Croup

Yes, this illness sounds like some sort of medieval disease or a wild bird. However, at least when my son got croup it sounded worse than it was - literally he sounded bad, but he recovered pretty quickly.

He did not have many symptoms beforehand, other than an intermittent cold that seemed to last months (and coincided with cold season and his starting day care). In the middle of the night I woke up to what sounded like a weird wheezing barking sound coming from my son's room. Sometimes croup can be really serious and cause babies to have trouble breathing. In my son's case he was still able to get air all right, he was just uncomfortable.

The next day we went to the doctor even though he was breathing fine and had no symptoms during the day. The doctor said in many kids croup just appears at night and will only happen for one or two nights. Fortunately that was what happened with us. That night I heard the barking again, only much milder and he slept better. By the next night the croup was gone.

What I wish I brought to the hospital

One of my beloved family members is having her baby in May and recently we got talking about what she should bring to the hospital with her for the birth. It made me think this is a good blog post topic, because there are several things I would have loved to with me when my son was born, but given that he was my first I did not think to bring them.

So here we go with another biased, partial, but well-intentioned list:

1. Nursing pillow
2. Nursing bra
3. Baby carrier
4. Swaddle blankets

Nursing pillow: You probably already have one at home, so bring it. No need to bring it into the hospital when you go into labor, if you carry all this stuff in you will be overwhelmed, but after the baby is born you can have someone run out to the car to get it. Nursing pillows are designed to help position the baby, the hospital pillows are just not going to be as easy to use.

Nursing bra: I did not even own a nursing bra before my son was born, and it was a big hassle to go buy one with a newborn. So just buy a nursing bra or even a extra-stretchy larger sports bra and bring it with you to the hospital. It will help with the inevitable breast soreness and leaking and will be easier than trying to find ways to peel off parts of your hospital gown.

Baby carrier: With this item I have a caveat. If it is a complicated carrier like a Moby wrap and you have not used it before it might be more stressful to bring it to the hospital and try to figure out how to use it with a newborn. But if you have an easy to use carrier or have used it before then by all means bring it.

Swaddle blankets: The hospitals blankets are fine for swaddling, but if you are a new parent and have not swaddled babies before or just want the convenience of the pre-made swaddle blankets you can bring one like the SwaddleMe and save yourself some effort. In fact looking around it seems they make swaddle blankets specifically for tiny newborns, this one is called the SwaddlePod. Not sure how well they work, but I'd love to hear back from others who have used them.

SwaddleMe swaddle blanket.

You will probably notice that a lot of things are missing from my list, for example clothes, baby clothes, etc. This is not a complete list, just things that might be missing from conventional lists. Yes you should bring clothes to wear home, and maybe clothes to wear at the hospital, as well as whatever else you feel you might want.

Everybody's labor and delivery is different. In mine I brought things that I thought I would use during labor, like an mp3 player, that I never even touched because my labor was relatively fast. My son was born at about 11am and we left at about 2pm the next day, so I did not have an opportunity to use many items that others parents might find useful in the hospital.

Particularly if you are having a c-section you may be there for several days to a week and you might want more clothes, toiletries, slippers/shoes, nursing pads to stop leaking when your milk comes in, etc. But if you are having a planned c-section you will know ahead of time and can pack more, if you have an unplanned c-section your husband or family members at some point will probably need to go home to check on the dog, other kids, change their clothes, etc. and they can pick up items for you at that point.