Fatherhood anonymous; an open discussion on being a dad.

[yeahman]

Baby Bjorn for front carrying when tiny. You can do some good miles while the kid sleeps.

Backpack carrier for 1-3. After that they want to walk on their own and hikes slow waaay down...but in a good way.

Good jogging stroller is nice, but also a cheap folding lightweight one for travel, airports, etc., is a must.

[SkiLyft]

Keeping things sterile and proper milk handling

Milk is easy - our insurance covered the single use bags, fill em 3-4oz full. When needed thaw under hot water and dump into bottles. That way you don’t have to worry about keeping track of thawed milk time in the fridge.

Dr Browns is the shit for Bottles.

As for sanitation: dishwasher… seriously I saw fellow parents waste so much time boiling their shit… what a waste of time and effort.

[oldnew_guy]

Milk is easy - our insurance covered the single use bags, fill em 3-4oz full. When needed thaw under hot water and dump into bottles. That way you don’t have to worry about keeping track of thawed milk time in the fridge.

Dr Browns is the shit for Bottles.

As for sanitation: dishwasher… seriously I saw fellow parents waste so much time boiling their shit… what a waste of time and effort.

Agree on all of this. Check insurance for the pump as well.

[Norseman]

Congrats, ghost. You'll be a good dad.

I agree about keepin it simple.

We were given a bunch of shit but got the most miles out of just a few items while the rest just got in the way.

Tula carrier like Ergo can be worn on the front with the tiniest babes and on the back with toddlers. Preferred it over the BabyBjorn.

Rigid frame pack (we have a Deuter KidComfort 2, lots of equivalents) for more serious milage including urban. Never got into the stroller thing... sure they fold up or whatever but everyone was happier with the rhythm of walking. One of my favorite things is to pass treats back to the little hand... etc.

So those are my two reccs for carrying.

[Todd Zander]

Milk is easy - our insurance covered the single use bags, fill em 3-4oz full. When needed thaw under hot water and dump into bottles. That way you don’t have to worry about keeping track of thawed milk time in the fridge.

Dr Browns is the shit for Bottles.

As for sanitation: dishwasher… seriously I saw fellow parents waste so much time boiling their shit… what a waste of time and effort.

Just here to say that we leave the pump side of things in the fridge during the day and wash overnight, sanitizing after every single use seems overkill.

[riser4]

Milk is easy - our insurance covered the single use bags, fill em 3-4oz full. When needed thaw under hot water and dump into bottles. That way you don’t have to worry about keeping track of thawed milk time in the fridge.

Dr Browns is the shit for Bottles.

As for sanitation: dishwasher… seriously I saw fellow parents waste so much time boiling their shit… what a waste of time and effort.

Didn't have a dishwasher so we boiled. Glad I was young back then. That was a lot of time.

[riser4]

Before I start a thread in tech talk, does anyone have recommendations for various baby carrying devices and using them?

We plan to get hand-me-down stroller and car seat. However, I am hoping to make the most of my two years in Salt Lake where I will be the main caregiver for this baby. From cursory reading, it seems like super small babies go into wraps, once they can hold their head up they can go into carriers, and as they get older/heavier, they need to be in more structured carriers to distribute the weight. Any truth to this?

We are in the midst of registry hell and I would like to rebuy as few things as possible.

My wife liked this out of all of them: https://newnativebaby.com/

In the front when they are infants, on the back when they can hold their heads up.

[funkendrenchman]

Before I start a thread in tech talk, does anyone have recommendations for various baby carrying devices and using them?

We plan to get hand-me-down stroller and car seat.

Make sure you get one you can click out. When the kid is under 1, you’ll use it a lot. Once they walk, not so much.

Also check the expiration date on the car seat. A lot of infant seats are only good for 6 years. IMO, it’s worth the coin to buy car seats new.

[Marshall Tucker]

Just here to say I took my girls (2 & 6) to Mexico for Spring Bteak

Ineresting. Been reading American Dirt which has got me sacred shitless of mexico. Well, ms. MT to be more accurate. I'd love to dive cozumel sometime and I'm getting a hard no from her :-/

[schuss]

Make sure you get one you can click out. When the kid is under 1, you’ll use it a lot. Once they walk, not so much.

Also check the expiration date on the car seat. A lot of infant seats are only good for 6 years. IMO, it’s worth the coin to buy car seats new.

Agree with both. I've found baby carriers to be somewhat personal as they each have slightly different adjustments/measurements. Between our friends and us we had 2-3 different #1 picks. For hiking packs, Deuter kidcomfort by a mile, it's a triumph of engineering and very comfortable to wear, even when they get heavy.
Carseats - 100%. We did Chicco Keyfit for the infant, which worked great. Make sure to get the "caddy" which is just a frame it snaps into to make a stroller. Folds down to just an easy flat and makes for good times transferring sleeping baby to transport vs. waking them up and tossing them in an umbrella stroller. For both kids we did a bigger Jeep jogger (not made anymore) for off-road stuff then a maclaren umbrella for travel/cities. Worked great. Optimize for time to fold on the umbrella, as you'll be changing it over constantly.
For older seats, I really like the Britax with clicktight. Carseat in and out in under 5 minutes is a godsend for cleanups as well as car swaps. Also has higher weight limits for the harness than others, so you don't have to fuss with pass through seatbelt bullshit (seriously, some of the worst designed shit I've ever seen. Looking at you Graco) until they're old enough to be 100% out of the seat.
Also - seat protectors - get em. Between dropping stuff and carseat bottoms not being friendly to seats when cinched down, well worth the 10 bucks or whatever.

If you want to save money on toys early, I highly recommend just buying the mat with stuff hanging (seriously hours of entertainment), a bouncer if you have a bouncer (one of ours did, the other did not), then honestly plastic bottles and aluminum cans with beans or rice in them taped shut.

[CantDog]

Got thirty pages of this thread to catch up on, but excited to have welcomed our little one into the world on Friday. Already so in love.


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[The SnowShow]

Congrats!! The best adventure awaits!

[johnnyg82]

Congrats!

For sterilizing bottles, use an instant pot if you got one.

To add my two cents to the carrier versus wrap, we have an ergo baby classic and had a wrap thing. I’d suggest the carrier over the wrap every day. Due to some issues we had, I was walking 20-30 thousands steps a day with no issue with the ergo baby. I tried a wrap one day, and man was it bad, didn’t stay tight, hurt my back and not near as easy not as comfortable as that carrier.

[schuss]

Got thirty pages of this thread to catch up on, but excited to have welcomed our little one into the world on Friday. Already so in love.


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Wow, congrats! It's the best shit ever. Also just lots of shit, honestly. Give a holler if you have any questions.

[Dromond]

One big advantage of au pairs over nannies is the stipend doesn't count as income, so there's no payroll tax to pay or tax paperwork. Big cost savings I didn't know about until we were deep into the au pair process. A recommendation if considering an au pair for young kids: communication is critical from parents to au pair and au pair to kids. So everyone trying to learn a new language (and culture, diet, theory of rearing) makes it much more difficult. First au pair was Mexican and unfortunately failed (had to rematch) from discomfort on her part communicating with the kids, but currently have one from the Netherlands who is fluent in English, on the same cultural wavelength, likes the snow and snowsports, doesn't turn the TV on for the kids, and is easy to hang out with. Night and day.

Also au pairs make it easier to slip out for a few hours, as opposed to scheduling (and paying) a nanny/sitter.

I think the tax savings goes even deeper than that, because a lot of the monetary value you are giving them is a place to live, utilities, food, maybe travel with the family and other things, all of which is not taxed. In a high cost of living area, that is worth a lot.

[Dromond]

Regarding carriers: if your baby is less than 8 pounds, and you are looking to have them in a carrier as soon as possible, the Babybjorn Baby Carrier Mini is good down to 7 pounds, and general good for carrying little peanut babies.

[Mazderati]

@markb, @dromond and anyone else with au pairs - What services did/do you use to find them? Were/are your contracts 12 months? Is extension common? Things you liked or didn't?


On bottles, we went with Dr. Brown's glass. No regerts. On strollers, Thule Urban Glide 2 with adapter for Nuna Pipa Rx. Both were last year's models (colors) at a discount. No regerts. Car seat for toddler-sized specimens is next and looking hard at one with a swivel base that can face both back and front. The rabbit hole awaits.

[bagtagley]

. And I made sure to get some dad time fishing with friends but also took the older one out with a gear rod and she slayed.

Not really related, but reminded me that the first time my son ever cast a rod he caught a nice sized trout. It ruined him for fishing for several years after cause he expected that to happen every time.

Got thirty pages of this thread to catch up on, but excited to have welcomed our little one into the world on Friday. Already so in love.

Congrats, man!!

[acostiga]

congrats to the fathers, both new and experienced. never forget to enjoy the ride!

[teletech]

Thing I used the most was my chariot. Stroller is great for rough terrain, bike attachment for when they are a little older and ski attachment. When it’s buggy use the screen. In the winter I’d bundle them up and take them for a ski with them. It saved my sanity and they enjoyed it. When they were 3 ish I’d take them x-country, and plop them in when they tired or have hold onto the back, throw there skis in the pouch. Been meaning sell my double with all the attachments

[anotherVTskibum]

Our oldest is now almost two, our youngest is now seven months old. The Thule Chariot has worked well for double stroller and bike-trailer use; we also have a single Urban Glide that we liked.

Both of those strollers take up a lot of space and were a big factor in replacing a Crosstrek with a bigger vehicle.

For hiking and skiing, I we use(d) the Osprey kid carrier (can't recall the model name). Worked great for a one year old, but as she got bigger things got to be more challenging.

If you have access to Outdoor Prolink, check your brand access. While my ex-wife enjoys the Thule strollers, both of us would have shit bricks at retail pricing for them.

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[Mustonen]

My chariot was one of my better buys. Sold it like 8 years later when all the kids had outgrown it for $100 less than I paid for it.

Super useful. Well built.

[Todd Zander]

Its been awhile since the 2 year old(#3 of 4) has been in the osprey poco but that thing has been the best baby present by far. Our newborn daughter will get her debut in it later this coming summer.

[diggins1712]

The past 36 hours have been some of the most difficult in my journey of being a Dad. This story doesn’t have a happy ending.

Backstory: I have two daughters - 5 and 2. We adopted an adult corgi from a breeder last Dec as we didn’t feel ready for a puppy and couldn’t seem to find a rescue dog since we have young kids. We were all surprised to find out the dog was pregnant in Jan and also in labor. She needed emergency C-section since there was a singleton pup and was too big to deliver naturally. Mom and pup did well and came home. We also caught COVID the day after they came home from the vet.

Even though we didn’t want a puppy at the time, we decided to keep her and raise her ourselves. We had to bottle feed her, track her weight closely and fought through a stint of pneumonia. It was hard but my whole family fell in love with this pup and she was doing so well.

Fast forward to Thursday night, the pup was almost 11 weeks old. She suddenly started having trouble breathing so we took her to the ER vet. They diagnosed her with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia that allowed her abdominal organs to slip into her chest cavity. She wasn’t able to breathe on her own and they couldn’t stabilize her. She died within 2 hours of her first symptom.

My wife took the pup in while I stayed home with the girls. We talked about how the puppy was sick but both girls fell asleep before the pup died. My wife brought the pup home later that night so we could bury her.

One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was tell my daughters that our puppy had died. We told them Friday morning. The second hardest thing was burying her together as a family. My 5 year old wailed both during and after. My 2 year old didn’t seem to understand, but is now saying how she misses the pup.

I’m not one to get emotional, but this experience has broken me. Someone told me to be strong, but I can’t keep it together and am fine with it. I think there’s strength in being vulnerable and setting the example that letting out our emotions is healthy. One of my favorite quotes that embodies fatherhood is “give me calloused hands and tender hearts.”

Anyways, thanks for reading. We’re devastated but hanging in there. Give your furry family members an extra hug today. Be extra tender with your kids and SO.




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[mcphee]

Oh man, that’s tough. ++vibes++ to you and your family.