A Brief Summary Of Every Infant Care Class Ever

494389833Hello, expecting parents! Today, you are going to learn literally everything that you could possibly need to know about keeping a child alive in just two hours. If it’s not covered in these two hours, it doesn’t matter that much! Or, possibly, I forgot to mention it because I’m also a nurse who just came off an 18-hour shift and now I have to bang out this class so I can go home. How bad can it be, though? Your ancestors didn’t have child-rearing classes and you’re here. Of course, your ancestors also didn’t have electrical outlets. Anyway, moving on!

If you’re a good parent, you should be able to read your baby’s cues. Let’s look at some video of baby cues now! This baby is hungry. This baby has a dirty diaper. This baby is experiencing existential ennui. This baby is constipated and/or has just been read to from an Ayn Rand novel. Did you note the differences? If you couldn’t tell, don’t worry about how this profound failure to connect emotionally with the baby will negatively impact your parenting. Everyone’s going to end up in a desperate cycle of feed/rock/change/entertain the baby anyway.

Let’s talk about baby skin. There are dozens of things that can seem to be ‘wrong’ with a young infant’s skin that are actually entirely harmless. Let’s look at thousands of slides of all those, interspersed randomly with pictures of deadly, horrible skin diseases that warrant an immediate visit to the doctor.

Now that we’ve spent 20 minutes looking at pictures of diaper rashes in varying degrees of horrifying, let’s talk about how to change a diaper. Actually, let’s not. All of you have either changed diapers for a younger sibling or a babysitting charge, or you’re too embarrassed to ask about it now. So instead, let’s just pass around a sample Pampers that you can look and nod a few times like you know what’s up.

Finally, let’s talk about how to feed the baby. You can awkwardly practice breastfeeding holds with this creepy plastic baby doll, unless you are expecting multiples, in which case I have nothing to offer you but a pamphlet and a sympathetic look. If you are planning to bottle feed, you get even more pamphlets, no sympathy, and a coupon for 10% off a breast pump at the hospital store. Congratulations on the new little one, and hopefully everything you need to know to keep them alive for the next year is in these six mimeographed printouts of a PowerPoint slideshow. Good luck!

(Feature image: Wavebreakmedia Ltd / Wavebreak Media / Getty)

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