I'm looking for all things that are unique to caring for baby boy infants...Lay it on me!
We are getting our son circumcised at the hospital right after he's born.
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Make sure his penis is pointed down in the diaper!
Also, not all circumcisions are the same, so make sure you ask your pediatrician on if there's anything you need to do to care for your son's. With one of my boys, we never had to do anything, but with the other, we had to pull the skin back daily around where he was circumcised so that it wouldn't reconnect.
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This is the obvious one but we always laid a muslin or cloth wipe over our DS boy bits when changing him in the early days - saved us from a million pee in the face incidents! They do stop doing this at some point though, I can't remember when
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@Bubbles: Good call - I forgot about that!
We always put a wipe or a washcloth over the penis during diaper changes. The couple times we forgot... well... we got peed on! Something about being exposed to the cool air just made the boys have to go!
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They gave us gauze and the special vaseline like jelly in the hospital. I've only been peed on once in 8 months....cold doesn't seem to affect T's peeing need, but that seems unique.
eta: if anything, my boy is WAY cuddlier than my girl
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I too like @blackbird: rarely get peed on with DS. It has only happened in the two instances I decided to not change him on the changing pad and in our bed. BIG mistake. I'm not sure whether there are huge differences between boys and girls when they are infants.
One of my friends who has boys said this to me, which sort of stuck "with having a boy you only have to worry about one penis instead of thousands."
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I never really got peed on so that wasn't an issue for us. Really, I don't think boys differ that much from girls when they are infants! Feed him, cuddle him, love him!
ETA: The NICU nurses mostly cared for his circ. They put some Vaseline on it and maybe some gauze initially but other than that there was no crazy amount of care required.
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My older son used to pee on us every time we opened his diaper... We would open up the diaper, let the air hit him and let him pee into the diaper, then continue on. haha.
My younger son who is 3 months now has only ever peed one time when we opened his diaper!
For the circ - we used a ton of vaseline and put a special gauze pad on his penis so that it wouldn't stick to the diaper.
Hmm.... what else about boys? Lots of little crevices around their balls to clean out for a dirty dipe. haha.
BOYS ARE THE GREATEST!!!
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@blackbird: once?!? My poor 7 week old has peed in his own face at least 5 times already
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@hellobeeboston: yes! Everyone says it's so much easier to clean a boy's dirty diaper. But I have had to clean a lot of poop from under the balls!
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@hellobeeboston: @Truth Bombs: I only have boys, but I imagine cleaning poop from a vagina is much worse than cleaning around the balls!
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@Adira: Agreed! With how much ball cleaning is sometimes required I can't imagine how difficult it would be with a girl!
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I never got peed on, either. One of my friends suggested that we always put the new diaper underneath the old diaper so that we could whip it on him really quickly after wiping to prevent the pee in the face. It's worked!
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@hellobeeboston: @Truth Bombs: ball cleaning= fun times for sure!
@Eko: my mom started saying that as soon as my bro hit puberty and his "friends'" mothers started calling her. My mom was so happy she wasn't the one with the "friendly" girl.
@blackbird: yay, cuddles!
How long did your LO's circumcised penis take to heal?
@Adira: @Bubbles: a guy friend of mine told me how grossed out he was cleaning his daughter's folds. He used a Q- tip.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: Ours took no more than a week. It was significantly improved after about 2-3 days. One time I didn't put enough vaseline on and he got stuck to his diaper. So use lots! I remember that it healed quicker than his umbilical cord fell off.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: About a week for the circumcision to heal. And yes to @Eko: use LOTS of vaseline!!
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Great topic! I have a daughter and my son is due in March. We have decided not to circumcise and to cloth diaper, so anyone who wants to add pertinent tips/tricks... I'd appreciate it!
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My son has only peed on us once or twice in his 2.5 years of diaper changes! I can't think of anything else other than making sure the penis points down when you're doing up the diaper. Also, if you ebf, he might have reddish stuff in his diaper the first few days, and that is normal. It's called "brick dust" and it's concentrated urine before your milk has come in. I'm so glad I googled this before I freaked out the first day home from hospital! It's not unique to boys, but still worth a mention.
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@Eko: I hear the umbilical cord can take up to 3 weeks. The layette checklists all say to get one pack of kimono shirts that won't irritate it, but that's just 4 or 5 shirts. So are babies just not put in onesies, gowns, and footed rompers for almost a month? I'm thinking about getting an umbilical cord salve that my placenta encapsulation lady sells. It's supposed to speed up the cord falling off to 2-3 days.
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Congrats on your boy! I just love being a boy mama!
Add me to the list of mamas who have very rarely been peed on. LO is 20 mos. We often used the trick that @MrsKoala: mentioned when he was tiny. The NICU nurses taught me that.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: We put both my boys in sleepers while waiting for their umbilical cord to fall off - it didn't seem to bother them at all. They were loose enough. Anything tight might rub though.
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@MoonMoon: The doctor in the hospital actually told me that was signs of early dehydration.
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: We used the kimono shirts for a while, maybe 3 weeks to a month? We put on the kimono and a sleeper. I'm not sure it made a huge difference in terms of the umbilical stump, but they're definitely easier to put on than onesies that go over the head.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: interesting. My LO's cord fell off definitely within 2 weeks. He was born in June and basically only wore onesies. I agree with @adira that I think loose sleepers are fine.
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@ShootingStar: well it's concentrated urine so that makes sense. But my pediatrician said it's normal for ebf babies while the milk is coming in and it resolved itself. I would have thought it was blood or something! That's why I wanted to point it out.
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My son peed on his face while we were still in the hospital!! Lolol! I made diaper changes as fast as possible. Other than the whole pee issue, I didn't really have anything boy specific that has come up so far!
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I wouldn't put a salve or anything on the cord stump. They just do their thing. In the past, it was recommended to put all kinds of things on there, but not any more. It's only a week or two, and baby can wear almost anything. Just make sure the stump gets airflow several times a day.
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We just did sleepers and onesies...I had a few kimono shirts and didn't really use them. Fold the top of the diaper down so it doesn't rub, unless you are using newborn dipes then I think they have a dip. My boys were big and never fit into newborn diapers.
The cord fell off on its own before 2 weeks both times.... Was advised to completely leave it alone and not put anything on it.
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I got peed on at least 5 times within the first month, and the wall behind the changing table got hit a few times too! They are pretty powerful sprays.
DH never got it though! lol.With the circumcision, my DS is 13 months and we just had to go to the dr. last week because the skin had reattached and then tore apart causing bleeding & a very sore penis for the little guy! Sooo... try to push out the penis once a day to keep it from reattaching, and apparently need to do this for awhile! I thought a year out we'd be golden!
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@Truth Bombs: LOL!!!! Poor babe.
I will say....there's been a few times that we've been carrying or holding a naked baby boy (post bath, for example) and something, ahem, warm touched us and we thought we were getting pooped on. Nope. Balls.
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@josina: Yep, your circumcision issue sounds like Xander's. His tried to reattach twice and we had to separate it again and it caused bleeding. It SUCKED. I should check it again, but pretty sure at 2.5 years, he's totally fine now. Whereas with Logan, we don't have to do anything! I guess it depends on the type of circumcision they get and there are different methods or something.
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@josina: oh my!
@hellobeeboston: yep we plan to use Pampers NB Swaddlers, in fact that was the baby's first gift from a friend. @MoonMoon: brick dust- good to know!
Re: umbilical cord, I'll leave it alone. It's nice to know it may fall off closer to 2 weeks than 3!
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@MoonMoon: I think probably for most babies it's no big deal. But my son didn't eat much the day before it happened, he'd been circumcized and was out for about 6 hours, and my milk didn't come in for 7 days. And that night he was freaking out about being hungry and we were up until 4am trying to figure out what was going on. He would cry, try to eat and fall asleep without getting enough, and wake up screaming. We did that about 10 times before I had DH run to get some formula. Then DS finally settled down. The next day he had the urine crystals and the ped said he was starting to get dehydrated.
Many people I'm sure have no problems, their milk comes in by day 3 and they're good to go. But there are others who don't realize let it go too far and babies get dehydrated and then it becomes a big deal.
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In addition to having clean under and around his scrotum, we've also had to lift up and clean under his penis a few times. Not sure how poo got all the way up there, but it was a really massive poop, so it got everywhere really.
One time, DS peed in his own mouth! DH was changing him and had lifted his legs way up to clean his backside, and didn't notice that DS had started to pee. He was really freaked out and felt bad about it. I must be a bad mom, because my first inclination when DH called me in to tell me was to laugh!
@MrsRain: We cloth diaper, and didn't circumcise. I don't think there is really anything special that you need to be concerned about. Penis pointed down, as others have said.
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@josina: We're dealing with this too! DS2 is 6+m right now and at every appt, the doctor has to pull the skin back since it keeps reattaching. But he said that it obviously gets more painful as he gets older so he might not be able to do it next time, if it's needed. The problem is that my little guy seems to have a tiny baby fupa so his penis is sort of an innie right now. So I pull back at every diaper change but it's not perfect. Hopefully it's something that won't be too painful to resolve when he gets older! His ped said we may have to go to urologist when he gets a little older as he would have better "drugs" to help with the pain should it need to be separated. We definitely didn't have this with DS1 so it's all new to us!
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I don't have a boy but obviously umbilical cord stumps are the same. DD wore onesies and sleepers and cute outfits as soon as we brought her home from the hospital. Not issues with the cord stump.
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@ShootingStar: our baby was dehydrated too
my milk took forever to come in and it was so so sad at his first appointment at 4 days old. His mouth was dry and his lips were cracked They told us to supplement with formula so he would be getting something and I never regretted it even though here at six weeks he is still getting both breastmilk and formula! He screamed so much the first 3 nights of his life and I didn't know it was because he was starving -
I was surprised by how long we had to keep pulling back his circ. For a few months, it would would keep trying to re-adhere in spots, even though it was fully "healed". So, we pulled it back fully in the bath every night, and would swipe a little aquaphor on it before his bedtime diaper - this lasted a long time.
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@MUI831: a baby fupa!!! Lol! Good luck with your son! We were told to pull the skin back every diaper change for the first six months! Yikes.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: congrats mama! Boys are the best! DS is six weeks old. On his one week birthday the circ was healed and the cord stump was gone. So it doesn't always take long! He wore zippered sleepers with no problem in that first week as well. I do like the kimono shirts in general though. They're so easy! Not unique to boy babies but take lots of pictures!!!! I thought I was taking a lot but I wish I had more in the hospital. They change so fast. Especially if you start out with a bigger little guy like we did!
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@ShootingStar: ok you're right. My perspective is my milk came in on day 4, so I shouldn't say dehydration can't be a problem. Just that brick dust isn't immediate cause for alarm, but be sure you're on top of when your milk comes in, how much baby is feeding, etc.
my milk took forever to come in and it was so so sad at his first appointment at 4 days old. His mouth was dry and his lips were cracked Subscribe to our newsletter
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