New baby 3-month lockdown

[hairygateau]

Mrs Hairy is adamant that our future children will be locked in the house for the first 3 months after delivery. Is this current thinking, or a regional superstition thing? Our Japanese friends seem to be divided on the merits and the background.

If anyone can recommend a book in Japanese with contemporary (e.g. western leaning) ideas and advice around new borns, that would be appreciated. I'm sick of hearing of 'advice' from random internet sites or Mixi.

Cheers

[Coligny]

Mrs Hairy is adamant that our future children will be locked in the house for the first 3 months after delivery. Is this current thinking, or a regional superstition thing? Our Japanese friends seem to be divided on the merits and the background.

If anyone can recommend a book in Japanese with contemporary (e.g. western leaning) ideas and advice around new borns, that would be appreciated. I'm sick of hearing of 'advice' from random internet sites or Mixi.

Cheers

Yeah... Local tradition it seems... Only trip allowed were for the weekly hospital checks. Which is batshit insane since... As far as sickness/disease are concerned... You have around 1000% more chances to catch something in an hospital waiting room rather than at your local Nissan dealership...

My advice... Unless you got inlaws on your back that you don't want to brush the wrong way. Babies are social creatures... Watch out for dehydratation and as soon as the neck is stabilized it's time to see the world...

[Ketou]

Yea local thing and an absolute load of crap. Luckily my wife actually thinks so too so we were out and about with bubs in the first few weeks.
The mother in-law however is a crazy over-protective pain in the arse...every sneeze requires a doctors visit and she absolutely hates it that we have 2 dogs roaming free in the house.

You definitely need to put some pressure on and put it on early or you will be kept out of baby's rearing and end up with a mother-con woos who will get antibiotic filled cold medicine every time he gets a cold.
(when I asked our local quack why he was giving the baby antibiotic cold medicine when he had no pneumonia, he says "so he won't get pneumonia' ...of course it went in the bin)

[GomiGirl]

That is just insane!! I plan on taking my baby to Hawaii for a wedding when he is 2 months old. I am of the belief that the more experiences/envrionments you can expose your kid to is good for building a strong constitution and immune system early on. Within reason of course. But locking away your kid and sterilising everything in contact is the surest way of making a sickly and weak kid. Obviously I am not going to let him crawl around on the floor of a Yoyogi Park toilet but we still will be out and about within a few weeks. The first few weeks are just to get into some sort of routine and for me to recover.

I would try contacting somebody at the Tokyo Mothers Group.

They might know some resources you could access. This is an English speaking group but there are a bunch of Japanese mothers (mostly married to FG's) who are there.

[Coligny]

Also start stocking on soothing drug for when teeth start growing. There is absolutly nothing available on this shaky rock... Had to ask my former H/R chief to send me some (I'm like... totally not in good terms with my mother... so my former H/R lady is like a godsend...)

[GomiGirl]

Also can't get baby tylenol either.

[omae mona]

Obviously I am not going to let him crawl around on the floor of a Yoyogi Park toilet

Oh please. We do not have to get all high and mighty now. Just because that is where I was crawling around this evening does not mean it is not sanitary. I wiped up all the vomit with my left sock. It is spotless now and perfectly nice for babies.

[Taro Toporific]

Mrs Hairy is adamant that our future children will be locked in the house for the first 3 months after delivery...

She-e-e-it, dude. You are supposed to ship off to inaka the postpartum depression mom and the pooping, screaming sprog for the first 3-6 months. Alternatively, the aunts and mom-in-law are supposed to come to your house and take care of EVERYTHING. That "locked in the house for the first 3 months after delivery" is your LAST 3 MONTHS OF FREEDOM (before your life ends and you should just commit suicide).

Men are thankfully out of the whole middle-of-the-night-pooping-screaming loop for the first 3-6 months traditionally.

[FG Lurker]

Men are thankfully out of the whole middle-of-the-night-pooping-screaming loop for the first 3-6 months traditionally.

What's this 3-6 month limit thing? Changing diapers!? I think I did 5 or 6 in total -- 5 or 6 too many for sure.

[tidbits]

[wuchan]

Thank god my kid was born in the states. Shit, he was born in the winter in Boston. The only things that kept my wife from taking him out were ice storms (we lived on a hill so steep the city made the street one way).

I have herd about the three to six month quarantine belief here, it does seem common among the mansion dwelling types. Farmers don't do it because it's fucking stupid.

[dimwit]

Mrs Hairy is adamant that our future children will be locked in the house for the first 3 months after delivery. Is this current thinking, or a regional superstition thing? Our Japanese friends seem to be divided on the merits and the background.

If anyone can recommend a book in Japanese with contemporary (e.g. western leaning) ideas and advice around new borns, that would be appreciated. I'm sick of hearing of 'advice' from random internet sites or Mixi.

Cheers

It depends alot on what the parents' house has to offer. If they have a lot of space and have some a little bit of fresh air I see little wrong with that. In my parents-in-laws case they live in country in a gomi-mansion next to a gas depot (town planning in Japan is so lovely) so we opted to keep our son in Matsuyama.

[hairygateau]

Thanks for all the advice.

Wifey's parents live in Wakayama inaka-ville, and they both work, so won't be able to take much time off to look after the baby in mid-febuary when it pops out. My gut feel is that she will have less support down there than being with me.

I can't seem to get any impartial views on the local hospital medical care, and while I'm sure it's fine, I'm not sure about how much I can 'go with the flow' when it comes to someone delivering our child.

[GomiGirl]

If wifey speaks English, get her in contact with the Tokyo Pregnancy Group - lots of resources on this site for medical stuff that you can read through. They also have a Facebook group but only women on that. All meetings are for pregnant women only, free of charge, in English and will get the FG perspective. There are other J-girls in the club.

Mid Feb - you got heaps of time.

I am 5 weeks and counting. My doc is Japanese but trained in the US. But there are others around that follow the J-method more... by J-method I mean no pain relief, bossy midwives, minimal intervention. Some of the things they go on about do my head in - eg "you must keep your feet and belly warm" and other stupid stuff like that.

[IparryU]

Some of the things they go on about do my head in - eg "you must keep your feet and belly warm" and other stupid stuff like that.

I have 2 sons now, they say that about EVERYTHING like it is some magical cure.

You are also going to hear that if your kids dont wear hats in the sun it damages their head/brain/somestupidJ-scienceexcuse.

I would love to take my wife back to the US and have her talk to my Dr. (she is J-National but moved to the US) so she can school her on all that mythical J-science that she was brainwashed with.

anyway GG, congrats on the new boy, have fun on the Honeymoon, and best of all for the next 18 years (or 20 if you J-style)

[traycerb]

there's some rationale to minimizing contact in the first 2 months, at least in the US. if an infant has a fever, even for a cold, in the first two months and shows up in medical care, they've bought themselves a set of blood/urine cultures, a spinal tap, and a minimum 2 day hospitalization on antibiotics. the science behind it is such that infants <2mo with fevers can't be reliably clinically diagnosed as not having a serious bacterial infection. thus, parents may choose to avoid the baby acquiring a cold and the subsequent fever which accompanies it, which in turn would trigger this drama.

[unkosando]

Yeah... Local tradition it seems... Only trip allowed were for the weekly hospital checks. Which is batshit insane since... As far as sickness/disease are concerned... You have around 1000% more chances to catch something in an hospital waiting room rather than at your local Nissan dealership...

My advice... Unless you got inlaws on your back that you don't want to brush the wrong way. Babies are social creatures... Watch out for dehydratation and as soon as the neck is stabilized it's time to see the world...

Fuck man, I took my son out after a week... and we live in India. Japan is much cleaner. I don't think you have anything to worry about. We had one of those baby bjorn holder thingys. It worked great.

[gomichild]

OMG you'd go insane not going out in 3 months. The first couple of weeks it's all about getting used to everything - but I still went out with EM because I had to - otherwise we would've starved to death.

Believe me the time to be stressed about disease is when they either start daycare or kindergarten. Holy crap (mostly literally) the three of us have never been so ill so often as from when he started at daycare. For the last 2 weeks Yoshi has had two bacterial and one viral infection, me at least one viral, and EM viral infection - but bacterial one in his eyes.

EM was hardly ever sick before that. And as you will discover once they get sick you will too. Small children are revolting.

[IparryU]

EM was hardly ever sick before that. And as you will discover once they get sick you will too. Small children are revolting.

True that! My son has been sick so many times from the other brats at daycare.

It's good because you build immunity to all that stuff early on.

You ever wonder why old school parents always tried to give their kids the chicken pox if any other kids got it? Its because it is fatal when you are older (my uncle was in ER for a month when he was 35)

My grandma told me this, "Every kid gets black eyes, bloody lips, fevers, diarrhea, and broken bones."

Damn true.