First-hand Parents

Few tips and tricks from a first-hand father that my daughter taught me.

Important events

Make note of dates

You must be very busy in taking care of your baby and might think that taking a note on ‘what’ she did ‘when’ wasn't significant, well it’s not important. It’s not if you don't care about such things but for an adult it’s intriguing to know about such things when they grow old. Don't you want to know when is your smile or laugh anniversary? It will not create any immense significance in anyone's life but will build a life lasting journal of reminiscences. Now there are couple of things you can do to remember all these,

1. You can buy a baby book and note down all this using a pen and paper but come on, we are in the age where no one uses pen and paper anymore! Eventually books and paper succumb to natural disasters, whereas there are a lots of online solutions that can make this activity fun not only for you but your friends and family as well.

2. Another little un-conventional approach could be to create an email account where you send an e-mail for each event that was done by the baby. Wouldn’t it be nice to have such email account gifted to your lil one at their 10th birthday? But again the drawback here is that you have to send the email the same day or you will lose the timestamp of the activity, which will bring us to the next and full proof method of securing all the memories, Facebook.

3. Facebook can be used to archive all the activities with option of modifying things including dates and not to forget that you can share all or some activities with people while you still control who sees what.

4. Another bonus option for this is online baby books but they usually are not dependable and have very limited functionalities, I personally use Kidmondo.com after examining almost 20-30 online baby books.

First Birthday

First birthday is always very important, not for the baby but for the parents. Baby will not know anything but it’s you who are rejoicing the first anniversary of parenthood. I am not going to tell you how to plan it, it’s your job but just to warn you about the different situations you should be aware of and are well equipped to counter them,

1. Your kid is still small and will need similar care as you do at home but since this day is special, both of you will be awfully busy to look after the babies elementary needs. Hence plan out the baby's schedule and have one close and dependable relative assigned to keep a check on that timetable. Most important are Food, water and change of diapers.

2. Since its baby's birthday party, people would want to hold ‘em, make sure you make your baby wear the most comfortable clothes for the evening. Try not to make them wear clothes that they don't like unless you don't mind your baby crying, grumpy or gloomy in each birthday picture.

Videos & Pictures

1. Buy a decent camera if you do not have one, I made the same mistake. Purchase something that you will carry around everywhere because your kid will go everywhere with you. It’s essential to have good camera to capture superior pictures that you will enjoy later but most notably to print portraits of your lil one later. For videos, regular cellphones does a great job, for pictures you can go for some mid-range point and shoot, I bought Sony RX-100.

2. You would think that your baby does things and you will capture it tomorrow but that does not happen, take the video then and there because they might not do the same thing again tomorrow. But this also does not mean you keep sitting with them with a camera, keep the camera handy and when it's a perfect shot then just go for it.

Collect first things

Another distinct memory you can create is by gathering first things of your lil one. By preserving first pair of shoes, first pair of clothes, bottle will leave an long lasting impact once they grow old and will have chance to use these very same things (not all) for their bundle of joy. Don’t try to overkill it and try not to save the first used diaper or something similar.

Mistaken beliefs

Few misconceptions that they start speaking at the age of 7 months, true but what’s the definition of speaking? That means they will probably start saying Mummy or couple of easy words. My daughter is 12 months and she says 6-7 words which in real world does not mean speaking. Also you need to remember that every baby is not the same and they learn things at different age so don’t compare and feel miserable if your baby does not do something.

Schedule

Create a timetable

Very important to create a schedule for a baby because they are going to follow that and it will allow you to plan things, when would they have breakfast, milk, meals and sleep. If your baby follow a timetable then you can plan your outings and work accordingly and easily.

Divide jobs between spouses

Very important that both of you have understanding that both will look after the house and both will look after baby as well. If someone is not good at something then you can split the tasks as per your accessibility. This is very vital because mother end up getting fatigued while taking care of the baby by the time man arrive from work and is expected to do cooking and cleaning in addition to all she did from morning.

What to Buy

Sterilizer – Babies are small and they need extreme attention w.r.t the contaminated environment. All their utensils need superfluous care. Typically mothers follow boiling technique but it’s cumbersome and mind-numbing. Instead go for a sterilizer, it’s an enclosed box that steam cleans baby bottles, cups & teethers (Non liquid ones). Easy to use and no need to switch water as it uses very small quantity of water that gets vaporized in the process every time.

High Chair – Kids hate it most of the time because they cannot move around in it and parents see that kids don’t like it and stop using it. But it’s one of the most important thing that’s pretty useful for the parents. You will have to train the baby to use, they are babies they don’t like anything that’s good for them and like everything that’s forbidden. The best use of it is apart from feeding food; if you want to work on something and don’t want kid to move for 2-5 min, this comes very handy.

Pram – Another great asset, you need not carry the kid around and it’s very convenient. Again kids don’t like once they start walking but it’s useful if you are out and kid wants to sleep, this works very well for that situation.

Soon you would start thinking about little one’s future w.r.t all the financials, well the best way is to get started with their bank account and deposit all the money they get from the relatives. But mainly use it for investments, pay from their account so that any dividend or payback come back to the same account. This would help you plan financially specific about the kid.

Other few important documents you should get done ASAP are Passport, PAN Card and Aadhar Card.