Tell me something I should already know

[Mumwithqs]

So I imagine this is a relatively normal way for some people to feel, but I'm 7 months pregnant (very happily) and feel as though I don't actually know how to look after a baby.

The general advice seems to be that it'll all just come to me naturally but I'm the type of person who plans everything and hate going into things feeling like to don't know what I'm doing. I will panic if I don't know what/why my baby is doing something.

What's your top piece of advice? Especially re- sleeping, (bottle) feeding, bathing etc

Sorry if someone has already said this - I haven't rtft, but if you have a little boy make sure his penis is pointing down when you put a nappy on, otherwise he will wee straight up and soak himself!😊

mamaduckbone
You've just reminded me.....
Little boys are born with testicles, I don't know how or why I thought this but I believed they only had a penis and the balls etc dropped down with puberty 😳

Some babies do cry ALOT! 1 out of 3 of my children cried so much all the time no matter what I did, and I felt like an absolute failure. I hadn’t been around particularly fussy babies before so wasn’t aware that some do cry an awful lot more than others!

However you decide to feed your baby, is entirely your decision! You’ll always get someone say oh breastfed is best, blah blah blah. Don’t listen or be made to feel guilty for choosing to bottle feed. 2 of mine were formula fed and 1 exclusively bf and do you know what, they’ve all turned out perfectly healthy.

😂😂 this is so funny and so innocent

The best advice I ever heard is that Early Motherhood is overwhelming and that's okay. Let yourself feel overwhelmed and don't fight it or feel bad about it.

It's quite interesting reading through this thread - quite a lot of stuff resonates from when my kids were babies.

I would venture a guess though that most of the stuff didn't come from a "How to Raise a Perfect Child" manual but were worked out by the posters themselves or passed on from someone's mother or grandmother

I know you're bottlefeeding. But definitely try give them colostrum.

Otherwise just be prepared for anything. I loved the newborn stage. Also routine is important. I did a set bath/bedtime one. Good luck mama. X

This is for much later, but teaching a few hand signs so that they can let you know they are tired/hungry/thirsty before they are able to talk really helps.
They suffer much less from frustration caused by inability to communicate, so both they and you will be much less stressed.
DGD, 13 months, has been able to do this for a while now, and it makes such a difference.

You don't need to do things just because other people say it's the better way to do it - ie. baby must always be put in cot, baby must "learn how to self soothe", baby must / must not have a dummy. Babies are individuals just like we as adults are. Some are really happy being put in a cot / basket for sleep from early on. Others need to be held. You'll learn what makes you and your own baby happy and that's all that matters.

(FWIW my MIL and SIL always criticised me holding my baby "too much", breastfeeding means he "wakes up too much", "should have a dummy" etc etc. Meh, my baby is 12 months now and wakes up once (at the most) overnight for a quick feed and cuddle, while their baby has "split nights" and sometimes doesn't sleep at all. Just proving that all babies are individuals and nothing is guaranteed.)

My midwife told me that you don't have to entertain people who want to see your young baby if you don't feel like it/are knackered. She said just pop a note on the front door "mother and baby resting" and don't answer - I never did it though! But the thought of putting me and my baby first and to not feel I had to be 'polite' helped. Although nowadays most people would probably text you first.

For sheer convenience, SMA Gold comes in ready made litre cartons. Just pour straight into the bottle.

Much easier to bath your baby in the kitchen sink.

Absolutely second this. It feels like it takes an age to get ready to leave the house then before you know it, baby needs feeding again. I remember being so upset after a long hospital stay because I just wanted to go for a walk and felt like I failed because I couldn’t get ready in time.
also the nappy stuff upstairs and downstairs. You can have your preference of where to change, but sometimes just being able to do a quick change on living room floor is so much easier (especially when you’ve been upstairs 10 times and are knackered).

Don't listen to other parents who's baby is bigger, feeds better, sleeps better, or is more advanced in any way, it doesn't matter and is probably not true anyway.

If you can find a copy of The Social Baby, it's a beautiful book with lots of photos showing you some of the amazing things about newborns and also demonstrating that babies vary - sone of them you will need to tiptoe round or they will wake and others you won't. All of mine needed to be in a cot in a darkened room to fall asleep and cried in the car until they were 3 months old. The youngest had to cry to fall asleep and I had to crawl out of the room in the middle of the night, the middle one self-settled from 9 weeks and took herself to bed by 18 months... the oldest never woke between 7.30 and midnight by 3 months but you had a screamer if you didn't get her in bed by 7.30. They vary, so taking in the range of tips to try is better than deciding what you will do.

Other tip - does not matter what routine you have but routines work better than not, keep doing them. Our youngest was tricky with falling asleep but it did help - still took 40 mins to fall asleep at 8y but knew to stay in bed trying (she's a night owl now in her late teens).

Re changing bag.
Put all the nappy things in a big sandwich bag, like wipes nappies , creams etc that way when you are out and need to do a nappy change you can just lift the bag out in 1 go without having to search through the bag
Also pack a few plastic bags for poonami clothes.