Which aspects of looking after a baby did you just not *get*?

How to avoid the fountain effect of taking a warm wet nappy off a baby boy by dropping a dry facecloth over the sprinkler to reduce the cold shock that makes it happen and soak up any spurting before it hits you in the eye.

Oh, and the basics of using cloth nappies. I had done a lot of research on cloth nappies and remember turning in desperation to MN when on the first day I tried them DS screamed the house down all day and I was changing his nappy every half hour. Some very wise MNers told me to try fleece liners (my research had led me to believe that I should avoid them as they're no good for newborn poo). I did, the problem was solved and successfully went on to use cloth nappies until DS was potty trained.

How to put on a nappy!

I'd never done it before and was left to figure it out for myself. I remember it being quite scary.

Also giving a baby a bath.

Both of the above when the umbilicus is still attached.

Different breastfeeding positions.

How to fold a pram into the car.

How to brush baby teeth.

How to check if toddler shoes fit or are too right and need replaced.

I naively assumed all baby care would come to me instinctively.

I didn't ever work out how to wind a baby or get it into any kind of routine.

How quickly to increase the volume of expressed or formula milk to feed in the first few days. DS wouldn't take to breast feeding so I was mixed feeding, and when the midwife came to visit me at home she told me I wasn't giving anywhere near enough. I felt awful that I was under feeding my baby. I'd always expected to bf, and just had no idea how much/quickly to increase the milk once I got home.

Early feeding cues. In the early weeks of DS1's life, he struggled with weight gain. Everyone (MWs, HVs) kept asking if I was feeding him on demand, and I would assure them I was. It was only later that I understood that crying is a late hunger cue, and that I'd been missing earlier ones, and no-one had checked I understood what they meant. We muddled our way through, and it all worked out ok, but it would have made the first few weeks of his life so much easier if I had known this in advance.

Signs of tiredness - because believe it or not they're not always crying because they're hungry. It took me weeks to figure that out

Swaddling would be good.

Bathing a newborn singlehandedly

Nursery rhymes - I had long forgotten the ones that i knew as a child.

Three I did the nose thing with dd it worked wonders !!

Does not work with ds

I would have benefitted from a video showing you haw to roll up a vest from the bottom to take off after an explosive poo. The first time dd did one all up her back we cut the vest off SIL kindly showed me how to do it before I bankrupted us

Bathing a tiny baby.

Feeding tips, both bf and bottle fed.

sling video needs to have troubleshooting tips for common problems. I watched countless videos on YouTube trying to work out why my baby always ended up around my waist and never found one which explained it (figured it out in the end - I was putting him in at the height I wanted him at, should have been slightly higher). Also didn't realise that lots of babies can take a while to get used to the sling.

Re bathing: all videos and descriptions of how to bath a baby seem needlessly complicated. I was so worried I would wash ds in the wrong order iyswim! Turns out you just put the in the baby bath/bath support and...wash them . I wish I'd been told about checking under their chins, armpits and behind ears for remnants of dried milk though. Took weeks of wondering why baby always smelled of curdled milk before we figured that one out .

How to change the length of straps on main brands of newborn carseats. It did not even occur to me to know this until we tried to take PFB home from hospital.

There are some great videos on YouTube of slings/ cloth nappies, I don't know how to link but they are often recommended in the appropriate Facebook groups,
To answer the question, maybe collating this info would be quicker than doing a new video?

Agree with PP about vids of newborns breastfeeding, and also breastfeeding positions, and expressing, and how to store expressed milk. My HVs demonstration using a knitted boob didn't quite cut it!

Yes also to slings, reusable nappy demos (quickly please - am just about to switch fro disposables with 5 week old DS2 and am clueless!), winding positions and making up formula. My first two were FF for various reasons and only now on DC no.3 am I finding out I did it all wrong.

Also, ways of administering medicine to reluctant / refusing small people would have been a godsend for me.

The secret to painless easy baby nail-trimming is just to nibble them. Stay away from the implements, your teeth are far more precise and far less likely to take a layer of skin off.

Another vote for cutting nails.

Basics of changing a nappy. We didn't know (and couldn't find out on the packaging) whether the rustly bits by the leg holes fan outwards or get tucked in! /hangs head in shame/

Tying a sling

Cutting nails

A run through of vest/sleep suits/baby gros etc which really confused me to start with

Safe co sleeping positions

Cues for winding.

How to clean round the umbilical stump before it's fallen off.

Winding! I didn't have a clue how to and when to do it.

Colicky crying - I didn't know what was normal baby crying and what wasn't. Would be really useful to know about reflux, silent reflux, allergies, intolerances, ear infection, teething etc.

Teething - I kept thinking DD was teething from 2 months when she wasn't! She was crying because of other reasons.

I couldn't figure out sterilising.

Do you have to sterilise? What is the purpose of it- is it just to make sure your equipment in properly clean or actually completely sterile? What happens when you take the lid of the steriliser and handle things? It's no longer sterile is it...so???

I just didn't get what you were supposed to do and why. At all.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I've cut vests off shit-covered babies in the past

Can't believe i never clued in about vests coming off downwards after a poo explosion....

This may gross people out but..what a normal baby poo looks like and what might indicate a problem.

Yy to how to breastfeed and how to swaddle.

Safe co sleeping positions?

I wish I'd known how/when to put a baby down for a nap.

Definitely need to spread the word about vests coming off going down instead of up in the event of a poonami. Could've done with figuring that one out sooner.

Cutting teeny tiny finger and toe nails.

Swaddling.

Winding.