Michael Jordan's Weblog

My wife is due with our second child here pretty soon and so is a friend. So I dug out a summary of man-to-man advice a buddy had given me for our first trip to the hospital maternity ward:

Bring:

• Radio/CD player with your wife's favorite tunes (variety of genres is best)
• Sleeping bag for you (hospital might provide a couch or even a pull out bed but a sleeping bag is more flexible than the sheets/blankets)
• Favorite Snacks -- for your wife; you never know what will be available in the hospital. I found myself wishing I had a couple big sandwiches.
• Digital camera / laptop -- it was really cool to be able to email pictures of our son right after he was born. (Make sure to have a dial-up account and a phone cord. Make sure you have all your friends' email addresses.)
• An outfit and blanket for the baby; your wife will want to put your baby in something cute for the ride home.

• You are the boss of the hospital. Try to familiarize yourself with the typical medical decisions that will need to be made during delivery, based on discussing with your wife -- epidural and other meds, for example. Discuss contingencies because you will have to make decisions for her while she's overcome with labor.
• Be aware that nurses will come in and out of the room fairly regularly. After your baby is born, your wife is going to be exhausted. If you think sleep is more important, tell the nurse to wait and come back later instead of waking your wife up to take her temperature.
• Figure out the car seat long before you go to the hospital. You don't want to be screwing with it when it's time to come home.
• Up to your particulars, of course but...I was glad my parents and in-laws didn't show up the day after we brought our son home. We needed a couple days to figure out what the hell we were doing.
• If you have a dog, they'll tell you to bring home something with the baby's smell and get the dogs used to it before bringing home the baby. I did this with a burp rag but I don't know that it really made a difference.
• When you give your baby a bath, wash his/her face before his/her butt. ;-)