What was the best piece of advice ever given to you on becoming a parent?

[mrsnoah]

Or if you didnt get any advice, what would you pass on to someone else?

I wish I had heard about 'babymoons' with DS. It puts a positive slant on the breastfeeding for hours thing. Put fresh sheets on the bed (OK, they might get sick on them - who cares), some great books and magazines, stock up on DVDs and lovely food and go for it.

so agree, madame platypus and pruni. feed and sleep, feed and sleep, make your bedroom a haven of comfort and milkiness. wish i'd known that...

MW - let the dog sniff/lick baby as much as he wants when baby comes home. He will then accept it as part of the pack rather than something to be feared/jealous of. Worked a treat and also made me worry less about germs etc...

lol at 'lower your standards'

Pick your battles

"don't listen to anyones advice" advised a good friend, it always makes me smile, only piece of advice I can remember

though this is not to do with being a parent my brother said once

"better to take it with you and not need it, than need it and not have it there..." always helps when packing the kitchen sink....

I had several gooduns, I would pass these on:

milky vom = straight into washing machine, chunky vom = swill in sink first otherwise you just get clean chunky vom if it goes straight into the machine

avoid unwanted advice and damn fool questions (eg "is he good?" wtf??) by smiling vacantly and nodding

trust your instincts

sod the hoovering

buy a sling

pick your battles

don't sweat the petty stuff and don't pet the sweaty stuff

babies like Abba

make sure dh gets to attend to the first few scary smelling nappies because you won't have got the hang of it yet and there will be poo all the way up to his neck and down to the feet of his babygro

but best of all: take a few minutes every so often to stop, look and enjoy because the early weeks and months are over so fast I have a few lovely moments stashed away as "snapshots" that I will always treasure

sleep when the baby sleeps, forget about the house work.

don't try and get the baby into a routine, the baby will learn to fit around you and get hiself (sp?) into his own routine.

if a baby sleeps for more than 5 hours between a feed you don't need to wake him. if he needed food he would wake up, the hv knows nothing.

don't bother sterilising!

thought of loads more ..

some advice you will find invaluable, others you will find utter rubbish. store in brain as appropiate, nod and smile at the rest!

sometimes a baby just wants to cry .. it will not do them any harm to just ignore them and take a breather.

take every offer of help you can get, even if they means palming you baby off on someone for the day! in fact especially if it means that!

a baby is not clever enough to know how to make you angry on purpose they aren't doing it to get at you.

cuddle your new baby as much as you like he isn't old enough to be spoiled yet.

This won't apply to everyone, cos not everyone is as lucky as me BUT when I had my first baby, the GP was asking me about what 'support' I had at home.

I said I had loads (2 sets of retired parents) but that I felt like a bad mother replying on them to help with baby etc.

GP said to me 'babies are meant to be shared'

I took him at his word and have 'shared' my DD with all the family from Day 1, has made life much easier for me and she is now a loved and adored toddler by all the family.

Share your baby cos it makes coping with a toddler a whole lot easier!

Listen to 100% of the advice on offer and then select which 20% you are actually going to follow.

Choose your battles!

relax and trust your instincts

stock up on the chocolate and also the touche eclait.

I really like "babies are meant to be shared" .

I'm another who would bung my kids at anyone I trusted really. You can't screw up a baby, they're pretty foolproof.

oh and "get out of the house from time to time" is not a bad one either

To be consistent. (or try, at least)

Just when you think you've got them figured out, they change!

And, if I can have a second, no-one can possibly be a naturally good mother to a baby, an older baby, a toddler, a small child, school aged child and a teenager because each stage requires different attitudes and different skills. Just relax and allow yourself to learn how to handle each part of their development.

I asked my hv to take my dd away when she was a few weeks old (horrendous colic) and I couldn't cope. Silly mare had had the temerity to ask me what I wanted to do about birth control. I replied "I don't sleep, I don't eat, and the last thing on Gods earth I want to do ever again is . She advised that I run through a checklist when dd was screeching, ie clean nappy not hungry/thirsty etc then put her in her crib close the door and go and have a cup of coffee. I said but she will still be crying when I come back and she said but you will have had a few minutes peace and be better able to deal with it. It worked for me!!!

Another one was my friend telling me when dd had done a particularly gross nappy fill, an up the back and front job, "do you have a pair of scissors cos thats a code brown" Turns out when she got one of those she just cut the vest off the baby and binned it. Works for me.

Also invest in a baby bouncer and place it directly in front of your feet. Put baby in and place your feet on the side bars. Now gently rock your feet. The bouncer will bounce and you can have coffee, read newspapers, even knit.

throw the books away and stop worrying or trying to bend your baby into a routine because a book says "at 12 weeks baby can go 3 hours between feeds" - err no.

Trust your own instincts - listen and learn your babies cues for hunger, sleepiness etc and you will not go far wrong and you will all be happy

If someone offers to help, accept it!

Leave the house at least for a 5 min walk round the block every day - if you baby is crying at least the sound is not bouncing off the walls

Just because a baby cries it doesn't mean he is distressed - it's his only way of communication. I used to get quite upset and worked up when ds cried and cried until the HV gave me that piece of information when I completely broke down on her - it helped a lot.

Like the snapshots thing - I've tried to do this - take a picture of a really lovely moment with your lo- memorise everything - sounds, smells, exactly how your lo looks etc. I can perfectly recollect feeding ds at a week in the night - all was peaceful, he was sucking away happily, DH asleep next to me, the look of his tiny ear in the glow of the nightlight ... ahhh
You think you'll remember everything. You don't.

Someone also suggested keeping a journal - with ds1 this was every week/milestones & we also did a video-journal of his day every month. With dd2 its mostly about sleep...!!

Everything is a phase
They grow up very quickly

i had no advice of any worth...good job i know what i'm doing.

'motherhood is not a career, its a relationship'

don't heat up milk
put clean nappy underneath baby's bottom before you undo the dirty one to change, if they pee it saves getting all their clothes/your floor wet
only try to do one thing a day (that might be just getting dressed)

Best advice given to me was from an old man who said look after yourself in order to look after your baby .

from my Mum - To get a babysitter and go out on dates with DH as soon as possible and as often as affordable. It's easy to forget what brought you together in the first place when a new baby is demanding so much of both of you.

from my sister - to go outside every day, and that just going up & down the road with the pram once in a day is a major achievement in the early months. And she also told me not to criticise DH when he was looking after the baby in the beginning, so that he grew in confidence & learnt from his own mistakes, meaning I had more help from him.

from my colleagues - they made me promise to get dressed every single day, even if I didn't manage it until the afternoon ('and' said my Parisian ultrachic friend/colleague 'zose tracksuit bottoms zat you Eeenglish wear ARE NOT CLOTHES')