How Not to Kill Your Baby Read online

  DO NOT LISTEN TO THESE PEOPLE! THEY WANT TO KILL YOUR BABY! THEN THEY WANT TO EAT IT! Also, they are IN YOUR BASEMENT RIGHT NOW! If you don’t have a basement, THEY ARE BUILDING ONE UNDER YOUR FEET AT THIS VERY MOMENT, JUST SO THEY HAVE SOMEPLACE TO HIDE!

  THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE YOUR BABY IS TO ORDER THE $499.95 HOW NOT TO KILL YOUR BABY™ SAYF-TEA© BASEMENT SHIELD, AVAILABLE NOW IN HOSPITAL GIFT SHOPS AND BABY SUPPLY STORES EVERYWHERE.

  Labor, Part II: The Baby’s Revenge

  The second stage of labor often begins with a period of relative calm. Take a few moments to rest for the efforts ahead, because there’s nothing like ten seconds of deep breathing to get you ready for two hours of squeezing an entire human being out of the most sensitive part of your body.

  Then it will be time for you to push. There are countless different positions for pushing. For best results, you should use the same position you used for conception, but if the hospital does not have a mud pit, a motorcycle, and a quarter-scale model of the U.S. House of Representatives, you may need to consider alternatives. Look at the positions on the opposite page, and choose whichever one feels most comfortable and natural.

  Whatever position you choose, be sure to thank your doctor, midwife, spouse, or other birthing coach for reminding you to push, because with a human being wedged into your vaginal canal, and every muscle in your body squeezing rhythmically like a python devouring a Great Dane, and a million years of evolutionary instinct telling you what to do, it couldn’t possibly have occurred to you to push if somebody who might not have a vaginal canal and certainly doesn’t have a person in it wasn’t yelling helpful advice right into your face.

  At the appropriate point, be sure to ask to have a mirror positioned so that you can see your baby begin to emerge. Also be sure to ask for a blindfold so that you don’t have to see your baby begin to emerge.

  The Moments After Birth

  Finally, after nine months of pregnancy and five thousand hours of labor, the moment will arrive. You will, at last, meet your baby. As you know if you have ever seen someone give birth in a movie or television show, all newborns emerge with adorable round faces, pudgy limbs, and twinkling eyes.

  If, by contrast, the nurse hands you a tiny, squawling creature with the face of an old man and skin covered in goo, hand it back immediately. There has clearly been some sort of mix-up with a nearby ward for senile midgets.

  If the birth was particularly difficult, your smiling, rosy-cheeked baby may arrive in slightly wrinkled clothes.

  The Apgar Test

  The Apgar test is a simple ten-point test used to determine the health of a newborn. Your obstetrician will administer it one minute after your baby is born, which gives you exactly sixty seconds to help her cram. Unfortunately, many newborns seem unaware of the importance of high test scores, so you may have a hard time getting your ten-second-old infant to focus on the fiash cards.

  Don’t give up! And don’t be afraid to ask the doctor for more time. If he insists that the test has to be taken right now, it’s probably just because he has his own newborn and he doesn’t want your child one day competing for space at a highly competitive kindergarten.

  The First Poop

  For a few days after birth, your baby will pass meconium, his first poops. This will be a thick, tarry, sticky substance that looks like something BP would leak into the Gulf of Mexico, and which will prove just as difficult to clean. Meconium can also be found in specialty stores under the name “Vegemite.”

  Because meconium contains traces of any substances ingested by the fetus during pregnancy, it is sometimes tested for alcohol or narcotics, and meconium samples can be turned over to child protective services for further examination. The lesson is clear: Whatever you do, never work for child protective services.

  CHAPTER 5

  The First, and Quite Possibly Last, Days

  Here’s a simple quiz to see whether you are fit to be a parent. Just read the following statement and decide whether it is true or false. And don’t feel the need to rush—you have all the time in the world.1

  Fromthemomentyoufirstbringyournewbornchildintoyour home,safetywillbeyourprimaryconcern.

  TRUE FALSE

  If you answered “True,” then you have already failed as a parent. Please return this book to the vendor, after first gluing your baby’s elbow to the space provided.

  ____________

  1 Unless your child has already been born, in which case, while you linger leisurely over this quiz, he is exploring an electrical socket with a sharp knife.

  Those of you who answered the quiz correctly know that safety must begin before you bring your child into your home. On the drive from the hospital, it is ab-solutely essential that your child is properly strapped into a car seat. Fortunately, this is a simple process, as the diagram on the next page indicates.

  If it looks a little confusing, don’t worry. You and your spouse will find it much easier when one of you is holding a crying, helpless infant, and the other is ex-periencing a primeval adrenalin rush that would have been useful to your distant ancestors when protecting their offspring from mastodons, but in your case, the only effect is to make your hands shake frantically while you attempt to install a complicated piece of equipment. Oh, and did we mention that if you do it wrong, your child will die?

  DAN’S TIPS FOR DADS

  Oncethey’vegottenthekidhome,alotofdadsfeelaboutasusefulasabowlingpinonafootballfield—duringtheoff-season!Andthat’snotveryuseful!

  But the fact is, there are tons of things you can do to help your wife out with a newborn. For example, there’s . . .

  Um . . .

  Huh.

  Let me get back to you on this one!

  Alternate Methods of Transportation

  Don’t own a car? Don’t worry! There are as many ways of bringing a baby home from the hospital as there are loser unemployed parents who can’t afford their own automobile. But before taking advantage of any of them, make sure to consult the following table.

  Breast-feeding

  Breast-feeding is one of the most natural things a woman can do. For hundreds of thousands of years, it has been an instinctive bond between mother and child—an unending dance of nurture and love. Untold millennia ago, in a fire-lit cavern in a prehistoric jungle, your ancient ancestor knew exactly how to nourish her fragile newborn. You, however, are doing it all wrong.

  Effective breast-feeding begins with proper infant positioning. Refer to the following diagram for help.

  Once you have mastered the art of attaching a crying, wriggling infant to a tiny target at precisely the right angle, the hard work can begin. Make sure to be conscious of the following advice at all times while breast-feeding. You may wish to write it on your baby’s scalp with a magic marker, just to have it handy.

  • Relaxation is vital. Begin by putting from your mind all stressful thoughts, such as the myriad deadly risks your baby will face, or the medical costs associated with delivery, or future expenses like college, for which you almost certainly haven’t saved enough. Also, try not to worry about global warming. And bee stings. Definitely don’t think about those. Unfortunately, merely by reading this paragraph, you have created an indelible mental linkage between breast-feeding and bee stings; if possible, try not to have read this paragraph.

  DO NOT LOOK AT THE ABOVE PHOTO UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

  The last thing Clarissa remembered was feeding Marlon three times from the same breast, then going to bed.

  • If your baby begins one nursing session on the left breast, make sure he begins the next one on the right. Otherwise, one breast could balloon into a room-filling gigantazoid. To prevent this from happening, put a safety pin on the outside of your shirt to indicate which breast you last nursed from. Important note: Do not let the pin prick your one humongous breast, lest it explode in a massive, room-destroying eruption of milk.

  • Finally, please keep in mind that this ancient
and beautiful display of unconditional maternal love is totally gross, and nobody wants to see you do it. You may be cursed with the rare two-week-old who is simply too greedy to stick with three meals a day at regularly predictable times, forcing you to occasionally breast-feed in public. If so, you may wish to cover your exposed breasts with a How Not to Kill Your Baby™ Sayy-f-T Brand Vinyl Shame Cover, decorated with a handsome painting of a more societally acceptable image, such as a man adjusting his balls.

  DAN’S TIPS FOR DADS

  I’ve figured it out. The one essential thing that a new dad can do to help with a newborn is . . .

  No, wait. Now that I think about it, that one really isn’t very necessary at all. Sorry. Come back to me in a few minutes. I’ll definitely have something!

  A WORD TO NEW MOTHERS

  Focused as you are on taking care of your child, you may not be devoting sufficient time to taking care of yourself. But the past nine months have been hard on you, and you have earned every right to a little relaxation. Give yourself a break. Take some time to put your feet up, drink some herbal tea, and read a favorite book or magazine. And don’t be stingy—stretch your “me time” out to ten, or even fifteen, seconds. You deserve every one of them.

  During this extended period of rest, you may notice that your body looks somewhat different than it did before labor. Oh, your belly will still be huge, even though it’s no longer holding a baby. So don’t worry—you won’t need to buy skinnier jeans for many months, or, more likely, ever. That’s just one of the many ways in which motherhood will help save you money! The physical aftereffects of delivery include hair loss from hormonal changes; black eyes, as well as bruising all over the body, from the strain of pushing; and an aching or even fractured tailbone. If you don’t have all or most of these symptoms, then you didn’t try hard enough during labor. Go back to the maternity ward and ask if you can try again.

  A typical picture before labor

  A typical picture after

  Swaddling

  The months immediately after birth are often referred to as “the fourth trimester.” After nine months of pregnancy, there is still developmental work to be done, but if the fetus stayed in the womb any longer, its ever-growing head would not fit through the mother’s pelvis. In that sense, all children, no matter how long they are carried, are expelled prematurely from the womb. In other words, among the things setting you up for failure as a parent is the very phenomenon of evolution itself.

  Until women evolve the thigh muscles necessary to keep their legs crossed really, really tightly for an extra three months, you can help re-create the warm, cozy feeling of the uterus by swaddling your baby.2

  Swaddling involves wrapping an unhappy wriggling baby in a narrow piece of cloth. In addition to making your baby feel more secure, it has the advantage of making child safety seat installation seem relatively simple.

  ____________

  2 You can help the rest of us by not using the words “warm and cozy” to refer to your uterus, because, honestly, there’s something a little creepy about it.

  Some children continue to enjoy being swaddled well into the ninety-sixth trimester.

  A Baby’s Developing Visual System

  Don’t worry if your baby doesn’t pay attention to the expensive mobile you’ve hung above his crib. Most likely, it’s just a sign that the mobile isn’t expensive enough. Try exchanging it for one covered in gold and precious stones.

  If that still doesn’t work, it’s probably because your baby’s visual system is still developing. To a one-week-old, anything more than a foot away will be blurry, and only the highest contrast black-and-white images will catch his attention. In other words, to your baby, the warm and colorful nursery you’ve painstakingly designed looks like a still from a 1920s German horror film.

  How your baby sees you

  DAN’S TIPS FOR DADS

  Guess what, guys? I’ve finally come up with something you can do for your wife, and it’s something you’ll love doing! It’s . . .

  Oh, wait. I just read the next paragraph. Never mind!

  Sex

  Once upon a time, medical professionals recommended waiting as much as six weeks after delivery before recommencing sexual relations. Now, however, doctors feel that, in most cases of normal delivery, there is no need to have sex ever again. After all, you’ve already successfully reproduced. What more do you want? Some sort of selfish, hedonistic physical pleasure? With your innocent baby in the very same house? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

  CHAPTER 6

  The First, and Almost Certainly Last, Months

  By the time your baby is a few weeks old, you are a much more experienced parent. You change diapers one-handedly and you burp your baby confidently. You may even shower weekly.

  As a result, you may find yourself losing touch with the jumpy, fearful new parent you once were. You must not allow this to happen. It is your fear that keeps the baby alive. Imagine, for a moment, that you are in a primeval jungle, millennia ago. Do you know what would happen the instant you relaxed? A cave bear would eat your baby. Not so proud of that one-handed diaper-changing thing now, are you?

  Now imagine that you are in an elevator holding your baby, and the cable is suddenly cut, sending you both plunging downward. Also imagine that the elevator is full of scorpions. Plus, you owe the scorpions money. Implant this image in your heart and refiect on it anytime you are tempted to enjoy parenthood.

  If that doesn’t do the trick, you can also just read the rest of this chapter.

  Warning Signs

  Many babies are perfectly healthy—perhaps as many as two or three of them. However, it is important to look out for warning signs that may refiect serious mental or physical problems.

  Taking Baby Outside

  Most of the time, you’ll want to keep your baby safely inside, in a temperature- and humidity-controlled room with black windows (to filter out ultraviolet light, which can cause cancer) and sunlight-replicating lamps (to provide ultraviolet light, which your baby needs to generate vitamin D).

  Sometimes, though, you’ll have no choice but to leave your house. Perhaps you will need to take your baby to one of his hourly medical checkups, or perhaps your home is about to be hit by a comet. Either way, you’ll want to make sure you’re prepared for all the hazards of the outside world.

  First, strip your baby naked and apply sunscreen to every crevice of his body, even the ones that will be completely covered, and even if you are only going out at night. Sunlight is a wily foe, and your baby must be shielded from it at all costs.1

  Now, make sure your baby has a hat. If it’s cold, choose a warm woolen hat. If it’s hot, choose a warm woolen hat that you’ve kept in the freezer. If you’re going to a formal event, or if you are Father Time and your baby is the physical incarnation of the New Year, choose a jaunty top hat. Whatever the situation, the simple fact is that babies need hats. If you don’t believe it, try taking your baby outside without one. Suddenly, you will find yourself surrounded by dozens of grandmothers, nipping at you. Oh, you can point out to them that it’s a hundred degrees, plus your particular baby hates hats and squirms out of any one you put on, and, in fact, thanks to a rare genetic condition, he doesn’t even have a head, but they won’t care. Why? BECAUSE BABIES NEED HATS.

  Also, give your baby some clothes.

  ____________

  1 Important note: This recommendation is based on medical advice at the time of publication. If you are reading this book sometime after 2020, when sunscreen will turn out to be a deadly carcinogen, please replace this paragraph with the following: “Next, carefully remove any traces of sunscreen from every crevice of your baby’s body. Sunscreen is a wily foe, and your baby must be shielded from it at all costs.”

  Finally encase your baby in an oxygenated plastic bubble, which you will coat with gamma-ray-filtering micro paint, and then mount on armored, land-mineresistant treads equipped with front- and side-facing air bags. Then p
ut another hat on top of the bubble, just to be safe.

  Breast-feeding Revisited

  By the start of the second month, some mothers are still having a difficult time breast-feeding. Specifically, you are. Everybody else has it down perfectly.

  But don’t worry. Experts currently recommend that children be breast-fed for the first twelve years, which gives you plenty of time to get it right.

  DAN’S TIPS FOR DADS

  Hi, dads! If your special lady is still having a hard time breastfeeding, you might want to try a little trick called the “Play-by- Play.” Just pretend her nipple is the forty-yard line and you’re Jimmy Johnson! It might go a little something like this:

  “Good job, honey! He just latched on. Oops, he slipped off. Try lifting up your elbow a little—no, the left elbow. That’s right! He latched on again! Oops, he slipped off again! What if you use a pillow?”