What You REALLY Need for Baby’s First Two Years: Months Two Through Six

In addition to the things you will need for the first month, you will also need ever-increasing size, seasonally-appropriate clothing; incrementally bigger diapers; baby wash & lotion; Baby Vicks; a cool mist humidifier; a temple-and-underarm thermometer; nasal saline spray and a bulb aspirator; Pedialyte; infant Advil or Tylenol; gas drops; and a few simple toys.

My daughter had several outfits that did not have feet in them, so we invested in itsy-bitsy socks. Washers love these tiny little things, so I started putting them in a small lingerie bag. This has the added benefit of keeping them together, too, so you don’t have to hunt through the wash to find them all. Especially since I am a cheapskate and just washed her clothes with ours – and everyone got fragrance-free homemade laundry soap.

If you are using disposable diapers, by the second month you will be out of newborn size and into size 1 – or even 2. Don’t worry about buying too many. Also, generic diapers such as the ones from Sam’s Club work wonderfully! Your baby doesn’t care, trust me. I preferred the ones that changed color when wet, but they’re not necessary. When my daughter started sleeping through the night, I started purchasing Baby Dry for nighttime use and generic for daytime. And when there is a good sale, stockpile – and get some of the next size or two. You’ll need them before you think you will.

Check your stash of wipes and diaper rash cream, and if you don’t already have a Diaper Genie or something like it, now is the time. The first month or so, baby poop usually isn’t too smelly, and it’s a thinner consistency. By the third month, your child will poop less often, but it will stink more. And when “real” food is introduced at four months, you’ll thank me for the advice.

If you need air freshener, go for clean linen or eucalyptus scents – they’re not horribly perfumey, and they knock out the aroma of decaying poop in the diaper pail.

I used baby wash & lotion from the start, but some moms disagree. I bathed her about once every three to four days unless she blew out a diaper (sink bath, anyone?). The first five or six baths were in her little tub on a table. Then I moved to the shower stall, where I could rinse her more easily. She stopped screaming when I did this, too. I think because the water was warmer! Note: your child may be like mine, and prefer water warmer than recommended – or even possibly colder.

As for baby lotion, I alternate between lotion and creamy baby oil. Since my daughter doesn’t seem to have sensitive skin, I am able to use the bedtime lotion, or the vanilla oatmeal. I did use Baby Aveeno on her face until about 15 months. This started when she had baby acne at 4 weeks and it came and went, freaking me out.

Babies get colds, too. They don’t usually cough for no reason, so if they are coughing and have a nasty runny nose, they’re probably sick. It happens, and unless they are wheezing or whooping, it’s probably okay. Nasal saline spray and a bulb aspirator will be your friend. Unless it is an infection, antibiotics do no good on colds because they don’t work on viruses. Don’t freak, but do make an appointment for the pediatrician to take a look, especially if your child runs a fever. Some ways to help are by placing a cool mist humidifier near (but not next to) the crib, dabbing a tiny bit of Baby Vicks on the chest of their sleeper (not on their skin), and placing a rolled-up towel under one end of the crib mattress to elevate the baby’s head when they sleep.

Unless the baby is completely refusing breast milk/formula, don’t give them anything else to eat or drink until they are at least 4 months. Then, under the care of their pediatrician only, give them very small amounts of Pedialyte. You may also give them a doctor-approved dose of Advil or Tylenol if they are running a fever. Whatever you do, DO NOT GIVE THE CHILD HONEY until after their first birthday.

Gas drops were our friend through about 6 months, but after that, they became unnecessary. My daughter just didn’t burp very well, and got painful gas.

Toys. Every child needs toys. However, I’m here to tell you that some of the best toys are simple. We never had a swing or a doorway jumper. For Christmas, when my daughter was 2½ months old, I got her a Fisher-Price activity gym with a piano and lights on one end and dangly stuff above. She LOVED it. She also loved the lights and bells I strung from her Pack ‘n’ Play toy bar – she couldn’t reach the lights, and only by kicking could she hit the bells. At 6 months she got an Exersaucer, used. That was also a Mommy Score until she started cruising.

She liked to sit and play with spoons and cups, boxes, and a Pringles can I put marbles in and glued shut. She also loves her activity table, though she plays more with the one at Grandma & Grandpa’s house. She had plastic keys and a pull toy on the carry bar of her car seat, too.

But honestly, her favorite toys then and now are family members and pets.

My Parents Raised Me Right

When I was a kid, I liked Strawberry Shortcake, Hollie Hobbie, Tigger, and Sesame Street. I wore tank tops and shorts in the summer, and because it was the 1970s, the shorts were pretty short. They never approached Daisy Duke, though I did watch the Dukes of Hazzard on TV. I rode my bike, made “witch’s brew” from flowers and grass and leaves and sand in bowls and my Dad’s wheelbarrow. I dug holes in the yard, and played hard on my swing set – including putting the end of my slide in my little plastic swimming pool and putting the hose at the top of the slide, and rearranging where the swings and bar and seesaw were located. I filled the pockets of a jumper with pretty plants at school and found out the hard way that they were cactus. I lined up my dolls and gave them all highly improbable names. I shunned dresses because it was hard to play in them. I fell off the jungle jim, got sick on the merry-go-round, and swam underwater with my eyes open. I wore half shirts because I had nothing to show off, and they were in style.

I got a little older, and more sophisticated (you know how teenagers can be). I started liking to dress up – but just a little. Makeup and hairspray. I bought a tank top at the mall that was black polyester with gold lamé in the pattern of snakeskin and snuck it out under my regular button-up shirts because I knew my parents would never approve. But still, I wore jeans and t-shirts most days, even if the color of my socks did coordinate with my shirt. I rode my bike around town even as a teen, till I got my license and a car. And a job. A month after I turned sixteen, I got a job. Okay, the job was well before the car. I did my share of completely asinine things. But, mostly, I was a typical teenage girl.

And then… I watched the fashions change. And not for the better. In my mid-twenties, I worked for Target, and I was appalled by the clothes considered okay for little girls to wear. The short-shorts, short skirts, tanks… Made that snakeskin-patterned tank look positively modest. See-through shirts. High heels in kids’ size 2!

A few years later, I was shopping for appropriate underwear for my eldest daughter. When tweens’ bras are emblazoned with things like “tart” and the butt of the matching undies says “sweet”… And we’re in the kids’ section… I wrote a letter to JC Penney corporate. Never heard anything back. Oh, and all the training bras were underwire and padded. Not long after that, we had a hard time finding jeans that weren’t super-duper-alley-ooper low-rise butt-cleavage-baring. And t-shirts cut down to there. Another letter, another lack of response.

Fighting your kid on the type of clothes they wear is a battle no matter what. But when the child is conditioned to believe that she must wear push-up, padded, skin-tight, revealing clothes… To school… It’s somewhat futile. And retailers just keep putting this stuff out, making modest-but-fashionable clothing outright impossible to find. If parents didn’t buy it, they wouldn’t sell it – but if there’s nothing else to buy…

And now. Now I have a toddler. I saw a baby swimsuit last summer with a padded bra and string bikini bottoms – size 6 months. That’s not cute, that’s sick. And there’s so much pink! Two outfits I remember clearly from my childhood were blue and green, and red and white. I never had a lot of pink that I recall. So I go out of my way to find other colors for my little girl. And, frankly, toddler boys’ sweatpants fit her better than the girls’ – they’re longer, they have elastic at the ankles, and they have skinny butts. Like my tall, buttless girl. I’m not sure why toddler girls’ clothing has bigger rear ends – kids that age don’t have hips per se…

My girl loves to play, too. With her brother’s GI Joe, her Peek-A-Blocks dump truck, a plastic spoon and a baby doll bottle; empty boxes; MegaBloks, and no, they’re not pink. She has girly stuff, too. I painted her bedroom pale ocean and mulberry; instead of being teal-and-purple it came out looking like an Easter egg, pink and blue. Oh well. She really doesn’t care. Her nursery was originally sage, lavender and chocolate. She loves swingsets, bathtubs, snow, digging in the grass, standing on the dog, and chasing the cats. She loves our cell phones and tablets, too – but we try to limit that.

I hope I can make sure her childhood is as fun as mine was. I hope we can skip all the girly frou-frou crap and gender expectations, so she can reach her full potential.

For more information on this subject, visit http://www.pigtailpals.com.