water cooler :: I'm going to be a daddy!



If you want to THINK that you have a user manual, there is a good book out there called "What to expect when you are expecting" or something like that.

It's better than nothin'

But in the end you will still look back and realize that at the time you had no F&&&in clue :D
"What to expect when you're expecting" was the first thing I went out and bought.  Pretty good book, kind of depressing though.  The first 1/3rd of the book tells you everything that can go wrong (i.e. miscarriage).  Since my wife's over thirty, the risks were a little higher, but we're a couple of weeks away from the second trimester, so, we're not that worried.

The good thing is that there's a bunch of women on both sides of my family who've been waiting for me and my wife to have a baby.  My brother and I are the only boys to carry on the family name, so, the kid is going to be getting a lot of attention.  And, hopefully, some good schwag.  My mother-in-law has already volunteered to buy us the crib, but there's a growing list of stuff.  Stroller, car seat, baby bath, playpen, changing table, baby monitor, diaper genie, baby gates, teething rings, bottles, nipples, diaper bag, and that's the (extremely) short list.

I'm thinking I can use the baby monitor as an excuse to pick up one of the wireless x-10 type cameras.  When baby is older, that might come in handy in other projects. :laugh:
Quote (Grim @ Feb. 03 2006,11:07)
"What to expect when you're expecting" was the first thing I went out and bought.  Pretty good book, kind of depressing though.  The first 1/3rd of the book tells you everything that can go wrong (i.e. miscarriage).  Since my wife's over thirty, the risks were a little higher, but we're a couple of weeks away from the second trimester, so, we're not that worried.

The good thing is that there's a bunch of women on both sides of my family who've been waiting for me and my wife to have a baby.  My brother and I are the only boys to carry on the family name, so, the kid is going to be getting a lot of attention.  And, hopefully, some good schwag.  My mother-in-law has already volunteered to buy us the crib, but there's a growing list of stuff.  Stroller, car seat, baby bath, playpen, changing table, baby monitor, diaper genie, baby gates, teething rings, bottles, nipples, diaper bag, and that's the (extremely) short list.

I'm thinking I can use the baby monitor as an excuse to pick up one of the wireless x-10 type cameras.  When baby is older, that might come in handy in other projects. :laugh:

Just make sure you put the reciever in the right room!

Brian
AwPhuch
If you can get someone else to pay for it, go for it.

But in practice, the audio ones are smaller and work better when you reach the point where baby is in his/her own bedroom (should really be called a cribroom).  At night, you can turn on the (audio-only) baby monitor in your bedroom and still hear the snoring and any cries that you otherwise might not hear.

When you reach a comfort level where you KNOW that one of you will wake up if the baby really cries instead of the normal little noises in his/her sleep, you will discover the best feature of the baby monitor:

THE VOLUME KNOB.

The volume knob is a great thing.  Finding the right volume setting is the secret to being able to get enough sleep to be a functional human being the next day while at the same time still get woken up for a real problem.

Also, when you get your baby monitor transmitter/receiver, don't let them sit in the box for the next 3 months.

Try them out.

Our first monitor was actually the higher-priced model, yet it suffered from an annoying 60Hz humming noise, similar to the sound a badly grounded public address system can make.

Lukily, it was still within the return period, so I swapped them out for the cheaper brand and the new one works like a charm.

Also, you can wear the small battery-powered audio-only receiver on your belt if you are doing garagework or yardwork or similar I-gotta-be-mobile jobs during the child's naptime.

And if you get to choose the crib style, make sure to avoid the stupid imported cribs from a certain European country that come with the drop-down side with metal sliding rails.  Get the ones with plastic sliders.  The last thing you want to hear is a metallic "Screeeech!!!" from the crib when you are holding your finally-just-fell-asleep-baby and you try to drop the side down with your one free hand.

original here.