Life with a newborn - am I missing something?

[daisy86]

I’m settling into life with my firstborn, who is now two weeks old.

I’m unable to breastfeed at the moment sadly (a whole other story) so baby is formula fed.

So far things are going ok, but I’m worried that I’m not doing enough for my baby.

He basically just sleeps for a couple of hours, wakes up for feeding, I feed and burp him and change his nappy and then he falls back to sleep again until the next time. I’ve been putting him in his pram when he drops off so I can get on with other things.

I’m not able to bathe him yet as his cord is still attached, but have top and tailed a couple of times.

Is there anything else I should be doing for my baby apart from this? It just doesn’t seem enough!

I remember someone saying that I needed to make time for play and thinking "When? He's always asleep!" They get more alert after about 6 weeks.

Just talk to him and smile. I sang a lot of nursery rhymes. Try and do some tummy time. That's about it. You're doing great.

Sounds fine to me. You can take him out in the pram or sling as well. Good for him to get a little tiny bit of sun and air. And you can put the pram outside in the shade. My first loved watching the sun through a heavy shaded leaf canopy.

Sounds completely normal to me too OP. I had exactly the same concern as you- that I was missing something and maybe there was some MAJOR part of parenting a newborn which I wasn’t aware of.

I agree with PP who says they don’t think you need to worry about tummy time yet. Mine hated tummy time so we didn’t do much of it and I’m pretty confident that it hasn’t made a blind bit of difference to anything.

You should clean your baby at least around their neck (milk tends to dribble there) and their face. A make up remover cotton circle with plain water is perfect for it :)

You'll soon start having more awake time and playing with your baby. Now just talking/singing lullabies is lovely

@daisy86 You’re smashing it !

What else is there to do during lock down! I think we’ve all thought this, I’ve used Hey Bear Sensory more times than I’d like to admit lately! Skin to skin cuddles maybe ? They ain’t interested in anything much at 2 weeks! Well done you ! A baby happy to sleep on there own is a fab! As the weeks go on you’ll notice they’ll be into more... so enjoy this part well done you x

You can also have tummy time when theh are very little with them lying on your chest (when you are awake!) So it's a combo of cuddles and tummy time

I used to be able to put my baby down when newborn. Now she's developed a sensor and wakes on any movement from my lap.

You can start tummy time now once a day, but this will probably be 30 seconds of crying at this point with their head turned to one side

Sounds perfect to me and just like my first. Cuddles, feed and sleep was all he wanted.

We now have a 5 week old who is the opposite.... Feeding all the time and only want to style on me. Can't put him down at all. Add this to a hyper 3 year old and it a very different experience second time round

Enjoy this time.

Both my babies were very quiet and settled for the first 10 to 14 days. Then they both developed colic, which was an endurance test. Hopefully that won't happen to your baby OP!

I used to take mine out for walks in the sling all the time, as much for something to do as anything else.

I have found that DS is always wide awake and alert after the 10pm feed for some reason, and we struggle to get him settled until he’s had the 2am one. I’m not sure why it’s those four hours in particular every day!

What is his cord made of that he can do neither tummy time or baths? Is it crisps?