Transcription:

Deborah Howell (Host): Welcome. Becoming a grandparent is one of life's greatest joys, but it doesn't come with a manual. So, how do we best prepare ourselves and our homes as we go from parents to grandparents? Well, we live in an age of information luckily, and my guest today is Christy Habermel, Registered Nurse and Maternal Care Educator at Deaconess The Women's Hospital. And she teaches a class From Parent to Grandparent. She's here with us to share some tips on how to make the transition. Welcome Christy.

Christy Habermel, RN, BSN (Guest): Hi, thanks for having me.

Host: Oh, our pleasure. So, what do I need to do to get my house prepared for my new grandchild? Very exciting.

Christy: Yeah, it is exciting. And there's probably been a lot of years that have gone by between when these grandparents have had young children in the house and now. And so there's a lot of things that maybe they have not thought about for a while that we need to start thinking about in preparation for our new baby. Obviously when you bring a new baby home, they're not going to be moving around a whole lot, but as we all know, these babies grow really quickly. And so, it doesn't take long before they're mobile and crawling around and pulling on things. So, one of the first things that I would do would be if you have a staircase, I would think about securing that staircase, maybe purchasing a gate.

Or if you have it able to shut a door to where the child can't get to the stairs, that would probably work best. Secure all cabinet doors. So, anything that you can buy. They have really cool gadgets out these days that secures cabinets and doors, so that the kiddos can't get inside those. Put plugs in the, in your outlets, the little plastic plugs you can get. Put those on your outlets and make sure they're not crawling around and sticking their fingers in those.

Any cords for electronics or like window blinds, those are, easy targets for these little guys to go and pull on and get strangled on. So, make sure that you put those away as well. Consider child-proof safety caps for your medications, so, that if they do get into a cabinet that they're not supposed to be in, they can't get the lids off those medication bottles as well.

Another thing to think about is maybe padding your fireplace, if you have one or anything you have with a sharp edge, because we all know those little guys when they're starting to toddle around, they will fall. And stitches are inevitable if you have a sharp edge around. So, just pad those areas as much as possible.

Host: And that glass coffee table with the corners.

Christy: Yes. Absolutely.

Host: Always a problem.

Christy: Yeah, there's also some items that you might want to think about purchasing just to have on hand. You don't have to and these things could be even secondhand that you get from maybe a secondhand shop or even borrow from other grandparents that have young grandchildren as well. But things to consider that might be helpful to your kids, if they're coming to visit is maybe having a pack-n-play for the baby to sleep in. Even if they don't sleep overnight, you know, they take naps frequently. And so it's helpful to have something to put them in to sleep. Maybe have a high chair handy and maybe even a car seat, if you're going to be traveling back and forth with your grandchild.

Host: So pretty much nothing to do at all. Huh?

Christy: Yeah, pretty much. do it all over again.

Host: That's a lot, but boy, can it make a difference and why is it important to establish boundaries and expectations?

Christy: Transitioning from a parent to a grandparent sometimes can be difficult and setting those expectations and those boundaries ahead of time, kind of just helps with that transition a little bit easier. Talk with the parents about what their expectations are for the role that they want you to play as grandparent. And be clear about your own expectations. What do you expect with this child and what are your hopes and dreams for your relationships for the baby as well? Offer to help as much as you can and build healthy relationships with your in-laws as well. That's always helpful. But if you do that ahead of time, it just kind of sets the tone for when the baby does come and it can hopefully ward off all of those uncomfortable moments after the baby's born.

Host: I love it. You know, say, yeah, I'm going to want some help, maybe two days a week with the child, but maybe not seven, mom.

Christy: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Or, or it might be the opposite and the grandma might say, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to be a babysitter, you know? And so it's important for the parents to know what your expectations are as well.

Host: Yep. Information is wealth. So, what are some feeding cues?

Christy: So, feeding cues are important, especially in newborns because feeding cues, if you're going to be feeding your grandbaby, you don't want to wait until the baby is screaming angry, before you heat up a bottle for the baby. And so you just want to watch for baby will start licking their lips, sticking their tongue out of their mouth. Lots of times they'll put their hands up to their face and start chewing on their hands. Even a little bitty newborn will start sucking on their own fingers when they're hungry. The rooting sign is when the baby is, when you hold the baby, they'll actually start turning their head towards your breast because they have that natural reflex to start rooting around just when they're hungry. So, those are all things. When they clench their fists also, that usually indicates that they're hungry. And so, those are all signs to look for ahead of time so that you can be preparing that bottle of breast milk for your baby so that they don't get too angry before. If you get to the point where they're screaming, sometimes it takes a little bit of time just to calm them down, even for them to take the bottle to begin with.

Host: Exactly. Now here's kind of a biggie too, cause it's a, it's a little tricky. How should I wake a sleepy baby?

Christy: Well, we all know that, especially newborn babies, they sleep a lot. They sleep 16 to 17 hours a day and that's not a bad thing, but, it is an issue whenever it's time to eat. And we like to feed our new babies every two to three hours. So, it is important to go ahead and wake those babies up when it is time to eat and we want to do it gently. We don't want to hurt the baby. We don't want to startle them. We don't want to make them start crying. So, that defeats the purpose, but definitely you want to take the blanket away from them. If they are all snuggled up, warm in a blanket, and in your arms, they are not going to want to wake up.

So, if you pick that blanket off and maybe even take them out of their clothes, bring them down to a diaper and you can play with their feet, tickle their toes. Sometimes if you play with their armpits, they really do not like you don't mess with their armpits. So, just gentle, rubbing and caressing and tickling sometimes will help wake that little sleepy guy up.

Host: Oh, that's very, very good tips. I like those Christy. So, here's another one that I think we need your help on how do I prepare stored breast milk?

Christy: Yeah, that's important. One of the first things you want to do is make sure that you wash your hands thoroughly with warm, soapy water. And you also want to wipe down any countertops or anything that will be in the way when you're preparing mom's milk. Make sure you sanitize any bottles before you use prior to preparing your feeding. And once you sanitize them, you don't have to sanitize them every time, but just make sure that they're sanitized before that first use. Mom's breast milk is good for four days and the refrigerator, if it's fresh. So, if she's just pumped it, you can leave that in the fridge for four days and use it as needed, and it will just need heated up from the fridge.

However, if it’s frozen, and thawed, then it's only good for 24 hours after you thaw it. So, you'll want to heat it up. Now make sure that you don't want to microwave your milk. Never, ever microwave milk. It can cause hotspots in the milk that could burn the baby. And it also destroys some of the properties of the milk. So, you don't want to ever put the milk in the microwave. The best way to do the heating of the milk is taking it either from the fridge, and if you know about when the baby's going to be eating, just set the milk out long enough to where it can kind of a warm up on its own on the countertop, but then just run it under some warm water, or maybe put it in a cup with some warm water and just let it heat up gradually. And then once it's heated, just kind of swirl it around. You don't want to shake the bottle, but just swirl it around gently to mix the milk and get ready to feed the baby that way.

Host: And you don't want to shake it to so that it doesn't get bubbles in it. Correct?

Christy: True. Yeah. It gets air in there and then the babies are going to end up spitting up a lot.

Host: You are a wealth of information. I'm going to keep going. What is considered safe sleep?

Christy: Safe Sleep. I think this is probably the most important thing I can talk to new grandparents about simply because the recommendations have changed so much since new grandparents have had their babies. And so it's very, very important that we put our babies on their back to sleep with every sleep, nap time, bedtime. We always want to put them on their back to sleep. We always want to put them on a firm mattress with a tightly fitted sheet. And in a crib or a pack-n-play, somewhere safe for the baby. They're not going to be able to roll around, but they also are going to be contained without them being able to get up against something, to suffocate on anything.

So, you never want to put a blanket or pillows or stuffed Teddy bears, anything like that in a crib. The cribs should just simply have the mattress. And the tightly fitted sheet and your baby in it. So, those are the biggies as far as safe sleep goes, but then we have some other recommendations such as not overheating the baby. So, we don't want to wrap them in blankets. We recommend at the Women's Hospital using a sleep sack. And what that is, is just it's basically a blanket that you can put your baby in and it zips up around their neck so that they can't get out of it. They can't wiggle out of it. They can't get it wrapped around their neck.

And so, it's just something safe that it keeps them nice and warm, but it doesn't overheat them. And it also doesn't run the risk of suffocation on that as well. We also recommend no bumper pads. So, almost every bedding set still comes with bumper pads, but I always just recommend taking those bumper pads out. You can put them in the bed long enough to take a picture of it and put it in your baby book. But then after that, I would, I would toss those out because they are not safe. That baby can roll up onto the bumper pads and they could suffocate in the fluffy material that it's made out of.

Host: That's a really good point. Let's talk a little bit about the beautiful place where you work. What are some of the Women's Hospital policies?

Christy: Well, I think probably one of the most talked about lately, policy and the most, the most, the policy that will most affect the grandparents, will be our visitation policy. And because of COVID-19, we've had to drastically change our, our visitation policy to keep everyone safe and healthy. We do allow all of our patients here to have one visitor. That one visitor can be whoever they deem to be, who they want to be. It can be mom, their mom or dad. So, grandparents. It might be them. Most of the time, it's father of the baby or their significant other, but the only restriction that we have on that is that, that they are symptom free of COVID-19.

So, we will screen everyone at the door, making sure that they are symptom-free and then that one visitor needs to be the same visitor throughout their stay. So, that does keep a lot of visitation for after you go home from the hospital. But it also allows our new parents to get the rest that they need after a long labor and delivery. And it gives them a chance to be able to bond with their babies and learn their babies before they go home with them. So, that's probably the biggest and most important policy. We are a baby friendly hospital. And so we room in with our babies a lot. What that means is we have them in the room with mom and dad at all times.

That's just the easy way for mom and dad to get used to baby and baby to get used to them. And they can learn, bond and learn each other's cues before they're sent home. And, and then they will better know what to do with them once they get home. We also encourage breastfeeding and skin to skin practices as well. We put baby skin to skin with mom and even dad as much as we can here at the Women's Hospital. And I always encourage my parents to do skin to skin at home. And once they get home as well, there's lots of benefits that go along with that.

Host: It sounds like a wonderful environment and Christy, we've been so glad to meet you and spend some time with you today. Thank you so much for joining us and bringing all this valuable information on making the transition from parent to grandparent.

Christy: Thank you so much.

Host: For more information, please visit deaconess.com/healthybaby that’s deaconess.com/health baby. This is the Women's Hospital, a place for all your life. I'm Deborah Howell. Thanks for listening and have yourself a terrific day.