bringing newborn to playground or play group

[Anonymous]

How long would you wait before bringing a newborn to the playground or church playgroup, assuming that (1) he would be in a carrier or stroller, and (2) you wouldn’t allow anyone to touch him? I have a toddler as well and am trying to figure out how to structure our days after the baby is born. I’m hoping to get out of the house each day if at all possible, to let the toddler burn off some energy and for my own mental health.

[Anonymous]

I would say leave the house as soon as you are ready. You are right, your toddler will need to burn off energy. I would not let anyone touch the baby unless they have washed their hands, but your own toddler will be a germ factory. Your baby will most likely get sick earlier than your first, but that's normal.

[Anonymous]

Day 1? If your toddler is touching other kids and then touching the baby, the baby will still get sick.

[Anonymous]

Can you hire anyone to take out your toddler for an hour? Or just ask another mom with only one child.

[Anonymous]

For your mental health, outdoor walks are great, even with a friend or neighbor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For your mental health, outdoor walks are great, even with a friend or neighbor.

+1000

[Anonymous]

As soon as you are feeling well enough! I had my newborn at a park within days because otherwise I would go crazy with my toddler alone at home!

[Anonymous]

If you baby wear and keep people from the baby I think you can do it early. My concern with going to the playgroup would be other parents wanting to touch the baby. My concern with the playground would be being healed enough that if something happened with the toddler you could take care of that without setting back your recovery -- I'm thinking getting stuck on the bars and you have to lift him down, or he falls and you need to pick him up to comfort him.

A walk at 2 weeks is great for your mental health, but it's different than climbing up to pick up a 30 lb crying kid off the playground equipment he scraped his leg on and carry him down while wearing an infant, you know?

[Anonymous]

Until I stopped bleeding profusely.

[Anonymous]

I did it basically right away. I have a 3.5 year old, he doesn’t want to stay cooped up in the house all day. That said, I was fine with outdoor areas but my younger DS is 8 weeks and I still haven’t taken him to an indoor play area. Maybe after 3 months when a fever isn’t a medical emergency.

[Anonymous]

Your newborn, if born full-term and healthy and if you are healthy, should actually have pretty good immunity from you.

And your toddler is a germ factory anyway.

The only thing I would do is stay away from unvaccinated kids but I'm assuming your toddlers play group is a group of vaccinated kids.

[Anonymous]

I started around the 1 month mark. But that was because my baby was born in summer and it was just too hot to be outside.

When it was nice enough to be outside we went to playgroup. Nobody was picking up newborn babies. More often than not they would be asleep in the stroller since morning playgroup usually overlaps with their nap.

[Anonymous]

As soon as I felt well enough and comfortable managing both the toddler and infant. With a reasonably verbal and semi-obedient toddler, I think I'd be fine. With a just-learned-to-run barely verbal 13 month old, it probably would not be much fun.

[Anonymous]

Five weeks with my second and three weeks with my third.

[Anonymous]

It’s fine. I saw a woman, toddler, and TINY baby at chik fil a a few days ago. I had to ask how old the baby was: 5 days! Mom said her oldest child AND she needed to get out!