Mumsnet Talk

Hello,

I'm 27 weeks pregnant with my first baby and wondered if you could give me one piece of advice on labour/ babies/ new borns etc what would it be??

Thanks

Xxx

Take lots of photos.

can't advice on labour - 2 planned cs here. But... for the rest of it? Go with the flow. Massively. Don't stress about routines, don't worry about what you think you should be doing, do what feels right for you. Agree with lots of photos, and videos. This is especially important as they get older. It's really nice to be able to look back and see how they sounded talking when they were 2 etc...

Enjoy every single solitary second !

Sit and sniff admire your baby whenever you can and take all the help you can get (DP/BF advisors/midwives/auxiliary nurses). And don't be in a hurry to leave the hospital too soon - you have the rest of your life to go home, if you need help/don't feel recovered enough it will only be 10x harder at home.

DS is only 8days and I'm already feeling like it goes too fast!

Go with the flow. Dont stress about things if you can help it. Babies are resilient little things.

Enjoy your baby as much as you can, hug it, sniff it and take lots of pictures.

Oh, and when people offer helpful/unhelpful advice just say Thanks. Then go with whatever your gut tells you.

Listen intently to the advice and experience of anyone with a baby under one. Anyone without this, i.e. with older kids, ignore. something weird happens and people really do forget what it's like and spout a load of codswallop.

Dd is 6months

Jax is very wise!
Do what you need to do to surive in the first few weeks. Don't read silly routine books and feel like a failure. Remember that you and your DP being able to make a baby is a miracle! Well I think it is anyway!

Do your Kegels!
Do your Kegels!
Did I remember to say do your Kegels?

You cannot cuddle/hold a baby too much

If it cries, pick it up. It is tiny. It wants a hug, or fed, or changed, or winded or just to know you are there. They don't cry for fun!

Never, ever, ever forget what a complete little miracle she/he is. They are the most amazing gift ever.

Don't have a fixed notion of how you want labour to go, a birth plan is merely a wish list. You may end up in labour that is nothing like the relaxing waterbirth with minimum intervention you had hoped for and if you are ready for that, it will be easier to cope with any disappointment - which can be a factor in whether you develop post-natal depression.

Also, breastfeeding can be tricky, ask for help sooner rather than later. And if you have a CS, take it easy, and take whatever drugs they offer.

Oh, and all babies are different. Don't feel bad if your baby doesn't sleep as well as the next, it's nothing you are doing wrong.

Also, some babies do not go to sleep when they are tired, they get more and more distraught. They need forcing to sleep via rocking, feeding, driving around the block, whatever works. You are not making a rod for your own back, you are saving your sanity.

Echoing others - go with the flow. Before Ds I was anti dummy, pro routine etc. He is 9 months and has just gone to bed after sleeping on me on the sofa since 7.30. Just because your sisters/friends/colleagues baby did well with Gina Ford it doesn't mean yours will, they're all different and need different things.

Enjoy being sofa bound for a while, don't stress about the housework.

Do whatever you need to to get sleep - swaddle, routine, co sleep.

More than one thing sorry!

Oh, and stiff your baby lots

*sniff fat fingers

My advice is that the baby hasn't read any baby books.

You will pick up a book that helpfully tells you that your newborn will eat for 20 minutes every three hours on schedule then be awake for a short period before falling into sleep.

Then you get a child who eats for 45 minutes every 45 minutes and doesn't bother at all with sleep. Oh.

Don't drive yourself mad thinking your baby is abnormal. Very few of them are aware they come with an instruction manual costing £14.99 and available from all good bookshops.

Nothing will happen how you think it will. Don't get stressed about this.

ruby Ds keeps taking 'The Baby Whisperer' and 'No cry Sleep solution' off the bookshelf and trying to eat them.

I think he's mocking me

If in doubt, feed the baby. When my first born was crying and crying what I should have done was just sit down feet up and feed feed feed. Poor little mite was starving and I had no idea. Some dufus HV had told me babies didn't really need feeding much in the first three days.

So sod doing the washing, unpacking your bag, and cooking a meal, just rest and feed!

English. Well, I suppose someone might as well get some use out of those books......

Do everything the way you want to do it.....not the way you everyone else thinks you should do it

Despite your best efforts, you will have a preconceived idea of what you and life with a baby will be like once you have a newborn.

Don't feel bad about abandoning it once it doesn't fit reality. It doesn't matter. Better to adjust and accept (go with the flow is such a good phrase) than to battle on feeling you have to force things in a particular way.

On which note - what Ruby said. i read a few baby books. They promise so much (which when you are very tired and emotional is seductive), they nearly all seem to be rather threatening ("do things my way or your life will be shit and you will regret not listening to me!") - and they were bloody useless. Baby books are like diet books. If they worked, there would be no fat people and babies that slept robotically for 12 hours a night.

spend the money on something nice instead!

You don't need half the stuff people will try to sell you.

Having a child gives you something in common with almost everyone you meet, strangers will smile at you in the street. One of them might be me, newborns are irresistible.

Don't get too stuck on any one ideal, ie if no epidural/breastfeeding/terry nappies works, good and well but if they don't please don't fret. Accept and move on. I think it is a crime that women judge each other on the "badges of honor" that are a drug-free birth, breastfeeding and nothing but, early toilet training etc. Motherhood is tough enough w'out some b** telling you that it's a crime to have an epidual/not to breastfeed, etc. Whatever you are doing is right for you and your baby and you are doing a sterling job: bear that in mind at all times. Good luck!! My first baby is ten and I found the first few years scary and sometimes tough but amazing and precious too. Enjoy!
PS Your baby has no one to compare you to, so he/she thinks what you're doing is the right way- that was my mantra!

Best thing anyone said to me was remember everything's a phase, even the good stuff. DS is 15 months now and I still find that I have to remind myself of this every now and then.

'Nothing will happen how you think it will. Don't get stressed about this'

This.

Also; have long chats with your mum/motherinlaw about how they fed their babies BEFORE they start advising you on what you are doing wrong. Not that their advice is necessarily pants - behind many successful breastfeeders is their mum - but at least you will know where they are coming from and what their bees in bonnets particular concerns are.

Always put the clean nappy on straight away after removing the dirty one. Like one of those 'pull the tablecloth' tricks.
You can leave it open, it'll just catch the pee and poop baby feels is necessary as soon as fresh air touches them.

Yes perfectionist and also wiping bums stimulates most babies to do another enormous stinky poo