Baby Screamers

[Trego]

Due to the increase of baby announcements and births on the forum I thought I'd start a topic for and about babies. To ask questions and get advice for all sorts of things from what will happen during pregnancy and caring for the baby after, (but we can leave out the 15min between the end of pre and beginning of post pregnancies).

These posts may contain language like pooh, poop, wee, smudges, and aaaaaaarh.

Nappies:
Reusable (Prefold) nappies smell a lot better than disposable ones (when soiled), and they are good for the environment. Just make sure you wash them first, this helps remove the natural waxes and makes them more absorbent.

[cowsmanaut]

I have no kids yet, but I've baby sat a lot and have read and watched a number of things on kids. There is the baby sign method of communication which is pretty cool, you say a word and develop a gesture for it. Something the child can make easily. They can gesture long before they can form words so you work out the things they need the most. They can hear and understand but are often frustrated by the fact you haven't a clue what AHHHHHH means there are a few videos on youtube about it. The important thing is to back it up with words too otherwise they just sign and don't learn to speak too. I'm going to try it with my own when every that part of my life begins

[MasterWuuf]

No Fig Newtons for children in diapers.
I was left in charge of five, hear that, five babies a number of years back.
I had to make a short trip to pick a person up from work, so I asked my mother's husband-to-be
if he would stand watch while I was gone for 15-20 minutes.

When I returned, he had decided to give an entire bag of Fig Newtons to these five babies,
because one had started making a little noise.

Long story (and I mean LONG) short...

...the babies were content to munch down the entire package,
but poor MasterWuuf was left with five children for the next day or two.

I went through two of the largest bags of pampers. I must have changed over 100 diapers.
I was afraid the babies would all dehydrate.

Can anyone spell OXYGEN MASK?

Actually, the babies all seemed content throughout the experience.
No diaper rash.
By the time the parents returned from a 'young married couples' retreat,
the FIGS had run their course.

[Trego]

...This forum is for geeks, geeks cannot have children, or if they have one, they don't tell !...

Strange my wife calls this my 'Geek board' and I'm sure most of us don't really fit into just one stereotype, us we get older and move around we find ourselves in more and more.

This thread should fill up in a hurry. If there's one type of person who will not shut up, ever, it's new parents talking about their kids. Or even not-so-new ones, in a lot of cases.

I agree, I so don't want to be one of those, but can a thread fill up? Is there a limit to the number of posts a thread can have?

Looks like we may get a lot a baby misadventures here as well.

[Sophia]

the "built a house, plant a tree, buy a mercedes, have a son" attitude that is so common especially around the SW of Germany

So the USA is in the southwest of Germany, apparently.

[Trego]

For a minute there I thought the thread got really popular.

Did you know, baby saliva has an antibacterial property for when they get to the teething stage and put everything into their mouth...lucky mine isn't at that stage yet, but she is big for a 2month old, big compared to local babies anyway.

[beowuuf]

It did, just...not for the reasons you wanted it to We might need to create an OT thread (again)

When do babies stop being susceptible to all that bacterial stuff in foods we never think of, anyway?

[Ameena]

I thought human saliva in general contains antiseptic-type stuff and is why, say, sticking your finger in your mouth after you cut it is a good idea. And also why various other species lick their wounds.

[cowsmanaut]

Tia my female cream hooded dumbo just gave birth to 9 baby rats!! and daddy is sitting in my lap trying to wash my hands for me.. I think he's nervous about being a dad

[Zyx]

Maybe I'll drop a line or two from time to time when I'm a father, if you're interested by sharing fatherhood experience.

[Ameena]

You has rats? Omg can I see pictures? Or videos, or something? I am getting rats again, one day. I am. I have no idea when - I need to have some kind of erm...you know, place to live so I have space - still at home atm and have only my room in which to keep stuff - no space for the kind of rat cage I would like to get (or, indeed, much else) . I don't recall you ever mentioning that you have ratties, Cows - maybe you did and I forgot but I'm sure i would have bugged you about it more before now if you had .

[MasterWuuf]

Tia my female cream hooded dumbo just gave birth to 9 baby rats!! and daddy is sitting in my lap trying to wash my hands for me.. I think he's nervous about being a dad

I knew this thread had the potential of turning into a 'baby rat' thread.

I was the proud

Spoiler

parent

owner of a female Albino White Rat.
She chose to remain childless, so I had to wait for years to become a grandpa.

Cheech and Chong had a skit about a half rat/half dog rodent/animal. I can't remember the name of it.

The halfhearted attempt at humor aside, congrats Cows and Caramella (or however it's spelled).
Your family has grown.

[cowsmanaut]

have photos of the two little ones, and will have some put up of their little babies. However, it's been mainly facebook.

You did comment on my ratters before though.. well, just the one. I got him close to last xmas. So it's been a while since I spoke of him. It was in chat, and possibly why you no longer remember

I'm noticing with two, that I can't see the large black orbs in their skull, which leads me to think they may end up albino.. since I can only suggest that they must be pink eyes rather than black in there.

[Ameena]

Red-eyed rats aren't necessarily automatically albino - you get black-eyed rats and red-eyed ones. You said their mum is a hooded - what colour's the dad? I don't think it's particularly likely that rats with colouring in either or both of the parents will turn out to be pure albino themselves - they will probably have some pigment somewhere, even if it's just a little darkening of their eartips or something. Red-eyed fuzzles do have worse eyesight than black-eyed ones, though - they do that head-sway thing more often.

[ian_scho]

Only here on this forum can we corrupt a thread initiated about newborn babies to red-eyed rats... And all in a very logical progression.

[Trantor]

Just be glad that Suule isn't around anymore, or we would have to move a thread talking about red-eyed rats into the informal forum really quickly.

[cowsmanaut]

yeah, the mum does the head sway a lot. Henri, the dad is a dark hooded one with a very interesting wavy thick fur. I've never had a rat with quite the quality of his fur. It gives him a scruffy care free look

The qualify as baby screamers by the way.. my living room is filled with the *REEE!* sound over and over again Very screamer like

[Ameena]

Hehehe, yes it's funny when the babies are still a little squirmy pile...when my sister's rats had babies (a few days after she got them - started with three rats, then ten more suddenly arrived, then seven more a couple of days later), one of the adults would sort of clamber over the pile and you'd just here all this meeping and squeaking as they all got trodden on, lol.
They all did fine, btw - there was one runty one whom I kept calling "the runty one", and whom my sister ended up naming "Baby" - she took several days longer than the others to develop properly (eyes opened later, fur took longer to grow, etc), but she did just fine .
The head sway thing is weird...I know it's normal and everything but it's almost like someone's dangling a watch in front of their noses or something, lol . Eye boggling looks kinda freaky too but of course it's a nice thing to see 'cause it means they're happy...and the bruxing sounds cute anyway .
Omg I need to get rats again, bahhh . I need my rat fix!
Maybe the dad is some kind of rex rat? I think you can get rex rats, with wibbly fur like on rex rabbits or whatever. Can I see piccies of all the cuteness, or some vids or something of them being cute . Actually, just existing counts as being cute as far as I'm concerned .

[cowsmanaut]

sure, join facebook and I'll accept you as my friend and you can see all the photos of all my animals

[MasterWuuf]

Only here on this forum can we corrupt a thread initiated about newborn babies to red-eyed rats... And all in a very logical progression.

Oh Rats!

P.S. I did remember your rat, Cows. I even looked up pictures on the net to inform myself on the 'hooded' rat.

[Ameena]

Lol, much as I do love fuzzles, I don't think I'd join Facebook just to see a few pics of some . But I have a friend who showed me pics from her Facebook page and I didn't have to join - can't you just link the page that way?

[cowsmanaut]

just for you Ameena..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/ ... 0_2447.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/ ... 0_2445.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/ ... 0_2437.jpg

no photo of daddy in that place, but since I was uploading some new images I figured I'd put them in a place you could see them too. Not really all that fuzzy yet, but they do have a little moustache though

[Ameena]

Aaaaaaawwww omg so cuuuuute . And the mum (if that's her in the last pic) is bloody gorgeous as well - such a lovely little face! All the babies are so sweeeeet ;D. When my sister's rats had babies, just after their eyes had opened we were handling them and they fell asleep on us in really cute ways...I had one in my hand, my sister had one somewhere, sitting in her lap I think, and her boyfriend had one in his coat. Rats are just so bloody gorgeous . Somehow human babies never elicit the same kind of reaction from me - fuzzles all the way .

[cowsmanaut]

yep, Tia is very pretty, Has the silkiest fur I've seen. The fact that it's staying that way is beyond me. Usually the other females I've had get a little rougher.. but her's is like it's been conditioned every day Unlike Henri, the dad, he's got thick shaggy fur... but it works for him.. the only part that's soft is his belly fur, which he exposes on occasion for a belly rub

[Ameena]

I've noticed that the fur on female fuzzles tends to stay soft and sleek, whereas males tend to get a bit rougher. I think it's due to some kind of hormonal thingy they (males) release - I think it can make white fur look yellowish. Rats with dark fur also tend to go a bit "rusty" as they get older - the dark fur goes a sort of rusty colour, I mean.

[MasterWuuf]

Is that a female white albino? She looks so much like the one I had, back before my hair turned white.
(long, long time ago, by the way )

[cowsmanaut]

no, not albino.. she's cream hooded. slight bit of red eye from the flash.. but her eyes are dark like most rats

[cowsmanaut]

update.. they have peach fuzz! got some cream hooded, silver hooded, and black hooded in the group Eye's still not open yet.

[Ameena]

Aaaaaw . Eye-opening takes around two weeks (14 days), give or take - the runt we had took longer than the others for her eyes to open, I think by a couple of days. I woul dlove to see more photos of them. Ickle fuzzles are so cuuuuute .

[Jan]

I don't want to step into your discussion, but wasn't this thread intended to be about human babies? I know that I'm commonly the guy who brings other threads OT, but wouldn't it be better to create a special Rat Thread, and leave this one for human babies? I don't know, just a thought.