himself a hangnail with sharp ends on any nail by catching it on his clothes or the sheet. It is worse when he then scratches himself with that hangnail and leaves marks on his face. To fight this you use scratch mittens — special fold-over cuffs on onesies or baby clothes — or you simply pull socks over his hands. And of course you cut the nails. For that you buy special baby scissors with rounded tips at the pharmacy (everyone writes that these scissors should be used only for the baby — and that’s right), and you disinfect them before use (I used pharmacy alcohol on a cotton pad). Cutting the nails while the baby is awake is out of the question; you would have better luck setting yourself the goal of breaking a wild pony 😊 Without experience you can only do it while the baby is asleep. How and in what position is another question. I did it for the first time back at the maternity hospital, because his fingernails were long. It was hell. I broke into a hundred sweats before I got both hands done while he slept. As is well known, toenails grow more slowly, and I cut those for the first time a month later or even later than that. Once he grew a bit and started sleeping lightly, the free ride was over. Mama Zhenia had to put on a whole show (with toys, music, funny faces), holding one little hand while I cut the other. Nail cutting works better right after the baby’s bath. It is worth noting that on average babies pee up to 12 times a day (some up to 24 times) and poop up to 6 times at first, then less often, 2 to 4 times a day; feedings run 5 to 6 a day, of which 2 to 3 are at night. So a mom doesn’t have time to be bored — a mom doesn’t always even manage to sit down.
Weight, scales, feeding, and why gaining weight matters for a baby
In the first days after birth babies lose from 10 to 20 percent of their weight (the swelling goes down). The task of the first three days before discharge is to get back to birth weight. Without that there is no point hoping to be discharged. Why does weight matter so much for a child? Because weight is a direct indicator of a baby’s growth and development, and of how all his systems are working. During the first year, and especially the first month, a baby develops extremely fast, and that development takes energy, which he gets from food (milk). Given that it is unrealistic to restore a child’s weight when there is no milk in the mother’s breast, the maternity hospital gives a flat order: supplement.
There are countless manufacturers that make ready-to-use formula for newborns. We were not prepared for having to supplement, so we had to buy what the maternity hospital pharmacy had (Hipp Pre). It is designed so that an opened bottle is used within a very short time (up to 6 hours) and has to be kept refrigerated. There are several refrigerators in the hallway by the nurses’ station. Once you have chilled it, you’ll have to warm it up. Not in the microwave, and the formula itself has to be sterile, so there was only one option left — a water bath for the bottle of formula. This is exactly where our kettle and camping metal bowl came in handy. To make it easier to judge the temperature of the formula (it has to be warm), we bought special baby spoons at the pharmacy — they changed color at the right temperature. We had been frightened that the baby might refuse the breast if he was offered a bottle with a nipple right away, so we followed the advice and drew the warmed formula into a freshly unwrapped 20 cc disposable syringe. You don’t need a needle for that. The “behind-the-scenes” prep is done — and now, the feeding! Pouring this liquid in drop by drop, given that the baby can’t really drink yet and is only learning to swallow, is a true pleasure. He does not like this idea at all and resists hard, except in the moments when the drops happen to gather in his mouth and he swallows them without choking. At first we could only manage it together, the two of us. At the maternity hospital we couldn’t even get a 3 ml portion into him in one go — we had to warm it up again.
Once the milk came in, things got more cheerful. At least for me they did, but for Mama Zhenia (until the engorgement was finally worked out and until he learned to take the breast without hickeys and clamping) it didn’t feel that way. But back to weight. To keep track of weight you have to weigh the baby before and after every feeding, because he needs to eat a certain amount at a time. So for the first few months, especially the first, you can’t do without a baby scale. No home scale works — their margin of error starts at 5 kg. Purely in theory you could use a modern kitchen scale — they are sensitive enough — but they max out at 5 to 7 kg and it is awkward to weigh a baby on one. Like it or not, moms will be sold this product one way or another. Understanding that there was no way around it, I was about to buy one. Our friend Natasha stopped me just in time: “Forget it and rent one — in six months you won’t need it anymore!” And sure enough: six months of rental cost a little less than a new scale, but I gave it back — and forgot about it.
So on top of all the care procedures comes regular weighing plus recording that weight in a personal log. It is important not to forget to write it down, because with a mind that overloaded, any piece of information stays in your head no more than half an hour; if you didn’t write it down, new information, and more, and more of it, keeps coming into the “stack,” and half an hour later it is all forgotten. It seems strange and funny, but it is a fact. For instance, I never mix up “left” and “right” — in our case, “left breast” and “right breast” — and before every feeding Zhenia would ask me: “Which breast are we feeding from?” Before, I could easily keep track and repeat any sequence even a day later, but not then. If we hadn’t written it down, I really had to strain to remember. Since Zhenechka turned out to have narrow ducts, and our boy turned out to be a slacker who didn’t want to properly empty his mom’s breast (he would fall asleep by minute 20), our pediatrician said, because of the badly insufficient weight gain in the first month: supplement. That syringe nightmare quickly wore everyone’s brains out, and we decided to buy a feeding bottle after all. Katenka recommended the Philips Avent bottle to me, and the salesgirls at the Antoshka store of course took me for nearly the most expensive model — an anti-colic one with a mega-anatomical nipple. Although, to be honest, another one of those bottles, the most expensive model, was given to us by our friend Ira.
With the bottle things got more cheerful. As for formula, our pediatrician recommended FrisoPep baby food. Alioshka liked it a lot — though for me it was vile stuff with a bitter aftertaste (I tried it, of course). Mama Zhenia’s milk was another matter: sweet and tasty, only all I ever got over an entire feeding was a bit of expressed milk on the tip of my tongue.
So that is how it went for us: the breast was for pleasure, for comforting his beloved self, for falling asleep with it in his mouth, while the bottle with the nipple was real manly food you could demand loudly, and faster, faster. At first our pediatrician told us: “Hold out with breastfeeding for at least three months, ideally six.” But we kept up that mixed regimen for 11 months. The breast went over great, and the bottle was needed too. He would probably have gone on eating that way, but Zhenia’s period started, and the second time around (the breast milk must have changed taste) our boy gave up the breast on his own. Stopping breastfeeding was completely painless for Zhenia. We bound her breasts once for a few hours. It all went smoothly and unnoticed. Aliosha never mentioned the breast again.
On a funny note. Early on, when Alioshka was wearing out Mama Zhenia’s breast, an experiment was conducted. I gave him my breast instead of a pacifier — plenty of people say pacifiers are harmful. Horror, horror, horror! I lasted 30 seconds. My nipple turned into red pulp, there was a hickey on my breast (and a bruise for a long time afterward). Pacifiers are harmful? Who cares! A mom’s breasts and nipples, and above all her peace of mind, are worth more! 😊
Bathing
Bathing, bathing, bathing, bathing. Everyone repeats these words like a mantra, and up to a certain point I didn’t understand why the attention was so intense. The secret turned out to be simple: the child simply spends part of his boundless energy on the water, gets tired, and starts sleeping better. Bathing = calmer and longer sleep. At first, until the navel wound heals, you can’t bathe him — more precisely, you can’t submerge the wound in water. For the first month you also can’t bathe him in tap water, only in boiled water at 37 degrees. For an antiseptic and calming effect you also add herbal infusions (chamomile, calendula) — we did that too, every other time. During this period a baby tub is handy, because it is easy to boil the needed volume of water and you can easily set the tub on a table (which is convenient, so you don’t have to bend down, since the baby has to be supported the whole time). The best place for that kind of bath is the kitchen. With the door closed you can easily warm the kitchen to a comfortable post-bath temperature even in winter. On the kitchen table it is easy to reach the tub from every side. That is not a small thing, because at first the bathing (the washing) had to be done by two of us: I held him, Zhenia washed. We were fabulously lucky, and by the time our bathing began Katenka had given us her baby tub. The tub was extraordinarily well designed, because it turned out to be Italian and anatomical. A new one cost about 3,000 hryvnias. What makes it convenient: it is fairly wide and long, and the baby can stretch his legs out fully. Its inside is shaped like a reclining seat with a headrest — that is mega-convenient; the baby “settles into” it, and mom’s hands are free for at least 10 seconds. For the baby’s comfort we would at first wrap him in a thin sheet and lower him into the water starting with his feet, then open the sheet and let his legs move freely. At first Alioshyk didn’t like bathing — not just didn’t like it: being lowered in produced terrible screaming and crying, even though the reaction was supposed to be the opposite. Such “bathing” lasted 5 to 7 minutes at most, because we understood that you can’t do this against his will.
We asked around among people we knew and got the advice to alternate bathing with feeding. We tried it — things got more cheerful, but there was still screaming. And you have to bathe him every day, because for a child it is both exercise and a workout for the muscles. By accident we discovered that if you turn him over and hold him face down over the tub (the standard position is on his back, like for adults), the screaming stopped. It turned out (we read about it later) that lying on his back was simply an uncomfortable position for him, and he was loudly protesting about it. We started combining these options plus feeding — things got more cheerful, and we could already bathe for up to 15 minutes. A feeding before the bath, just a little, an “aperitif” you might say, and after the bath a full feeding before sleep. After the bath I usually cut his nails by the light of a desk lamp. Bathing really did help him sleep better for at least 2 to 3 hours.
Later, after two months, when we could move to the regular bathtub, we bought a special baby ring that fastened around his neck and held Alioshka on the surface. A ring with handles was the right choice, because Alioshka quickly learned to splash and travel around inside the tub; the handles helped us make sure he didn’t suddenly tip backward. Besides the ring we of course took turns bathing him in our arms (that finishes off your back in five minutes), supporting his chin with one hand and his tummy with the other. That kind of bath could already last up to half an hour and brought pleasure to everyone involved. Even our cat Marfa tried to be nearby.
Colic
Adults sometimes get bloating or some kind of cramps. It doesn’t last long, but it is quite unpleasant and even painful. In a little man the digestive system is getting established over the first three months; while feeding, a baby often swallows a lot of air, so colic is one of the important problems that cause a baby discomfort. It is screaming, crying, legs pulled up, restless sleep. Parents are ready to do anything to ease the baby’s suffering. They say colic shows up more in boys and less in girls. Ours was very bad. We immediately bought Espumisan, but it didn’t help at all. Then Plantex, then Viburcol suppositories. And still the problem remained. He absolutely did not want to lie on his tummy before feedings — categorically. So the only option was to carry him upright for as long as possible after a feeding. We tried many methods and combinations of them, but the most effective turned out to be time (after three months life started to settle down).
Diapers
Of course I knew they existed, but I couldn’t have imagined how many options there are in our stores — your eyes just glaze over. We had to make our first choice when shopping for the maternity hospital. I don’t remember anymore who gave us the advice: choose diapers with the lowest possible waistband. The advice turned out to be right: a low waistband is needed so the diaper doesn’t rub the navel wound early on. On purely visual grounds we chose Libero Newborn. We used them for the first two weeks and were happy with them, but the pack ran out very fast, and we didn’t really find large packs. Then we decided to try something else. We bought Huggies — also seemingly fine; and then Liudmylka gave us a big pack of Pampers to grow into. In Huggies, up until he was a month old, our young man managed to pee out the sides with his “fire hose” — because of that we often had to change his whole outfit, and if it happened at night, the sheets under him too. When we grew into Pampers, in practice they turned out to be the most reliable for us: they held up no matter what 😊 We also tried the Pampers Premium Care line, but it turned out that the chamomile made his bottom instantly red. We ran no more experiments — we used and still use only regular Pampers. To optimize the price, we watch the stores and pick the best price on a large or mega-large pack. People we know told us that only Japanese diapers worked for them (the most expensive thing you can find in stores). We never even tried to use them. From what we felt, at the start the “like it / don’t like it” criterion is influenced, naturally, by advertising (indirect awareness of the product), by the look of the package (the picture of the baby), and by the opinions of people you know. Later it is only the “convenient / inconvenient” factor. Early on, while rescuing his bottom yet again, we read online that you can make diapers out of cloth (pieces of old sheets, washed and ironed) so the bottom breathes better. We found a folding diagram for such a diaper and tried it. Total disaster! Since it sits fairly loosely on the hips, the first squirming and it had already slid off, which means he would be soaked, which means changing his outfit and everything around him. In that moment we understood how hard it was for our own mothers to raise us without diapers, and if you also remember that there were no washing machines, it is simply a nightmare.
About laundry. At first we did the wash every two or three days, not counting the soiled baby things, the flannels, and often our own T-shirts and house pants along the way — we too were often “under fire.” For the first month everything was carefully ironed after washing.
Postpartum depression
I have been convinced from my own experience that “postpartum depression” is nothing more than a patriarchal excuse and an unwillingness to help your partner. Zhenechka had no postpartum depression at all, because we made a point of approaching this wisely. I don’t like to cook and I don’t cook. Zhenechka always handled that entirely. I cleaned the apartment, washed the dishes, and so on. As I have already said, for Zhenia’s elderly parents I did not exist — I appeared openly in the role of godmother (living separately, of course) only when Aliosha was six months old. Zhenia’s mother naturally wanted to help her, understanding that her daughter was raising a son on her own. To keep the peace in the family, Zhenia made a wise decision: her mother would cook and bring Zhenia food two or three times a week, and would also do the mopping. And that happened while I was at work. Zhenia’s mother felt involved, and we, thankfully, did not cross paths.
I handled the grocery shopping and the rest of the household matters. Zhenechka looked after Alioshka and cooked food for me and for us. After a month it became clear that Zhenia was getting no rest at all. So we decided that on the days when Zhenia’s mother wasn’t coming, we would bring my mother in to take Alioshyk for walks, so that Zhenechka could sleep during that time. My relationship with my own mother is not always easy, and to protect myself from unnecessary questions and turmoil I decided simply not to tell her that Zhenia was pregnant. What a wise decision that was. I told her that we had had a son only when Aliosha was two weeks old. At first there was joy, which gave way to terrible shock. Probably not every woman at 61 can accept the fact that her biological daughter does not want to and will not have a child with a man — but if she wants to be part of her grandson’s life and to help, she can do that. On the whole she expressed a wish to help, started coming from DVRZ to Obolon, and went out on walks with Aliosha. Things got much easier for Zhenia, both physically and emotionally, because she could make up for sleepless, broken nights with an hour and a half of daytime sleep.
Of course, if a young mom has the childcare, and the care of her partner, and the household all dumped on her, then postpartum depression is guaranteed. But the cause is not the woman herself; it is how the people around her treat her.
On a funny note
On weekends, to let Zhenia sleep, I tried to take Aliosha right after the 6 a.m. feeding and go out for a walk — happily, being close to the Obolon embankment made for long walks that were good for the lungs. I remember one spring morning. It was just past seven when, in a terrible mood and dressed warmly, I was striding along the embankment with the stroller (luckily, with Alioshka already asleep). At that hour the embankment is completely deserted; on weekends even the dogs get walked later. I am walking along, squinting in the bright but still cold sun, angry at my own helplessness and at my terrible desire to sleep. And suddenly a mom with a double stroller comes toward me — which means she has two babies. I looked at her, saw her tired face, her eyes — and suddenly realized that we have it just great! The one who really has it hard is her, because she carries a double load at the same time! In that instant I had an epiphany. However hard it might be for me, from that moment on I always walked with my son in a wonderful mood, knowing that everything with us is just great.
The first smile
By three months, when the colic had started tormenting him less and his eyesight had improved, we saw a miracle — the first smile. Emotions beyond words! It turns out a child can not only scream all the time or sleep sweetly — he can smile too. It is so beautiful, it warms your heart and soul. It just charges you with positive energy! And all those chores don’t matter so much anymore — as long as he smiles again and again.
Like the second trimester of pregnancy, the period from 3 to 6–8 months is called the golden one, because almost nothing bothers the child (later the teeth start coming in). In this period, at four months, Alioshka finally managed to start lying on his tummy, and thanks to that he was already holding his head up on his own.
When we were two months old, we invited a massage therapist, who showed us (we recorded it on video) how to do a massage properly and which one to do. We did not do the dynamic massage that is fashionable now (where the child is spun and flipped in every direction) — we “tried it on,” imagining how it would feel to us, and decided it was unnecessary. Instead we did the routine we had been shown: I did light exercises in the morning, and Zhenia did the full massage routine every evening before the bath. Thanks to the massage, the tension in his arms and legs quickly went away, and his legs started opening up well.
Every new month brought small but important victories: the first roll onto his side, the first attempt to sit up, the first time standing in the playpen, the first crawl 😊 I really regret that we didn’t write down when each thing happened for the first time. Of course we photographed Alioshka a lot with the phone (simply because the phone was always at hand) and tried to take video — and still some details have already faded. With every day there was more and more positive. When Aliosha was seven months old, we went on vacation to the sea, in the Odesa region. It was our first vacation together and we spent it wonderfully, taking turns letting each other sleep.
Routine
Experience showed that a routine matters and helps, both with feeding and with sleep. At the very beginning you could choose an option: feeding on demand or on a schedule. We chose on demand. That meant feeding on average every 2 to 3 hours, but Aliosha chose the specific time. The first week he confused day and night — it turned out that night was the most active time, and that was the hardest, because during the day we always had things to do. During the day we were always busy and couldn’t sleep even if he fell asleep. After a few weeks we gradually managed to correct that.
Thanks to the routine, by four months, when one of the three night feedings dropped away, we managed to improve the quality and quantity of our night’s sleep — and that was already awesome! My day ended around 11 p.m. after the bath, Zhenia’s around midnight after a feeding; on the other hand my morning started at 6 after a feeding, and I tried to give Zhenia at least 40 minutes to sleep. Given that I was working, that schedule suited me as an early bird, and before leaving for work I sometimes even managed to mop the floors. Back then I amazed myself — how much a person can get done by waking up early. At night I almost never got up, only in extreme cases. The “night watch” was entirely Zhenia’s: she fed him, boiled the bottle after the feeding, rocked him to sleep. Given that Zhenechka always found things to do around the house during the day, she slept little and was very tired. We decided to bring the grandmothers in for walks so that Zhenia could sleep at least an hour and a half or two during the day. That is what we did — and it helped substantially.
Noise, sounds, and walks
Back in our classes we were told that the level of noise a baby hears in his mom’s belly is quite high, reaching 60 dB (for comparison, the most powerful kitchen hood hums at 50 dB at most). It is the sound of mom’s heart, of blood flow, and so on. The baby gets used to that noise, so at first he practically doesn’t react to loud sounds. When he slept, I calmly vacuumed the apartment and washed the floors. We lived our ordinary life without closing doors. He didn’t react to loud sounds on the street either.
By four months the situation changed radically, because babies’ hearing adapts to their surroundings. He could wake up from a dog barking or from passersby talking loudly. In that period people divide very clearly into two categories: one (which probably has children) lowers their voice at the sight of a mom with a stroller; the other keeps right on hollering. In that period you try to avoid noisy groups, though steady noise (traffic or water) doesn’t wake a baby — sharp sounds do. The problem isn’t that the child wakes up, it is that he gets frightened and wakes up crying. Getting him back to sleep afterward is a hard task; the only way is in your arms, which means carrying both the child and the stroller. At first I got upset that people were so ill-mannered; later I took action. If I saw potential “wakers,” I would make a “shh!” gesture with a finger to my lips, and if people didn’t react within a second, I would make such a face that they got it immediately and went quiet for a moment.
In this period, from four months on, it is better to leave the child to sleep at home than to spend the whole walk on edge avoiding people. It is better to walk with an alert child, who by then is very interested in exploring the world. But Aliosha wouldn’t stay in the stroller for long, and we were greatly saved by a gift from my childhood friend Ironka — a mom of three lovely boys who lives in New York. She sent us a wonderful BabyBjörn baby carrier — very comfortable and functional. For simplicity we renamed it the “carrier,” and from four months on the carrier always came along on our walks.
While it was winter and spring, and again when fall and winter came back, we walked with the stroller and used another gift from Ira — a sleeping-bag-style bunting from the New York company 7a.m. Enfant, with slots in the back for the harness straps. For simplicity we called it the “liner.” Warm, comfortable, and functional. In winter the ease of “loading and unloading” a baby for a walk is a key factor. We would put a onesie and a light hat on Aliosha, put him in a light snowsuit, tuck him inside the “liner,” buckle the stroller harness, zip up the outer zipper — and done! Inside the liner Alioshka’s arms and legs were free, and at the same time he was warm in there.
A child and animals in the home
From the moment Aliosha was born, Ironka became our sponsor and sent us things several times — for which we are endlessly grateful. It helped us enormously: our son looks very handsome, the clothes themselves are very good quality, and that means we have a chance to pass them on to our friends who are pregnant now.
When I appeared in Zhenia’s home, there was already a cat there — the cat Marfa, or more precisely Marfa Vasylivna, since her cat mother really was named Vasia (Vasylysa). Marfa took a dislike to me — she didn’t like anyone except Zhenia. Marfa was a fairly aggressive cat and constantly tried to drive me out of the house: all I had to do was drop my hands under the table during a conversation and she would pounce. The funniest part is that she is a small, sweet-looking little cat. At that time I had a Persian cat at home named Persei (I was living with my mother) — gentle and calm. And this monster was literally eating me alive; being alone with her was dangerous. Luckily for me, she wasn’t spayed, and sometimes, once every three or four months, she would have what Zhenia called her “cat crazies.” During the crazies she turned, quite literally, into a brainless rag doll. Thanks to the attention I gave her in those periods (I would feel sorry for her and pet her), after about a year and a half she finally accepted me. I am telling this in such detail because many friends, knowing our Marfa, asked us what we planned to do about the cat when the baby was born. “We’re not planning anything,” we would answer, while we ourselves decided to read up on it online after all, aware of the risk of aggression from this “cutie.” Marfa always slept in the bed with us, or more precisely on Zhenia, except during the crazies: then she would start sleeping on me. When Zhenia got pregnant and her belly appeared, Marfa liked to lie beside it, and the baby would start kicking. Even a shorthaired cat still sheds a great deal of fur, especially in summer. With Aliosha’s birth Zhenia decided not to let Marfa onto our bed at any hour of the day or night. Marfa was floored by this arrangement — for 10 years she had been allowed on the bed, and now she wasn’t. She tried, many times, but by rank the “senior cat” in the house is Zhenia, and Marfa had no choice but to submit. Where before Zhenia had petted her every morning and evening, brushed her, and so on, after Aliosha’s birth we had no time for her at all. We made sure she had food, fresh water, and a more or less clean litter box. Affection was out of the question. Of course she showed interest in Aliosha in every possible way — she tried to sniff him, to sit on his things when we weren’t around, to be wherever we happened to be in the apartment. She supervised bath time and waited for us to come back from walks. In all that time she never once showed aggression toward him. What is more, at 10 years old she understood and accepted that the head of the household was now this small, loud little man, because everyone was jumping around him.
When Alioshka was six months old, we noticed that Marfa was looking bad: she had lost weight and was eating poorly. We had to take her to the vet (we went together with Aliosha, because Zhenia didn’t trust him to anyone). They examined her, ran tests (and took us for extra money), and said: the cat is under severe stress, and the cause is the baby’s arrival. She is upset that she has been “replaced on the pedestal.” To keep from losing the cat, I talked Zhenia into (Zhenia’s note: in my view, the time had come) letting her sleep in the bed with us again, and asked Zhenia to give her more time (to pick her up and pet her at least every other day). And lo and behold — the cat started coming back to life. As before, she was not allowed to lie in the spot next to Zhenia, because that is where Aliosha was fed, so she moved entirely to sleeping on me. After the “amnesty,” her character really did change for the better 😊 Our worries had been unnecessary. Marfa not only doesn’t bother Aliosha — she monitors him completely: she follows on his heels and sleeps next to him during the day. In our opinion her maternal instinct woke up, because when he grew and started crawling and walking, he began “studying” her — poking a finger into her eye or her ear, or pulling her tail, or grabbing her paws, or trying to open her mouth, or getting a finger into her eye. She meows about it, complains, but puts up with it. These days, when he really wears her out (we of course don’t let him), she may swat him away with a clawless paw, but she still never goes anywhere away from him 😊 She is our third mom 😊
Leisure and entertainment
Besides the massage and the bathing, we of course played. We never expected to be given so many toys: soft ones, rubber ones, and wooden teethers. I gave the soft toys names: the cat was “Matroskin” (also known as Kotofeiovych), the bear “Mykhalych” (Mykhailo Ivanovych), one cow “Blueberry,” the rainbow giraffe (his very favorite toy) “Africa,” the bee “Maya” (also known as Zhu-Zhu), another cow “Rainbow,” the hen “Ukrainochka,” the musical duckling “Sunshine,” and of course his beloved Butterfly — Fairy Roz.
I would show Aliosha different toys and act out a whole zoo of sounds. He reacted wonderfully. Before long my mother brought us a little bell and a tambourine. Aliosha loved them — he would smile and laugh. Games like that helped a lot to distract him or switch his attention even when he was crying hard. Zhenia’s friends also gave Aliosha a whole squad of floating toys. With them bath time was fun — and there was room for a little mischief. Later my mother brought us a xylophone — he listened to it holding his breath. Music was a big hit with us. My mother (a music teacher) put together a special children’s collection of various pieces for Aliosha — melodies without vocals. We fell asleep to lullaby music, did the massage to nature sounds, and bathed to classical music (in special arrangements for children). It is wonderful!
A little later, from three months on, we started showing him the English-language channel BabyTV (it was in the most expensive Volia cable package) — great, and even I found it interesting and useful for picking up some English words, since the channel is entirely in English and consists of children’s programs and songs — very smart and very positive. Later still we started showing him children’s cartoons by Baby Einstein online on a tablet. The wise, kind films by the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea,” were a huge hit.
What do young moms dream about?
As you have probably already understood, leisure is barely a thing for young moms doing it on their own. Zhenia sometimes sent me off to yoga, sometimes we went visiting or guests came to us. We walked a lot along the Obolon embankment, together every evening (and Zhenechka twice more during the day). Sometimes I would get dropped off at Dakota for a beer and some kind of burger. My source of information was Facebook, which I scrolled through in the evening. In a whole year we didn’t go to the movies or to a concert even once. We were at a street food festival one time. For me there is no tragedy in a life like that, but you still dream about something now and then.
At first the dreams are very simple and ordinary — that the baby feels well and sleeps calmly and sweetly. A little later we started dreaming together about our beloved child’s achievements: that he gain weight steadily, that his legs open up, that he hold his head up, that he start rolling over, that he sit up, that he stand up, that he start walking… As for ourselves, we young moms dreamed of getting enough sleep. Zhenia dreamed of personal space (at least an hour a day when no one touches her). Within six months I, as a working mom, was dreaming about a vacation (to sleep and let my brain rest), while Zhenia dreamed of my coming home from work sooner, so she could switch off.
Now, a year and five months in, listening to Kiss FM on the way to work in the morning and hearing that rhythmic music, I dream of making it to a dance club one fine day. And also of going to see Ironka (we haven’t seen each other in 20 years) in New York, with our whole family.
Sources of information
Since we flatly don’t watch most of what is on television (the news, shows, and so on) and before his birth watched only channels about nature, science, and technology, we of course didn’t really know who Dr. Komarovskyi was or why everyone was so taken with him (after our son was born there is no time at all for sitting in front of the TV). Surprisingly, what is popular isn’t always bad. Our mom friends gave us his books to read, we watched a few episodes, and we came to the conclusion that he really does give sensible, practical advice in simple, clear language. We found his advice on bathing and on the temperature to keep in the home useful.
Among the things we liked: the writing of the psychologist Yuliia Hippenreiter on communication between parents and children. While still pregnant, Zhenia read Spock, a couple of childcare books, and the Montessori method. I only got through “The Pregnant Dad” and read the rest online — and not much of that; I asked my friends more often.
Of course we read a baby development diary online (there are many versions). Without a doubt there is a great deal of chaff and nonsense on the internet, but if you want to, you can find useful information. A priceless source of information were and are our friends who are moms and who have walked this road.
Our recommendations
The biggest stress is running into something for the first time. The key recommendation: master (or at least get acquainted with) the basics of baby care before your child is born. You will save yourself and your partner a great many nerve cells.
The birth of a child is always a hugely significant event in life; your friends, acquaintances, and (we hope) relatives will certainly congratulate you. For their convenience and yours, make a list of the gifts you would like — they will thank you for being specific, and you will get what you actually need. Katenka gave me this piece of advice, and it worked out 100 percent. Even people we absolutely didn’t expect it from wanted to congratulate us — and our list came in very handy. We put a list like that together right after coming home from the maternity hospital. We received gifts for a whole month.
Don’t buy things without asking the moms closest to you — with a probability of more than 50 percent, the things you need may already be sitting at a friend’s place. We got an enormous quantity of used things from Katenka: we used them for two or three months, he outgrew them, and we passed them on to other people for their babies. There is a site made especially for moms, Klumba, where you can pick out and buy or sell new or used items. For the first six months we ignored it, and now we use it successfully. You can also ask around in advance about discount cards at the popular baby stores.
Try to find a sensible pediatrician you will be able to trust.
Be attentive to the mom who is directly with the child. Take care of her sleep and of her chance to take a shower, and give her at least a little personal space at least sometimes (a book, sleep, the internet, a call to a friend, and so on). Bring everyone around you into running the household as much as possible, or take it on yourself. The mom can be left with only the care of the child — she should be freed from everything else.
Put together a “hot” list of vetted people and their phone numbers: a massage therapist (for breast engorgement), a pediatrician, a massage therapist for the baby, a doctor for the mom; make friends with a sensible pediatric surgeon or orthopedist. Find and write down the number of your local ambulance service, and know where the nearest on-duty children’s hospital is. You may never need it, but believe me: it is better to find out in advance than to call 103 at night in a state of panic and try to figure out where all of this is.
Write down your baby’s achievements — when something worked for the first time. Unfortunately, we didn’t do that. Everything is forgotten very quickly: even a month later it is hard to remember.
Photograph your baby and take video — and if you can afford it, with a professional photographer. Babies grow very fast; when you are right there, you don’t notice a lot of it. Photos and videos bring up the most wonderful emotions.
Don’t be afraid to go visiting, near or far, and to invite friends over. We started doing that at two months; some start at one month. A child will live in whatever rhythm his parents set for him and will consider it comfortable. Babies, in fact, sleep beautifully in the car and while you are on the move.
Play with your baby. Play is the main source of information about how the world works. Play with positive emotions means a baby’s smile and laughter, and happiness for the parents.
Music. We recommend it! We are happy to share our music collection for babies with anyone who wants it.
In place of an epilogue
When Zhenia was pregnant, I shared the news with my friend and former classmate Valentyna, a mom of two. She is a doctor by training and a realist by nature. She looked at me and said: “Congratulations, of course, but with the birth of a child your life will change forever. Are you ready?” “Yes!” I answered instantly. “I thought I was ready too, but it is impossible to be ready for this. Children are very hard, they are forever, they are a lot of trouble. But it is the best thing that ever happened in my life,” she added with a smile.
Zhenia, Alona, and Alioshka