We recently took a newborn foster baby into our house. The agency here that helps manage kids in the dependency system (foster kids) also does private adoptions. We were asked to be foster parents to a new baby who will be privately adopted. It was just for a few days while all of the paperwork gets straightened out so that the adoption can go through.
This is our 5th foster care placement and our 6th foster child. Here's what happened the first day that the baby was with us.
After lots and lots of phone calls to get everything set up, Husband, Elise, and I met the case manager at the hospital. The same hospital that Elise was born in just 8 months ago. Before the baby could be released, the nurses had to go over basic baby care information with us (don't shake your baby, clean the umbilical cord stump with each diaper change, etc.) but they breezed through it because it was pretty obvious that we'd just heard that same speech not too long ago.
My only questions were about feeding a newborn formula. I've given formula to lots of older babies, but never a newborn so I wasn't sure how much to give.
The baby is very cute. I'll call her "Farah" on this blog. She has a tiny little newborn cry and skinny newborn legs. Elise was a little jealous, I think, and acted kind of needy when Farah was being tended to.
Since I'd already taken care of a newborn baby before, a lot of the nervousness was gone. I feel more confident with Farah than I did with Elise. Plus, I wasn't recovering from childbirth, so it didn't feel like getting up to check the baby was a major effort on my part. About half way through the first day I thought to myself, "I forgot how easy newborn babies are to take care of!"
Then about half way through the first night I thought, "I forgot how hard it is to take care of a newborn baby!"
The umbilical cord advice is weird. We were taught in school (and in our baby class and when Andy was born) that you shouldn't clean the stump at all. Just wipe the area with warm water after it falls off.
ReplyDeletereally? hmm. we're told here to clean it with alcohol, i guess to help it dry out. that's what we did for Elise. it probably doesn't make a huge difference either way-- both of our babies have cute belly buttons :)
ReplyDeleteYes, I think the reason for the recommendation we heard was that some people used to get too excited about cleaning it and could irritate it, but the body knows how to heal on its own without the cleaning. As long as we don't rub dirt and spit in them, it probably doesn't make any difference. I agree about the cute bellies.
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