If you don't know what that is, I can summarize it as this;
- You find yourself sterilizing the pacifier every time it drops to the floor,
- If you use a bottle, you sterilize that..and the nipple..and the pan..and the counter...
- Your baby is wearing 5 layers because it dropped below 40 degrees today..
- The dog must stay 10 feet from the baby at all times. He could LICK the baby, and who knows where that tongue has been!
- Your baby cannot touch anything that you suspect may be slightly dirty.
- Strangers, beware..you carry mace in the diaper bag to ward off curious baby-touchers!
Hopefully I don't offend :) Many new mothers go through a period like that, simply because it's their baby and they have to protect it from everything! It's a good thing and means your mama hormones are working.
Now I'm not saying my mama hormones don't work..they do!
But I have five living sisters (and one stillborn) who I watched grow up.
Well.. I watched 4 of them.
My sister Mariah is 10, 11 in January. I met her when she was about a year, maybe a year and a half old. I watched her fall a million times a day, shove horribly disgusting things in her mouth, then hand them to me half-chewed. Like chocolate munchkins (I hate chocolate..)
My second oldest sister is Tayla. She is 9 I believe.. I saw her grow up from close to when she was born. She also horrified me with gross baby things.
Neither of those girls lived with me, since they were my dad and his girlfriend's girls.
But after a long battle with infertility, my mom's IVF baby, Nikki, was born when I was nearly 11 years old. Bring on 24/7 baby spit up, chewed up nasties, and smelly diapers..
Which, by the way, I never changed.
A little over 2 years later my mom had her miracle baby, McKenzie, who was NOT an IVF baby!
More spit up, more grossness, and a LOT of dropped binkies. Nikki was a thumb baby, but Kenzie was a pacifier lover like I was. So many of times I watched my mom pick up that dropped binky, wipe it off on her clothes or something, and hand it back. Typical 3rd-Time-Mom-Itis.
So when my daughter was born, I chased her binkies around, washed them with hot water every time they dropped, but never boiled them after that first time..
Slowly, I was just rinsing quickly.. or using a wipe..
then I began to just wipe it on my shirt or pick off whatever fuzzies I saw on it. A little dirt won't hurt her.
I let people hold her when I let them in the house.. which by that time she was probably about 3 weeks old.. Mama needed to recover first!
I let the dog, a 5lb pomeranian, lick her toes when we brought her home. He loved her and to this day, she adores him.
I can't begin to tell you the times this kid has shoved a penny or nickel in her mouth, or tried to eat a french fry when we can't even remember the last time we had fries..
I don't know where she finds them, but I try not to freak out too much.
I've let her eat cookies. Not irresponsibly handing her cookies, but if someone hands her one (my sisters really like to share) or she finds one that isn't old, I don't pry it from her hands. It won't hurt her, though I have no intentions of giving her a steady diet of cookies.
She is 10 months old and has sampled gold fish (crackers!), cheez its, chips ahoy cookies, french fries, chicken nuggets from McDonalds (In my defense, she was in the care of someone else and they let my sister give her one..without my consent), among other less than healthy snacks.
However, most of her snacks are things like canned fruit in pear juice, canned veggies, gerber puffs, mum mum crackers, toast, and other much healthier options.
I also let her have toast when she was ready.. which was around 6 or 7 months. Mama was not ready, but she was. Her diet is similar to that of a 1 year old. No purees since 7 months.. she would much rather prefer a grilled cheese (yes, I've also given her cheese) or some veggies.
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