re: OT Parents: Best Advice/Things You Wish You Had Known

When they start digesting solid foods, it takes a little more out of them. But it's not some fact that our baby will zonk out after you put some rice powder in the milk. My son didn't. Also, you really aren't supposed to give that to them until they get a bit older. For the first few months, it's breast milk or formula. Not saying it will kill a baby or anything, but anyone doing it with a newborn is probably going "against recommendations".

My advice is just get on a schedule. For the first 3 months, there wasn't a lot of time for me and the wife to just relax together. She wasn't working, so she took care of him all day. When I got home from work, we ate dinner, then I took a few hours to nap. I then got the night shift. Newborns are supposed to eat every 3 hours, so be ready for it. My wife still had to get up to pump, but she'd get that out of the way and go back to sleep. I'd wake up and feed him, then do whatever it took to get him back to sleep. I'd catch a cat nap in between. I found ways to get my sleep and still function at work. But like I said, we had to have a schedule and realize there wasn't a lot of time for anything else.

After about 3-4 months, we started using Merlin's Magic Sleep suit (he was too small at first). This was also about the time that he started sleeping longer. That suit is unbelievable. Look it up. He was getting big enough to break out of a swaddle, but this suit took it's place. Then at about 5 months we just did the "cry it out" method and he's been sleeping through the night ever since.