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We all do it.

The moment you pick up a baby — especially yours, but maybe even someone else’s — you start to sway.

You gently bounce your body and rock back and forth. If baby starts to cry, you shush them. If baby makes a noise, you babble happily back to them.

You don’t even realize that you’re doing it! No one ever taught you, and babies don’t come with instructions.

Is this your parenting instincts in action? Are these behaviors hard-wired into our evolutionary biology, just waiting for the right time to emerge? Do moms have stronger instincts than dads? Do all woman have a powerful urge to become moms?

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Handing out and lighting up cigars at the birth of a baby has been a long-standing tradition in the United States.

But, as smoking has become less popular, and certainly isn’t allowed at hospitals anymore, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to hand out cigars that will never be smoked.

If you’d like to celebrate the birth of your baby in style, but aren’t interested in lighting up yourself, here are some of the best cigar alternatives for a new baby:

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Knowing that your baby will sleep long and sound can give you great peace of mind.

For that to happen, you’ll usually need to have baby wrapped up tight in a good swaddle.

The thought of wrapping your baby tightly so that they can’t move their arms might sound like a crazy idea! However, many parents vouch for the comforting effect swaddling has on their newborns. Plus, it’s dangerous to put a baby to sleep with a loose blanket as they can easily suffocate.

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Imagine this: Your baby transitions from using a bottle to an open cup effortlessly overnight.

Wouldn’t that be perfect?

Sadly, this isn’t a perfect world, and making the switch from bottle or breast to a proper cup can be challenging for a lot of new parents and their babies.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends giving up a bottle somewhere between your baby turning 12 and 24 months old. But there is a learning curve involved in using an open cup, and understandably so.

So until your baby has perfected drinking from a cup, you could expect ample spills and messes to clean up!

This is exactly where sippy cups come in.

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There’s so much to buy and think about before you bring a new baby home.

First things first, you’ll need to stock up on diapers!

But when you start shopping, you’ll quickly realize buying diapers can be pretty complicated. You have to choose between cloth and disposable, and even then there are tons of varieties of each.

Let’s break down all the different kinds of baby diapers and make them easy to understand.

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There’s so much to think about when choosing the right bottle set for your new baby.

But along with considering bottle size, shape, and material, you’ll have to figure out what kind of nipple you want your bottles to have. And the choices there are nearly endless!

What type of baby bottle nipple is right for you?

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Introducing a baby to a bottle for the first time is tricky, to say the least.

There are tons of options for different kinds of baby bottles on the market, but the choice isn’t simple.

The variety can make choosing the right baby bottle for your little one overwhelming. After all, there are so many shapes, materials, and sizes – how do you know which one is the best?

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When you were a kid, a pacifier was a pacifier.

There were not many differences between the styles, and from household to household, most babies had the same exact pacifiers.

Well, things have changed!

There are now many different types of pacifiers, and some parents could go on for days about which one is better.

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When most of us think of a kid-friendly yard, the image in our head usually starts with a luscious lawn.

You know, a place where the kids can run, play sports, fall without hurting themselves, and play without a care.

But how do you make your yard as kid-friendly as possible without grass?

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Adding a play set or swing set to your yard can be an amazing gift for your kids.

It turns what would otherwise be a decent space to run around into a magical place to have adventures each and every day!

But play sets, being outside 24/7, can easily become infested or overrun with pests — that can make them no fun for your kids to play with, at best, and extremely dangerous, at worst.

So how do you deal with pests? What’s the best way to keep bees, spiders, ants, and other bugs away from your swing set area?

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