Let's make a bumper thread of baby tips! What's the number one thing you wished you'd known before you had your baby?

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I had some brilliant advice from MNetters on a range of topics with DS1 but I wish I'd asked for help earlier.

I'm now due with DC2 and wondered if (selfishly) we could put together our best, gold-standard tips please. I want to be prepared af this time!

My top two are:

1. (From MN after id spent about six months trying to make DS keep his socks on) - just put them in tights! Ridiculously simple. Life-changing. Nice toasty feet for the bebe.

2. (From a nurse when DS was in NICU) - if formula feeding, get water to the right temperature ahead of bedtime and put it in a thermos flask next to your bed. Set your powder out in the correct measurements for night feeds, along with your clean bottles. You can have everything by your bed to sort out instantly when the baby needs a night feed. Btw, I didn't formula feed by choice, it was necessary because DS had a lot of operations when he was first born and breast feeding wasn't an option. Hopefully, I'll breast feed this time.

What would you all suggest? What's the one thing that changed everything?

1.No two babies are the same (Number 1 didn't sleep through for a year whereas Number 2 slept through after a week!)

1. You can buy really good second hand baby stuff and save a fortune.
2. Its ok to bottle feed if you struggle with breastfeeding. You might find it actually improves your bond with baby and lets your partner get more involved.)
3. Sudocrem is like a Hogwarts Potion miracle on nappy rash.
4. All jars of premade baby food taste more like wallpaper paste than the delicious descriptions on the labels. Make your own and freeze small portions.
5. A sterile baby bottle and a carton of premade baby milk is a godsend on any outing with baby.
6. Health visitors, especially young ones can have some odd ideas. Take what they recommend with a pinch of salt !

(Auto numbering doing weird things here)

That making friends with other first time mums is a bit like dating. Are you coming across too keen, desperate even? Have they read your message? How long will they take to reply? How much does it matter if what they have suggested isn’t really your thing (provided it’s not dangerous or illegal!)?

Everything is just a phase.

Don’t get hung up comparing your bany to others. They develop at their own pace and all have different phases when they are relatively easy or tricky.

There’s only so much you can control, the rest you just have to roll with.

First, some babies are orchids, some babies are dandelions in temperament. It isn’t you, it’s just your child’s personality and some babies need more holding, more cuddling and generally more attention to be at peace. It’s easiest just to lean into it because (thankfully) it won’t last forever.

If you win the baby lottery and get a dandelion, it’s not your superior parenting or relaxed approach that means your child sleeps reliably and is happy to entertain themselves. It’s just who your baby is.

Second, routines are for you, not your baby. If you are the happiest version of yourself with a strict routine then it’s the right thing to do. But, your tiny baby isn’t missing out if you can’t or don’t want to stick to one.

get this inscribed on a brass plate in every maternity hospital!

When cluster feeding I repeated to myself this isn’t forever, he will sleep again and so will I.

Everything is just a phase.

Have enough bottles so you only need to wash them once a day.

Ready to feed formula is a lot easier than powder.

Know you can’t both have the weekend off because you’re tired! Ditto holidays. They’re not really holidays. Seems so obvious but we really did both make some silly assumptions!

Don’t buy any “clothes”, baby grows day and night until over one year old.
They wash & dry fast on the radiator, no ironing needed, cheap in multipacks, if poonami.. Chuck it away,
Comfy and don’t ride up. Room for growing limbs and great for movement.

Change Mat & nappy change stuff upstairs and downstairs.

Shower curtain cheap and cheerful under the high chair when weaning, floor protected, wipe clean and takes away that battle when the drop/throw food overboard.

The best tip I ever got was to learn how to nod and say "I'll keep that in mind" in a very non-committal way because people have an opinion on everything about pregnancy, birth and child rearing.

Don't kill yourself trying to breastfeed

Research safe cosleeping before hand so you can do it safely if needed. Doing it out of desperation you'll probably do the 'wrong' thing

Have easy (but nice) dinners available - ready meals, microwave rice, part baked loaves. Things you can eat one handed.

If someone says can I help say yes please and give them a job. People genuinely want to help. That could be starting the dishwasher, washing up or holding the baby while you shower. Give them a job!

Don't put pressure on yourself to enjoy every moment. It can be a total slog at times and it's ok to be fed up at times

Get outside once a day

It doesn’t matter if your baby/toddler/child goes to bed a bit later - go for a picnic at the beach, stay up watching a movie, have a sleepover in the lounge, camp in the garden, before you know it they won’t be following you to the toilet anymore and they will be leaving home. The most important thing to teach your child is to be independent, start young and don’t worry about the mess/chaos, you’ll miss it sooner than you realise

Layer them up! Mattress protector, sheet, mattress protector, sheet. Then you can whip off and have a clean layer ready in seconds.

But my main tip is: everyone's version of "essential" is different. But next day/uber delivery exists, and most needs aren't that immediate - looking at you, millions of muslins people insisted on piling on us for our very un-sicky baby.

Don't spend too much time on instagram or anything algorithmically driven. There is a lot of weird polarised stuff on there which is extreme and not helpful but gets repeated so often it starts to feel like just normal common sense that everyone knows - it's not.

Try to spend some time with other parents of similar aged children IRL for a sanity check :)

Take photos/videos and create an album on Google photos/Apple (whatever you use), share access with your partner, (and if you want, with family members) name it Baby's name and the year, share the best ones on there. Start a new one about every 2 years when they're little so it doesn't get too slow to scroll through. It's lovely to look back through them later without all the noise of the outgrown outfits you were selling on vinted or the brand of foot cream you wanted from the supermarket or whatever other random photos you take.

Ignore almost everything you read on the internet, especially Instagram but including Mumsnet, and just do what works. Especially ignore all the stuff about sleep. You can’t “hack” a baby.

With baby one, I obsessed about wake windows and nap durations and not making eye contact when he woke up at night. What a load of horse shit. Co-sleeping and wearing baby in a sling for naps is so much more relaxing. I don’t feel remotely stressed or tired with baby three because I’ve let go of all that. And I know one day (way too soon!) he won’t be napping or feeding at night.

Buy 10% of what you are told to buy.

there is more unsolicited advice coming your way that you could ever anticipate- ignore 90% of it.

I have no idea how people manage taking it in shifts - I know I would have just fallen asleep during my shift!

I spent the first month or so sleeping propped with a v shaped pillow with DS on my chest. Which is in no way recommended but the only way we could make it work.

Infant sleep doesn't improve in a linear fashion. Cosleeping is the biologically normal way for mammals to sleep with their young. How many kittens do you see sleeping separately from their mothers...

My DS slept great, just 1 quick wake, from 2-7 months. I thought that was it, that was his nature and soon he would stop waking once and that was that, he slept through forever more barring illness. No. 7 months and it all went to total shit. I was a sleep deprived emotional mess. Worst time of my life. Persisted trying to settle him in cot, mustn't bring him into bed, etc, I tied myself in knots wondering what I was doing wrong, adjusting nap schedule, night environment, bedtime routine, feeding routine, reading blogs, Insta posts from so called experts. Nothing worked. Sleep trained at 9m. Worked for a month. Sleep went to shit again. Ended up lying in spare bed next to him because we were falling asleep on the floor beside the cot. He then came in the bed. And then.. he slept. No issues getting into his own bed when the time came at 18m.
Suffice to say, the next baby I have coslept with at least part of the night since day 2, and won't be stopping until she no longer night wakes at all. Which, I have learnt, is a developmental skill related to brain maturity, and not due to anything I did or didn't do. I wish I knew that eldest's waking was not the 'problem' I had been trying to solve. It was just, sleep does go up and down, and that's normal.

Likewise. I remember wailing at my mum, but he hasn't napped for long enough, he's supposed to sleep at least an hour this time, according to the rules in my book, about my eldest. She was bemused, how does that book know how tired your baby is?! Second, well she obviously wasn't that tired so she'll sleep later. So much more freeing.

Double up, mattress protector sheet, mattress protector sheet, then if there’s any accidents you just take the first two layers off 😃

Have enough bottles so you only need to wash them once a day.

This is such a great tip. I bought loads of bottles and made sure that there were always enough clean and dry to take me through the next 24 hours. A life-saver at 3am or whatnot.