If I haven’t already made this recommendation, here it is. All you Seattle and Eastside mothers of newborns (or soon-to-be mothers) … be sure to check out “First Weeks“, a drop-in class at Birth & Beyond (thanks, Kate, for the tip). I’ve learned quite a bit from this class, run by Ann Keppler, RN (she is a pediatric nurse and also taught maternity at UW Med School, or something like that). Moms from across the city gather together for a couple of hours and ask all sorts of questions, everything from “She’s got gas” to “When do we apply sunblock” to “What about birth control” and so on and so forth.

I'm snotty (via chattycha on flickr)

Case in point. For weeks Ann has been telling us to try squirting breastmilk up our baby’s stuffed-up nose. Lily sometimes whistles when she sleeps she’s got so much snot up there (we live in a very dry house … it’s inevitable. Actually we all sound like we’re whistling). And tonight, as I was putting her to bed I noticed a lot of noise when she breathed. We’ve been using a saline solution, but it wasn’t working to my satisfaction. So, today I tried the breastmilk and sure enough, a) Lily didn’t fight and cry when I used the dropper with milk and b) I pulled a major goober out of her nose afterwards. Stuffy nose unstuffed. Lily fell asleep about five minutes later. Thanks, Ann!

First Weeks is geared towards the first 12 weeks. Lily’s about 3 1/2 months right now, so we’ve started attending the 3-6 month class. Today was our first day in the “big kid” class, and Lily was the second-youngest. It was fun to see the five- and six-month old kiddies, knowing that she’d be sitting up and stuff pretty soon.