Questions from a First Time Mom

Now that I've been sitting in the hospital (on bedrest) for several weeks now, I'm starting to nest. (And can't do anything!Arg!) DH has been great about my 'directions' and is washing the baby clothes and setting up the cribs/co-sleeper.

But as I'm buying stuff (thank goodness for online shopping!!) from our registry, it's occurred to me that I don't know how to prep some of the stuff for the babies!

Like the car seats...I know all the clothes/sheets/blankets need to be washed before we use them, but what about the car seats? Should we do anything special before putting them in the car?

And bottles...should I get a special sterilizer or do we use the dishwasher or is hot soapy water best? (And can you use regular dish soap?!) I'm planning on breastfeeding, but want to have bottles for EBM.

And pacifiers...same as bottles?

I know these probably sound like crazy questions, but I've never done the baby thing before. And these are the first grandchildren for my parents. When I ask my mom questions she says it's been too long since she's done it to remember.

Any advice would be so helpful to me!
Thanks!

 

I am planning on washing and steralizing all the bottles and pacifiers within the week before they are due..

Car seats, maybe insert them a week or so before to get the hang of it, but they need no special attention other than the correct adjustment in the car..

 

Car Seats: Get comfortable with how to loosen and tighten the straps. Also make sure they are set to the lowest setting. Decide if you want to put a bundle me in the seat. If so, get DH to put them in now (those can be washed first). Have DH install the bases or carseats in the car. If you have problems, some local police stations help with installs.

Bottles: We boiled the bottles the first time, but thereafter used the dishwasher - I think every month or so we would re-boil. It's up to you. a bottle sterilizer probably isn't necessary.

Pacifiers we also boiled at first, and then put in the dishwasher

Hope this helps.
Good Luck,
Stacy

 

Boil pacis and bottles first, then just throw them in the dishwasher after that (we used the regular detergent we always used). And don't boil all of them. Your kids may not like that particular brand and so you may have to do quite a bit of boiling in the first few weeks! (We were lucky with bottles, but went through a few brands of pacis before we found a brand they each liked...which happened to be different by the way.)

We did not wash the car seat covers.

 

I washed the carseat covers for these two, but I'm sure it would be ok if you didn't get around to doing it. Also like someone said practice adjusting the straps since it can be tricky, and put the bases in early.

I boiled bottles and pacifiers with my DS the first time I used them, and then we washed the bottles and pacifiers by hand or put them in the dishwasher.

 

I didn't do anything to our carseats before hand except learn how to loosen/tighten the straps.

Bottles and paci's sterilize the first time by boiling them in hot water for 5 min. (I think it was). After that I just washed them in the dishwasher or by hand, usually by hand each night with regular dish soap.

 

We washed all the bottles clothes as far as the car seats we called our police dept and had them install them for us.
This is the easiest way and you know it was done right they have to go to a class on putting them in
Good luck to you

 

Thanks ladies!!!!