There is a steep learning curve when you bring a new baby home from the hospital. And there is an avalanche of advice.... much of it wrong, useless, or crazy.

A lot of the time you just muddle through, but every once in a while, you stumble on a real gem, something you want to tell the whole world about. That’s what this list is, in the hopes that when you come home with a new baby, you’ll be one step ahead of the game.

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The biggest tip we read, in many places, was that it’s impossible to spoil an infant. In fact, the faster you soothe the baby when he/she cries, the calmer your kid will be throughout life. He learns that his needs will be met, that he’s not scared and adrift.

So for the first few weeks of life, when he cried, we jumped on it like an overly attentive butler, soothing him with every trick in the book (all listed below). And it worked! He hardly every cries now, except when he really needs something; and even then, all we have to do is give it to him and he immediately stops. Which leads me to my next tip...

Dunstan Baby Language (dunstanbaby.com) Watch this DVD (at least twice), and you’ll learn to speak Baby. Now when Max cries, we know immediately whether he’s hungry, uncomfortable, tired, or just needs to burp. It’s such a relief! And he’s much happier and trusts us more.

The Happiest Baby on the Block (on netflix or thehappiestbaby.com) This DVD gives you 5 magical things to do to make your baby stop crying instantly. It’s so impressive when you see it done in person. We’ll keep “spoiling” him for many months, until he is stable and secure.

My Brest Friend (mybrestfriend.com) A dorky-looking pillow with a name to match, that makes breastfeeding a snap. Lucky, since you spend 8-10 hours a day doing it! We were so happy to find this pillow (beats the Boppy hands-down), and also happy to find a good lactation consultant.... coincidentally, it turns out she is one of the co-founders of the Day One/MyBrestFriend group.

Wimmer Ferguson mobile You can’t believe how much Max loves looking at this mobile! I’ve got video to prove it. He likes the car seat gallery, too, even though we don’t have it set up in the car; we just left it on the cardboard backing as if it’s an easel. And it stimulates visual development.

Ergo carrier We think this is better than the Baby Björn based on what other people have told us, and it’s pretty simple. But forget comfort: it also works wonders for putting Max straight to sleep!

Compostable diaper service (EarthBaby, Bay Area only) We aren’t the type who forgo modern conveniences just to be green (we don’t brush our teeth with twigs); yet we still found this a convenient way to spare our poor landfill, which is overflowing with diapers. OK, this one isn’t quite as magical as my other tips, since these diapers aren’t actually better than Pampers, and might even be a little stiffer than the all-chemical variety, but we adjusted immediately. You use the same biobags that go in the San Francisco green bin, except that you can’t actually put human waste in the city bins. EarthBaby picks up weekly and uses special high-temp composting.

Kate’s diaper trick: after doing the diaper, run a finger under the leg opening, from back to front; make sure your finger is under both the outer and the inner elastic. This makes sure the inner elastic is in the right place, not caught, bunched, etc. But it will also usually bring some slack around with your finger to the front. Undo the velcro, and redo it without the slack. It doesn’t have to be crazy tight, just snugly fitting.

Adora is a chocolate that tastes pretty decent as a chocolate, but is also a calcium supplement! It comes in both milk and dark chocolate, and Kate prefers it over Tums. At $8 for 30 (incl. shipping), it’s an ideal way to keep up your calcium, which is vital both during pregnancy and during breastfeeding. Costco also sells some low-calorie carmel chews that are actually calcium, but taste pretty darn good; it’s sold under the Kirkland brand.

Perfect airplane travel. We haven’t had any trouble with Max while flying. The secret is to give him his bottle or breastfeed him from the moment the plane slows and starts descending. (Don’t wait until you are nearly on the ground.) Swallowing clears his ears and keeps him from having ear pain.

EMLA cream (prescription only) and a wet pacifier dipped in sugar helped Max cry less when he got his shots. You apply the EMLA to the injection area an hour in advance and wrap it in cellophane. The pacifier happens just a half a minute or a few minutes before the shot. He still cried until we soothed him, about 10 seconds. I have to say, just the sugared pacifier seems to work about as well, so the cream may not be necessary. When a particular shot gave him a low fever, we also gave him infant Advil (NOT children’s, which is different dose) afterward. Anyway, he’s not scared of the doctor as a result.

NEVER USE TYLENOL FOR ANYTHING. It’s quite dangerous for adults, but far more so for children. If this sounds weird to you, read the known dangers of Tylenol. This is especially unfortunate since it is contained in almost any over-the-counter cold medicine.

Colic Solved! Our friend Jeff C. says that this worked wonders for their 1-month-old with colic (which means “crying a lot”).

Amazon Mom is a new deal for parents (or other caregivers) that gives you 20% off diapers/wipes you get delivered on a schedule (and maybe other discounts, too?). They give you 3 months of Amazon Prime, too (see next entry).

Amazon Prime is a deal where Amazon.com will ship you everything by 2-day UPS, for free. There is a $79 annual charge per household (5 accounts), but that pays for itself after the first couple of times you save yourself paying FedEx for a last-minute birthday present. And for new parents, it’s a godsend! You don’t have to leave the house to buy toothpaste and shampoo!

Sophie is every infant’s favorite toy. She just tastes good and feels good on the tongue, plus she has a squeaker. And she’s easy to grasp.

Sun Stop’r Kwik Cabana by Kel Gar is a 50+ SPF tiny pup tent, so your baby can go to the beach before he/she is ready for sunscreen. (If you do use sunscreen, use the mineral-based ones just for babies.)

I like this quote from The Hungry Monkey: “Feeding a young child is stressful and unpredictable, you do whatever it takes to make it work, and the job is never done. But you could say the same thing about snowboarding or touring with the Rolling Stones. ‘Stressful and unpredictable’ doesn’t preclude fun.” The book is a fun read that I’d recommend for around when baby reaches 3-4 months.

An iPhone (and maybe an iPad) is absolutely awesome to have when you are rocking or nursing a newborn. You’ll be stuck in a chair for up to 8 hours a day, and the ability to check the web/email/Facebook one-handed and completely silently, while the baby is in the other arm, is a sanity-saver! Also, you can text your spouse in the other room to come bring whatever, without waking the baby drifting off in your arms.

Pregnancy doesn’t require as much study. We recommend not getting the “What to expect” series; a better choice is the Mayo Clinic book.  I also enjoyed the Expectant Father. Kate liked reading The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy. You can get almost everything you need to know by listening weekly to the Pea in the Podcast on iTunes. What does require study is baby care, so you should be well into that reading at the start of the third trimester.

In utero: I highly recommend that you and spouse each pick one children's song and sing them frequently to your child in utero at bedtime. If Max is wailing, nothing puts him to sleep other than the two children’s songs we sang before he was born. It's scary magic. Note that we also sang him more grown-up songs, but I guess they weren’t as catchy and he didn’t remember them.

Back to sleep campaign: I’m only putting this so far down the list because I presume you already got these critical handouts at the hospital. This campaign has reduced SIDS by 50%.

Use the carpool lane; even a newborn counts as a passenger for purposes of using the carpool lane. It’s surprising how easy it is to overlook this!

Babycenter.com is a (for-profit) site with lots of useful reference info and weekly emails.

A toy safety summary that I found brief but informative.

Voop! Voop! John noticed how the swing could be soothing, so he tried doing it himself, and it’s like magic... for Max (your mileage may vary). You don’t just rock him in your arms, you grip him solidly at the butt and behind the head, and then “Elevator up!” you shoot him over and up almost like you were going to toss him in the air (and you can say “Voop!” for fun). You stop at the top of the arc and hold him there two seconds (takes a bit of muscle), and then repeat 2-3 more times. As soon as you’re done, you show him something he likes to look at, so he forgets to cry again. I’ve tried this on one other baby and it did not work, and another baby and it did work... so maybe it’s something that takes time for baby to learn, or depends on the baby.

Good bottles are hard to fine: The dirty secret of baby bottles is that the vast majority either leak, or else you have to screw them so tight that the baby actually creates a vacuum in the bottle, and the nipple collapses! Then nothing comes out. Lots of people don't know this. They have a venting system in some bottles, but generally it doesn't work or is hard to wash. We have only found one brand we like, which is Born Free. The runner-up is LifeFactory; it doesn't have the extra parts to wash (yay!), but it has a narrower neck that is hard for mixing formula, and it's glass which is not allowed in daycare. However, the rubbery sleeve has worked perfectly at preventing any broken bottles.

Airlines give babies free seats: When flying, you gate-check your baby's car seat, and the snap-N-go. But before you do, ask the agent if there is an empty seat available, since they will probably give it to you for free and you can put your baby in his or her car seat, buckled safely to the airplane seat belt. Tip: those silly airplane buckles need a lot of room to release the latch, which you don’t have after cinching the belt into the car seat. Twist the belt 180 degrees before buckling, so that it releases backward toward the seat cushion. It’ll be waaaaaaay easier to unbuckle on arrival.