Note to Self: Surviving the Man Baby & What to Dress Them In

Dear Sarah from six months ago,

It’s 3:14 AM. You're currently sitting cross-legged on the floor of your sister’s guest room wearing a pair of Dave’s old sweatpants with a questionable bleach stain on the knee and a nursing tank you definitely haven’t washed since Tuesday. You have a cold cup of coffee somewhere just out of reach. Your sister is recovering from an emergency C-section down the hall, and her husband—my usually lovely, very Swiss brother-in-law—has caught a mild head cold and is currently sequestered in the master bedroom acting like a literal man baby.

He actually texted you ten minutes ago to ask for warm Gatorade. Warm. Gatorade.

Anyway, you’re holding your three-week-old nephew, who's screaming his tiny head off, and his Swiss mother (your mother-in-law adjacent, I guess?) is hovering in the doorway rapidly firing German at you. She keeps saying was zieht man babys an and looking pointedly at the child’s bare legs, and because your brain is completely fried and you haven’t slept a full night since Obama was in office, you actually try typing that exact phrase into your phone with one thumb to figure out what she wants.

Spoiler alert: She wants to know how you're going to dress the baby. And you're having a massive panic attack because even though you've two kids of your own—Leo is 4, Maya is 7—you've entirely forgotten how to dress a newborn. The knowledge just deletes itself from your brain the second they learn to walk. Poof. Gone.

So, past Sarah, I'm writing this to you. A cheat sheet. A survival guide. Because you're about to go down a deeply neurotic internet rabbit hole, and I want to save you the trouble.

The stupid plus one rule

If you Google how to dress a baby, every single article will tell you about the "Plus One Rule." They say you should dress the baby in whatever you're wearing to be comfortable, plus one light layer.

This is complete crap.

Who's the baseline here? Because Dave thinks 68 degrees is freezing and walks around our house in a fleece jacket from October to April, while I'm usually sweating through a t-shirt because my postpartum hormones permanently broke my internal thermostat seven years ago. If we use Dave as the baseline, the baby is going to be in a parka. If we use me, the baby is in a diaper.

And you can't check their hands to see if they're cold. Dr. Aris, our doctor who has seen me cry over weird diaper rashes at least four times, explicitly told me to stop touching Maya's weird little purple newborn hands when she was little. Babies have terrible circulation. Their hands and feet are always going to feel like tiny ice cubes. You have to shove two fingers down the back of their shirt to feel the nape of their neck, and if it feels like a swamp, you strip off a layer, even if the Swiss grandmother is glaring at you.

The great sleep sack confusion

Then comes the night shift, and the inevitable Google spiral of was zieht man babys zum schlafen an because suddenly you're convinced the baby is either going to freeze to death or spontaneously combust in his crib.

You remember the SIDS panic from when Maya was a baby, right? No loose blankets. Ever. You basically have to strip the crib down until it looks like a tiny, sad prison cell. No bumpers, no stuffed animals, absolutely no cute quilt that your great-aunt spent three months knitting.

So you've to use a sleep sack. But then you run into TOG ratings.

What the hell is a TOG anyway. I still don't fully understand it. I think it stands for Thermal Overall Grade, which sounds like something an engineer invented to make mothers feel stupid. But basically, a 0.5 TOG is for when it's hot as hell and you're sweating just looking at the baby, a 1.0 TOG is for normal room temperatures, and a 2.5 TOG is for winter when you refuse to turn the heat up past 65 because heating oil is expensive. You just stuff them in a cotton onesie, zip them into the appropriate TOG sack, and pray they stay asleep.

Actually, speaking of blankets, since you can't use them in the crib, you're going to need one for literally everywhere else. I ended up ordering the Bamboo Baby Blanket with Colorful Leaves from Kianao for my sister, and it became my absolute favorite thing. I'm obsessed with it. I draped it over the stroller, I used it as a nursing cover when the in-laws were staring at me, I laid it on the disgusting airport carpet when we finally flew home. I spilled half a cup of lukewarm dark roast coffee on it during week three, and it miraculously washed right out without staining. It’s made of bamboo so it’s ridiculously soft, but more importantly, it genuinely breathes, so when the baby falls asleep on your chest for two hours you don't both wake up covered in a slick layer of mutual sweat. Get two of them. Trust me.

Anyway, the point is, sleep dressing is just a onesie and a wearable sleeping bag. Don't overthink it.

The winter car seat nightmare

Eventually, his mom started lecturing me about was zieht man babys im winter an because Swiss winters are no joke and she assumed I was going to let the child get frostbite on the way to his two-week checkup.

I ranted about this to Dave on the phone for twenty minutes. The winter coat thing is terrifying. You can't, under any circumstances, put a baby in a puffy winter coat or one of those adorable little Michelin Man snowsuits and then strap them into a car seat. Just don't do it.

I remember trying to explain the physics of this to Dave when Leo was a baby. In a car crash, all that fluffy air inside the puffy coat compresses instantly. So you think you've strapped the baby in tight, but the harness is honestly dangerously loose, and the kid can literally fly out of the seat. Oh god, just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt.

So for winter, you've to do these thin, dense layers. A long-sleeve organic cotton bodysuit. A snug sweater. Pants. Put them in the car seat, pull the straps completely tight, and then—and only then—you tuck a thick blanket over the straps. It takes five times as long to get out of the house, and the baby will probably scream the entire time you're doing it, but that's just how it has to be.

If you're stuck indoors all winter because it takes too long to get dressed, you're going to need distractions. I grabbed the Gentle Baby Building Block Set from Kianao. They're just okay as actual building blocks because, let's be real, a six-month-old isn't building the Taj Mahal. But they're absolutely fantastic for throwing. My nephew went through a phase where he just wanted to chuck things off his high chair, and these are soft rubber. They don't dent the hardwood floors, they don't make a horrific clattering sound that wakes up the dog, and they're totally safe to chew on. Solid basic.

What about the hot weather

As for the opposite extreme? You don't need a guide for was zieht man babys im sommer an.

If it's July and you're sweating, leave the baby in a diaper. Maybe a single, paper-thin cotton short-sleeve bodysuit if you've company coming over and you feel weird about a naked baby. Keep them out of the sun completely because they can't wear sunscreen until they're six months old. That's it. One sentence. Boom.

Just embrace the chaos

Look, Sarah from six months ago, I know you're tired. I know you're currently hiding in the bathroom while the man baby in the master bedroom blows his nose loud enough to wake the actual baby.

But you'll figure it out. You will remember how the snaps on the onesies work (mostly). You will stop trying to match the tiny socks because they just fall off in three seconds anyway. You will find things that help, like that cute little Bear Teething Rattle I found on Kianao. It’s a wooden ring with a little crochet bear on it, and shoving that into my nephew's hands while I was trying to wrestle his legs into a fleece sleeper saved me from at least a dozen meltdowns. It rattles, it gives them something to chew on, and it distracts them from the absolute torture of having their arms pushed through sleeves.

You're doing fine. Drink the cold coffee. Tell your brother-in-law to go get his own Gatorade. And stop touching the baby's hands.

Love,
Sarah

My Late-Night Dressing FAQ (Because I Know You're Googling This at 2 AM)

How the hell do I know if my baby is genuinely overheating?

Stop checking their hands and feet, seriously. Their little extremities are basically useless for temperature checking. You have to slide your fingers down the back of their neck or feel their chest. Here are the red flags I look for when I'm panicking:

• Their neck feels sweaty or clammy to the touch.
• They have flushed, red cheeks (though sometimes this is teething, which is a whole other nightmare).
• They're breathing unusually fast.
• They feel physically hot and look lethargic or floppy.

If you see any of this, strip a layer off immediately. Overheating is way more dangerous than them being a little chilly.

Do babies really need to wear a hat indoors?

No! Oh my god, the nurses at the hospital always put those cute little striped beanies on them, so you think you've to keep them on forever. But Dr. Aris told me that once you bring a healthy, full-term baby home, you ditch the hat indoors. Babies lose excess heat through their heads, so keeping a hat on them in a heated house is a fast track to overheating. Save the hats for actual winter weather outside.

When do I've to stop swaddling?

The second they look like they might even think about rolling over. For Maya, this was around 8 weeks. For Leo, he was basically trying to roll out of the hospital bassinet. Once they can roll, being swaddled with their arms trapped is super dangerous because they could get stuck face-down. That’s when you switch to the sleep sacks with the armholes. Prepare for three nights of terrible sleep during the transition. I'm sorry.

Is it safe to use a blanket in the car seat?

Yeah, but ONLY over the straps. Never wrap the baby in a blanket and then try to buckle them in, and definitely don't put a blanket under them. You dress them in normal indoor clothes, strap them in tight so the chest clip is at armpit level, and then you just tuck a blanket over their legs and chest like a little burrito. If the car gets hot, you just pull the blanket off. Easy.

What's the best fabric for baby clothes?

Stick to organic cotton or bamboo. I learned this the hard way after buying a bunch of cheap polyester pajamas that made Leo break out in this weird, sweaty heat rash. Synthetic fabrics trap heat and moisture against their super sensitive skin. Bamboo is my personal favorite right now because it's insanely soft and naturally wicks the sweat away, which is why I'm hoarding those Kianao blankets like they're gold.