| Subject: Re: Bringing up Babies |
Author:
Claire
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Date Posted: 10:40:19 12/29/04 Wed
In reply to:
Helena
's message, "Bringing up Babies" on 09:15:55 12/29/04 Wed
December 29, 2004:
Nursing babies
Our household was extended with two beautiful twin boys and now the hard work changing diapers and getting bottles starts. Follow me through the babies' first days and pick up some tips about raising babies in the new world (TS2).
This is the 2nd article of a series about raising children in TS2. Previous article: "Being pregnant".
My twin boys Marley and Burley are just adorable. The baby stage might be the most challenging of them all, so for the coming couple of days I should forget about most other things. There will be no time for studying or phoning friends. The good thing is that a mother will need less food and rest than during her pregnancy, but the day ought to be planned differently.
If you got a job your maternity leave will get extended, and you will get paid while staying home with your baby.
The nursery
It would be a perfect situation if your baby can have its own room or nursery, not far from your bedroom. In the new world a baby can be treated in various ways and they will still grow up, so if you can't afford a nursery you can manage with less. I would say that a crib placed in a quiet room would be a minimum. If you can't even afford a crib, don't panic because a baby can even sleep on the floor, but it would definitely not be good for your personal relation.
Other equipment you should consider is the changing table. There are two ways of changing a baby's diaper, either just taking care of it right away wherever your baby is, or bringing the baby to the changing table. If you use the table there will be no diaper laying on the floor, meaning one less thing to clean up.
Decorating the nursery is important to many parents. You might like to go with the traditional pale blue or red colours, or you might do it differently. Cribs and changing tables come in many variations to match your choice. Toys are not needed because the baby can't use them, but they make good decor and will become popular in a couple days. You might like to add a good chair there too for resting or just sitting there to watch your hopeful little one being asleep. And, a good tip: if you place a lamp that can easily be seen you can use it as an indicator for whether the baby is awake or not. When it wakes up the lamp will magically be turned on.
Depending on the size of your house and the walk distance to the bathroom and kitchen, you might add a refrigerator and a sink in or near by the nursery. You will walk the baby to the refrigerator frequently, but in the new world we walk much faster and it really doesn't matter a lot. The baby needs some awake time anyway, and it will not scream while you hold it.
In my case, I told you about lacking one extra room for a nursery. We have a fairly large house with 5 bedrooms and two floors, but the household counted 2 adults and 4 teens when the twins were born. Having twins didn't exactly make it easier. On the night of the birth we had to place the two cribs on our sun deck that connects all bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The weather was very mild, and the babies seemed to enjoy the temporary solution. Then, one of my daughters volunteered to move her bed into the garden, sleeping outdoors. You know teens and their weird ideas, but due to our situation I did of course applaud her crazy idea. In short, the largest bedroom was turned into a nursery including two cribs, a changing table and arm chair. It is located upstairs with quite a walk to the kitchen, but with 5 helpers I found it would work. We could have used a small room downstairs (currently a bathroom connected to our dining room), but it would be too far away from our bedroom.
A baby's day rhythm
Sims from child and up will be happy with about 8 hours of sleep to get fully re-energized. They will also be satisfied with about 2 meals per day. From childhood and up most of our needs follow a 24 hours schedule, which is a good thing because we all fit into the same pattern (except elders who need less sleep but at least elders won't need other household members to assist them. Babies and toddlers seems to follow a 12 hours schedule, they need to go through the full day with sleep, eat etc. twice every day. This makes much of your challenge because the baby's rhythm will not fit with your. In short this means that you can not get your full sleep. There are many ways to organize a routine that everyone will be happy with.
I think the best tip is to make sure that always one of the parents (or others) is enough energized to handle a crying baby. To achieve this the parents must get some sleep whenever there is a chance, and they shouldn't necessarily follow the same sleep rhythm. The smartest thing to do is to sleep when the baby sleeps - try to follow its rhythm if possible. The problem might be that there are other children in the house who need you.
With twins there is an extra challenge because if one of them start screaming it will wake up the other, making two screaming babies. Some say it is smart to keep twins in separated rooms to avoid them disturbing each other. I would agree if I was the only adult in the house, but with a little practice it isn't that hard to nurse two instead of one. There just won't be time for just standing there holding the baby after feeding. Instead you must put the first baby on the floor as soon as it has been fed, then run for the second baby. Eventually put the first baby back into its crib, but that might take a little more time. It might be both a good and bad thing to have twins on the same schedule.
In my situation I was more than happy to have a caring husband and 4 teens in the house to help. I also saw this as a great way for the oldest children to practice a bit before they will have their own children. Husband works and teens go to school so the greater work load will be on me anyway, but I know that if I am exhausted I can safely go to bed just before the teens return from school. We gave up on keeping track on feeding and sleeping schedules, because too often some of them rushed to the nursery to assist the babies. Everyone seems happy with the situation.
In most households there are several Sims to help with the baby care. You should think it was an advantage, but if you have just one baby it is actually easier to care for the baby if you are a single parent. Sims have a strong urge to hold a baby, so even if you just fed it, bathed it and cuddled it and put it back into the crib for some sleep, another family member might rush to the crib in order to hold it or even to feed it again. Another fact is that a baby can lay awake in the crib and having a perfect time - just because it's awake doesn't mean that it needs someone to pick it up.
Such actions will not be of any damage though, in fact we Sims are born with instincts making us perfectly capable of nursing a baby all by ourselves.
Social Workers
Many parents are glad that the Social Workers no longer do show up as soon as your baby cry a little. In fact, a baby can cry for quite a while before the Social Worker comes to get it. But you should be warned that their new charter says that if a baby is neglected they should remove *all* of the household's babies, toddlers and children! It seems that hunger is the main reason why children are taken away.
It is good to know that babies can't be sick or die. If you feed them with old milk they will just spit it out and you will need to shower instead of getting your sleep.
Babyhood lasts for just a couple days. You should buy a birthday cake to help with your baby's age transition, but this doesn't always work. Some babies can wait for hours until they finally grow up. I heard of a local baby who needed 12 more hours, so don't panic. When the baby has grown into a toddler there will be different kinds of challenges that I will describe in my next article.
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